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Official Band's Thread: MUSIC & GEAR VIDEO! Q&A, detailed information etc.
#1
Hi guys & gals,

First of all: THANK YOU!
The feedback to our last uploads The Dice and Way of Life has been massive, so we decided to record a new song and trying to avoid mistakes of the
previous recordings - in our opinion, the new material is way better to work with (amongst other things because it is not heavily pre-processed as The Dice and Way of Life).
What do you think? Please tell us how to improve.

Please watch on YouTube if you want to see it in full screen mode.


Q&A:

-What gear did you use and how did you place the microphones?
Well, we have a little surprise for you. Here's everything you need to know!

(If you don't speak german, please activate the subtitles.)
Please watch on YouTube if you want to see it in full screen mode.


-Can I publish my mix on soundcloud, bandcamp or elsewhere?
Sure! But please add these links and advices, keep it non-commercially and publish it under the same license.

———
Written by (music & lyrics):
LEAD Inc.
LEAD Inc. are:
Naomi: Vocals
Henrik: Guitars
Joris: Bass guitar, backing vocals
Till: Drums, backing vocals
Recording, editing, original mix and master:
Henrik Michalzik @ LEAD Inc. Homebase / Rattermoebel Studios

http://leadinc.bandcamp.com
http://leadinc.jimdo.com
https://facebook.com/leadincmusic
https://soundcloud.com/leadinc
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4AMupX...yX0koJqX8g
contact: [email protected]

licensed and published with Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) which allows you to remix and publish your own mixes non-commercially and with this same license only.
———
-What key is the song written in / how many bpm does it have?
Since it was requested frequently, here's the full information:

Band: LEAD Inc.
Song: The Inner Circle
Genre: Progressive Stoner Rock
Tempo: 117 BPM counted in eighth notes (various time signature changes)
Key: C# (Cis) minor
Format: Wave, 44,1 kHz, 24 Bit

———
———
Gear:
Drums:
Mapex VX Special Shellset:
10", 12" and 14" Toms with Remo Emperor heads
22" Kick with a Remo Powerstroke P3 Ebony head and a falam slam patch

Tama Metalworks Special 13"x6,5" with engravings
13" Remo Ambassador Coated head
13" Evans Hazy 300 Resonant head
Puresound Super 30 Snare Wires

Cymbals:
20" Sabian B8 Ride
14" Anatolian Ambient Hi-Hats
8" Masterwork Resonant Series Bell
10" Sabian B8 Splash (turned inside out for mini china effect)
14" Paiste Alpha China
18" Paiste Alpha China
18" Paiste Alpha Rock Crash
16" Sabian AAX X-Plosion Crash

Tama Iron Cobra Powerglide with wooden beaters and high tension springs

Guitars:
Signal Chain:
Epiphone Les Paul 1960 Tribute Plus modded with active EMG pickups
TC Polytune 2
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal
Digitech Whammy 5
Morlay Bad Horsie 2 Wah
MXR Phase90
Finhol Tube Compressor
Hughes&Kettner Tube Factor
MXR EQ108
Boss DD20
Mooer Spark Flanger
Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier with tube mod:
el34 tubes for the main guitar tracks (less thump)
5U4GB-diodes for rhythm and ambient guitars

FX Loop:
MXR Chorus
Ibanes CF7
Moog Tremolo
TC Buffer
Cab: 2x12 Mesa Boogie cab

Bass Guitar:
Warwick Corvette $$ with six strings
Two Notes Audio Le Bass
Darkglass B7K
Trace Elliot AH500X
Markbass Compressore
Ampeg SVT Classic 4x10“
———
Microphones:

Drums
Kick In: Sennheiser e901
Kick Out: Sennheiser e602
Snare Top: Shure sm57 (pointed at center for more attack)
Snare Top 2: Sennheiser e604 (steeper for more tone and punch)
Snare Bottom: Shure sm57
Tom 1-3: Sennheiser e604
HiHat: Superlux Hi-10
OH AB: Røde NT1-A
OH XY: AKG C451b
Room: Behringer ECM8000
Reverb: Superlux Hi-10
DDRUM Pro Triggers on all shells

Mind that I, the drummer, am lefty and playing open-handed; that means that I have Hi-Hat AND Ride on my left side (right side on track labeling).

Vocals
Double-Tracked
Røde NT1-A
Sennheiser MD-421
Single-Tracked
Røde NT1-A

Guitars
Shure SM57
Sennheiser MD-421
Sennheiser e609
Røde NT1-A (with about 2-3 meters distance to the cab)
DI signal

Bass Guitar
DI signal
DI signal from the distortion unit of the Darkglass B7K
Sennheiser e602
Sennheiser MD421
———
All signals recorded through a Mackie 8 Bus Series 32/8/2, a Focusrite ISA ONE analogue single channel microphone amp and two linked 16-channel Apollo Firewire interfaces.
———
DAW: Avid Pro Tools 9 on Mac OSX Yosemite.
———
Our mastering reference:
Eden Circus - Her lovely Hands upon the black Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNWF9Rh1WIg

———
Lyrics:

———

Verse 1:

Straight they keep on walking
it’s too loud, but no one’s talking
a breeze drifting by
my body seems to fade

Verse 2:

I’m not feeling like I am here
I’m not feeling like I should
Stranger in my own world
everything just flows around me

I’m drifting away
I’m drifting away
I’m drifting away…

Bridge:

Fading away…

I can feel it all around me
I can feel it all around me


fade,
fade,


fading away…

fading (Gang shout) x2

Verse 3:

Spinning head
what’s going on inside my head
can’t get it out of my head
like I was getting mad

so mad

so mad (Gang shout)

———

And yep, you probably noticed it. There’s no chorus in this song. Deal with it.

———

If there’s anything missing, please keep an eye on our channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4AMupX...X8g/videos

Cheers and have lots of fun with the tracks!

Till // LEAD Inc.
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#2
Thanks for the detailed info! Listening to the preview, sounds like a fun track.
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#3
Thanks for sharing this. Comparing my mix to the one you posted, I have a lot to learn. Starting with the guitars in the beginning. What did you do to them? They sound great. Also, you have 4 mics on each, did you use all 4 equally or choose one or two to highlight. Did you use envelopes to move the focus to different guitars in the early parts?
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#4
(20-09-2016, 06:38 AM)bitrate27 Wrote: Thanks for sharing this. Comparing my mix to the one you posted, I have a lot to learn. Starting with the guitars in the beginning. What did you do to them? They sound great. Also, you have 4 mics on each, did you use all 4 equally or choose one or two to highlight. Did you use envelopes to move the focus to different guitars in the early parts?

Hi Bitrate27,
we used the different sweet spots of each microphone to blend them into a harmonic sound. Smile

I attached a screenshot of our EQ settings.
Top left: Sennheiser md421 for the bass response
Top right: Shure sm57 for high end
Bottom left: Sennheiser e609 for midrange frequencies
Bottom right: Røde NT1-A for presence.

I'd say that this is just one to work with it, though. You could try it our way but you'd learn more about dealing with this kind of material if you tried to come up with your own way of treating it.

Have fun! Smile


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#5
(20-09-2016, 07:39 PM)wurstdrummer Wrote:
(20-09-2016, 06:38 AM)bitrate27 Wrote: Thanks for sharing this. Comparing my mix to the one you posted, I have a lot to learn. Starting with the guitars in the beginning. What did you do to them? They sound great. Also, you have 4 mics on each, did you use all 4 equally or choose one or two to highlight. Did you use envelopes to move the focus to different guitars in the early parts?

Hi Bitrate27,
we used the different sweet spots of each microphone to blend them into a harmonic sound. Smile

I attached a screenshot of our EQ settings.
Top left: Sennheiser md421 for the bass response
Top right: Shure sm57 for high end
Bottom left: Sennheiser e609 for midrange frequencies
Bottom right: Røde NT1-A for presence.

I'd say that this is just one to work with it, though. You could try it our way but you'd learn more about dealing with this kind of material if you tried to come up with your own way of treating it.

Have fun! Smile

That started me in the right direction, thanks! It really cleaned it up. Using a frequency sprectrum on ElecGtr1, I mapped the tracks to these mics:

Track Mic For Pic CenterBand
ElecGtr1Mic1 Sennheiser md421 bass response Top left 180
ElecGtr1Mic2 “Shure sm57” high end Top right 3500
ElecGtr1Mic3 Sennheiser e609 midrange Bottom left 750
ElecGtr1Mic4 Røde NT1-A presence Bottom right 1500

Mic2 and Mic3 were close, but just separating them by their sweet spot really helped. I assumed the other 2 guitars had the same and that made it a lot closer to your mix. I played with the center band in each. Sweet! Big Grin Thanks a million!
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#6
Just wanted to say thanks for uploading such a great recording of a great song. The drum triggers were awesome for gating the toms and the multiple mics plus DI gave me more flexibility than I ever had before.

The only small problem I had was the vocals had a harsh spike around 4.1k and then 5k-6k was practically missing. Maybe something wrong with the mic or preamp, or possibly a de-esser cranked up?

-EDIT-
I forgot there were multiple vocal mics too. Shame on me! I could have picked another one!

Anyway, thanks again. I think this song is the first mix I've done that I didn't hate when I listened to it the next day Smile
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#7
(11-10-2016, 11:19 PM)parnellij Wrote: Just wanted to say thanks for uploading such a great recording of a great song. The drum triggers were awesome for gating the toms and the multiple mics plus DI gave me more flexibility than I ever had before.

The only small problem I had was the vocals had a harsh spike around 4.1k and then 5k-6k was practically missing. Maybe something wrong with the mic or preamp, or possibly a de-esser cranked up?

-EDIT-
I forgot there were multiple vocal mics too. Shame on me! I could have picked another one!

Anyway, thanks again. I think this song is the first mix I've done that I didn't hate when I listened to it the next day Smile

Hi Parnellij,
First off, thanks for your kind words! We're pleased to share our tracks here. It helps us along our way to proper sound engineering due to massive feedback and becoming a better band because of musical references here. So, don't thank us, thank you!
Second:
TheMetallurgist pointed out the problems with the vocal recordings earlier in another thread. If you took a look on the music video you would've seen that the singer's distance to the microphone varies a lot which messes with the lower mids and basses in form of modulating the proximity effect a lot. New resonances peak out whereas other frequencies vanish.
The md421 doesn't really help in my opinion. It's a little less sharp than the nt1a but not ideal either. We're just going to take care of proper preamping and not vary the distance of the singer to the mic that much anymore.
That's a classic recording mistake you notice afterwards.
Won't happen a second time! Plus, there's a good chance we're getting a Shure SM7 for the next recordings which would be a huge plus.

Cheers,
Till
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