I make punk/folk/rock, But some jazz recordings are so high fidelity it’s like the experience of smelling smelling-salts. (Only analogy i could come up with)

I’m looking for information (youtube, books, forums, general/specific suggestions)

Hi all! Figured out for those enthusiastic about 500 series processing what is your favourite, or think the best module or the most underrated? I know probably the API EQs and Preamps get a lot of praise because being the sort of pioneers pf the format, but otherwise its an interesting range with many diy, brand off shoots and smaller companies… curious to read :)

i make covers for fun, and sometimes i don't know when to double track the guitars..
i usually do it with chords, but sometimes i feel like it could work well with solos or phrases.
what y'all think?

I’m a 21 year old rock ‘n’ roll guitar player and singer songwriter mixer/producer trying to figure out what made some of my favourite old records sounds so great. There are recordings that have always stood out to me as incredibly sonically pleasing to listen to independent of the music itself. Eddie Kramer is a legend and one of the greatest to ever do it. There is a specific sound he got in the mid 70s that I have been obsessed with for a long time and I have not been able to put my finger on what it is. I haven’t gone too deep into researching what kind of gear he used and how he might have achieved such an amazing sound so I thought I would come on here and see if anybody could help me Identify some of the components that contributed to this sound. The sound I’m describing can best be heard on the track New York Groove by Ace Frehley. It almost sounds squishy like the whole mix is pumping but it doesn’t sound over compressed. It sounds saturated in the greatest way. It’s very colourful and it’s very warm without being devoid of any high-end. It’s by far my favourite production sound I’ve ever heard.
You can also hear it on records he did with the band cactus, a bit on kiss alive and a lot on the song Shock Me by kiss. You can also hear it on the Frampton comes alive album. You can hear it on his live album with the Rolling Stones and April Wine at the Elmo. If anybody can help me identify the sound and how it can be achieved, I would be extremely grateful. Thank you for reading and let me know what you think.

What I mean is something like RME's ADI-2 Pro EX in the context of a studio, not some home audiophile setup. I'm not saying that it isn't a better device than a "normal" audio interface, I'm just confused about how it's even integrated into the workflow. I've heard people say that they use it as their monitoring converter, but it's still a studio where they have many channels of IO that cannot be provided by the ADI-2.

• In Windows, at least, I don't think it's even possible to use different devices at the same time with ASIO. I know I can on Linux, maybe you can on Mac, too, but you'd still need to sync the clocks, right?
• Or are they tracking with one set of devices, then switching to the ADI-2 for mixing? But then how do they integrate any outboard they might use?

I'm just really confused about how this sort of device even fits in. Seems to me like it would mostly just be far too annoying to even bother, but I must be missing something.

I’ve been a voice actor for a long time now and I’m a big gearhead. So it sounds like a great additional skill to have down.

Looking for guidance and a sense of direction to properly learn the practice. Where to start etc. Ideally it wouldn’t involve classes/courses.

Thank you in advance.

At work, I salvaged a walkie talkie hand piece out of the trash, as the company was changing gear. It should work just fine.

Why did I take it? I figured I could make a really fun effect microphone out of it for streaming. All I would need to do, is figure out how to change it's current proprietary connector into XLR or jack, leaning towards XLR.

Problem is, I have no experience in doing something like that. The exposed pogo-pins in the proprietary connector should be a very easy to identify jumping off point in figuring out, what pin leads to what cable, and which cables I would need to connect to the XLR.
Does anyone here have experience in tinkering with DIY microphones, or how I could repurpose this?

I'm media meow for a lot of local DJs. I upload video content to YouTube private listing as a safety net private cloud backup should I suffer a catastrophic dataloss then all the talent's assets are still there.

As I've grown and purchased more gear I use multiple devices to record the talent performing and even the b-roll camera footage not directly wired int the FOH Mixer's line-level signal I will not sometimes, but on every video get a:

This video is partially blocked

Claimed content was blah blah blah. No bass for Belarus & Russia.

I don't want to cast shade at the Apple engineer's work on the microphone in the iPhone SE gen 2 because it's actually able to get a decent recording if it's placed far enough away from the drivers and the sound engineer doesn't push it past the SPL levels it can handle, but it is far from a high quality mic that can pick up sound at the driver point blank without blowing out.

The specific recording in question was clipped to u/secondgensoundsystem 's stack and my artist's archival copy receives a partially blocked warning.

This audio is so distorted compared to the line level recording I've yet to even upload.

The video frame looks like it's recording during an earthquake.

I've only been broadcasting with high fidelity gear since November of last year but have been broadcasting talent for just over a thousand days.

¿How is this far cry from a bit for bit copy of a publicly studio released song even able to be flagged as DMCA restricted? I would wager a lot of you wouldn't be able to tell the distorted recording as the same audio as the line-level recording if you heard either first, because it is that bad.

Certainly if it can be fingerprinted, there aught to be a way to either remove the distortion or algorithmically pick out which songs, what their start/stop points were, and where they overlapped and with what EQ band, and rebuild it from a library of those tracks.

¿Is there anyway to take all my previous recordings on low quality gear and remove the distortion of the iPhone's microphone?

¿If not, do you guys even foresee this as a possibility in the future?

I would love to get all my past recordings up to a quality the local talent here wouldn't mind throwing on their soundcloud/youtube.

My vocals are always boomy and bassy, i treated part of my room and its still the same so can you help me identify the issue and listen to the raw vocals and tell if it’s really bad or it’s just mixing skills issue and i can fix it in the mixing stage
Here is the link for the vocals

https://we.tl/t-m9kkFyrAwNBTMTkJ
Microphone: Byerdynamic m90 pro

Hi all im recording a project for a friend with a indie/soul vibe normally i program the drums or use pre recorded breaks or samples but he wants it to be an actual physical kit on a lot of tracks.
He has this electrovoice 635a microphone that he uses for guitar but says it should also sound good on drums as a possible room mic or something like that.
we are using our schools studio which has a lot of other kinds of microphones, if anyone has any helpful advice on this type of stuff or techniques/preamps/etc please let us know!!

For voiceover. With the cost/budget factor aside. Are there situations where the TLM 103 actually beats the U87? The specs of the TLM 103 seem to point that way for certain situations, but is it really that simple? For a home studio, you for example don’t need the polar patterns and the extra SPL is useful, etc. is all you’re paying for the name at that point? Aside from minor differences in tonality?

Any insights into what actually matters would be greatly appreciated! I’m just a voice actor, so if there are actual engineer specific preferences for remote sessions, workflow processes etc., that’d be extremely helpful!

Specifically for a home studio setup.

Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZBFM1vLzK00

I tried the exact same kazoos and it is damn near impossible to not get that generic cracked sound at those volumes. what do you think is happening here?

This is likely niche, but I think in this day and age the illusion of original thought doesn’t really exist anymore so I’m hoping something like this already exists.

Does anyone know if any plugins (or hardware) exist that let you load a few instances of plugins into it, obscure them, shuffle them around and then you can move between them and decide which sounds best to you without any undue prejudice affecting how you’re hearing things?

So an example of this in case it doesn’t make sense - I could load a few different pre-amp plugins with slightly different settings into this tool, and one of the ‘slots’ would have nothing on it at all. It would sit as an insert on the channel so I could play like a vocal recording through it and flick through the different plugins without knowing which is which (bonus points if the tool automatically level/ loudness matches) and then make a decision, before the tool reveals which is which.

At the moment I kind of do this by loading something like a 1073 plugin, adjust things slightly until it sounds good to me and is level matched, put my mouse over the ‘in’ button, close my eyes and then just click a load of times until I’ve lost track of whether it’s on or not. Then click a few times more and decide which I like the most. It’s just surprising how it’s not uncommon for it to sound better off lol.

I just think something like this would be so useful to remove the kind of audio hallucination that plugins can sometimes give you and a little more objectivity into decision making.

Apropos to this, I am heavily neurodivergent and this may appear to be mental.

How do you get a better DI guitar sounding good quickly? I mean what are your go to settings?

I have TH-U by over loud and it’s got so many amp sims but they sound weak. My real amps sound great but maybe I need to get better at dialing tone.

Edit: I just got guitar rig. I like it, nothing beats the amp sound… looking at a computer while playing my guitar doesn’t feel organic so I can’t get a great performance that way. I gotta mic my amps and stand up to play.

One time I was mixing one of my projects and I had recorded the vocal as a double but ultimately decided not to use the double but somehow I ended up hearing the first vocal with the reverb from the double. I do this a lot now.

Looking to line a few walls of my little demo studio with theater curtains, as an aesthetic way to reduce the slappiness of the room... But all the suggestions for where to purchase them lead me to nothing but black curtains.

I'll pull the trigger on black curtains if I have to, but I would love to get some colored curtains instead, ideally a dark green. Does anyone know of where I could find some colored theater curtains?

And barring any colored options, what's the general consensus on where to purchase regular ol' black theater/acoustic curtains?

Hey all,

I’m a songwriter and self-produce from my home studio. I’ve spent years problem-solving and learning from mistakes in my own setup so I’ve gotten a lot of things figured out.

I’ve decided I’d really like to spend a week in a cabin somewhere writing and recording for my next release. I’d bring my Apollo interface, power conditioner, laptop, guitar amp, several mics, synths and drum machines and some monitors (not for mixing but because I get tired of just listening on cans and it’s more fun).

I’m wondering if anyone has done this and when vetting an Airbnb/vrbo what questions would you ask? What would you expect to go wrong and how would you plan for that?

I would like to record vocals, acoustic guitars, and whatever can come out of my amp (guitars, synths, reamped stuff). I would treat the space with blankets and/or just use dynamics for vocals if I need to.

I will bring some treatment blankets and ground lifts and stuff, but obviously I have to be open to the fact that some things might go terribly wrong and I just end up with demos. I am the kind of musician that often likes the emotionality of early takes though, so it would be nice if I got usable tracking out of this. I go for interesting/emotional over perfect which is part of the inspiration for this trip to begin with.

Thanks!

So, I've purchased the plugin while on sale a few months back, and I really like it. I've used it mostly for drums that lack a good room track, it really has that realistic big room sound. Thing is, until now I've basically only used it in reverb mode, as I have some doubts on re-mic mode. As I understand it, in re-mic it would go on your drum bus, or with any other source, it goes as an insert on the main path, as stated in the manual. But, let's stay with drums, let's say you have already done levels and panning, maybe even eq and compression on the single kick, snare, toms, ecc., and then you put SCS on the bus, aren't you losing the sound you have already worked with? Doesn't it sound weird, lose definition? I will do this testing when I can, but in the meantime I'd like to know how people use re-mic mode. Yesterday I had the time to fiddle around with it for a bit, and I found out that using re-mic on the room track only gives perfectly usable results, though I still have to decide if it's better or worse than reverb mode.

Or, for example with acoustic guitar or a vocal. The track you'd feed into it has already been recorded through a microphone right? (I suppose you wouldn't even think of using re-mic for any source that hasn't been recorded in a dead environment with minimal reflections) Then what would the mic choice be doing in that context?

Anyway, maybe I've been a bit unclear in my questions, so please ask for clarification in that case. Any input really is appreciated, thank you for reading :)

i still use digital rather than tape due to cost, ease of use and available space, but what all would your approach be?

my closest expamples what im going for are powerslave and melissa (mid heavy guitars, reverby acoustic drums that dont sound super gated, audible bass)

tell me if my current approach makes sense:

record drums first and keep it to 1-2 takes unless the songs super long, close mic the snare kick and toms, add a snare bottom, a set of overheads and a room if recording without other instruments. add an expander and reverb to snare top, toms, and extra heavy on snare bottom (side chain snare bottoms expander from a snare top send to reduce kick bleed). kick gets enough highs to get snappy but not clicky.

double track guitars with occasional quads or a lead in the middle, using an overdriven marshall with the mids maxed into a speaker that isnt a vintage 30 (i like greenbacks and evm12ls).

bass i dial some overdrive but nothing as crazy as a modern bass tone.

if the song has vocals add a bit of reverb.

i keep everything within a reasonable number of takes (1-8) and dont quantize (record a good performance to begin with).

Hi folks, I am by no means a pro engineer, but I did do some engineering vocational school and am an experienced computer music researcher and musician, so I know the basics of using compressors and reverbs and so on.

I am now producing podcasts for my work, and I'm curious to hear if people have go-to processing pipelines they use for that that are different from music, especially with regard to how you handle riding gain, compressors, etc. Naturally some of my guests are not great with their mics.

Currently what I'm doing is:

- getting guests to use a cheap but ok small diaphragm condensor pretty close to the mic

- dereverbing both my track and theirs so I can put a tight dryish room reverb on both to get them sounding closer to the same room, eqing both feeds to get the mics sounding closer

- putting mild saturation on the tracks, followed by an easy-over compressor just reducing the overall dynamic range and another to catch and compress harder any unusually loud parts, plossive pops, etc (using Klanghelm, Soundtoys, FabFilter plugins)

FWIW, so far I seem to like my Shure ksm-9 the best for getting a wee bit of proximity effect, minimal room reverb, and clarity.

I'm particularly curious if there are specific types of compressors or saturators that sound best on spoken dialog for clarity and warmth. (eg. FET vs Tube vs optical, etc)

Any other suggestions or pointers at resources for podcasts/radio style mixing would be most appreciated.

thanks!

I’m using Cubase and want to know if there’s a way to record vocals with a complete vocal chain already set up, including EQ, compression, reverb, delay, and other effects.

Basically, I want to select a preset, record my vocals, and have them already sound polished and finished, rather than recording dry vocals and processing everything afterward.

Is this possible? What plugins or setup would you recommend for achieving this in real time?

Thanks in advance!

https://youtu.be/OlLsp1ztYPM?si=vl7e012kUHHit4nh

Adding colour to the channels is definitely one of my favourite updates.

I do CTZ mixing for heavy electronic music tracks (mostly my own) to get those crazy volume levels.

Though the only thing I've had trouble with is guitars/vocals. Something about guitars and or vocals driving it into a mixing bus/group with the rest of the instruments distorts them too much and I lose clarity. Drums are happy, synths are happy, loud and clear while vocals and guitars sound like they're overly distorted while trying to match the same frequency levels in a spectrum analyzer. Synths and any other instruments don't complain.

How do I control the peaks without using compression because I don't want to control the loudness (which is what compression does), I want to shave off the peaks in the guitar/vocal waveform. The only other thing I can think of is a multiband clipper but if I'm missing any other information on how to make this possible I'd love to hear it while being able to mix in CTZ.

For reference this is a bass/kick/snare mix that sounds perfectly clear https://hostr.co/SO2ZnDjAIvKc

You can see the kick/snare low end sidechaining against the sub (typical for the heavy drum and bass tracks).

I'd share the link of the song but I wouldn't want the mods to think I'm promoting any music (though I'd happily DM). The mix I have is without guitars because adding any just doesn't work like the other instruments

The specific problem is the summation of the signal of the sub bass + guitars against a group clipper (even when the guitars are already pre-clipped to shave off peaks) always ends up in losing guitar clarity while other instruments don't do that. I'm failing to understand why. While other instruments don't suffer from this problem.