who wants to home tutor me?

[goat]

Anyone here that has extensive-ish experience in mixing that wants to earn some money doing a few home tutors?
I have Cubase 4 and a few other bits and pieces here so i have the tools.

Im getting a decent enough sound but would like some pointers on setting up a better drum sound ie compression, gating etc.
I seem to be missing some things in my mixes, mainly, nuts nad clarity on the dums and bass side of it.

Really only looking for someone that has ben schooled or really knows their shit.

Feel free to PM me.
Cheers.
Deon.

[cdtBEAST]

Worry less about the schooling & more about their real life recording experience.
Talk to the guys who have recorded & have nailed the things right that you are finding problematic.
Bass is a real bitch to nail down. It gets really lumpy & messy quickly. Unfortunately bass is an area that suffers in small rooms ie: most home studios. To nail the bottom end you need to spend time understanding the physical limitations of the size of your room, what can be done to improve it, what you are left with after improvement.
Also the quality of your speakers are really important when it comes to bass.
Correct microphone phasing makes all the difference when it comes to drums. Also a gate plugin where you can isolate all the transient notes on all the other drums so only the drum that you hit opens it's own gate makes shit a hell of a lot easier. It also means that there are less phasing issues.  This needs to be done @ the very beginning though before tracking. It is possible to do post but can be a real bitch, depending on how you phased all the mics & to what central point.
Try killing around 80hz  & pushing a little around 30hz on the bass track. Then kill around 30hz on the kicks & smaller toms & giving them a little push around 80hz. The bigger toms may need some cutting @ around 30hz as well. This better done when originally constructing your bass & drum tone, however it also works post mix. If you do it @ the start of the process you build your tone to sound killer without the frequencies that have been omitted. You can also keep a check with an analyzer plugin to make sure that you are not trying to push back in the frequencies that you have omitted in the first place.   
80hz is better for faster transient lower end. 30hz is better for sub drones or big constant bottom end.

Reaper comes with a single plugin that can do all of these things very simply & efficiently. I can show you some time if ya like. Hopefully there is a similar plugin for cubase out there. Otherwise you can switch over to Reaper, it will recognize most of the cubase plugins that you use & also can run vst plugins on top of it's own 2 plugin formats.

[goat]

Worry less about the schooling & more about their real life recording experience.
Talk to the guys who have recorded & have nailed the things right that you are finding problematic.
Bass is a real bitch to nail down. It gets really lumpy & messy quickly. Unfortunately bass is an area that suffers in small rooms ie: most home studios. To nail the bottom end you need to spend time understanding the physical limitations of the size of your room, what can be done to improve it, what you are left with after improvement.
Also the quality of your speakers are really important when it comes to bass.
Correct microphone phasing makes all the difference when it comes to drums. Also a gate plugin where you can isolate all the transient notes on all the other drums so only the drum that you hit opens it's own gate makes shit a hell of a lot easier. It also means that there are less phasing issues.  This needs to be done @ the very beginning though before tracking. It is possible to do post but can be a real bitch, depending on how you phased all the mics & to what central point.
Try killing around 80hz  & pushing a little around 30hz on the bass track. Then kill around 30hz on the kicks & smaller toms & giving them a little push around 80hz. The bigger toms may need some cutting @ around 30hz as well. This better done when originally constructing your bass & drum tone, however it also works post mix. If you do it @ the start of the process you build your tone to sound killer without the frequencies that have been omitted. You can also keep a check with an analyzer plugin to make sure that you are not trying to push back in the frequencies that you have omitted in the first place.   
80hz is better for faster transient lower end. 30hz is better for sub drones or big constant bottom end.

Reaper comes with a single plugin that can do all of these things very simply & efficiently. I can show you some time if ya like. Hopefully there is a similar plugin for cubase out there. Otherwise you can switch over to Reaper, it will recognize most of the cubase plugins that you use & also can run vst plugins on top of it's own 2 plugin formats.

thanks mate, i can make it a hell of alot easier for you than that even.

Im using (Youll kill me but) POD farm and  sd2 ezdrummer atm. So alot of topics youve metioned there are prety much set to an extent.
I guess im looking for someone to take a look and listen to what im doing and sorta go, Ohh yeah man, try this plug to bring out the nuts on this instrument etc. I havent had alot of exposure, or never paid attention in the past to engineering as much as i shouldve, so everything im doing is by working the shit out myself to a degree.
As far as POD goes im going to be layering with that and the real thing tho.

I'd like some pointers on tried and tested methods as a basic rule to start with and some confirmation, or raised eyebrows, on what im doing. My mixes sound pretty good for what i know, but they lack colour and sparkle due to my lack of knowledge on how to bring what i have to life more.

and yes, i agree, its all in the ground work at the start, i could also use pointers on getting my signal chain set up for max effect.
My mixes sound a little LoFi.

Maybe i could send a song for you to have a quick sift thru?

[Nosaj]

Hey Deon. For the drums why don't You try running Podfarm in conjuction with Superior drummer. Assuming Your Pc and software allows that.
Podfarm has presets for drums, Keyboards and other instruments not just Guitar/Bass and Vocals. Use the preamp model to reshape the drums sound and then add Verb, Comp and wat ever other effect You might want. I was experimenting with Podfarm on some of the virtual synth and mellotron models and it sounds wikid. Then I tryed it with EZdrummer and drmkit from hell and it was like  


By the way. I think I found a way around my cpu usage problem. I run both Reaper and podfarm as a standalone. Reaper picks up the podfarm in standalone form. So I don't need to run PF in host mode. Doing it this way I was able to get upto 14 more tracks without the PC clipping. I'll still have to get a better PC later down the track. But for now I'm a happy camper.

[cdtBEAST]

Nice work Nosaj

[goat]

Doing already Jas with the verb, prefer the Cubase 4 verb atm. havent run it thru any pre's though, cant see how it would be any better than what Toontrack recorded with. seen the add for it? fuck me, they got it sused.