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S2pidiT

S2pidiT

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  • #41
    Case said:
    If Electric Mint is part of Standard (I went from K12 standard to K14 ultimate so I'm not sure if it came with Ultimate), try that out. It's fantastic IMO. Very inspiring to play.
    Click to expand...
    Yeah, Mint was a big reason I ended up getting Standard. It's a very neat instrument, I just need to get better at using it. I do wish finding patterns but keeping the sound/tone the same was a bit easier. But there is a lot of flexibility, and I'll get used to it. Being able to switch between patterns and melodies on the fly is huge for me, and getting to choose open vs. muted and more just adds to it. It's amazing where we are with virtual instruments.

    Case said:
    There's a ton in Komplete and I'll admit I tend to overlook some of the stuff in there. Synths like Rounds, Kontour etc, they sound good and I forget about them half the time!

    I never really know what to do with the expansion packs, other than get some Massive X presets from some of them (and that is a really impressive-sounding synth.)
    Click to expand...
    I'm just going to have to try stuff, it's a bit overwhelming how much is in even Komplete Standard! I did find out that Drummic'a does not need a login or activation if you own Kontakt (instead of Kontakt Player), so now that's working as well.

    I don't know that I'll need to buy any expansion packs for a while. They gave me a $25 voucher for the purchase, but it doesn't work on stuff that's on sale, so I can't even justify using it given what I just spent.

    Case said:
    Reaktor is a whole ecosystem, there's a lot of user-created synths and effects out there. I'm not sure how many devs are still creating for it, but there's a lot out there.

    I probably wouldn't have jumped in the NI pool except for the fact that I needed Kontakt...and like buying a movie theater drink, it was a better deal to get Komplete with all the great stuff in there vs buying alone (and don't question whether you actually want a 44 oz drink!) Going to Ultimate, they got me with a few of the instruments and each step of the way I got things half off (Select, then upgrade to Standard, then upgrade to Ultimate).
    Click to expand...
    I know very little about Reaktor, but it's yet another thing for me to try.

    I wasn't really planning on buying Komplete, but when I got the coupon and looked at buying Kontakt, then compared Komplete Select (which doesn't include Kontakt) to Komplete Standard, Standard looked really good compared to buying Kontakt alone or Select. Electric Mint, Prime Bass, Ozone 10 Standard, Kontakt, and then a bajillion other things? Especially since virtual instruments are my main creative outlet? Yeah, I was pretty well sold at that point.

    Hurt a little to realize it was easier to justify buying that software package than getting a baritone guitar, but that's just where I am in life at the moment. I can get a baritone down the line, and I can still create now.
     
    invertedpanda

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  • #42
    Planning on starting the recording work either tomorrow or Monday for the new record.

    Went through all the tunes I want to record and what tones I want to use with each, as well as the order in which I'll record.

    Right now the plan is to tackle the 2 "outlier" tunes first just so I can get those out of the way; One is resonator & voice, the other is harmonica & voice. Since I only have 2 inputs, and one will always be set up for vox, the secondary input will be set up for the harmonica mic just enough to record that stuff, and then switch that over to the SM57 for the resonator.

    Once those are done, I'll just switch that secondary input to the electric guitar levels and be able to crank all those tunes out relatively fast. Figure I'll do 2 tunes a day to hit all 9 tracks, leaving the title track for last (because that one is more of an off-the-cuff free form thing that I'll be futzing with).

    Then I'll have the weekend to do engineering and re-records as-needed.

    The engineering portion will be the hardest part, honestly.. Since I'm soft-amping the electric guitar & harmonica, I can do whatever I like tone-wise, but I have to decide WHAT I'm doing. I have my tones I use on my amp live, but don't have soft amp presets yet to mimic it in a way I like.

    Vocal mixing should be fairly easy, at least. Since I'm not having to worry as much about layering tones, and I've got a good general mixing setup for the Rode NT1-A I use, it'll mostly be a record it and forget it situation, maybe cutting a little bit in the low-mids to get it to sit against the guitar a bit better.
     
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  • #43
    I've now got the equivalent of four unmixed demos put together, and I'm starting to try to learn mixing. I've done plenty in Reaper to record audio/write MIDI and get a song put together (and tune my vocals with Melodyne), but this is where my DAW knowledge effectively ends... I began reading about mixing vocals, and it feels like there's a lot going on here. I haven't done automation (in the DAW sense, my day job is machine automation :biggreen:) before, sidechaining, routing, FX chains... It's honestly a bit overwhelming.
     
    S2pidiT

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  • #45
    Basically all of my work is going to be in headphones. How much of a problem is that going to be for mixing and mastering? I've read about trying out mixes on different speakers to see how it sounds... That's not going to be an issue, but the vast majority of my available time is in spaces and at times where using speakers won't be feasible. I have Sennheiser HD429s and AKG K240 for headphones.
     
    S2pidiT

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  • #46
    If this is verboten, let me know and I'll remove it...

    I'd like feedback from y'all fellow music producers about the first few songs I've been working on. Arrangement, tone, other recommendations... I'd like to find where I can improve as I continue to develop these songs and the rest of the album. I've put these demos up on my Bandcamp page here:

    View: https://recycledinnovation.bandcamp.com/album/rex-why-see-demos


    I was going to make some notes, but I don't want to color your impressions of the demos. I will say that I have some rerecording and mixing to do on these tracks. I appreciate any and all constructive feedback!
     
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    Case

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  • #47
    Good idea to try different phones. Bring mixes to your car too etc. Find some referencing material (high quality) if you don't already have some. This gives you something to shoot for. I use the plugin Metric A/B to make it easier to volume match and go back and forth between a mix and my chosen references.

    As far as vocals go, or anything else, my own approach is to always remember that it's a mix. I rarely solo anything unless there is something very specific I'm trying to find/modify (like some weird sibilance in one bit of a vocal). I have soloed up groups of instruments against each other (like say guitars and bass, then maybe drums/bass/guitars and so on) but in the end it all has to work together so I wouldn't agonize on something by itself for too long. Vocals are certainly important and typically I take the approach that I'll carve out space for them in other instruments and compromise something there and not just EQ up the vocal necessarily.

    During my short stint in a studio I dreaded whenever a musician would ask me to solo anything. Invariably, they'd complain it was "too thin" or "too dry" or whatnot. You combine a bunch of "fat"-sounding individual tracks and you don't have a mix, you have a mess....

    Mixes are weird. Often they'll feel unbalanced and no matter what you do, things just won't click. Nudge the drums up, they are too loud; barely nudge them down and now they are too soft, and so on! Then suddenly it falls into place, if you are lucky :) It can sometimes be little changes, maybe even just to effects, to make it come together. And if you mess too much with the mix after that, then it can easily fall apart again! Back in the day with tape and no easy recall, we had maybe 4 hours to get it done on a tune, and after a couple hours your ears can start to get tired (one reason to mostly mix at lower volumes IMO). With DAWs it's really nice to save your progress and get it back almost instantly later. I'd definitely do that if you start to lose focus or your ears tire, unless of course you have a hard deadline!
     
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    anuj

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  • #48
    Case said:
    With DAWs it's really nice to save your progress and get it back almost instantly later.
    Click to expand...
    My favorite feature in Logic Pro is Alternatives, which lets you snapshot versions. Amazing, amazing feature.

    Also great for mixing things like a full live show where individual songs might need different treatment .. without having to automate things.
     
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  • #50
    I've been writing (drawing? DAWing?) more music, messing with some VSTs and getting to know Reaper better. I've also been trying to put stuff I've learned to work. Here's my experiences with some of the VSTs/virtual instruments I've been using/playing with lately...
    • Surge XT - This is a really cool free (hybrid?) synthesizer. There are so many options in it, it's honestly intimidating to get started. I have barely scratched the surface of what is possible here... I have not done much with the presets thus far, just so I can experiment and see what sounds I get. I've also not yet used it in any of the songs I'm working on, but I'm sure I'll find good uses for it.
    • Blue Cat's FreqAnalyst - Free frequency analyzer. I've been placing this on my Monitoring FX chain so I can see how my mixes are looking across the spectrum. I mostly use it to make sure I'm not missing something while mixing in my headphones. It's nice to see that I'm getting something that sounds good to me during mixing, while not appearing too unbalanced. I learned that the Harman curve is a thing people argue about (boy is that a rabbit hole), and started looking into my headphone frequency responses. According to a site called AutoEQ, my Sennheiser HD429s headphones have a severe dip at ~4.2kHz, the dip starting at ~3.7kHz and coming back up at ~5kHz. I'm sure that cuts into harmonics and other sounds across a variety of instruments, but I never would have guessed. I'm probably just used to them at this point, they've been my main headphones since... 2014?
    • Reaper has their ReaPlugs package, which comes with Reaper, or that you can even download and use elsewhere! They're not the best looking, but they work. The one I've used most so far is ReaFIR. I've used this in Subtract mode to remove noise from my recordings while mixing.
    • Session Bassist: Prime Bass and Session Guitarist: Electric Mint - I've really liked these Kontakt instruments from Native Instruments so far. I feel like I've gotten good use out of both the Melody and Pattern modes. It took a little bit of messing with the Melody side to figure out how to get the sounds to mesh with Patterns side, but I've been happy with the results. It's really allowed me to get the ideas in my head out and into my DAW. I've messed with some of the settings to try to dial in the sounds I want, but I haven't created my own pedal/effects chains, just made slight modifications. There's a lot of versatility in these two instruments that covers a lot of what I'm writing. I've found Velocity doesn't always work with patterns, so sometimes I have to automate sections of the Volume envelope.
    • Session Guitarist: Electric Sunburst - There's some sounds I just couldn't seem to find in Electric Mint (specifically offbeat upstrokes, like in ska), so I've started messing with Electric Sunburst. It's a bit limited in that there's no MIDI drag-and-drop and no melody option for writing open/muted lines, but there's still quite a bit I like here. I will be using this, despite Electric Mint's expanded options.
    • Studio Drummer - Another Kontakt Instrument by NI. I haven't sat down and tweaked a ton of settings; the default drum kits have worked well enough for my needs. The grooves are neat and I might use them down the line, but so far I have been writing my own drum intros, grooves, fills, etc. in MIDI.
    • Session Horns - Yet another NI Kontakt instrument: trombone, saxophone, two trumpets. I like the free BBC Symphony Orchestra by Spitfire, but this is nice for non-orchestral music.
    • Waves Silk Vocal - I've liked the results I've gotten for my vocals from this. To me, it appears to be a 3-band vocal EQ that includes a de-esser and a compressor. I won't say it makes my voice sound better, but it at least sounds less like I record my vocals in a non-treated room while facing a projector screen that's covered with a fuzzy blanket.
    I think I'm on track to get my album done by the end of this year! That's exciting for me, because I've wanted to get it done for years and kept not getting recording done, not making progress besides writing lyrics. I have maybe four songs that remain from the original set of lyrics I'd written seven-plus years ago. And only one of those hasn't drastically changed from what I'd imagined back then.

    invertedpanda said:
    Planning on starting the recording work either tomorrow or Monday for the new record.
    Click to expand...
    How did/is this go(ing)? I'm interested in hearing it!
     
    Coppercloud

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  • #52
    Well, after just having fun and playing with my sample pad for like 2 months, I finally added it to my kit. So I now get to sport not 2, not 3, but 5 pedals! Here's the thing I didn't realize when I bought this: I'm essentially half a syntheziser player in a ways that I didn't realize synth guys had to be - I have to find and make my own tones/sounds/samples/patches. I have no idea how to do this part, hooray!

    Top of my list is the held synth notes on Mr. Bright side as we do that tune and I think I can add a lot of polish there with 6 extra notes. Then I gotta record some glockenspiel samples because, despite the fact that this thing has like 1100 samples in it, there's no glock and I want to play spirit of radio.

    I'll add more effects and loops to our sets as time goes by, and I'm also planning on using it as a stand alone drum kit for low key stuff like acoustic gigs. But more importantly this is all just an excuse to post bad pictures taken without enough light of my rig!

    IMG_20240128_203203255.jpg
     
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    Kiru

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  • #53
    ^^ There're bound to be free glockenspiel samples out there already, unless you have one on hand that you're hankering to sample.

    Nice V-drum kit, BTW... looking to buy a kit at some point.

    The Roland HPD-20 Handsonic is a fun one to play if you ever have the extra $$; I've used it with a kick drum pedal and kick trigger at some pick-up shows; once you get used to the smaller footprint, it's sensitivity & expressiveness allows for a full drum kit approximation. I've been thinking about loading in some of my BFD3 samples into it for even more realistic kits, but man, is it a PITA without a software interface!

    I'm also quite interested to see where the Mandala Drum is going:

    Percussion electronics will only get better as the tech improves. 🤙 :rimshot:
     
    Coppercloud

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  • #54
    Kiru said:
    The Roland HPD-20 Handsonic is a fun one to play if you ever have the extra $$; I've used it with a kick drum pedal and kick trigger at some pick-up shows; once you get used to the smaller footprint, it's sensitivity & expressiveness allows for a full drum kit approximation.
    Click to expand...
    I really wish you could get those bent kick beaters at a reasonable price. I like the idea of that for a kick trigger and honestly with a cheap piezo ($5 for like 10 on Amazon), some spare foam, a 1/4 inch jack, and a 3d printer you could make that trigger at home (there are already files on thingiverse but I'd make some mods to it personally). Might not be as nice as a professional one, but jeeze some of those triggers get spendy and it'd be fun and low profile. But you gotta have a good beater that works on it.
     
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    S2pidiT

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  • #55
    invertedpanda said:
    Unfortunately, it didn't happen; my arthritis went really far south and was dealing with a lot of excess pain, so I'm going to hope for the spring.
    Click to expand...
    I'm sorry to read this :( I hope that you are able to manage the pain, and I am also hoping for spring!



    Reference tracks! I'm over halfway through The Mastering Show, and having good reference tracks keeps coming up. And it makes sense to me. I don't have a good reference in my head; I have no experience with it, and I use less-than-ideal equipment. But I also don't necessarily know how to find good reference tracks. I see my writing as adding flavor/spice to a freshly blended amalgamation of the music I've absorbed in my lifetime (hence the band name). But, with a couple of exceptions, when I hear my songs I don't have bands that come to mind as being similar.*

    How do you all find reference tracks for mixing?

    *I will not claim my music is unique, I just don't think I'm good at comparing.
     
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    Coppercloud

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  • #57
    Kiru said:
    Nice V-drum kit, BTW... looking to buy a kit at some point.
    Click to expand...
    If you're a practiced acoustic drummer I can say that the newest digital snare with multiple (4, 5?) sensors that connects via USB from roland is unique and amazing. The down side is it's pretty much only compatible with the TD-KX or KX2 and that's a spendy proposition, but it's a selling point for that setup. I can play cross sticks/rim knocks, goks, and regular old strikes on the rim and it can tell all of them apart from basic strikes on the head and plays very naturally. Every now and then you might not trigger a cross stick right if your palm isn't resting on the head, that's actually what its sensing there, so it's not perfect, but I still have never played another electronic drum that will let you do all those things.
     
    Coppercloud

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  • #58
    So what's everyone think of AI mastering? I'll be honest, love music as much as I do, I don't think I have the ear for mixing, less likely mastering. I mostly just like to perform. Regardless phrases like "modern loudness standards" kind of give me chills. I also haven't had time to finish the article, but wanted to poke you all to get your thoughts and opinions.

    arstechnica.com

    AI can now master your music—and it does shockingly well

    Suddenly, everyone can master their own music.
    arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
     
    invertedpanda

    invertedpanda

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  • #59
    I tried in a couple tracks, and it does a solid job. It's not going to make bad music sound good, but it is going to make audio stand out more in a radio-master style (back in the day they used to try to master tracks to sound just slightly louder than the other artists' so they'd stand out on the radio more) without completely destroying audio dynamics. The quiet parts really feel quiet without being classical-music-mastering quiet, which is most modern stuff is what you want (if you want classical music mastering you'll want something else entirely anyway).

    Didn't notice any artifacts or anything weird. Just good engineering for stereo space and loudness without blowing things out or creating odd tonal artifacts or overwhelming you with bass.
     
    S2pidiT

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  • #60
    My overall opinion is: if you like the sound you get from it, go for it!

    However, I'm still going to be doing my own mastering. I want to learn about it and do it myself, even if I'm working with less than ideal equipment (and I'm also not sure I have the right ears for mixing or mastering). I know I'm working with a less than ideal voice! I also want my album to have a more cohesive feel, despite the changing genres and sounds. That's something that I don't think the AI can help with yet.

    I'll probably play around with Ozone's Mastering Assistant, since I have it. But instead of using it to finalize my songs, it will be as a resource to see what I may be missing while mastering. Same goes for Neutron 4 Elements, since I believe that's supposed to be the mixing equivalent.
     
    Coppercloud

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  • #61
    invertedpanda said:
    it is going to make audio stand out more in a radio-master style (back in the day they used to try to master tracks to sound just slightly louder than the other artists' so they'd stand out on the radio more) without completely destroying audio dynamics.
    Click to expand...
    That's encouraging. The "loudness wars" are a major pain and pop* music is largely devoid of any meaningful dynamics, but they're important to me.

    *by "pop" I'm referring to basically anything from country to hip hop to heavy metal, etc. Basically not classical or folk.
    S2pidiT said:
    I'm still going to be doing my own mastering. I want to learn about it and do it myself, even if I'm working with less than ideal equipment (and I'm also not sure I have the right ears for mixing or mastering).
    Click to expand...
    This is absolutely how I'd like to do things, but I doubt I'll realistically ever get there. As a drummer I don't really drive composition, so two of my life stretch-goals are to 1) learn basic guitar competence and 2) record an original album some day. That album doesn't have to be a solo project, in fact I've got a guy I want to write and record with. But I don't know if I'll ever do those things.

    I started trying to learn guitar in 2020 but my kid would literally yell at me while I was practicing (later she started asking me to play her songs and I'm like, dude... I don't know how to play, you wouldn't let me practice. LOL). Now that I have two there just isn't time. So maybe as they get older I'll work on those things. But as much as I'd like to do it all I'd probably be farming out the recording mixing and mastering with a little input on mixing, if I ever even get that far.
     
    S2pidiT

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  • #62
    Coppercloud said:
    This is absolutely how I'd like to do things, but I doubt I'll realistically ever get there. As a drummer I don't really drive composition, so two of my life stretch-goals are to 1) learn basic guitar competence and 2) record an original album some day. That album doesn't have to be a solo project, in fact I've got a guy I want to write and record with. But I don't know if I'll ever do those things.

    I started trying to learn guitar in 2020 but my kid would literally yell at me while I was practicing (later she started asking me to play her songs and I'm like, dude... I don't know how to play, you wouldn't let me practice. LOL). Now that I have two there just isn't time. So maybe as they get older I'll work on those things. But as much as I'd like to do it all I'd probably be farming out the recording mixing and mastering with a little input on mixing, if I ever even get that far.
    Click to expand...
    That's completely fair, and I wouldn't expect others to do exactly what I'm doing. There are so many tools, and we use what works for our own situation!

    I get it about learning other instruments, I'd love to get better at drums. If you were to listen to my demo for "Brains are Falling", that's the extent of what I can do on drums. I actually went back and wrote the MIDI out in Reaper to try out different drum sounds, because I find the Alesis Nitro Mesh sounds to be merely okay. I can do some variations with open-closed hi hat and the like, but I'm terrible at fills and separating my feet from my hands to do more complex stuff. A later demo I put up, "Algorithm", has all hand-written (programmed?) drum MIDI (it's actually all done by hand except some Electric Mint/Prime Bass patterns I dragged in), as do the other songs I have in progress. It could be better or more creative, but I'm not a drummer and it's already a lot better than I can do on my own kit!

    Time, definitely not enough time. It's the second reason I'm mostly using virtual instruments. I can play bass well enough, and I am okay at guitar, but I would not be close to having as many songs tracked if I were to record it all myself. Time is also why I am doing this solo. My time spent working on music is so variable, I would feel bad trying to coordinate with someone else... even though I'd love to.
     
    VirtualWolf

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  • #63
    Coppercloud said:
    So what's everyone think of AI mastering? I'll be honest, love music as much as I do, I don't think I have the ear for mixing, less likely mastering. I mostly just like to perform. Regardless phrases like "modern loudness standards" kind of give me chills. I also haven't had time to finish the article, but wanted to poke you all to get your thoughts and opinions.
    Click to expand...

    I played around with Logic Pro's Mastering Assistant when it first came out, and while I'm coming from the perspective of an utter noob, I was very impressed how it sounded versus my "didn't actually do any mastering" that I'd been doing previously. 😅
     
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  • #65
    Oranging because my GF got me an Akai MPK Mini for Christmas... because I watch YouTube videos about that. I've been toying with it, although I barely have any musical knowledge [I know which keys are which notes, I can play some simple melodies, but I'm just fooling around right now.

    I don't have neither Windows or Mac PCs handy, so it's been a bit of a struggle. I've tried some Linux DAWs and they work, but they're a bit of a pain. BandLab in my Android phone was quite nice. I also borrowed my GF's iPad to dabble with GarageBand, which was nicer. Neither my phone nor the iPad have a headphone jack ¬ ¬U... so I got a USB-C hub with headphones... which works for the iPad but not the phone :(

    But what I'm missing is:

    • The friendlier DAWs I have tried (GarageBand and BandLab) do not support the knobs in the keyboard, which would be nice
    • I don't have piano player fingers, and disabling pressure sensitivity seems to be impossible on GarageBand and Bandlab, and very hidden away on the Linux DAWs...
    • I have a Lenovo Duet (ChromeOS), but Bandlab sucks on it. The Duet has a very weak processor and very little RAM, so I doubt there's any DAW that would work on that, but it'd be nice to use that device.

    Any suggestion? I'd like to try playing with recording and looping... It would be nice to get something that integrates with the buttons on the Akai. Even though it has a "GarageBand" setting, it doesn't seem to do much with GarageBand on the iPad (perhaps it's just for the macOS version?)
     
    S2pidiT

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  • #69
    9 songs at the "advanced demo" stage... Need a little more mixing and a little more work on sound/recording, but the songs exist. 3.1 to go; one of them is a "micro song" if you will, in that it's less than 20 seconds. Think something like the Fingertips medley by They Might Be Giants, but just the one song.

    Apollo 18 was a neat album because of all of those micro songs. On the CD, the songs are all separate tracks, so you can have the short songs show up on shuffle in between the other songs on the album (or later, your MP3 player/phone). I have the album on my phone, and I like having those short songs pop up here and there. On streaming, all of the songs are mushed together into one, and I assume (I could be wrong) it has to do with the length of the song and royalties or something similar.


    Back to the album I'm writing, it's weird to feel like it is so close to completion, because some of these songs were first penned back in 2016. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of work left for me to finish those songs, then do any rework/mixing as needed. But once I get to the point that everything is done except mastering, I'm going to follow some advice I got from The Mastering Show: I'm going to step away for a while and do something else before I come back and start mastering. Maybe it'll be other music, or maybe I'll do some gaming that I haven't been doing lately.

    I'm not going to like it, because I want to get this done and release it. But I want to have relatively fresh ears for mastering these songs, so I need to do something else for a bit to hopefully come at them a bit more objectively.

    My original goal was to release by the end of this year. I've decided to move my goalposts closer and release by the end of August. It brings the deadline closer, and hopefully will keep my motivation up.
     
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  • #70
    My biggest regret about going from Mac to PC was that I was just starting to get my head around Logic. Sure, I've gotten to play a lot of great video games, and having an NVIDIA GPU is fun for pet projects in machine learning, but the prospect of starting over with another DAW just sounds exhausting... even though the Logic knowledge I had is long gone anyway.
     
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  • #71
    Ajar said:
    My biggest regret about going from Mac to PC was that I was just starting to get my head around Logic. Sure, I've gotten to play a lot of great video games, and having an NVIDIA GPU is fun for pet projects in machine learning, but the prospect of starting over with another DAW just sounds exhausting... even though the Logic knowledge I had is long gone anyway.
    Click to expand...
    I can understand that. I feel like Reaper wasn't too bad to get started with, but maybe that was just because I'd been trying various free and demo DAWs at the time. Granted, there's a ton I still don't know, but I am making music and enjoying the process, and that's the most important part to me. I've found Kenny Gioia has a lot of useful Reaper tutorials on YouTube, should you ever give it a try.
     
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    Coppercloud

    Coppercloud

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  • #72
    Looking for advice on live music mics and stands. I sing backup and drum. While I would love to be viewed as a great musician, I get that most of the time the job is more about entertainment than musicianship when playing live. So I'm an animated drummer. By design. That's not going to change.

    So right now Ive been using a sm58 on a so-so mic stand and rotating it out of the way when I'm not using it. I can get by this way, but I want to do better. I've been thinking of maybe going with a headset mic. The obvious advantage is that it's always there and never in the way. The disadvantage is I can't pull away from the mic at all. To be honest I only sing out of obligation and am not a strong singer, but hey, when the gig needs harmonies or just a layered chorus I do my best. Sometimes I have issues hitting the notes and have to really put air into it and it serves me well to be able to put some distance between me and the mic. Also, being animated and headbanging is part of the schtick, so a headset mic would need to be very secure.

    Alternate option, and one I'm leaning toward, would be to get a more lower profile mic that has the cable come off at a 90 degree angle and a better mic stand that's stable and handles repeated rotation by design. I could consider a gooseneck attachment too. One mic I've seen tossed around that works here is the Shure beta 56a. It's designed as a Tom mic, but I guess people think it responds ok for vocals.

    Any thoughts or suggestions? Anyone have any favorite mic stands or low profile vocal mics they like? Anyone have history with headset mics?

    Biggest unknown for me is the mic stand. Most people and reviews are really focused on them not moving. So the planned rotation of the stand isn't something I get good search hits on.
     
    invertedpanda

    invertedpanda

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  • #73
    If I'm live, SM58 all the way. It's reasonably priced, solidly made, and just plain works with a decent sound.

    If you're looking to get a headset mic, you're also going to be looking at a LOT of money to get comparable quality to the SM58.

    Also, I believe you can get an XLR cable that has a 90deg plug.

    Won't be much help on mic stands; I've just used whatever is available.. And if it's not stable, toss heavy stuff on the base :p
     
    S2pidiT

    S2pidiT

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  • #75
    I figured out that Waves Silk Vocal is supposed to be an "all-in-one" solution for vocal mixing. I've been using it to get the vocals in my demos feeling a little more polished and consistent, and focusing on the rest of the mix. It seems fine, but... stale? Overprocessed? Something like that.

    So now I'm working on actually mixing my vocals myself, and progress is kind of grinding to a halt. Trying to get the de-esser right (and being unable to tell if it's even making a difference) and figuring out how to use EQ and compression... I'm unsure that I'm even going to do a better job than the above all-in-one plugin. :cautious:
     
    C

    Case

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  • #80
    Got it, I gave some feedback on the algorithm mix after a brief listen. As I mentioned in the pm, the closest thing I had to that as a good reference was the last Tool album. Not too far off in genre, and that album has great production on it, but of course being Tool they sound like they do and they are off the beaten track in some ways. That said, any reference can help with things like "is the vocal too prominent" or "how much low end is there" and so on even if the production isn't the same.

    re: mics for drummers

    I play keys so it's not quite the same...I've considered a headset mic but I'm a bit leery about not being able to work it. On lead I am conditioned to back off a bit on louder (usually higher) parts, and the same goes for harmonies, which is most of what I do.

    Man it would make playing easier though if I didn't have to always get on that mic. I'm sure that's x10 for a drummer.

    Can't help on a swinging arm/stand question...I use a standard boom though only the boom part, I have attachment points on my keyboard stands. Quick aside, those quick connect/disconnect deals are awesome, no more wind-wind-wind to put on the boom arm every gig. I will say that the arm does swivel freely when using those. I don't know if that would fit the bill for a drummer, you might need something more akin to a monitor arm that can swing around/up and down and hold its position.

    This is what I use, though I got them much cheaper through Thomann.
     

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