Welcome To The Imperial Mastering Forum!!!

[vile_ator]

Hey people, Colin Davis from Imperial Mastering and the band Vile here. I started this forum as a place where experienced musicians and professional and hobby recordists can talk about recording, mixing and mastering techniques that pertain to extreme metal. Especially fast death metal. This type of music is a challenge all unto itself and the things we do to make it sound right vary from the techniques used with other types of recording.

I want to talk about things like triggering, drum and cabinet micing techniques, outboard gear, computer editing and techniques, click tracks, quantizing, pre production techniques, sampling and samples, guitar and bass heads, mastering gear and mixing and mastering techniques. Stuff like that.

If you want to talk about music that pertains to Vile, you can also go over to the Vile forum also on SMN News.

If you want to get in touch with me directly about having some work done, you can visit the Imperial Mastering website at www.imperialmastering.com Contact me there.

Alright, thanks for visiting and I hope this can be an educational tool for all of us to benifit from!

Colin

[JBassist]

i'm thinking of buying this set of monitors to do some simple mixing

i do alot of stuff including peoples drum&bass and reggea bands so i needed the lowend i bet, and i personaly will be mixing my own bands stuff and some other (metal of alot of kinds..) demo's on it.

http://www.thomann.de/midiman_studiophile_lx4_21_system_prodinfo.html?sn =62e91eb009e35df3f52a9ce4f6467ac7

would it be a goos choice for the money? (cause i'm on a serious budget though..)

[vile_ator]

Hey man, it depends on what you want to do. If you need speakers now, buy the M-Audio's. But know you will have to replace them shortly.

For tracking/mixing or mastering? For mastering you'll have to spend at least 3-4000 Euro minimum for a system.

But for tracking and mixing my advise is to have 2 sets of monitors. Make set one some Yamaha NS-10's. They are the universal standard for mixing. And then get a separate higher quality near field. Add a sub later or save up and buy a bigger pair so you wont need a sub. You'll need to hear well down to (+/- 3db at 50-60 hz) .

There are some newer nearfields out there now that I am not familliar with that may be quality. But for speakers with bass that I know of you can check out Dynaudio, Genelec, Tannoy, Mackie, KRK, ADAM. There are others but those come to mind. Check out their catalogs and see what fits you budget/low end needs and go for it. You can learn to work with them all.

Considering that you are thinkiing of M-Audio satelites with sub thats listed at 300 euro. I say you could step up to Mackie 824 without a whole lot more and be quite satisfied. Dont forget those NS-10 s also. Either get them now or later.

You'll have to come to your own conclusions but I think this will point you in the right direction!

Keep in mind one thing. People with too much bass in their monitors make bassless recordings. People that mix with monitors that are bass shy, make mixes with too much low end. Try to find a middle point.

Cheers.


Colin

[JBassist]

yo, thanks man!

yeah, i get your point.. i bet i will buy a pair of yamaha's if i see a pair come by on ebay or so, its like you said, those things are industry standart nowadays. ( i even saw them in the metallica DVD.. and if bob rock can mix on those things, i sure as hell bet i can!!)

but if i don't i will probably still go for the M-audio's.
its mainly for demo's i will be doing for free so i can expand my own mixing/tracking capability's (which means i will also have to spend some money on mic's).

and i will probably use other monitors/soundsystems ( i do some live work ) as a reverence too, so i bet that if i compare my recordings on a large scale of monitors i will probably be able to do a pretty good mix once i know there weak and good spots.

and bytheway,

how did you make the bass stick out so much on depopulate?

and whats your standpoint on using Phase in sticking (for example) guitars out of a mix?

[vile_ator]

Phase and guitars? All mics must be in phase with eachother. There is not a way to use a phased out mic anymore. Like Randy Rhodes tone. Yuk.

Dont know what you mean by bass sticking out. On the new Vile the bass has a clanky fret buzz sound and that makes the bass stick out. But on Depopulate the bass tone varied. There were two bassists with 2 rigs on that album so it depends on the track. But on the songs Lars tracked I think it has a nice 120 hz punch that may stick out well in some speaker systems. Never thought Vile bass was that present before now. Youll have to wait till the album is released to see.

Colin

[JBassist]

dude, now thats helpfull!!.. i' shall definatly try it, did you also turn down the guitars a bit in the 120 area then? ( i see that quit alot so maybe..)

and i meant sticking out guitars in a mix by for example feeding 10 percent of each side (guitar) out off phase to each other so that they apear to lay INFRONT of the speakers ( i believer the SPL vitalizer works with this principle )

ANYHOO:

i'm recording a 2 song promo for a realy cool band this thursday (were doing all in one day) and i will be recording in a quit large room with this material:

Mac g4
Digi 001
Protools HD3 (TDM system)

A Mackie 24-8 (can't remember which type.. its a half live half recording table though..) or a Allen-Heath GL2200 for the mic pre's on drums.
haven't decided yet.. probably the macky.

SPL goldmike micpre on OH's/guitar recording/bass/vocals.

Kick mic: D112 (haven't got anything else..)

Snare: Sm57 (i'm going for a pretty good sound but i bet i will sound replace anyway)

Toms: Sennheiser E604's (haven't got anything else)

OH's : i got the choice between AKG C430's, or C1000's.

which would sound better on heavy music? or in general.

Røde NTK on vocals (sreams primairaly, grunts with c1000 or sm58)

Guitars: An sm57 on a marschall cab and a 5150, Ibanez with EMG's (could you post some settings you use alot? maybe some depopulate ones? or the kind of sound you hear on Devour? hehehehe..)

solo sound will be POD or V amp probably.

bass: probably through D.I and another through 2 mic's on the cab, peavey 5 string grind bass (D112 for close up and the rode for some highs.)

Thats my main set up i'm thinking about at the moment!! would you change something about it? some major things definetly should NOT and some that i realy should do?

and ohwyeah.. monitoring through a pair of kick ass genelecs.

2 songs: 6,5 hours to record.

[JBassist]

ohwyeah, and how would you isolate all the parts when recording? (issolation from what side and stuff like that.).

because i will be recording in a rehearsal room. (which i bet means alot of reverbaration and evil resonances)

[vile_ator]

All that gear is adaquate. Now its just a matter of using it correctly. There is no way for me to advise you on every step but I can talk about isolation.

Record drums first with guitarist recording a scratch track at same time. Or let bassist jam with drummer and keep bass tracks if he can track clean. Just use DI is you want to keep it simple and save time.

Dont know what the room is like but I would say put some gobos(foam) around the kit if its a very live room. If its a dead room dont do that. Place mics 18"- 2 feet above cymbals. Close mic everything else.

Dont use Eq on Mackie while tracking, adjust mics to get response you like. You can use the eq on toms if you like to cut 250-500 hz 'cardboard' resonance if you like.

Also lets start a new thread on the forum to continue with this if you want.

Colin

[JBassist]

cool, lets.

you wanne make it or should i? (its your forum so maybe a seperate guitar/bass/drum recording/mixing section?)

[vile_ator]

Go ahead. Just post a new topic with a specific subject.

Colin

[Trauma]

Nice to see a dedicated recording-mixing-mastering forum. With no less than fuckin experienced and talented dudes.

I bet i'll need some advices soon, cause i'll record our first MCD in 2 weeks. For the first time, we're going to use good gear and an experienced guy will do the mix.

For the moment, we have:
-good PC
-motu sound card (8 lines in)
-Alesis DM5 for the kick and maybe the toms (if someone can help me to find great sounds.. i'm just the guitarist in the band)
-Some good mic for the OH and SM57s for snare, guitar..
we don't have any mix table, but we have 4 mic tube preamp (M audio)

Lets talk about it some day. Maybe i'll put some samples to take your opinion of the tracking sound. The guy who makes the mix is talented, no fear for that

Long live to the forum ;)

[JBassist]

what about toms and kick? all trigger?

[Trauma]

Originally posted by JBassist
what about toms and kick? all trigger?

Yeah, with the Alesis DM5...
I don't have enough Mic Preamp (that shit cost a lot) and we can't afford a good mix table.

[JBassist]

i bet you can get a good result though.