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Enter The Haggis - Two Bare Hands - Updated
#1
Today, Waves was offering every plugin for $29 US. So in the spirit of Christmas in April, I purchased two pieces I have wanted for some time, Andrew Schep's Omni Channel and the Abbey Road TC Mastering Chain.

This mix is done almost solely with those two plugins and some additional EQ from API and Presonus. Some mastering compression was added by Cytomic's The Glue (I like this compressor more and more with each use) and some gain by the stock PreSonus Limiter. The only reverb added was a MixVerb on the keyboards. All other environment is from the recorded (or provided) effects.

I hope this sounds worthy of these new plugins.

Thanks for the listen and future comments,
mITc

PS: It is a sad sad day today as we watch the loss of Notre Dame de Paris to conflagration. Such a huge part of the heart of France, Europe and the world was taken from us today. And my soul aches.

Enter The Haggis - Two Bare Hands - Mix 2
Worked a bit on the dynamics and clarifying some of the parts. This included the vocal, the guitars, the kick, snare and bass. Oh and the keyboard. I guess that's about everything. Leaned out the chamber some as well.

Enter The Haggis - Two Bare Hands - Mix 3
To give this a bit more of a live feel I placed the entire mix into an inline IR reverb set on a variation of a 480XL Jazz Club. There were mix changes made accordingly which moved all guitars to the center instead of panned L/R. I like the way it translated under these conditions. It placed the rather harsh vocals into a very good and related place with the band.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
mITc


.mp3    Enter The Haggis - Two Bare Hands.mp3 --  (Download: 7.46 MB)


.mp3    Enter The Haggis - Two Bare Hands - Mix 2.mp3 --  (Download: 7.47 MB)


.mp3    Enter The Haggis - Two Bare Hands - Mix 3.mp3 --  (Download: 7.49 MB)


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#2
I've been curious about OmniChannel for awhile now. I like the ability to insert other Waves plugs at any point in the Omnichannel. Plus I just like Andrew Scheps.

I'm not in a position to give a critical opinion. though I don't usually anyway. That said. It opens fine. When the drums come in it feels compressed and doesn't "bloom" as much as I'd hope. My attention is drawn mostly to the guitar on the right. The left side of the image is a little empty.

It feels good. The balances, tonally, work. The vocal feels occasionally peaky but not overly so. The only real issue is the dynamics which I'm expecting more because it's a live recording with audience sounds. Emotionally I just think it calls for more.

Does that make sense? hopefully.
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#3
(16-04-2019, 03:31 AM)RoyMatthews Wrote: I've been curious about OmniChannel for awhile now. I like the ability to insert other Waves plugs at any point in the Omnichannel. Plus I just like Andrew Scheps.

I'm not in a position to give a critical opinion. though I don't usually anyway. That said. It opens fine. When the drums come in it feels compressed and doesn't "bloom" as much as I'd hope. My attention is drawn mostly to the guitar on the right. The left side of the image is a little empty.

It feels good. The balances, tonally, work. The vocal feels occasionally peaky but not overly so. The only real issue is the dynamics which I'm expecting more because it's a live recording with audience sounds. Emotionally I just think it calls for more.

Does that make sense? hopefully.

Hey Roy,
All valid points you have raised. I feel that in my attempt to raise the over all volume of the presentation, mastering compression and limiting have staunched a lot of the dynamics of the performance. Alas, that is one of the trade-offs we make for volume or at least for the volume I wanted this presented at. I noticed that your presentation levels are much lower than normal for your rendition of this song.

There is no compression on the instruments, save for the bass and the vocal. I did parallel compressed the chamber track to ensure good listenability for the vocal effects. The only added effects are an in-line reverb on the keyboards. The emptiness on the left side I hope was filled with the second guitar and keys.

One of the things that attracted me to the Omni Channel was the dual band de-esser which is a lot more than just that. Each band is fully sweepable throughout the frequency range with four bandwidth options available per detector. In this instance there is a pop on the vocal mic near the top of the song which was handled beautifully by this. It was also working on the 'peakiness' of the vocal which may have needed a bit more control (see Note1 below). It was compressed later in the chain on the same strip. Another really cool feature of the Omni is on the internal side chain filters. Once you establish the band you want to filter for the detector, you can lock the low and high pass filters together and then using one of the controls sweep the established bandpass range to fine tune things. Very cool. I also really like the choices for the compressors (VCA, FET and Optical) and when switching between them it keeps the settings you have established so you can really compare the differences between the various flavors of compressor modeling. It also has continuously variable compression ratios.

Note1: This is not the first time I have felt there is an inherent upper mid resonance in vocals using the Telefunken mic used here (M80). I'm not sure it's the mic or the mic-pre chain but I have had to deal with this on other Telefunken vocals using this mic.
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#4
Yeah, I know I did mix this song relatively quickly both times so worrying about the final level may have fallen through the cracks. Honestly, I don't much worry about the final volume all that much. I guess since I'm so used to listening to things on my laptop I'm constantly changing volume anyway. Besides distortion or excessive limiting "loudness" never really occurs to me. Plus, I hate mastering. Maybe I'm too old school but I just want to mix. I do do overall mix bus processing most of the time and I'll throw an L3 to get it up to relatively normal levels like a good boy but I'm still rebelling a bit against self mastering. I should get in the habit more, I suppose.

It's a good mix. Don't get me wrong. You treated it well. It's just that dynamics are really important to this song so when the band kicks in I just wanted more.

It's weird how one of the most interesting parts of the Omni Channel for me is its De-Esser section. It's the only plug in I've considered getting in a long time. Any of the "Name" plugins (CLA, JJP, Maserati) are hit and miss for me. I like the simplicity of the all in one plug in but I feel better just breaking down what they do, learning and rolling my own, in a way. For most of those "Producer" plugs, there's no magic. It's convenience more than anything.
I really like Andrew Scheps. I've never analyzed his work. I couldn't definitively tell you what he's worked on. Besides "Death Magnetic" but I'm not blaming him for that. He just seems like a nice, laid back guy and I love watching any interview he does.

I did a quick look at the M80's frequency response. I didn't find a clear image of the chart but there is a rise in the upper midrange though I can't tell what the increments are on the Y axis from the blurry image I've found. Which would be expected for a supercardioid mic designed for live use. I can't say I've been 'wow'ed' by any of TF's dynamic mics. I'm sure they're fine. I can't say I've been wow'd by many dynamic mics. And let's not argue semantics that ribbons can be considered 'dynamic mics'. Of course I'd kill for most of their condensers. I'd frankly commit an atrocity for one of their AR-70s.

Sorry to rant. I was bored.
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#5
(16-04-2019, 04:34 PM)RoyMatthews Wrote: It's weird how one of the most interesting parts of the Omni Channel for me is its De-Esser section. It's the only plug in I've considered getting in a long time. Any of the "Name" plugins (CLA, JJP, Maserati) are hit and miss for me. I like the simplicity of the all in one plug in but I feel better just breaking down what they do, learning and rolling my own, in a way. For most of those "Producer" plugs, there's no magic. It's convenience more than anything.
I really like Andrew Scheps. I've never analyzed his work. I couldn't definitively tell you what he's worked on. Besides "Death Magnetic" but I'm not blaming him for that. He just seems like a nice, laid back guy and I love watching any interview he does.

I did a quick look at the M80's frequency response. I didn't find a clear image of the chart but there is a rise in the upper midrange though I can't tell what the increments are on the Y axis from the blurry image I've found. Which would be expected for a supercardioid mic designed for live use. I can't say I've been 'wow'ed' by any of TF's dynamic mics. I'm sure they're fine. I can't say I've been wow'd by many dynamic mics. And let's not argue semantics that ribbons can be considered 'dynamic mics'. Of course I'd kill for most of their condensers. I'd frankly commit an atrocity for one of their AR-70s.

Sorry to rant. I was bored.

There is something a bit odd about how the band enters the song and it almost sounds like the sound person was asleep at the switch. they kind of enter quietly for the first few measures. From there is just stays at one level.

I have never been a fan of Hyper-cardiod mics. To much affect from the pattern. When I first got into the business we were loaned a pair of U67s, a KM84, two AKG 451 EBs and an AKG D224E. The latter is a rare dual diaphragm dynamic with beautiful frequency response (20-20k) and extremely smooth off-axis response with little proximity effect because the diaphragms are at opposite ends of the body. To start an audio career with access to U67s was a real treat. What you learn is how important good mics and pre-amps are.

As for the Ominchannel, Andrew has taken the best of a lot of worlds and combined them. Like the EQ has API like mid-bands and a Neve top end. That's pretty cool. My ex-studio partner has a new API 1608 console and he swears by the EQs. The Waves API 550A and B plugs are now my go to EQs. Incredibly musical.
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#6
You might be right bout the sound guy. I never considered that there would be one nor the role/effect they'd have on the band's dynamics.

I'm a KM84 man myself. KM85 for acoustics if there's one around (there's never one around). My first day as an intern I dug out a KM84 from between some couch cushions. I knew nothing of it at the time and there's still a devil on my shoulder kicking myself for mentioning it to the staff.
I never used a 67. I have used a 69 and still cry to this day about losing an eBay bid war for a tube version. It went so cheap!

Yeah, tighter patterns are a compromise. (I would love a 441 or 4 though) I get the purpose of the TF sessions but I think they'd benefit from more traditional recording sessions. I know they've done such in the past. If I'm going to scrutinize a microphone give me good conditions. Though I reckon these are supposed to be live mics and hence live sessions. Still, vary it up.
I use the API plugs all the time. At least for sweetening. They're just fun and easy to use.

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#7
sounds great as usual. the drums have a slightly prussian type of one-three marching feel. the prechorus feels as if it has more 'beat drive' than chorus. maybe give more emphasis for snare? still, the sound is very good etc. ^_^
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#8
(16-04-2019, 10:52 PM)kapu Wrote: sounds great as usual. the drums have a slightly prussian type of one-three marching feel. the prechorus feels as if it has more 'beat drive' than chorus. maybe give more emphasis for snare? still, the sound is very good etc. ^_^

Hey Kapu,

Thanks for the listen and comments. The players in the band are pretty good and the drummer is rock solid. I have a compressor on the combined snare to give it a bit more body and sustain. No other processing is done to the kit beyond slight mastering compression and limiting. Take a listen to Mix 2 and see if there is any improvement.
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#9
I like your mix a lot, here are a few more comments and nits to "Mix 3":
  • The hum before the song is annoying.
  • Lots of recording artifacts/problems are audible (distracting).
  • I'm big fan of having lots of dynamic, but some transients are just too aggressive for me (saying as a listener), esp. in the intro.
  • The vocal seems really consistent, nice! :-)
  • The figurative guitar distracts from vocal too much.
  • The bass nicely hugs everything :-)
  • The source vocal distortion at 2:25 is practically inaudible :-)
  • In the bridge (1:56) vocal get's buried a bit.
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