Member Dana Nielsen
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Really lookin fwd to listening to this, @Jon_Plett! 🤘🤘 Will circle back soon – thanks for sharing! And thanks @JLEW for your sweet feedback!
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Ooh, love this idea, @JLEW! Can’t wait to hear the sounds you create during your reamp extravaganza! ⚡️⚡️ Here are a few thoughts:
• It might be difficult to reproduce massive Moog-y sub-y low-end through anything less than an 8×10 cab, lol. Kidding aside … when re-amping things, I’m not always looking for an accurate reproduction from the amp. I’m usually looking for something different from the direct sound … something creative, interesting, mangled, distorted, etc. Often times, I’m hoping to create (or stumble upon) something cool that I can combine, to taste, with the original source. With that in mind, your Princeton will be sick!
- You could let the direct sound (the MIDI/Softsynth in your DAW) carry the sub low end and dial in something saturated and reverb-y through the amp, getting the best of both worlds
- You could close-mic the amp, or…
- You could stereo-mic the room so the amp adds more of a stereo ambience when combined with the direct sound
- You could record several full passes of the song, each with drastically different amp settings. Then, chop those up into a checkerboard so that parts of different passes are featured in different sections of the song to add contrast. And/or…
- You could combine those multiple passes into one giant mega-sound, spread across the stereo spectrum for a cool effect
- You could “perform” the song on the amp in realtime as you’re recording. For example, dial in a clean dark tone for the verse; then, as you’re listening to the song in your headphones, gradually ramp up the drive and brighten the tone during the pre-chorus so by the time the chorus hits it’s all mean and tough; then at the bridge you suddenly blend in a ton of amp reverb for a floaty vibe
- So many fun things to try! 🎹 🔊
Have fun, homey!
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Ooh, great question, @Jon_Plett ! I have not personally tried those, but I hear about them all the time. Do you use them and love them?
I went ahead and made a new discussion thread here from your original reply… Hoping others will chime in with any cool ideas or reviews related to favorite headphones for mixing! 🎧
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Wound up making a quick lil vid today on the topic… chime in with any thoughts!
https://mixprotege.com/2023/09/14/brainworx-bx_clipper/
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Heck yeah man! Usually when I combine multiple mics, DIs, reamps etc I do so using a “group” and an Aux input channel.
The group is mostly to make editing easier across all related tracks. The aux is used to “collect” all the grouped track outputs into one single channel, which not only makes mixing the combined sound easier also it’s very easy to send your combined mega-moog-stereo-reamped-synth-behemoth sound out to other effects using the aux’s inserts and sends.
Might be easier to demonstrate via drawing or video haha – I’ll add one here this week if I can!
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Hahaha – you know it man! And yeah … my scented candles and paisley print walls were QUITE the vibe 😂
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That is absolutely true, man! – You can definitely produce high quality work using minimal (and inexpensive) equipment when you have a clear vision and trustworthy ears. And for me, I guess when I say the word “ears” I’m really talking mostly about my imagination, the mind’s ears. (See Mix Power Tip #5: “Don’t be Snobby”). If you know how you want something to sound in your imagination – and can hold onto that imagined sound long enough to track it like a hunter tracks its prey – you can sculpt that sound into reality, often with simple tools like stock plugins and budget-friendly microphones, speakers and preamps.
Here’s a pic I found of my wife @CMN in our old home studio (circa 2007) where I mixed that Neil Diamond album. You can see the tiny Yamaha MSP5’s I used at that time. And get a load of the intentionally gaudy wall treatments! 😱 It was a carpeted square box of a room and I covered every wall floor-to-ceiling with thin, cheap, packing material from U-Haul, and then covered that with large swatches of several of THE most hideous fabric prints I could find in the discount bin at the fabric store. It was ugly as hell! But also dry as a bone, acoustically, and worked great for many years and many records.
PS – YES! TIDAL! Tidal is my absolute fav DSP, especially since they’re the only ones who provide full album credits!
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Hahahaha, I know the feeling!
And hey, good call on the AT headphones and the HS8s – I think Yamaha make really great powered monitors these days, and I recommend them often. I mixed tonnnnns of albums on my 5″ Yamaha MSP-5’s back in the day, in my old 5’x5′ spare-bedroom studio, including this #1 Neil Diamond album. And I have mannnny pairs of those AT headphones and use them daily.
Sonarworks is pretty incredible too, esp if you get their microphone to shoot out your room (I have their measurement mic but also got great results prior to that purchase using my old inexpensive Behringer measurement mic).
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Home Before Dark - Dana Nielsen
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@Jon_Plett 😂 😂 I forgot about that!!
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Heck yeah @JLEW – laptop speakers would be perfect to use as your “smalls”!
Regarding the distance from mix position factor … there does seem to be some extra insight gained from listening from across the room, even if just a few feet, and preferably not right in front of you. I don’t want to be seduced by top-end or bottom-end or stereo image while working on my smalls; I only want to be concerned with levels and balance, the general “power” and shape of the record. Placing those speakers away from me (off to the side or behind me perhaps) keeps me better focused on my small-speakers mission: Can I hear every fundamental note the bass is playing? Are my favorite melodic moments within the rhythm section still audible and conveying the same emotion as they do on the big speakers? Stuff like that.
If I had to break it down tho, I’d say simply having a set of small speakers to work with is 80-90% of the “smalls” equation for me. Getting them situated in mono and away from the listening position adds another 10-20% helpful information mojo magic. 🪄💫
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Right? Yeah, I’m stoked to try it out! I’ll prob hold off upgrading my PT software till I’m finished mixing a few current projects, but after that it is ON! I love the non-linear creative/writing/experimenting/arranging flow that Ableton does so well, and I do already have a solid Ableton->Pro Tools workflow (using Dante and Ableton Link), but I’ll be very curious to see if Sketch cracks open a new simpler path for me, bridging the gap between early “sketches” and finished productions.
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Hahahahahahahaha – bane of my (room) existence! I even have a custom “De-147Hz” clip fx button for it programmed on my soundflow streamdeck! 😂
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Wudup, @smoothygroove ! Yeah love Sound ID and the Sonarworks peeps! They actually came to my studio and did an interview a year or so ago. I’ve been a fan of theirs for years. Sorry to hear of your hearing woes. So glad you’ve found a good workaround! 💜. Thanks so much for sharing this!
Here’s that interview if anyone’s interested 🤘. Maybe I’ll add it to the blog page soon…
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Hahaha – same here! ✂
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Right? So handy and fun controlling transients, preserving mix headroom, and adding “loudness” and vibe all with one tool and a few knobs!
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