Mixing

[BongStuff]

Paul Simon!!, I love that album it has some great songs with awesome bass lines and great singing by ladysmith black mambazo...

10/10 Harri...

around the same time as Peter Gabriel's "So", Kate Bush' "Hounds Of Love" and

The The's "Infected" as I remember.

Quite a year for good muso-friendly albums...!

BS ( sorry for hijack Donna )

[Donna]

No worries, Bongstuff.

[Prometheus]

Ok, but I don't think monitor acquisition will be happening this month unless a benefactor shows up!

So in the meantime, any hints at all? I'm still set on entering the Christmas contest here no matter how bad it may sound.

Is the power amp/monitor package necessary do the rest of you think...I like the idea Hari mentioned of the monitor being self contained.

I use passive Alesis Point 7 monitors and a pioneer amp... I would just go with whatever you can get the best deal on...

[Donna]

Right , best deal- I'll bet the Alesis are nice. Hate the thought of plugging in one more thing (power amp). Our electrical's kinda old.

Hey, wish me luck - I'm re-recording today (that is if nothing else goes wrong and school callin' for me to pick up another ailing child). I got new strings and wanted to put them on a few days ago, not the night before the session. They're Ernie Ball strings this time and I like them very much - so far.

I found "A" at 440 hz online. It sunk in the other day - CONCERT A - hey, I know that frequency! No tuner's/ pitchfork/pitchpipes here presently. I can usually remember it just right, only what I remember is an A#! So now that's solved, too, and I saved the link.

Been experimenting with micing the kit, baby steps, can't recall how I used to do it. Supercool, the 246 manual will be mine next week! Lucky, I remember stuff in print. Recall should increase once I begin reading it.

[Prometheus]

Right , best deal- I'll bet the Alesis are nice. Hate the thought of plugging in one more thing (power amp). Our electrical's kinda old.

Hey, wish me luck - I'm re-recording today (that is if nothing else goes wrong and school callin' for me to pick up another ailing child). I got new strings and wanted to put them on a few days ago, not the night before the session. They're Ernie Ball strings this time and I like them very much - so far.

I found "A" at 440 hz online. It sunk in the other day - CONCERT A - hey, I know that frequency! No tuner's/ pitchfork/pitchpipes here presently. I can usually remember it just right, only what I remember is an A#! So now that's solved, too, and I saved the link.

Been experimenting with micing the kit, baby steps, can't recall how I used to do it. Supercool, the 246 manual will be mine next week! Lucky, I remember stuff in print. Recall should increase once I begin reading it.

Yeah, A is a defacto standard for tuning, and works well with electronic signal generators since A has an integer frequency in hertz which is easy to remember... Good luck with the re-recording!

Edited December 11, 2005 by Prometheus

[Donna]

Hey thanks. It s**ked, btw - too fast, blah blah blah. But I had a good time and nothing's wasted, it's more practice under the belt.

I was happy w/ the drum and vocal sound , + the un-equ'd ('cept a tiny bit) mix is respectable when I played it over two different cassette deck speakers . I'm suspecting that getting monitors will help me gain in remoteness. Now that I'm properly tuned I have to re-learn some of the singing, but therefore can hit most of the notes so that's alright.

Instead of going overhead, I positioned the mic kind of between the toms, but back aways (and I marked the spot the mic aimed for, so I'd remember it). For vocals thought about fashioning a chamber in another room w/ a made-on-the-spot screen but opted to be comfy in the regular little room. (Our 4 yr old - the one who steals my coffee and will converse all night - asked me this eve "can I learn how to make the music?" meaning the portastudio!)

She is such an unusual child that my wheels are seriously thinking of taking her up on it, (see what I mean - the charm and authority of that little one has me feeling like she's OFFERING me something. What's crazy is that she probably IS!)

The acoustic guitar is a nightmare (but I don't care)!

[Prometheus]

Hey thanks. It s**ked, btw - too fast, blah blah blah. But I had a good time and nothing's wasted, it's more practice under the belt.

I was happy w/ the drum and vocal sound , + the un-equ'd ('cept a tiny bit) mix is respectable when I played it over two different cassette deck speakers . I'm suspecting that getting monitors will help me gain in remoteness. Now that I'm properly tuned I have to re-learn some of the singing, but therefore can hit most of the notes so that's alright.

Instead of going overhead, I positioned the mic kind of between the toms, but back aways (and I marked the spot the mic aimed for, so I'd remember it). For vocals thought about fashioning a chamber in another room w/ a made-on-the-spot screen but opted to be comfy in the regular little room. (Our 4 yr old - the one who steals my coffee and will converse all night - asked me this eve "can I learn how to make the music?" meaning the portastudio!)

She is such an unusual child that my wheels are seriously thinking of taking her up on it, (see what I mean - the charm and authority of that little one has me feeling like she's OFFERING me something. What's crazy is that she probably IS!)

The acoustic guitar is a nightmare (but I don't care)!

That's a cool idea... I wish I'd started learning this from when I was 4 years old...

Yeah, acoustic guitars do tend to me a nightmare... I don't know that monitors will necessarily help with remoteness as such, but they'll definitely help you with EQ... Through reference monitors you can hear things that you would never notice on ordinary stereo speakers. Also, reference monitors are "Flat", ie they don't colour the sound, so what you hear is a true representation of what you've created.... they often have a much better frequency range than ordinary stereo speakers too, letting you hear over the whole human range right from 20Hz to 20KHz...

[Donna]

Yes, that's what I need: the truth from flat monitors.

Re: the 4 yr old: either it's a great idea or I lapsed into a moment of insanity.

[john]

Sorry Donna. A little slow down before Christmas. Every one is out buying Christmas presents, getting drunk, and recording their Christmas Song for the comp .

No, you don't need to go to the extent of getting powered monitors, they just tend to have less chance of picking up noise.

There are lots of reasonably priced monitors. Powered ones tend to be more expensive. A lot.

Yamaha NS 10s used to be pretty common, but they are a bit to trebly, and lack bass definition for me. The best advice is really to look at the range of frequencies that the monitor manufacturer quotes for a flat response, then if you can, go to a shop and have a listen using a reference recording that you know. Even go to the extent of taking your actual amplifier and CD player in if you don't go for powered ones.

Me, If I had some spare cash I'd look at Tannoy Reveals which come in both powered and non-powered models.

Cheers

John

[Donna]

Yeah, good advice. My beloved's Christmas gift to me shall be monitors! But I need to figure out how to hook them up (studying the portastudio manual...for the life of me, I don't think I EVER hooked speakers up to it.)

(Hmmph: if anyone should be drinking and shopping, it is I)!

Edited December 16, 2005 by Donna

[Donna]

Do you mean a recording of someone famous? Or could it be someone local whose stuff I know (production less professional than commercial Sony label artist or whoever putting it out).

[Donna]

Gentlemen, the MP3 is up for the contest. If the below links haven't pasted right, go to song review board under the Christmas Contest thread.

Last Train To Bethlehem

© Donna Fellows 2005

http://forums.songstuff.com/index.php?showtopic=5447

Wow! I couldn't have done it - with this deadline - without y'all.

Thank you!

Edited December 16, 2005 by Donna

[Prometheus]

Gentlemen, the MP3 is up for the contest. If the below links haven't pasted right, go to song review board under the Christmas Contest thread.

Last Train To Bethlehem

© Donna Fellows 2005

http://forums.songstuff.com/index.php?showtopic=5447

Wow! I couldn't have done it - with this deadline - without y'all.

Thank you!

I've been having trouble downloading it, the conection keeps dropping after the first 100K... I've heard the first few bars of it, and I think it sounds really good, but I want to hear more!