Re: X32 Screen Accident
Hey X32-Heads,
back from a nice X32 weekend
I'm working on a prog rock recording and just finished the first rough mix last saturday. Still some editing to do, but I'm pleased with the overall sound so far.
Just used the X32 and mixed and test mastered in StudioOneV2, no additional hardware. I'm seriously thinking about to buy a second X32 and put it in my studio B.
For me the X32 works great in a smaller studio enviroment. Here is a snippet of the song:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21028604/ProgRockSnippet.mp3
In addition I invested in more X32 gear..my P-16M micstand clamps came last friday. Looks good and really sturdy as well:
To conclude my X32 weekend, I mixed a Top40 band on familiy day event last sunday. But "high noon" is just not the right time for R'n'R. Beyond that, I had to deal with very strict SPL limits, what was not an easy task.
I couldn't bring up the drums to a level, they normally need to sound good, but that's part of the fun being provincial sound guy
In addition...no soundcheck, just line check with headphones...funny.
Here is a 2Track recording (staight of the desk with the build in USB recorder) of the opening song. You can hear, how I try to balance the individual volumes. Keyboards too quiet, GTR too loud...one check of the dealy and very little reverb
at the beginning, you know the deal.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21028604/MrsFab..mp3
The X32 on location was not mine, so I made a rough mixscene at home, that I stored to a USB stick and recalled on location. Works great. The only feature request that I have:
It would be nice, if the original scene name would be displayed. By now you just see the scene number and a (to me) cryptic column. But I marked the scene number on the flashdrive and was good to go.
Some pics:
Nice stageview
The band came with their own inear mixing desk. Nicely crafted setup. It has analog splitters with transformers bild in and every musician has its own small mulitcore subsnake (on Siemens connectors), carrying the mic signal, power and InEar signal.
The male leadsinger's vocal mic. Sounds "ok" to my ears.
During the gig, I had some time to play around with some cheesy&cheap mix tricks.
The first thing I tried, was to create pseudo stereo effect for the guitar. Here's the deal. I had just one channel of gtr with one mic. What I did is, routed the gtr to two individual channels. I panned one channel left and one channel to the right (not entirely). Than I EQed both channel just slightly different and activated the channel dealy just on the right channel and setup a channel dealy of about 18ms. This gives you a nice panorama sound with more depth. I find this useful for Solo instruments (like saxophone f.e.) or when dealing with rock trios (drums, bass, gtr and vocals).
This can be easily set up with the X32.
Than I asked myself, what can I do, to bring the drums more upfront in the mix, without increasing the volume? I came up with this. I created an audiosubgroup on bus 7&8. I routed all drums (kick, snare, toms) to it, but not the cymbals.
In this subgroup I inserted the dual tube stage effect and set the drive to about 20% and added some harmonics. Be sure, that the build in hi&low cuts are off. I don't know what this effect does, but it seems to me, that it adds a serious amount of THD and smooth overdrive, which helped the drums to cut through the mix if you don't overdo it. Maybe give it a try.
Have a great week!
Christian
