Members fuzzball Posted February 9, 2009 Members Share Posted February 9, 2009 I have to work late today (last second notice) so I have to move my studio block tonight....grrr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members KillerV Posted February 9, 2009 Members Share Posted February 9, 2009 I try not to let clients hit the sauce too much. I sometimes let them the first time then show them how little the did compared to sober.....works sometimes. I once did a project where some guy came to the studio and said he's got 2 weeks and all he wants to do is live the whole rock 'n roll thing of partying his ass off and come to the studio and party there some more while recording. It was his holiday. So that was exactly what we did. He even had girls coming in, hanging around him in the studio and everything. I stayed (fairly) sober in the studio to make sure nothing gets out of hand and that my studio stayed safe, but it was a pretty fun project I must confess. Everyone involved (session muso's, etc.) were also welcome to join in all the fake rock 'n roll-life fun. We ended up getting 4 songs done in a rough demo-quality sort of way. This did make me realise that alcohol in the studio is really bad for productivity. I'll allow bands to bring a couple of beers or so but that's it. And I tell them in no uncertain terms that it's their studio time being wasted when they can't perform because of being drunk/hung over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 I was mixing all weekend, and have a tracking session today for Julie Day's next album. I love working with Jules - she's good people, and a fantastic singer. :phil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted February 9, 2009 Moderators Share Posted February 9, 2009 Sorry to be all negative. Just wanted to blow off some steam. You are not alone. I deleted my earlier post from this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phait Posted February 10, 2009 Author Members Share Posted February 10, 2009 I havent worked on my album in 3 weeks. Damn girls keeping me distracted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted February 11, 2009 Moderators Share Posted February 11, 2009 Good studio fun last night... Saltlickers 1st guitarist and I worked with a single mission. To go through all 10 tunes and look for spots where we could layer a Les Paul with/under/over his mostly Tele work from the basics sessions and later OD replace sessions. Now... that's fun. Let's say there's a old style bluesy funk rhythm lick through the verses that incorporates a little riff every 4 bars or so. I love to get a nice support tone and double that bit. So 2 Teles panned hard and an old Les Paul overdriven into muddy creamy territory panned up the middle, feeding back... just layer that in to punch up sections. Like I said. FUN! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members KillerV Posted February 11, 2009 Members Share Posted February 11, 2009 Good studio fun last night...Saltlickers 1st guitarist and I worked with a single mission. To go through all 10 tunes and look for spots where we could layer a Les Paul with/under/over his mostly Tele work from the basics sessions and later OD replace sessions. Now... that's fun.Let's say there's a old style bluesy funk rhythm lick through the verses that incorporates a little riff every 4 bars or so. I love to get a nice support tone and double that bit. So 2 Teles panned hard and an old Les Paul overdriven into muddy creamy territory panned up the middle, feeding back... just layer that in to punch up sections.Like I said. FUN! That does sound like fun! I am looking forward to a festival that my band is playing this weekend. I love festival-gigs. I'm also looking forward a recording project that I'm starting on next week. I really liked the guys when I met with them to discuss the project and it seems like it's gonna be fun. I'm a little pissed after EVEN MORE changes - ones that I feel seriously hurts the project - the band wants on the project I wrote about earlier. Even their manager thinks they're crazy but he's tired of fighting with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzball Posted February 11, 2009 Members Share Posted February 11, 2009 It is their turd to stink up...go with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rubber Lizard Posted February 12, 2009 Members Share Posted February 12, 2009 Once again, I studied until only two working brain cells. Then I checked the forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted February 12, 2009 Moderators Share Posted February 12, 2009 Last night "the girls", my wife and daughter, returned form England. They've been gone 12 days and I took advantage of the house in the weekday evening hours the whole while. Ambient miking of guitars etc. But they got back last night... ...and I took a night off from tracking and just settled in with my girls. God, I missed them. Welcome back ladies. Now, where's the chocolate and CDs?!?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Lou-Dog Posted February 15, 2009 Members Share Posted February 15, 2009 Recorded in first pro studio yesterday. 500 bucks later we've cut 4 tracks, using analog recording equipment as a preamp by just letting it run through without writing to tape. The bloke had some great gear, lots of vintage pedals (original TS9, Original Maestro Fuzz Tone) an Echoplex, a Space Echo and a whole bunch of rack gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members albiedamned Posted February 15, 2009 Members Share Posted February 15, 2009 Got a new toy in the mail today - an RNLA. A while back I had an Alesis 3630, but in recent times I've only used software compressors. It is fun getting to play with actual physical knobs and hearing the result. Sonar has a pretty cool "external insert" feature which lets you specify which input and output the hardware is connected to and then sends out a test signal to check and automatically compensate for the delay. I've been playing with the RNLA all afternoon. I liked it on the master bus on gentle settings - about 2:1, fairly short attack and release, threshold set to give 2 to 4 dB of reduction. I could hear it "gluing" the mix together. In the past I've always just stuck Ozone on the master bus to create a mixdown, but I could see running the master bus through the RNLA and recording the mixdown to a single track, then using Ozone on that. I tried it on a bunch of different individual tracks. I liked it on vocal with more extreme settings - 6:1 to 10:1 ratio. To my ears, it added some nice warmth in the low mids. It's very very subtle, but it is there. I also like it on a synth string pad. I haven't liked it on drums or bass so far, nor on a piano track. I think I'm gonna get an RNC too, if for no other reason then because I have a nice 1/3 rack opening between my RNP and RNLA on my univeral rack mount shelf. I resisted getting both of these for a long time because after years of dealing with hum and noise I pledged a while back to never deal with unbalanced gear again. But I have a much better setup now than I did at the time, and I'm only using a 3 foot cable run. And I can't hear any noise at all from it. At the moment I'm using unbalanced both in and out even though the out on the RNLA is balanced. I have a few more TRS cables on order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Went out to Hollywood today for a mastering session with Bill Dooley at Paramount. It's always great to see Bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted February 18, 2009 Members Share Posted February 18, 2009 Last night I put in a new cable from the patchbay to one of the inputs on my Apogee Rosetta 200. It's been acting funny lately - it'll be going along just fine, then suddenly the signal strength will drop way down, then it'll come back strong again. I think it's a faulty cable. I'm going to track some drums tonight, so we'll see how it acts. To update, I replaced the cable and everything worked fine for the next week or so, and then all of a sudden the Apogee stopped powering up. When I hit the power button it just clicks (like normal) then goes right back to standby. So, fuzzball may have been right about a power situation. However, it shouldn't be caused by the wall power or it would be showing up in other items - I have several preamps all plugged into the same power conditioner (I know, cheap conditioners don't do much, but they do make handy rackmount power strips which helps keep the cabling neat), and my computer UPS is on the same circuit and hasn't recorded any weird surges or anything. I think something in the Apogee's power supply section is on the fritz, possibly a capacitor starting to go bad or something like that. I sent them an email about it, and I think I might pull it out of the rack and pop the lid tonight or tomorrow and see if anything leaps out at me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzball Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 I think you may have it...looks like some hardware may need to be fixed.I would continue to test items to be certain. My new PRS SE custom 22 came, not a bad guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzball Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 Anyone here want a POD XT...I would like to trade my with some cash for the rack version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members KillerV Posted February 20, 2009 Members Share Posted February 20, 2009 I just finished setting up, tuning and mic'ing a kit that I'll be using for a band that I'm gonna be working with tomorrow. It's a church band and they like my studio-kit better than theirs so that's what we're using. We're gonna be tracking the drums, guitars and bass live because they're more comfortable playing together and it saves quite a bit of time for them. The drummer is also not used to playing to a click. All things considered, I think tracking mostly live is gonna be my best bet to get a good performance out of them. We're gonna overdub keyboards afterwards and they're coming back in 2 weeks for vocals. Anyway, but this is it for today. It's been quite a busy week - did some mixing, shot some footage for a music video with my band, etc. But tonight I'm gonna have a braai (South African version of a barbeque) with some friends and enjoy a couple of beers, but not too many. Gotta be up early tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzball Posted February 20, 2009 Members Share Posted February 20, 2009 I will be recordign some vocals, and video tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members albiedamned Posted February 20, 2009 Members Share Posted February 20, 2009 I will be watching Battlestar Galactica tonight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted February 21, 2009 Moderators Share Posted February 21, 2009 My studio has been a mess. Last week I pulled a late night guitar session and my wife and kid were returning from a trip the next morning... ...I had to stash all the stands and cables etc. in my control room for a quick clean up for their return. And it's been like that since. I hate when that happens and it's not very often. OK, a couple of cups of coffee later and cleaned. Ahhh... Now to edit the last of the rhythm guitar work today and on to tracking lead vocals in the next week's eves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members KillerV Posted February 21, 2009 Members Share Posted February 21, 2009 I just clocked a 14-hour day in the studio with the band I wrote about yesterday. Even though I'm tired as hell now it was loads of fun. They're from another town and had to drive some distance to get here so I just told them we'll bite the bullet and do it this way. We tracked drums, guitars, bass and keyboards for 13 songs. Bluesy, jazzy, gospel sort of stuff with and African beat thrown in there. They're not exactly rolling in the cash, so this was the only way to do it so that they got the most for their money. You know sometimes you get a project that makes you really remember why you do this. You know, sort of like falling in love with the whole recording/production-thing all over again. This seems to be one of them. They are older guys, don't look all that fancy and there isn't much of a chance that anybody outside of their church will buy their CD. But they came here and they're in awe of the smallest things I can do to make them sound good. Even EQ, to them, is a miracle. Anyway, they were just loads of fun to work with and they all came to the studio fully prepared and rehearsed. And they have what can only be described as real talent. No bull{censored}, no egos - just good fun. I love these kind of projects. And I swear it feels like the little money you make off it really goes a loooooooong way for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzball Posted February 23, 2009 Members Share Posted February 23, 2009 I love working with bands like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted February 23, 2009 Members Share Posted February 23, 2009 Those are the best projects of all because they're appreciative, play really well, play good music, and as a result, it takes the whole thing back to the music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted February 25, 2009 Moderators Share Posted February 25, 2009 Tonight I record lead vocals for vocalist number 2 on the album. It's rockin' blues and I am looking in the most unlikely of places for some vocal arrangement ideas. Max Martin. You know, the Swede who does Backstreet Boys, Robyn, Pink, etc.? He's just got some of the coolest ideas with ways to treat verse 2, chorus 2, intro, fade out... So my trick is to listen to a god-like arranger, Martin in this case, and lift the ideas in very general terms and apply them in an extremely different type of genre. The songs already written, these are only arrangement ideas. For instance, "Have other background vocalist sing the 2nd chorus (doubled, pan wide) while lead vocalist sings ad libs around him straight up center. Then on the 3rd chorus have both gang vocal the chorus together while lead instrument plays ad libs around that." Max Martin's a very good arranger.I say steal from the best, and hide it well. Mutt's off the hook for this one. It's all Max doing rockin' blues. Who knew? Edit: Oh yeah, never ever, reveal your source of inspiration to the band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzball Posted February 26, 2009 Members Share Posted February 26, 2009 Nice...LOL.I like the old line: that sounded good, could we also give this a try? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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