Turtlerock Forum

Hi i just joined the forum, it looks like a great place for learning and sharing info so i had to join.

i figured i just say a bit about myself so ican get it out of the way.

My name is Jonothan, i studied music at the sydney conservatorium and whilst there did some recording units which really got me hooked. i remember the first time i heard the DPA 4006's in the Verbruggen Hall

at the moment my setup is a RME fireface 800 into my 2008 macbook pro. have pretty limited gear, but just bought a pair of AKG C414 XL II's and they are currently my best mics.
Me and a friend have a small studio set up in hornsby, and together we have some ok gear. we are running into an 80's Ta@#$% 32 channel console. I believe this may have been used to record some channel 9 theme music but i can't be sure.
i just uploaded a recording we did one day about 5 months ago. my friend wrote the song that day and i tried to play a few guitar/bass tracks. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8423955/02%20violence%20and%20setting%20suns.mp3
i think we are getting a better sound now although all we do is play live at the moment, im not sure they would appreciate me uploading :p
the mix was run through an old joe meek stereo compressor which was a bit dicky with the left output but i think i have since fixed it (my first bit of DIY haha)

i'd love to hear what you think, we really dont have any outboard gear so it is what it is

this brings me to my main question

has anyone tried the FMR gear? it could be a a handy cheap addition to the set up - im particularly interested for my portable live rig, it seems easy to carry around.

looking forward to your responses

cheers,

jono

Welcome to the Turtlerock Forum Jonothan!

Great forum, great guys here. Lots of useful information. Great place to buy and sell gear!

Now I'm an amateur so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I liked your song. Sounded pretty good to me. Sounds like your toms were well tuned. Liked the low tom. Pretty well balanced with all the instruments. To me it sounded like there was a decent depth to the sound stage. Guitars didn't have too much bottom end in them.

Sounds a bit like a LIVE (the band) song. I liked the vocalist too, like the tone of his voice. If anything jumped out at me it would be to clean up the snare and kick a little bit and maybe a little more volume on the kick. Just a little more.

But, it sounds like a good song. It has good energy.

Oh and I love the "Sorry, one more time Mike" at the end. ha ha.

hey thanks for taking the time to listen!

its interesting you noticed that.
we just resolved some issues with had recently with kick and snare.
the snare was going through a dodgy multicore channel, but it didnt completely improve the sound. we placed the 57 we were using on a bit more of a vertical angle and it sounds a lot better. It does tend to have a boxy sound by itself and i think thats what the drummer (whos place the "studio" occupies) likes. however he is after a new one, it is the weakest link for sure. the kit is a yamaha recording custom and it always sounds great! just a matter of trying to capture it.

As for the kick drum, we only just yesterday realised the RE-20 is busted. making clicking noises, but only on kick drum, still sounds ok on vocals and guitars.

we are always fighting about kick drum volumes hear haha, i dont think it was so much as a volume thing now. we put an akg kick mic on yesterday and with the mic working properly what we noticed was less volume increase and generally just a fuller sound, more balanced sound.
with the re-20 broken, it was easy for the kick to be overpowering yet not quite there, anyway i guess that is why it a bit low.

you're right guitars are thin, its something i always struggle with
however the new akg 414s i have seems to work really well
id love to try an LDC with either a ribbon or dynamic(other than RE-20)
im thinking of maybe getting a beyer m88, could be a handy mic to have lying around
i remember an article/interview with steve albini, he had some techniques id love to try out. i quite like the sounds he gets

thanks again for listening

jono

jhol wrote: you're right guitars are thin, its something i always struggle with

Oh I didn't mean they sounded thin. I didnt' mind them actually. Good level in the chorus, where they start to really crank.

haha.. well
to me they were thin
i think they are better now

it is an AC30 with new celestion blue speakers, i think they still need a bit of playing in.
i want to get the sound i hear when i play

jhol wrote:i want to get the sound i hear when i play

Ha ha. Tell me about it! :)

ok, so i'm a guitar gear nerd

i have a triple rectifier(not the biggest fan but has its place) that is really hard to capture its sound.
harder still - my favourite amp, my marshall 1959slp - british ftw

jhol wrote:i have a triple rectifier(not the biggest fan but has its place) that is really hard to capture its sound.
harder still - my favourite amp, my marshall 1959slp - british ftw

Triple Rectifier. Nice, I've never played one. Not familiar with the Marshall 1959 SLP. But I've got a JCM 800 2 x 12 combo that I got 12-15 years ago from Cash Convertors. I've been experimenting with a 4 x 12 1960 Lead cabinet out of the JCM800. JMP-1 preamp for my gain.

But yeah, getting a high gain sound is quite a skill I'm finding. I'll be looking at a ribbon mic soon I think. And make some gobo's to take a bit of the nasties of the room when doing far micing.

its funny i'm actually not that into reeeeally hi gain sounds, i dont know why i have a triple. i think i like the footswitch.
much prefer british sounds. the superlead plexi is one of the loudest things i've ever heard, almost unusable.... almost