jxhmusictech

[jxhmusictech]

My initial mix I over compressed and over-bussed everything. I try to make things easier to understand and mix but end up complicating my work. I then re-recorded the band and re-mixed the band. This song is called “Still Love” by Radattck from Columbus Ohio

[jxhmusictech]

Symphonic Winds recording. For this project I managed to sit on the Friday showcase before recording the one of Sunday. In all honesty we divided the work on what we believed were good at mic’n . I decided to focus mainly on drums because I am not the best when it comes mic’n things like pianos and things that require the get the pluck in the sound.

[jxhmusictech]

Jahlani Ben-Levi

Brian Muth

Mic Shootout

22 October 2019

In this shootout out I wanted to compare the harmonic qualities of the rhodes keyboard using various different microphones. My client was a multi-talented keyboardist and guitarist named Kaleb Orr who currently attends OSU who majors in Music Business. To make this project simple and effective I suggested he not play a song without a lot of movement but rather play about 4-5 chords in two different octaves so I could get a feel for the sound difference between the microphones.

A majority of my videos were video of people playing I took not how they mikc’d the rhodes. I noticed a lot of people had the mic real up close to the sound source and did not leave room for the mic to pick up the sound source but rather had the mic directly into the sound source. Taking note I placed the mic a few feet away from the sound source rather than have it right up in the source. One thing that troubled me was the lack of videos that pertained to mikking the rhodes keyboard. As I realized that the only good videos that even touched on recording rhodes well were old recording of herbie handcock, I went to other people’s blog posts and they all instructed I record direct-in using a DI or XY stereo mic ghe rhodes. I decided I was going to place the diaphragm of all my mics in the center point of the bass.

The four mic I used was the very expensive U87,MD 421, RE20 and the AKG414. I analyzed the mics using 4 a couple metrics. Their response to low frequencies and the overall clarity. I found that the U87 was very clear but it had a hard time picking up some of the rumble and nuances of the lower frequencies. The dynamic mics like the RE20 and the MD421, had no issues picking up the rumble that I was looking for. In terms of clarity I would rank the mics U87, RE20, AkG414, then the MD421.

One thing to note was that in a few of my videos, I saw people miking things terribly when it came to using the MD241. I guess stupidity in the music world is contagious.

[jxhmusictech]

Jahlani ben-Levi

Muth

Individual Tracking

This mix was difficult for me because I have yet to get to the point where I can hear certain techniques that I like from professionally mixed records.

EQ:

Knowing that a lot of the subby frequencies are inaudible unless your in the club I started by my mix off by taking 10HZ out of nearly every subby track I had. Trying to find a balance with the drum and bass was the most difficult part. I found that I boosted the 60-80Hz and 4kHz but dipped the 150-300Hz bands so that the bass could breath. A lot of reggae music lives off the drums and bass so I had to play surgeon.

Compression:

I ended using Smack,BF and the dyn Compressor made by Avid and I quickly realized that Smack sucks for nearly every track I tried to use it one. My main goal was to get the drums to hit hard but not too hard where it throws off the compressor and makes muddy transients. I ended up mixing the kicks alone then routing them to the whole kit after I achieved a song I like. I then just played with the balance and used the SPAN plug-in to see which band seemed weak compared to others and why. In order to keep the natural sound I wanted to achieve, I lowered the signal coming into all my compressors then used smaller ratios and try to balance all the transients for all the instruments.

Facts:

The Flex Crew is actually my dad’s band and I figured it would be efficient on time to expand on ideas and concepts that I had for my dad’s band already. This song “Sour” is actually a reggae version of the intro off of my project “SOUR”. It was written by me and I overdubbed the vocals because the singer did not know how to achieve the feelings I was trying to convey.

Complications:

Honestly no one wanted to partner with me and I can understand why. Rock isn’t my strong suit and I am not the best engineer. Studio E was busted and only had 4 pre’s the day I tried to track so I had to record instruments individually, just for my phone to be stolen three days after. I lost my content for the first two mixes that required a video and photo. I believe I did well without others but my next mix will definitely be better.

[jxhmusictech]

TRIGGER

[jxhmusictech]

Slate trigger

I found that the slate trigger was an easy and fast means of replacing all the terrible transients and hits of certain terrible tracks , recorded initially.

My only tip would be to use REALLY GOOD SAMPLES, or your song will sound like an intro to music tech logic project... mine specifically

[jxhmusictech]

elastic screenshot

[jxhmusictech]

Elastic Audio

After obviously setting up the parameters adviced in the instructions, I found that matching the kick with the bass was the most efficient way to adjust the song’s timing. It’s essentially like reggae how the drum and bass usually carry the song. My engineer mentor calls those the “meat and patatoes” of the song. Without those hitting the right way, people surely wont like the track. As far tips.... Just dont rush. put some time adjusting these as well as time from listeing to the hits. You’ll throw yourself off trying to be perfect on the first try

[jxhmusictech]

NICE LITTLE SETTINGS 

[jxhmusictech]

Mic Shoot Out

Jahlani Ben-Levi

Muth

Mic Shoot-out

10 September 2019

For my mic shootout I had to think quickly and find someone who could almost hold a note. Having two conservatory vocalists cancel on me really made find someone and almost make them sign a contract. I ended up recording a bonner student named Cidney and I figured she’d be a good candidate because she has an interesting voice. Squeaky at times and somehow pretty deep when she gets mad, which is rare. 

In my article there seemed to be a common theme. Similar to what Neal preaches, good instrument takes are not by accident but our created during the pre-production. The more thought out a sound is that you are looking to achieve, the easier it is to get because you are consciously trying to achieve that sound. In the other article there was 5 tips that every engineer should be thinking about when recording. Popping,sibilance,proximity effect, foot noise, and poor room acoustics. Following these guidelines, I made Cidney record in to mic while in the vocal room. I kicked all the random outliers and distractions out of the room so that I could reduce any background noise.I obviously used a pop filter and I advised cidney to sing the “wish” part of the song quietly to reduce crazy transients in my recording.

I used the U87 because I believe it's the best mic for my ears and my types of songs that I like to record. The Universal audio pre-amp is my favorite because it gives you the opportunity to change the timbre in the recording through the tube knob. The Focusrite gave more options to reduce having to do a lot of processing in post for vocals. The Vintech and Manlry seemed to only have a few knobs that allowed for simple signal to come in then out.

In terms of sound quality the focusrite seemed to have the most clean and clear sound. It sounds as if the pre-amp was compressing the signal and evened out the signal. The Manley wasn’t the most cool because it sounded like there was issues recording. Each new phrase sounds like its hitting a compressor. The takes sounded very choppy. The Universal Audio for some reason sounds like there is some type of proximity affecting the sound. Maybe it was trying to imitate Cidney’s voice but it was still very bassy and muddy. The Vintech seems over hyped to me. It sounds like a regular focusrite usb. It adds to type of character to recordings.

If i had to put the Pre-amp’s in an order, I would go Focusrite,UA, Manley, then Vintech. My rationale is purely out of my taste. 

[jxhmusictech]

64 channels of audio @48kHz/24 bit-depth comes out to 74mbits/sec