Radio National Album of the Week:Overload

[Chris H]

The CD i recently recorded for Eddie Cole has been selected for this weeks album of the week at Radio National. The CD is called Overload. Thought I'd let y'all know. Hopefully this will work in well with the promotion Eddie is getting from Dwane's desk pad iTunes promo he so generously organized. This just might be Eddies chance at building his profile and getting better sales for his CD. This is the third i have done for Eddie and the first he has released under his new stage name, Groove Eddy. This project had a limited budget so as well as recording and mixing i did the mastering. To get some objectivity the mastering was done in the Thirkle designed studio i'm familiar with instead of my studio at home where the rest of the project took place.
Later today there will be audio up on the ABC web page.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stor ... pperhunter

[Chinagraf]

Good one Chris. Well done.

[GlennS]

Nice work Chris, and congrats on him getting album of the week.

For some reason it sounded much better on his myspace player ( http://www.myspace.com/grooveeddy ) than it did streaming from ABC. May be just a pre/post coffee thing though.

[Chris H]

Nice work Chris, and congrats on him getting album of the week.

For some reason it sounded much better on his myspace player ( http://www.myspace.com/grooveeddy ) than it did streaming from ABC. May be just a pre/post coffee thing though.

Yes, and i think it has to do with how the mix colapses to mono, even though there were no out of phase reasons as each element of the mix collapsed to mono with no problems. We discussed this during the mixing, and it's partly how the space designer stereo reverbs in particular and some elements of the mix like BV's collapsed to mono. I really enjoy working with Eddie as the recording is very much a process of capturing a vibe, and once the rythm section tracks are laid i build a mix that inspires the performance of the OD's. This presents a challenge for us when the whole performance/mix reaches a point where often Eddie does not want to proceed with some changes during the "mixing" stage for fear of loosing the magic. Eddie's instincts on this are mostly spot on so it's becomes a matter of treading the fine line of retaining the "magic" of the mix and getting aspects of the translation and quality controll to acceptable levels . On this particular song too many things in the mix would have to be altered for it to translate to mono and retain the magic of the stereo mix that developed during the recording sessions. I did several other mixes that did not end up being the one on the CD, and in stereo the mix on the CD is the one that best captures the build and vibe of the song, not tecnically the best mix of Wildflower.I'm not afraid to say more time, (budget) and a few second opinions may have come up with a solution that worked better in mono.

[anguswoodhead]

Off topic.....
I love the number of posts you have right now Chris - 1073.

On topic....
Nicely done - it's what we all want for our clients - a bit of National recognition.
Gutsy use of Reverb BTW.

[Chris H]

Post number 1074 Ha. Thanks Angus, I hope it results in a real boost for CD sales and live gigs for Groove Eddy. His other CD's are on iTunes and Overload will be on soon. It's up on CD Baby and his web page, so it's accessible for sales generated from the RN coverage. The track played today on RN was Funky, and is the first track on Eddy's myspace page, and thankfully sounded fine in mono. I do think the RN web stream does not sound as good as the broadcast sounded on the radio in my car though.

[rick]

i monitor a lot of radio stuff i have worked on
i dont know why but if you have to much stuff in the 200-800htz range radio national turns it to mud
but on jjj it sounds fine

i dont think its a mono problem i think its something else
in fact anything that doesnt sound like the beatles or petula clark sounds thick and muddy and washedout on radio national !
and if your too loud you will get slammed down really badly

sometimes i reckon there is a "old school" abbey road engineer somewhere in the radio national setup tweeking stages -
and his attitude has got to be ... well the stuff i like sounds great
f@#$ the rest of them thats what jjj is for anyway.. !

but probably more likely that its highly tuned for "talkback" and keeping all those voices the same level is the goal - music is after thought
so just make it sound like a petula clark record and it will be the best sounding thing on the radio all day ..
their " live to air things" in the morning sound good though , so i dunno whatsup but something definately is
only old school as stuff sounds great on radio national


all that is to say well done chris you must be chuffed
its nice to hear your work out in the real world isnt it .?

[Chris H]

It's definitly a good feeling to get some work out on the airwaves. Thanks Rick.
The RN news came at an opportune time to give me a bit of a lift at my day job here at PLC.
Very interesting reading of your experience with a bit of critical listening to RN.
I have noticed how nice the audio is for the presenters in relation to music played but have never realized the issue with the
200-800 htz area.

[heathen]

Well done Chris!!