http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/KNIVES_9_29_44_1_mixdown.mp3

Okay, there were some last minute suggestions made by the band. I made some tweaks of my own too. As down on my own shit as I've felt lately, I think this sounds like actual professional work now.

Yes, dropping the back vox, well, back, was an A+ choice.

I wasn't going to say anything because i thought you had already sent it to the dood, but they were a bit forwardish on the last one.

It is a good sounding mix man. I look forward to hearing how it returns after mastering.

I already did, but by proxy. I sent it to my drummer who has the guy's contact information.

I think it's like lead vox -2, backups -4, (synth, the K2000 and B layer on the Prophet) bass +2 or 3, guitars and toms +1, drum 'verb and guitar delay up a little, 'verb on the backups up a bit as well as delay on the lead vox.

I don't hate this. I actually think this is pretty fucking good, if I may kiss my own ass. It's super wide open and separated, sounds are clear at any level. Still maybe a bit bass-shy? But I don't care. It sounds like pro work, I think. I know what I'd tweak if I didn't have to make a deadline for the Best Of Buffalo comp, too... and it's mostly the bass. Probably automate the shit out of that thing.

That Prophet A) Sounds awesome and B) is a pain in the junk to mix. Something to be said for the statement "a bass has four strings and says "Fender" on the headstock." That thing just craps on all frequencies ever.

This whole record is totally a learning process for me. I get kid-in-a-candy-store tools and a badass band with killer gear... In a style that's a flaming bitch to mix where the gold standard is Depeche Mode and NIN. (Done by the same guy...) There's 52 tracks going down here all told. Lots of multi-micing, real acoustic spaces used in place of digital 'verb... Drums are live, after multing the snare and toms it's 25 goddamn tracks of drums (There is a drum machine track he's playing to, actually a pair counting the intro... 4 all told. I split them for mixing just in case.) I wish I was working on something easy like a death metal record where they're going at 300 bpm.

We donated the studio time we won- we'd already recorded there in the immediate past- and were the only band arrogant enough to mix ourselves.

I must say Snaxman, this sounds fucking great I like the tune. Will you guys have a buyable album kinda dealy? I think I could listen to an album of this stuff.

Tanks! Download version will be free off the site when it's up, which is a perpetually delayed project. Purchasable version will have high-res .wavs, remixes from various DJs and electronica artists, stickers and working on some awesome t-shirt designs as well. I'd like to do vinyl, but that's a stretch. We're following the NIN/Radiohead model there, kinda. Like, go to the site, hear stuff. Go to the show, pay for something and you get the whole deal with all the fun goodies and paraphernalia for... not a whole lot because we don't give a shit about margin and we don't have a label to pay off.

That being said, I'd just mail any forum people whatever they wanted and write it off.

Def gonna buy The Whole Shebang package deal.

You mah true knee-grow, I'd just send you whatever you wanted.

Alas, I've had some stuff to take care of re: the upcoming shows or my continually downgrading health, so I really haven't been able to work this week. Also, Mr. Chris is in Berlin at the moment, and we need to re-track some of his parts.

The analog synth on this, for one (yeah, I turned it way up; this was a demonstration clip for his perusal) is all fucked up. There's an arpeggiator layer and a pad layer and normally we record the Prophet on four outs; this was on two and it sounds all kinds of fucked-up and undefined. Also, I need to get an SM7 all up in my shizzle when he gets back (oh, wait, we're doing two shows that week and then I'll be in NYC that week getting shithammered with Vol )

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/One_Of_Us_synth_chunk.mp3

Re: the SM7- lead vocals for this got lost. We got three takes of the same thing with a punch-in at the end. Not the droids we were looking for. Not gonna blame our G at the Goo Goo Dolls' place; he was running late, I had to get out the door with the tracks, he had a session coming in, shit got lost. Sucks, but happens. Excuse to buy SM7. That mic seems to flatter me and Chris maybe a little.

I'm sorta almost okay with this as I get to work on stuff I've been jonesing to do though. The Cowboy Song, for one. (John Wayne cockpunching a buffalo or whatnot.) Lulz for my playing a borrowed Ibby 7 on that live just to hit the baritone parts.

But I'd be cool with buying the shit though, ya know, mang? You guys have put a lot of money and effort into this rekkid so I feel it'd be the right thing to do, yo,

I am okay with that from an ethical perspective. Though I've long been a give-friends-freebies type. Drop fiddy bucks to get my crew in the door of my own show, that sorta thing.

On the plus side, we're all about the quality so everything you'd get would be cool. We don't halfass things. (That should be obvious?)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/CONFABULATED_EDISON_10_6_te.mp3

Confabulated Edison, or a chunk of it. Current state of rough mix after tonight; dumped the original rough and started in The New Style- print all tape/input channel modeling with the faders at -6, reimport all tracks into Virtual SSL and start with faders at -18. With peaks at -6 to begin with, I gots 32db of headroom to open this shit up.

Mellow bits need my hand percussion dropped in still- recorded a ton of it, gotta decide what to make loops of- intro, well, Chris is outta the country and I don't want to be stepping on his dick re: intro synths; will makes sense of it when he returns. Focused on bass and drums tonight, getting clarity and separation. This is Garda in post-rock/metal mode. (Being Tool, Opeth, Isis, Pelican, etc. fans the lot of us, I suppose it makes sense we'd do a song like this.)

Bass on this is the Carvin fretless 5; last one (the One Of Us clip) I posted was a Zon with a graphite (how ironic?) neck. That Sansamp track is fucking filthy on everything while the D/13 is just compressed cleanish. Only two songs have the same bass, and it's the fretless.

I hear a bit of A Perfect Circle in here, especially the drum sound? That I think I've got down so far. Snare is still a little woofy? But it's a gigantic beastsnare IRL.

Random amusement- the only artificial 'verb I've been using is über-cheesy '80s gated 'verb blended into the snare and toms. (Save for what's coming straight off the guitar amps.) Everything else is just room sounds.

This. I'm happy to pay for good quality stuff that people have put time and effort into, though that's a bit hypocritical since I also download a fuck ton of music that I shouldnt

This new track also sounds really nice, I love the sound you guys have. And I can really hear what you were mentioning in the blog thread, you have the hifi-lofi sound down pretty well I don't really understand a lot of the techy things you talk about as my recording/processing "workflow" if you can call it that is so basic - drums via EZDrummer on one track with a bit of compression, each instrument on its own track with mild EQ and reverb to taste, a bit of panning then add an EQ and master limiter to the master track It's interesting to read though and shows that a lot of stuff goes into making good sounding noises

Aw, thanks! If anyone gains anything from my shameless geeking in a quasi-public place, I am cool with that. This whole thread is just my record-making blog, after all. Totally self-indulgent, but I'd hope an interesting read/listen if for no other reason than its contrarian approach.

The way this clip closes out, i couldn't place what it reminded me of, then it occurred to me:

Things sound cool.

I like the proper Full Disco action on One of Us. The kids came to drinkdancefightfuck, why pretend otherwise?

I am a little less into Con Ed as a full band production than i was into the roughest demos of it. Mainly i wish it had more of that most violentest guitar i think. I would be happy enough just to hear that guitar part set to a beat and left alone. Because i like busted things.

It goes over well live. The general scheme of things is to open with Graphite and end with One Of Us. The pretty things shake their pretty booties, and who am I to complain? I'm at a standstill with it though, lacking a good lead vocal and the Prophet needing rejiggering, and my vocalist/keyboardist being in Germany at the moment. I get the Ozzy reference, which is kinda funny. Now, once the guitar comes in in the bridge it is not so Ozzy (which is funny as I actually borrowed the Dual Rec for this specifically and in fact play this in drop D... I use more drop D in this band than in any metal band I've been in!) but yeah, total disco action there. Our drummer loves the dance beats. He's a huge Lady Gaga fanboy. Which is hysterical as he's an old-school punker. And the source of more ass-busting than Chris's PRS/Diezel/TC Electronic/Mills rig.

Re: Con Ed, doubling the guitar with distorted synths did kinda help with the violence. It was left largely instrumental for a reason though, and I'm rather positive I need to bring back the aforementioned doubling for the intro riff.

No idea if the mastering d00d buggered this up? I'm at work/can't listen. I requested pacifically dynamics be left intact and cc'd our drum/leadvox tracking engineer on that as well as they're all up in his place to do this.

http://store.vergetone.com/track/knives-2

It is loud, has a thump to it, and sounds good.

Without comparing it directly to the mixes and ghettomasters you did, nothing strikes me as being changed too much in it. Meaning, they don't seem to have broken anything in making it loud.

Yarp that sounds pretty nice to me

Good stuff Eric.

Why thank you sir!

Here's a halfass half-done mix. There's chunks and parts missing, guitars and keys and vocals oh my!; and there's not even vocals in the last section.

But it does have a Dual Rec and a baritone part coming at around 2:30. This is super-rough. I'm essentially assembling the arrangement of the song as I go.

It just happens to be the song I was working on tonight.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/PROMISE_SNAREVERB.mp3

Lots of Vox + Fender tones to be found here. Big filthy drums and analog synths. Distorted fretless five string bass played with a pick. (And the aforementioned noises.) I still need to make some sense of the vocal takes. There's one track of Chris and one track of my nasal shrieking in the chorus at this point. Tele on the left, Strat on the right.

This is of a bigerness, though apparently I made it too bassy? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/PROMISE_SV_pseudomaster.mp3