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tips...009. the black art...more stuff.(n speakers.)
erm...what speakers should i buy ??
let me tell you speakers/monitoring will drive you nuts if you let it.
remember that in the past big songs were often mixed on less than stellar speakers.
even though the studio might have had fancy expensive monitors.
why ?? because most folks dont have superb speakers.
some do, but a lot dont. some might be listening to your song the first time
on a junky radio or a tv speaker or on a boombox.
Thus ideally you need a variety of speakers.
and play back your mixes on a variety. computer speakers (for people playing your song
on the net), a mono check speaker, maybe a radio speaker,
a boombox, and maybe a decent set ofspeakers (if you can afford them).
you should also check how your mix sounds over headphones.
In summary its a heck of a balanceing act getting a mix to sound good on everything.
and i often fail. even great mixes done on 5k speakers have been known to fall apart on a small tv speaker.
once again the black art of audio engineering laughs at our puny efforts to beat the boss of the black art.
Youll notice i talk often about the BLACK ART OF AUDIO ENGINEERING.
what do i mean by this ?? the answer is that in many respects recording audio is a bit of a black art
in many respects. with lots of hidden tricks and pitfalls.
Many of which i'll attempt to point out. from my experience.
Ive paid homage to what i call the god of audio engineering for quite a few too many years.
and he still laughs at me. for example some days i sit down with a junk mic and for some reason a good track is recorded or a good song.
other days bad by comparison. same with expensive mics.
This is one cruel god to worship. for example you buy a 2k guitar amp
cos it sounded good at the store, but then someone gives you a used 50 bukker amp and you sling a guitar peddle in front of it and get a more pleasing sound than the 2k jobby
from your speakers.
this is the god of the black art laughing at you again while you try and fathom why...!!!!
LOL...definitely a cruel god to worship.
Or you buy a fantastic new set of speakers but your mixes end up
not sounding as good on different mediums.
this is the god of the black art laughing again !!!!
In summary...in theory your mixes might sound better the better the monitors and other gear you buy. but not necessarily.
(i'll cover guerrilla mixing on the cheap later on).
But for now i just want you to think about the concept of testing
your mixes on different speaker mediums from cheap to pricey.
(Radio shack sell a little box that lets you flip tween different speakers.)
once again there are no magic solutions ive found. once i did a mix at a top studio, and it didnt translate well on other speaker set ups.
One advice i CAN give you. is to think carefully how much you wish to spend on monitors. You could spend your life saveings away without getting the ideal solution.
ALSO PUT FUSE PROTECTION ON YOUR SPEAKER LINES.
Radio Shack normally sells them. They are likkle plastic gizmos you put a fast blow fuse inside. you connect them before the + input of the speaker.
Please consider these if your speakers dont have protection.
also watch out you dont connect your speakers around the wrong way.
Lets say your driving them with a stereo amplifier.
THE POSITIVE (+) OUTPUT of amp goes to plus input of speaker.
THE NEGATIVE (-) OUTPUT of amp goes to neg input of speaker.
to ensure things dont get out of phase.

syndrome... i spent 50k on recording gear and my songs dont have the quality of the old hits.
LMAO... Been there done that. Want to be really blown away ??
listen to the Patsy Cline hit "after midnight" recorded in the 50's,
and many other recordings back in that era. Listen to the fabulous sound of her vocals on after midnight. amazing. So how did they do it ?? back then ??
you spent all this money and you cant get close. right ??
even with supposedly superior tech today.
well pal neither can a lot of people. I mean really listen to those songs from the fifties.
i encourage you to listen deeply and analyse them. Do internet searches on the producers/engineers at the time.
brilliant people often working under trying situations.
My perspective is once again it was how they used the equipment at that time.
remember i said gear alone wont rescue you ??
because of track limitations they had to record live in a big recording room.
maybe useing creative leakage with the singer in a seperate booth.
Think about it logically. If you had two mono tape machines lets say.
how would you do it ?? i suspect you would record to one machine the backing arrangement on one machine. then bounce the backing to a second machine while
recording the lead vocals and other lead needs like lead guitar possibly.
I suspect a lot of the "old sounds" come from studios building their own
equipment in those years. Money alone doesnt gurantee youll be able to recreate those brilliant sounds. Just to show you the lunacy of spending lots of money on gear.
One day i did an experiment. just useing a cassette deck mic pre through some tape electronics
and recorded a track in ptw. after futzing around for some time i got a lot closer to what i was looking for. In many respects i got flukey useing the cassette dek mic pre.
It gave me more of a "vintage" sound with the tape deck electronics than other approaches.
Next day i thought i would try a different instrument......nope..not as gooood.
The god of the black art laughing at me again....lol
gave me a little teaser of the magic "vintage" sound to make me chase my tail for eons.
The BEST you can do to get those old sounds is to experiment basically without driving yourself crazy.
A lot of the old engineers prolly laugh at our puny attempts to emulate their brilliance. Basically they were just totally gifted. And i respect them highly.