Americana_"Rise Up Singing"_Jackie Greene

[sysrq]

Quick version. First time reasonably ''cleanly'' recorded tracks by Telefunken, at least nice to work with.

[grizwalter]

Interesting.

sysrq, your drums sound so very natural and warm, and I love that. On the other hand, your piano, acoustic guitars, and vocals sound thin. You don't have to press the separation that hard (frequency-wise). It seems very clear that you pushed the high mids and highs to bring out the vocals, while keeping the bass and drums warm. try keeping them both warm, with more mild adjustments.

Finally, I'm not a fan of the vocal effect you chose, but that's mostly just personal taste. I do like the blending of the back up vocals a lot.

Overall, getting those drums so natural against the rest just looses what it could almost certainly have had.

Sorry for the bad news, but frankly, to get the bass and drums sounding so natural means all you have to do is back off trying to hard to split up the frequencies. Mid-Side doesn't mean no blend, nor does L-R, nor does Stereo.

[sysrq]

Interesting.

sysrq, your drums sound so very natural and warm, and I love that. On the other hand, your piano, acoustic guitars, and vocals sound thin. You don't have to press the separation that hard (frequency-wise). It seems very clear that you pushed the high mids and highs to bring out the vocals, while keeping the bass and drums warm. try keeping them both warm, with more mild adjustments.

Finally, I'm not a fan of the vocal effect you chose, but that's mostly just personal taste. I do like the blending of the back up vocals a lot.

Overall, getting those drums so natural against the rest just looses what it could almost certainly have had.

Sorry for the bad news, but frankly, to get the bass and drums sounding so natural means all you have to do is back off trying to hard to split up the frequencies. Mid-Side doesn't mean no blend, nor does L-R, nor does Stereo.

1. The separation (frequency-wise) is always present in my tracks cause I'm afraid of boxiness. I reduced the cut-off frequency on vocal track a bit more but it would be better if it was lowered even more.
Cymbals need to be reduced in volume as well.

2. There is no any effect on vocals just natural delay due to different microphones. Sounds a bit like something from 80's or even 70's I know. Backing vocals stick out a bit too much comparing to lead vocal.

Thanks for fast reply. I don't know how it sounds on normal monitors but on Sennheiser HD415 headphones it might sound better as they are gentle on bass, mid bass and upper bass, high frequencies sounds slightly ''rounded'' too.

[azwayne]

Okay, sounds like there was some confusion in how to handle this recording. That's not "multiple mic" delay stuff since this was not recorded in that manner. (If you check the session photos Telefunken posted, you'll see it's all him, overdubbing parts). Rather there are multiple takes on a mic array. (That's the point, to demo the sound of the different mics relative to each other.) You were supposed to pick your favorite track or various sections to comp together. The delay is simply timing variation one pass to the next. Such is the case on a number of instruments. Notice that as you listen to the different vocal tracks soloed, you'll hear him trying different things on each take.

I agree with the "thinness" comment too. Widen your EQ so we get more overlap of the instruments and it'll help it all mesh together better. At the risk of saying something you already know, boxiness is usually a buildup at ~ 350Hz. Take like 3dB out of that on keys, drums, and bass and you'll probably feel less like you have to carve space for each instrument.

[sysrq]

Okay, sounds like there was some confusion in how to handle this recording. That's not "multiple mic" delay stuff since this was not recorded in that manner. (If you check the session photos Telefunken posted, you'll see it's all him, overdubbing parts). Rather there are multiple takes on a mic array. (That's the point, to demo the sound of the different mics relative to each other.) You were supposed to pick your favorite track or various sections to comp together. The delay is simply timing variation one pass to the next. Such is the case on a number of instruments. Notice that as you listen to the different vocal tracks soloed, you'll hear him trying different things on each take.

I agree with the "thinness" comment too. Widen your EQ so we get more overlap of the instruments and it'll help it all mesh together better. At the risk of saying something you already know, boxiness is usually a buildup at ~ 350Hz. Take like 3dB out of that on keys, drums, and bass and you'll probably feel less like you have to carve space for each instrument.

1. Sometimes interesting effects may develop when you experiment with different microphone tracks.

2. Another thing is why vocals might sound thin is due to use of omni mic's on electric guitar (as electric guitar is more distant in the mix due to omni mic's vocals should be thinner but they might be slightly too thin this time).


Thanks for helpful tips.

[thedon]

I agree the vocals could be a touch fuller ,maybe some more master compression to glue things together a touch more !

[sysrq]

I agree the vocals could be a touch fuller ,maybe some more master compression to glue things together a touch more !

I have tried some light compression but then it starts to sound dull, so I decided not to use any master compressor or limiter, so now it sounds more like a band rehearsal (slightly intended unprofessional touch or professionally unprofessional).

[Bold Beagle]

Hey sysrq.

Any time you're dealing with a single source that's feeding into many microphones at the same time, undesirable phase cancellation is a possibility. Phase cancellation isn't good or bad necessarily, it's just a thing, but it's most likely the main reason we're hearing thinness in the vocals/instruments in this mix.

Another thing to consider: equalization works primarily by altering the phase relationships between selected frequencies and the rest of the audio feeding into the processor. In a multi-mic situation, where phase considerations already loom, this can get quite hazardous. Linear phase EQ can be helpful in these situations, but in my opinion it sounds ugly. If you want to use all the vocal mics, it's best to send them to a stereo bus and equalize them all together, and blend the tonal differences of the microphones to contribute to the total vocal sound. It's possible to partially reconstruct any damaged phase relationships with phase rotators and all-pass filters.

...but why bother with all of that when you could simple choose whichever vocal track you like best and sticking with that? That will mean less processing is necessary and the vocal sound will improve immediately. The same advice applies to other multi-miked instruments as well.

When you're EQing, do yourself a favor and stop trying to aggressively separate the instruments. Indeed, you want to give each instrument its own space, but you don't want to do it at the expense of the overall sonic coherence of the music. In most situations, assuming you've got the dynamics under control from track to track, only small EQ cuts should be necessary. You may need some broad, gentle shelving filters to control the bottom and top end of the spectrum, especially on guitars, but otherwise, try to use as little EQ as you can. You'll find your mixes translate much better outside your studio for one, and for two, keep in mind that we don't naturally hear things cleanly separated, so our ears aren't used to it and generally don't like it.

In situations where you're getting boxy build ups in the low mids, you may find it works better for you to gently process the master bus with a very high quality equalizer before you start processing the individual tracks.

[sysrq]

Hey sysrq.

Any time you're dealing with a single source that's feeding into many microphones at the same time, undesirable phase cancellation is a possibility. Phase cancellation isn't good or bad necessarily, it's just a thing, but it's most likely the main reason we're hearing thinness in the vocals/instruments in this mix.

Another thing to consider: equalization works primarily by altering the phase relationships between selected frequencies and the rest of the audio feeding into the processor. In a multi-mic situation, where phase considerations already loom, this can get quite hazardous. Linear phase EQ can be helpful in these situations, but in my opinion it sounds ugly. If you want to use all the vocal mics, it's best to send them to a stereo bus and equalize them all together, and blend the tonal differences of the microphones to contribute to the total vocal sound. It's possible to partially reconstruct any damaged phase relationships with phase rotators and all-pass filters.

...but why bother with all of that when you could simple choose whichever vocal track you like best and sticking with that? That will mean less processing is necessary and the vocal sound will improve immediately. The same advice applies to other multi-miked instruments as well.

When you're EQing, do yourself a favor and stop trying to aggressively separate the instruments. Indeed, you want to give each instrument its own space, but you don't want to do it at the expense of the overall sonic coherence of the music. In most situations, assuming you've got the dynamics under control from track to track, only small EQ cuts should be necessary. You may need some broad, gentle shelving filters to control the bottom and top end of the spectrum, especially on guitars, but otherwise, try to use as little EQ as you can. You'll find your mixes translate much better outside your studio for one, and for two, keep in mind that we don't naturally hear things cleanly separated, so our ears aren't used to it and generally don't like it.

In situations where you're getting boxy build ups in the low mids, you may find it works better for you to gently process the master bus with a very high quality equalizer before you start processing the individual tracks.

Thanks, very perceptive admonitory words.

Here is new version with no hf boost and with shallow hpf curve on 100 Hz instead of 200 Hz.