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chris carter

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Everything posted by chris carter

  1. I will say Audition has one of the best wav editors on the market. But mixing in that thing (even version 2) sucks. I found it SLOW. Yup. The multitrack part of that program is pointless... a silly add-on. But the editor side is more than worth the price.
  2. Adobe Audition can do it very easily, faster than any other program I know.
  3. When I was in Oakland it was Studio 2112.... the 2112 being the address of the houe I grew up in. When I moved to LA I renamed it. It's now The Feisty Chicken. Why? A good friend of mine always used the word "feisty" all the time and it always cracked me up. And if you add "chicken" to it, it's even funnier.
  4. Is this with a 57? You mean you don't use harmon mutes for classical music? I haven't used a 57 on my horn in like a decade. It'll work, but really that's better for live stuff. Trumpets are good with large diagphragm condensers and ribbons. Preferably not bright ones. My point about the classical thing is just that the distances I was describing are too close for a classical sound. I used to play classical, but not really anymore. As a producer and mixer I'm generally working on pop, r&b, rock and hip-hop so when I bust the horn out, it's on those kinds of tunes.
  5. I play trumpet and record it often. With no mute I tend to be 2 to 4 feet off the mic, maybe just a smidge off axis (like 5 - 10 degrees). Never closer than 18". If it's a punchy tune I'm typically farther; if it's a more intimate sound I'm usually closer. If I'm using a harmon mute, I'm generally up on the mic maybe 12" - 18". Cups and straight mutes are more like the 2 to 4 feet distance. This is all for a non-classical sound of course.
  6. My wall panels are hung from picture frame hooks. My 4'x6' ceiling panel is hung from white cup hooks. There are six of them. A great trick I learned is to hang the panel (using small eye screw on the panel) from the ceiling with cable ties instead of wire or chain. Put a long cable tie through each eye screw on the panel and make a loop with the end pointing to the outside edge. Now hang the panel. Now you can cinch it up to the ceiling and get it nice and tight within an inch or two. Then just snip off the excess cable tie. My 8' bass traps support their own weight by the frame. At the top of each I attached them to the wall: eye screw on the trap, small hook in the wall, cable tie between. Did the same thing cinching up the cable tie to make it tight. Now I can survive an earthquake with those things toppling over and damaging some other gear. Also, the portable vocal booth is cool and if you treat your room you should have no problems. If it's still an issue, hanging a duvet/comforter BEHIND you when you sing will be incredibly effective at cutting out room reflections from the mic.
  7. Two identical wood pieces 76 iches long are fastened by three bolts. You fit the blanket between the the two pieces of wood and screw the bolts tight to squeeze and hold the blanket. When you want to remove the blanket you loosen the squeeze on the bolts. I pounded two nails in the wall and two anchors to the pieces of wood and attached it to the wall. It hangs like a picture. Works great. That's a totally kick ass idea! I have a blanket I hang for doing vocals. It hangs from the ceiling in stead of the wall. I have a sewing machine so I just sewed on little loops on to the endge of the blanket. Hangs from cup hook thingies from the ceiling. You could easily do the same, but use some other kind of hook on the wall. But I must say, the idea above is super cool.
  8. Nice. I thought you were in the Bay Area for some reason. I was until July. While the industry has been tanking, I've been going up... and the Bay Area has been going straight into the crapper. It was time to move. Still doing everything I was before (full-meal deal: produce/engineer/mix), but now that I'm down here I've added mixing other people's records. I've found a price point for mixing that is pretty hard for people to argue with and that part of my business is growing. It's also nice to be closer to people involved in licensing so I can make more from my publishing.
  9. My humble room. Best piece of equipment is the portable AC unit. Despite the low-keyness of everything I
  10. when I first started I had horribly wild mixes that required all kinds of crazy EQ of the final mix to get them to sound listenable. One 'trick' you can do to help you learn how to get mixes you like without severe EQ on the mixbuss is to do the following: Take a song you've mixed, that has your crazy 2buss EQ, and burn a CD of it. Now go back and pull up all the actual tracks and start mixing over again. Use the CD as a reference point and try to get to THAT point without touching the 2buss EQ. It will feel wierd at first, especially if you are used to doing it a certain way. But it's a good way to break the habit without feeling like you don't know what you are going for soincally. Chances are, the 'new' mix that you create will sound better than the reference version AND you'll now have a better idea of how to get there on future tunes.
  11. I rarely will EQ the 2buss. Once in a while I'll add a HPF at a really low frequency on the 2buss before the mix compression, but that's about it. The only time I'll really EQ the 2buss is if I'm really happy with the mix, but for whatever reason I've just been mixing on a slight curve so it's just slightly lacking in say the upper mids or something. In that case, instead of running around EQing half the tracks and potentially screw up an otherwise completely finished mix, I'll just EQ the 2buss. But we're talking very subtle amounts.... like +0.5dB with a Q of 0.7. Anything more than that and I won't do it on the 2 buss, I'll go into the individual channels and fix it there. But something that drastic is really really really uncommon for me.
  12. Punchier? Piano tone? Sure, but you can always find things to nit-pick about with any recording - even the ones that sell a million copies. Bottom line: killer vocalist and great songs. That's what really sells records more than anything. I will point out that I love the quality of the lead vocal. You've shared the recording chain, I'm curious if you'd like to share what you did with it at mixdown.
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