UstadKhanAli

It also creates resonances in the room, brings out peculiarities and weaknesses of the cabinet and speaker, create rattles, and can create (unwanted) distortion in the mic and mic preamp.

If you are micing your amp, one thing that often thins out a sound is cranking the amp up too loud. There's a point of no return. Just turn it up loud enough to get your tone, and no louder. And do what Alphajerk says - move the mic around until you get a balance of highs and lows. As I said before, I like to have a second mic, a room mic, which really opens up the sound and makes it super large.

A lot of people like to dump on the 57, but I like 'em. I will use a 57 or a 421 up close on the cabinet, and an LDC farther away from the cabinet. The combination of the two together gives a beautiful, large sound. The 57 especially comes alive when paired with a good quality mic preamp. For guitars cabinets, I use either my Neve Portico or my Peavey VMP-2. And yes, don't use your speaker output for direct recording. Bad sound, and potentially bad results.

Thank you for having such photogenic guests and beautiful sunsets.

Thanks to all of you who did make it out - it was great hanging out with each and every one of you. Ahhh, you're not so bad yerself.

Hey kids, photos of PhilPhest 2007 are here on my website!! Kick back, kick up the jams, chow down on some mouth-watering carne asada, suck down some suds, and you'll feel like you are there. Thanks to Phil once again for his warm hospitality. I am honored to be included as one of his friends. It's really great to hang out with a bunch of cool people. There's several people that I don't know. I suck with names. If you know someone's name, let me know and add it.

Phil's still recovering from excessive carne consumption.

Was lots of fun!! It felt really great to hang with friends, eat delicious carne asada, listen to amazing musicians, and hang out. Thank you very much!! Was a very very nice weekend, exactly what I needed!!!

PM me if you want these. They're selling for $65 each, which is their original cost (approximately $50-55 + TicketMaster fees). Thanks!! I'm in the SF Valley.

It's about finding the right language to communicate with each individual. Some people can relate to more technical stuff like "that was very tight rhythmically, try playing a little looser against the groove". Other people need artsy/flowery stuff like "That was very rigid, try to go with the flow", or "that was like a rock, try to be more wispy". I think I'm pretty good at that. Just not pushing them more...I mean, if I know them well and I *know* that they can do better, that's usually not a problem. But if it's someone that I don't know really well, I feel like I don't know if I can push them psychologically or whatever, and don't know what can push them, so I usually just opt for cutting a bunch of passes with vocals and comping them together, figuring that if they were gonna nail it, they likely would have done it in 3 or 4 takes. And you know, I can make just about anyone feel really comfortable here and give good performances. That's a strong point. But I don't know if I can really really push them if they are capable of more (and maybe they're not, I don't know!). You know what I'm thinking is that someone like Daniel Lanois seems to always extract performances out of people that are so much more emotionally potent than the performances they do with other people. And it's that very thing that I want to do with people. Is it simply because he's working with higher calibre musicians? Or is there something that I'm not doing? Is there something else I should be doing? I'm just not pushing most people really hard when they come in to record here...they're feeling relaxed and comfortable, sure, but is that enough? I'm not sure. Does this make any sense? Hopefully I'm explaining myself well.

I refer to that as "mixing." And you consider my reference to automated compression as "intelligent compression" freakish? And that it's mixing? Interesting.

What's very difficult for me is to try and evaluate what the musicians or vocalists are capable of. I don't know. I've never heard you play before - is that the best you can do, or can you dig one out that's better? After playing it several times, you haven't done better. That's it, right? Should I push more? So I'll comp a few tracks together, and hope that's the best you can do, right? Or are you going to respond to something else, such as a suggestion or some imagery? They all seem to be happy with it - and I'm not a producer here - should I be pushing for something else? What's the dividing line here since I'm just recording it? Should I just keep my trap shut since I'm engineering and not producing? So I usually cut it sort of in between and give some suggestions, particularly where breathing or interpretation or stridency in the vocals are concerned, and then call it good. What I really need to do is get better at promoting. If people record here just once, they tend to keep coming back. But it's difficult to get people to come here in the first place.

I suck at mixing And I suck at using compressors, I have failed so miserably that i have opted to try to learn how to use automation to "replace"the need of compressors, I have read everything in the web (well i am exaggerating a little bit here ) but i cant understand compressors. Well I understand them, but i cant hear the subtle difference in order to make changes in the settings. advices? Nothing takes the place of practicing, experience, and active listening. The compressor is not only for dynamics but is also a wave-shaping tool. When I realized this, it really opened up the possibilities of compression for me. Maybe it will for you as well. Using automation to take the place of a compressor is a wonderful thing. I do this all the time, and like to refer to it as "intelligent compression".

I'm not a very pushy person, so trying to push the talent on to greater and greater heights is not something I do really well. I suck at promoting anything, including my studio. I suck at hyperbole, and that is often the very kind of person who reels in clients.

Didn't we establish that he wasn't even actually asking about mastering? I wasn't sure. The title says it, most of the body of the message indicates otherwise, but then it asks afterwards, "How are you supposed to improve the sound?" Then on top of that, he hasn't followed through in the thread.

It's easy to do "hack mastering". I mean, seriously, you could do what I described up above to every single rock or pop song, and chances are quite good that most people would think that was good (perhaps minus the distortion in the peaks - or maybe not!! ). Roll off the bottom end, bump up the mids, crank up the high end (oooooh, it sounds more "open" and "detailed" now!!), compress, and then gain optimization. Bang, you're done! Wheee!!!! Assembly line "mastering". Now you is a mastering engineer...

Is there a Book that will show me how to do this? Yes, there are books. The Electronic Musician "DIY Mastering" is a good call. There's the search function here or with Google, which will spit up quite a few articles on mastering. Then, of course, there's lots and lots of practicing and experience, getting good monitors and acoustic treatment for your room, training your ear, and those kinds of things. Or you could do what every other hack does and boost 5k and use a shelving EQ from 13kHz up (rolling off a little bottom end if you are really "conscientious"), run it through a compressor, and then crank a gain optimization program until it's sinfully loud and distorting on the peaks, and then smile and call it an evening. Remember, if louder is better, then loudest is best!

According to the web site, it's FOUR times the size!!! I think I'm gonna pick up one of these. I realize they may be somewhat small for this application, being NanoGobos (TM Alphajerk) and all, but I can't help but wonder if a pair of these would be useful for drums. Ethan? I ended up calling Ethan, who recommended that for my needs (mostly vocal and guitar amp micing with occasional use with drums for US$6-700), the MicroTraps would be an economical solution. Just to follow up....

According to the web site, it's FOUR times the size!!! I think I'm gonna pick up one of these. I realize they may be somewhat small for this application, being NanoGobos (TM Alphajerk) and all, but I can't help but wonder if a pair of these would be useful for drums. Ethan?

According to the web site: The RealTraps Portable Vocal Booth begins shipping the end of February. Pre-orders are now being accepted at $249.99 each through the end of the month.

Phil, I think it was SM Pro. Yes, that's the one i thought of as well. The Mic Thingy by SM Pro, I think it was.

FMR RNC Really Nice Compressor, used, perfect shape. Comes with power supply and box. Well-maintained in smoke-free studio environment, never taken to gigs. $125 + whatever shipping is, probably about 7-8 bucks in the 48 states. The only thing that may bug people about this is that it has industrial-strength Velcro on the bottom (OTOH, this could be a great selling point!! ). If I remove it, it'll leave a residue, so I'll keep it on and give someone the choice of either removing it or keeping it so they can easily mount it on a rack tray.

Photos and more information $500 (not incl. shipping), Los Angeles area. This has also been placed on Craigslist.

I'd be thrilled if someone simply had the library, or even simply a copy of the Indian instruments (KSDU-006) on a DSS-1 floppy disk. If you have these disks some place and you are not using them, drop me a PM. My library got destroyed in a house fire but the DSS-1 itself miraculously survived (although it looks like hell). Thanks.

Hey, that's really cool! I had forgotten that she was that young, too. Phil's recording of her CD is excellent.