Pre-Mastered tracks for your listening pleasure

[gearboy]

I've been working with the Swivel Chairs for the past year on 32 songs. We're expecting two full-lengths, an EP (or split record), and a song on a Philly-area compilation CD out of these recordings.

Some examples of pre-mastered tracks can be found here:

http://www.swivelchairsmusic.com/Swivel ... -News.html

Basic tracks we recorded in Brooklyn on an Akai DPS16 at 16-bit. I imported them two tracks at a time into DP though a Presonus MP20 preamp and brought them in at 24-bit. We tracked all of the drums, bass, strings, and a bunch of guitars and vocal tracks in DP either on my G5 or Powerbook (on location). Mixed in DP.

We're taking 17 songs to get mastered on Monday.

Thanks for any feedback!

Jeff

[builder]

Hey, those sound really good.....

I like the tunes...

Where are you getting them mastered? Philly area....

I know to great guys in Blue Bell that do great mastering.. (they did mine)

[gearboy]

thanks for the compliment!

We're going to Paul and Paul in Blue Bell on Monday afternoon for mastering. Are you in the Philly area??? I hear the calling of a beer night...

Jeff

[jrdmcdnld]

I'm digging these recordings. Kudos on the acoustic guitar tone(s). I've always found that challenging, but it sounds like you NAILED em'.

I'm near Philly as well (sort of - Lititz) can I come to beer night?

[builder]

thanks for the compliment!

We're going to Paul and Paul in Blue Bell on Monday afternoon for mastering. Are you in the Philly area??? I hear the calling of a beer night...

Jeff

Oh what a twisted web we weave......
The Paul's are great........ Tell em' Craig from Missing Palmer West say's whats up.

I'm out in West Chester......

You'll have good tiime with the Paul's......

Are you familar with Milkboy Coffe House... They took over The Point bookings (and sound system) when it closed.....

[gearboy]

Thanks for the kind words. Really looking forward to hearing these tracks with a little mastering magic applied. I'm also kind of happy and kind of sad to be finished more than half of the songs that were brought to be in various stages of basic tracks.

Philly-area beer night... I am leaving for London this Thursday evening until the evening of the 10th. I'm thinking during the week after that or the first weekend of spring. It'll be good to meet other folks who use DP and exchange some information over a few glasses of La Fin Du Monde.

Milkboy... is Tommy still running that studio? I used to work with him at Zapf's back in 1999. Ya know, right when Music123 started. I've never been out to the cafe' but would love to check it out.

Jeff

[gearboy]

The Pauls did an amazing job. Great guys. We're really happy at the way things turned out.

Jeff

[OldTimey]

nice tunes, diverse singing styles can be difficult to keep cohesive, but the production does a really great job of giving the band a certain "sound." Great going. What kind of acoustic guitar/strings/mics were used to get that nice stereo spread?

[gearboy]

nice tunes, diverse singing styles can be difficult to keep cohesive, but the production does a really great job of giving the band a certain "sound." Great going. What kind of acoustic guitar/strings/mics were used to get that nice stereo spread?

Thanks for the compliments.

For acoustics, the basic tracks were recorded in Brooklyn at 16 bit (!!!!) on an Akai DPS16. Mics were a Microtech-Gefell UM70s and a Neuman KM184 on cardioid through a dBx silver-faced tube preamp (the <$400 one). I brought them into DP through a Presonus Digimax LT mic preamp (not the MP20, my mistake!) via analog to bump them to 24-bit.

Acoustics... not sure what track you are referring to. Yamaha F410 (I think? - same model that Elliott Smith famously used), Fender something or other for at least one song, but the ultimate is a 2004 Gibson Songwriter Deluxe. Insane guitar.

Strings... not sure about the strings, unless you are referring to the string sections. Those were done in IK's Miroslav, but we also recorded Eve who used to play with Matt Pond PA and the Rachels. She has an almost 300 yr old cello and it was recorded with my AT4047sv in a historic 300yr old room in Old City, Philadelphia. It made the Miroslav stuff sound more real.

Funny thing is, every song was between 9-16 tracks when I received them and ended up around 24-48 tracks. Most of the basics were done on the Akai, and I really cleaned them up in DP.

Also, every channel in DP had a channel strip consisting of the Masterworks EQ (cutting, mostly), the Waves RenComp, and the TRacks Limiter. I cannot stress how much of that sound is the TRacks mono limiter plug-in. I love that thing. I started on it's 30ips preset and tweaked for each instrument. It really provided consistant sound across the board. Also Waves IR-L, Altiveb 5 (in spots), and DP's echo plug-in created a nice sense of space. Vocals have the Waves RenVox on them.

I strived from the get-go to keep good notes, make lots of well documented plug-in presets in DP, and not kill the sound of the mics by using too much of anything. I kept the same basic channel strips, reverb, and delay presets for every song. At first I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but 1/3 of the way through the consistant sound thing started to take shape. And out of 25 songs with drums, all but one song's drums were tracked in the same room in a 200 yr old barn, using the same mics (again, good notes) over two weeks of sessions in April and June of last year. Consistancy rules.

Also we tossed a lot of tracks if the mixes became too cluttered. One song in particular not represented on that page had like 12 tracks of guitars tossed before the final mix!!!

Most importantly, there were three sets of ears for every mix. I couldn't have done it without Jay and Jeremy. Those guys have been playing together since 1992 and they know what they want/like.

Oh, and before I forget, I kept each track peaking between around -18dbfs and -12dbfs so I didn't clip plug-ins. I read a lot here at Unicornation and on TapeOp about digital levels and it really helped a lot!

Jeff