3 Qs: 80s percussion. G&G cleanup. phase flipping.

[PlainSongs]

Not having immediate use for any of these, but since I think of them now:

Q1: There's this often cheesy "metal slap" percussion sound that seems to have been real popular in the 80s. I've always wondered what it is. For want of another example, check the intro of Another Day in Paradise.

Q2: Suppose you have a guy, an acoustic guitar, 1 mic, and no time to rehearse separate guitar and vox tracks that interact with a 'live' feeling. It's not necessarily a G&G song, but the vox and guitar get recorded together - no way around it. The raw version of this track will probably sound muddled. Any mixing (or recording) tricks to shine this up? I've tried making it stereo and applying different EQ to each channel, which makes it cleaner but also weird. And you wouldn't really want an obvious panning effect, as if the dude has his vocal chords on one end of the stage and his hands on the other.

Q3: What is phase inversion/flipping good for?

cheers -PS

[roymond]

2A - a couple ideas come to mind. Many of us double track our vocals, so see if this might work for you: Record the first take with the mic pretty much aimed at the guitar, to get a strong guitar sound. Sing naturally, and there will be vocals, but the emphasis of this take is the guitar. Then record another take with the mic aimed for vocals, using the first as a guide and trying the best you can to match that first take. Also try to match the guitar part. Pan these two takes 30 degrees in either direction and you have a stereo double-track of your basic G&G. Then add your other parts.

Always apply a high pass filter ~180 to remove mud from vocals and guitars. This will both clean up those tracks, and leave more defined space for drums and bass.

I don't get your concern about a guy's vocal chords on one end of the stage and his hands on the other. If this isn't necessarily a G&G song, then what's the problem? Also, plenty of singers play with a guitarist...In any case, unless you're really trying to create the sense of a live solo G&G situation, I always assume no holds barred in the studio. Pan where ever you want (for the right reasons, but studio recordings should not be held to what's physically possible on stage.)

[Rabid Garfunkel]

1) Reverb the holy fuck out of your individual drums. Usu. the '80s sound is characterized by excessive 'verb on the snare, but your example sounds like just the attack of the kick drum's eq band (the initial "click" of the beater striking the head) 'verbed to hell & back

2) Sing *really* loud if you're doing it in one take? Sorry, I got nuffin.

3) Something to do with recording with two mikes, I think. You flip the phase of one of 'em to avoid some sort of something. Again, I got nuffin.

[UnDesirable]

1) I think there was also a noise gate effect after the reverb to trim off some of the decay of the reverb so as not to muddy up the mix. Some reverbs have a control called damping which also lets you shorten up the reverb decay.

[ken]

1. If you mean the drum sound at the beginning, it is a heavily processed snare drum. Probably from a Linn Drum machine with a ton of reverb on it.

2. The first answer is find a mic and a position for them that works to give you what you want. The raw track could sound amazing! I personally, would use a Figure 8 mic with one side pointed at the mouth and the other pointed at the guitar. I've actually done this with decent success. Do you have a multi-patterned condenser or a ribbon mic? If I was just trying to use a typical SM58 type of live dynamic I would try two things. First pull the mic back until it is equidistant from both the voice and the guitar. Does it sound balanced? Try having the performer play the guitar quieter and sing louder. Adjust the player and mic position until they sound good. If I couldn't get that to work, I try putting the mic closer to the mouth, but pointed at the guitar. Again, move the mic around until it sounds good. You'll probably need a lot of compression to make this sound up front.

I think you are right about creating a copy of the track and then treating each to get the best out of each part. I wouldn't pan them though. I would just leave them both center, put them on a group channel and the then treat the group channel to get them to overall sound good.

This kind of situation will always be a "garbage in, garbage out" kind of thing, so make sure your original track gets you more than halfway there.

I'm not sure why overdubbing is not an option. If it is simply a matter of not being able to play one part without the other and only having one mic, your best bet is to record one track micing the guitar and then a second track overdub of the voice. It is fine if there is a bit of bleed on each track, that makes it sound live.

3. Phase inversion has a number of cool applications. The main one is to make sure all your mics on a drum kit are "in phase" to avoid weird phase cancellation and build up. The second would be cool tricks where you use phase cancellation to your advantage.

http://www.modrec.com/tutorials/phase.html

Ken

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Trust ken & roymond. Knowledge is power, and they're kingpin ninjas.

[PlainSongs]

Thanks - you guys are ace!

1) Right... makes sense. I think the 'unnatural' combination of heavy reverb plus quick decay made me guess it was a completely electronic sound before.

2) roymond and ken your tips are duly noted - cheers.

studio recordings should not be held to what's physically possible on stage

Fully agreed - however I was asking because I want panning to be a choice, not a necessary step to unclutter the sound.

I'm not sure why overdubbing is not an option.

When sketching the song G&G-wise there's often an interaction between voice and guitar that makes them not so easy to separate. The strumming pattern may be partially guided by the vox, or vice versa, etc. Sometimes that's not what you want but sometimes it is. Ideally there'd be time to figure it all out and do overdubs. Or there'd be >1 mic.

3)

3) Something to do with recording with two mikes, I think. You flip the phase of one of 'em to avoid some sort of something.

[Project-D]

1) I think there was also a noise gate effect after the reverb to trim off some of the decay of the reverb so as not to muddy up the mix. Some reverbs have a control called damping which also lets you shorten up the reverb decay.

That's pretty much it. It's a compression/reverb/noise gate combination, I remember seeing an article with Hugh Padgham (in the 80's) that talked about getting that "Phil Collins" sound and that's basically what he said. Slap a ton of compression and reverb on your drums and set a noise gate with a quick cut off, you don't want it to taper at all. Google "Phil Collins drum sound". In The Air Tonight is the song that started it all off.

[Ross]

The raw version of this track will probably sound muddled.

If you mic and play well, I don't see why it would "probably" sound that way.

I think a slight notch around 200 or just below can remove a little mud. This is a bigger problem for baritones than tenors, because we tend to seing in the same range as the guitar. Females have it even better.

[Reist]

1) As far as I can tell, you're talking gated reverb on the snare, right? Back in the day they would set up two mics for the snare in a huge, room with a lot of natural reverb. One mic was the close mic, the other was set up further away. The close mic would pick up the pop and punch of the snare, set up with a short gate to cut it off quick. The other mic would pick up the room ambience and be set up with a longer gate. The combination of these two tracks results in the punchy yet roomy sound of 80s snares.

While similar sounds can be (somewhat accomplished) using digital reverb effects these days, here's something I've thought of trying. I could record a single snare track, double it, and apply huge reverb and a long gate to the second track, while keeping the first track tight and poppy. I think that could get a pretty tight 80s sound (though digital reverb on a snare will never sound as good as the real deal).

I don't even know if that's what you're asking for, but I'm bored anyways.

[Project-D]

While similar sounds can be (somewhat accomplished) using digital reverb effects these days, here's something I've thought of trying. I could record a single snare track, double it, and apply huge reverb and a long gate to the second track, while keeping the first track tight and poppy. I think that could get a pretty tight 80s sound (though digital reverb on a snare will never sound as good as the real deal).

I don't even know if that's what you're asking for, but I'm bored anyways.

Sounds kind of like the "Motown Vocal" process. Double your vocal tracks, super compress one, boost about 5k to get lots of presence. Leave the other natural. Then combine the two in varying degrees until you get a punchy vocal without taking all the naturalness out of it. You're talking about different effects but the concept seems the same, combine a processed track with the unprocessed track in various degrees to get the sound you want.

[PlainSongs]

2)

If you mic and play well, I don't see why it would "probably" sound that way.

This is a bigger problem for baritones than tenors

Yeah I overgeneralized from my play/mic experience. Still I think you're right about the baritone part - singing an octave above speaking voice my vocals 'separate' noticeably from the guitar. But that's not the comfort zone. So yeah it's really a matter of separating out guitar-frequencies and voice-frequencies that are in the same range... hard to do? The tricks mentioned don't quite address this (though maybe mic positioning does) but they're all helpful.

1)
Reist, Project-D, that's interesting and sort of inversely tangential to question 2.