Thursday, 1 April 2004

more Water Music: more "La Semana" Mood: I posted a photo of water yesterday and we got some rain at last...so I am posting another one... 10:28:57 PM    comment []; Aqua Santa Aqua Santa is a nice new restaurant in Santa Fe, on Alameda Street. 10:16:44 PM    comment []; Mixing I remember when mixing was done on analog consoles...for "NF" I had only about 3-4 hours per song, for "Borrasca" and "Solo Para Ti" that expanded to 6-12 hours per song...I remember waking up on the day we were supposed to go to L.A. to master "Solo..." and hating the "Samba Pa Ti" mix I had done a few days previous - so I went back in and mixed it again in about 4 hours... By the time we were making "The Hours..." we were working with a console that had primitive recall, basic moving faders which brought back only the volume of each track and I was sometimes taking a couple of days to mix a song. Then came the Euphonix console in 1994 and with it unlimited recall - everything from volume to EQs to routing...and we were taking even longer to mix an album. "Opium" was the first album I recorded and mixed on the Euphonix. In an effort to make even more dynamic and quiet recordings we went through a whole process of muting each track when the instrument was not playing, i.e. eliminating the noise of the electric guitar amplifier or a percussionist moving from side to side...mixing an album now took about a month and I didn't like all of the "work". I started thinking about preserving a certain ratio between playing and working - or between recording and mixing...and yet - the ratio kept leaning more towards mixing... For a while my brother mixed the albums together with engineer Gary Lyons - they mixed "Opium" and "Innamorare" for example. We had a little system going: I would practice guitar or do other things and would have fresh ears when they brought me another mix to listen to. Those albums took many weeks to mix and Stefan and Gary did a fine job. The event of digital recording changed things again. Now even the effects can be completely recalled as they are plug-ins...an unlimited number of EQs can be named and stored in memory...now I tend to mix in spurts, usually starting at the beginning. Record, mix, record, mix... Right now I am in the end-phase of mixing. It is interesting that one has to subtract so much from a recording for it to work over speakers. Speakers add a lot of body to the sound. The old engineer code is that it is better to subtract than to add, meaning that is sounds better to thin out a guitar or bass that is too thick and rich, than to try to add body to a guitar or bass that have been recorded too thin. I have 4 stereo systems in my house, from a cheap JBL unit I bought at Costco to more expensive units - and I usually burn a CD of the most recent mixes I have made and go to the house and listen. The music has to work on a wide variety of stereos, from the shittiest boom box to the finest stereo system - that is one of the crazy elements of producing.... 10:16:08 PM    comment [];

© Copyright 2004 Ottmar Liebert. Last update: 01.05.04; 20:13:46.