Who is slipperman

Some of the 'twist' combinations would probably cause R. Neve to hurl himself screaming thru a plate glass window. Guitars of every shape, size, and description Like over 20 of them.

It looks like "48th. Guitars" in there. A bewildering array of compressors and limiters. New ones New ones that make like they're old ones.

Old ones that are older than the band. Ones that are older than the producer. Ones that are older than me, and even ONE that is older than Fletcher. Kill me, I wanna make bluegrass records no wait. Sit around blowing lines in a Soho apartment with sound modules, a Mackie Digital 8-buss and a few vintage keyboards waiting for the fashionably underweight supermodels to come and pick us up for a quick 'hummer' before we head over to the 'Slimelight' to blow our brains out dropping 'X', flailing around like silly freaks and humping in the bathrooms all night.

Somebody wanted to know about phase issues with 2 mics. I purposely stated way back in the thread that for our example here we were going to limit our discussion to 1 SM57 on 1 4x12 cabinet for exactly that reason.

Multi mic stuff is a BIG can o' wormies. Can be as simple as falling off a log Can be a giant clusterfuck from hell. I may go there later if I really need to make my life a waking nightmare.

OK, We did some placement, we did some EQ. Our original question was posed about some HUGE dynamic stuff swinging around in our signal input. Prudent mic placement, some 'front face twist' on the amp itself and some Eq. What if yer still swinging around Db. Time to break out the compression gear kids. All there is to it. First, let's get one thing straight. ANY compressor is going to fuck with important parts of your signal. Especially pick attack and the 'life' of the guitar sound by hammering the transients from the input waveform.

Lets back up here. Try this: Take a guitar amp that has separate clean and dirty channels with gain controls that feed a master volume output knobbie. Set the 'pre' channels to about the same o'clock on both channels and crank the master volume with the dirt channel engaged.

Then hit a big chord. Twist it up to 'Stage Volume'. Now, right in the middle of a riff. Hurts huh? Now switch back to the distorted channel. By comparison. Nu-Metal guys are gonna have trouble buying into any flavor of this concept, and we agreed we would "Work with what they gave us" Right? In my shop I'm going to be compressing the living shit outta your ass one way or the other.

A lot of guitar purists state The wisdom is based on observations and their logical extrapolations of the phenomena we just got done discussing. That is By and large, I agree. So I say Here's why: The Distressor has a bunch of fun little knobs and buttons on it that can keep you from digging yourself a big grave while you gain control of a wayward signal.

The EL-8 to tape. How we gonna do it? In a nutshell. Stunning huh? First I'm gonna ramble aimlessly about EQ. Today in my 'B' room a new record has started for a solid indie we do about records a years for Not something I see every day. We have done a full length for these jokers in the past and it's 'Old Home Week' with a lot of ball busting, nicknames and general grab- assing around.

As far as the guitar sound goes Here's what we did. In the 'Big picture' the Guitars sounded a little veiled and indistinct. These kids play all the cool chords like a bunch silly freaks so 'clarity' is a big issue. In other words Believe in the band. Believe in the song. Believe the shit can be shaped around to serve our nefarious purposes later in mix. Hearing the guitars 'in the fray' with the other instruments is pivotal to accomplishing these objectives.

Today we 'formed' the guitars, on input with EQ. We also hi-passed at 50hz to reduce some 'lo-freq. Another narrow cut at hz was employed to diminish a bit of the low-mid 'murk'. A narrow boost at This made some stuff at 2. I then started to feel that our sound had gone from 'muslin' to 'peanut brittle'. It was still smeared and 'forced' sounding up there What the fuck?. On go the 'Grados'. We got a problem.

We're flattening the mic diaphragm more than a little. Some of our 'grit' is coming from the microphone screaming in agony at the tsunami of SPL we're pounding it mercilessly with. The EQ. Roll down the master gain on the head.

No fucking way. No problem. Send our slave Asst. Now our top is sounding better and our mid 'bump' is no longer needed. Time to kill the 'Sizzlean' at 8Khz. Down comes the low pass Sounds murky again Wait 15 seconds. Roll it up. Comparative shopping mirage! Don't be an impetuous Zorch. Same theory when comparing EQ'd vs.

Un-EQ'd signals. And louder is very often NOT better. I have often observed young AE's struggling vainly to 'rip' EQ. Meanwhile the EQ. Grab the trim with one and compensate for the EQ.

Or whatever methodology you devise to accomplish this About 10 ways I can think of off the top of my head to skin this cat. Otherwise you're gonna be grab-assing around in the fucking dark convincing yourself Fuck that You come up with a way outta this audio conundrum you gimmie a call at the fucking office.

Mic placement IS EQ. How hard you drive a cabinet is EQ. The instrument you select to play is EQ. The space you record in is EQ. Even when it's precipitated by 'Time Domain'. Get fucking used to it. Better yet. Have fun with it. Don't take any shit about cutting EQ. Twist that shit around with reckless abandon.

Make it fucking happen. Hurt somebody. If you get something going on with a set of frequency dependent filters in a desk or outboard box instead of one of these "OTHER" E. So where am I going with this? What's this got to do with our 'Chugga-Chugga' dynamic swing bullshit? This is the case MOST of the time. The earlier in the process you train yourself to start anticipating these needs the better off you're gonna be, and the more you're gonna be able to refine and focus your efforts and attentions in an expeditious fashion.

As somebody said in Spinal Tap Back to our long forgotten EL-8 to tape. So I get this guitar sound that everybody seems to be digging in a major way. But NOW I've got another problem. As the kid plays palm-mute style 'chuggs', I've got to keep backing 'to tape' level down to keep from kryloning the shit outta the meters. Input Smash: What you don't hear can kill you. When you're recording dirt guitars there are a few things to remember that are pretty easy to forget. When you record an acoustic guitar it's pretty easy to hear distortion in the chain Pretty solid chance yer gonna hear the diaphragm screaming in agony.

Now let's imagine the mic gets pulled back to a decent distance but you ram-a-jam the mic pre gain like a muthafucka and THAT generates a shitload of nasty clipping downstream. Back off the pre, you prick That's more fucking like it. Almost sounds like a recording now Now imagine you decide to smash the fuck outta yer acoustic with a compressor and you back the attack off to the point where a lot of 'Front' is spanking into the compressor and you compound the problem by squelching the release so fucking fast, the output is starting to sound like a ProCo Turbo Rat Grab a little more of the transient component by speeding up the attack and add a little length to the release so the compressor stops distorting as much.

No big. Back the 'To tape' gain back to the point where you've got some cool tape compression going but yer not adding a shitload of tape distortion to the fray.

Totally easy, Mel Bay book 1 shit right? OK, Guess what? So right about now somebody's gotta be saying. Who fucking cares? When you go into mix on this stuff downstream, you are going to be hating life as you start to rip and goose various frequencies to make your guitars work in your mix Any of those other guys are the totally satanic 'Gifts that keep on giving'.

Those other forms of distortion are like herpes. And you've already started banging the crap outta Mrs. The babe of your dreams. Guess what, loomer?

Don't be a prick. Check yer math. So you whip one of those bad boys across the bus output and you start to dial around. It will make it easier to hear the effect of the attack control settings, which is the first thing you should be concerned with. As the 'Rocket Scientist' twanks away on his mutant ukulele, you start adjusting the attack to figure out how 'long' the pick attack is. Every distorted guitar tone is going to have it's own little 'wave shape profile' you gotta figure out to gain control over the sound.

You should be able to get a good feel for how much total duration is contained in the 'Attack' portion of the signal. Screw around with input gain, ratio and threshold to exaggerate and reduce the effect of compression to confirm your observations. Yer trying to figure out HOW the compressor is gonna be able to 'Grab' the signal.

You will start to see a trend in how far back you gotta 'offset' the attack and not KILL the life of the pick attack. The slower attack times will sound more 'real' and 'exciting' but you will have to use higher and higher ratios and lower and lower thresholds to get the activity you need as far as gain reduction and signal control. Word to the wise. Be very careful about banging all the attack off a signal as dense and 'Steady State' as a heavily distorted guitar.

You fuck up the attack on input and you will never be able to get the excitement back in the track no matter HOW you Eq. On the other hand, you gotta get yer 'Nu-Metal' Bozo to tape with some moderately sane semblance of dynamic swing between 'Chugs' and 'Chords'.

In the most simple, Singleton- frequency selective compression situation, what you know about how to set up the attack and release envelope is going to be the single biggest harbinger of your potential success or failure. Now take a similar approach to the release envelope. Fool with yer release time and check out the effect of lengthening the 'let-go' activity of the unit. The faster release times will sound more 'exciting' and 'real' but will get you back into hot water when 'Einstein' starts 'Chugging'.

You've got to try to find a happy medium where it's under control but it doesn't sound 'Stepped on'. Chances are, in really bad situations No single '1 Compressor' scheme is gonna cut it Might be time to check the alternatives. There are a SLEW of them. The big 3. On 29 May austin wrote: Quote: Slipperman, A question from the gallery That seems to be the real question to ask, given that the others would be easier to spot by checking a peak led or fiddling with a knob A LOT of trouble to be sure.

To avoid this fiasco, I generally will use a pair of hi quality headphones Grados at pretty low volume where I try to twist away the same stuff on the monitor output that I may end up cutting as I fit the track into the 'Big Picture' later in mix. Hi pass at , shelf down db , narrow rips swept between The artifacts are easier to spot if you have the kid alternate between chugging and sustained chords.

Each of these checks are done and undone separately in a sequence of twists. The 'spatter' is broadband and can be 'pointed' in a whole load of different areas depending on input but.

It has a different 'transient' quality to it that makes it VERY dangerous. Its duration is longer than the pick attack and much shorter than the 'steady state' signal. It often shifts around somewhat unpredictably playing havoc with the uniformity of the overall sound. Like anything else, the devil is in the details, and a little bit of early vigilance and perseverance in monitoring will save you a world of trouble in the long run and teach you what to 'listen for' so this little drill starts takes less and less time to do.

Hope this answers the question. Gotta flee. Be back soon. Here we go again. I'm so completely fried tonight it a joke. I don't give a fuck, I've been promising another installment for so long I'm starting to feel like a real asshole here. Lemme just say this for openers. Distorted guitar is just one of a bunch of instruments in any heavy music mix.

Its 'size' is going to be largely a function of its comparative energy, both as a function of 'full bandwidth' and 'frequency dependent' amplitude swing. Here's the deal.

Perceptions of size, shape, texture and color, that are all inter-dependent in their various relationships with each other to provide this contrast. Speak human. Lets make it simple. Back in the days when humans were allowed to attend my mixes my assistants are NOT human, trust me on this one , I was regularly presented with various recordings culled from the CD collections of usually well meaning band members to 'point me in the right direction' regarding Sounds.

Ahh yes. Some kid in a metal band would earnestly explain to me that" Dude! You gotta make our shit sound like THAT. This type of moron is a prime example of an individual who needs a crash course in contrast, a brief 'life threatening' beating!

It's gonna get weird now for a bit. I hate to do this to those of you who want to get into the nuts and bolts of 'heavy guitar, mix EQ'. But yer gonna hafta bear with me for a bit here 'cause. Most not all, with the advent of CMI's musical instruments, and the poor bastards cursed with playing them, are integrated human controlled sound pressure transduction systems.

That is, some guy stands in a room, straps on a guitar, picks up a plectrum, strikes a string or 2 or 6 , the string resonates in response to the applied mechanical energy at a frequency determined by a combination of it's tension, it's length, and it's diameter which partially facilitates it's range of frequency vs. Those sound pressure changes contract and expand the actual terms are compression and rarefaction the air in the room, this energy zips into our eardrums, our eardrums resonate in sympathy and in turn convert these pulses into human electrical energy that gets loaded onto the 'hell bound express' and shipped right into the brain.

That's when we go Or maybe. One more time because it's going to become a fucking mantra here in this thread. The fucking pick matters. About 26 horribly tangential and seemingly endless posts from now you are going to see where I am going with this and form a mob and lynch me.

I realize that for some of you this first new installment has been kind of a 'low yield' bore but. Best to all. Let the games resume. We hit on 2 basic but crucial principles in the 1st installment. The comparative energies and overall spectral disposition of the instruments that accompany dirt guitars, in a mix are going to dramatically affect our end perception of the sonic silhouette of those guitars.

We're gonna get back to this later From recording thru mix. Some obvious and some much less so. Lemme give ya some examples here tonight to illuminate principle 2: I mix a lot of records where I have some degree of control over what transpires during tracking.

I mix some records where I don't. Given the first scenario, I try to stick my head into sessions on occasion to see how things are going And how. Wrong instrument for the player or sound. Wrong 'twist' settings on the front face of the amp for the player, instrument or sound. Because: A. Most guys have 'Their sound'. The sound they make on 'their rig' with 'their guitar'.

Most guys don't know you from Adam and are scared to death about taking your advice regarding something that has become a familiar and comforting 'blankie' for them Plus as the 'Sonic Author' of their guitar sound There are potentially some inherent wisdoms hidden in these assessments after all Artistically relevant. Don't laugh, kids are fucking crazy. His 'chugging' sound strikes a pretty decent balance between 'swing' and 'tight' and he's a good palm-muter that can, and does control the duration and depth of the 'chugging' shit pretty well.

Not yet. Problem is You can't hear much difference between a C 5 barre-chord and a C 9. Or is it? Will a change in guitar be more effective than a change in 'twist' on the amp-face? What else does he got with him? Maybe his old "It's cool but I never use it" - SG standard. Plug it in. Those fuckers can CHIME like a bitch and just might make the difference between disaster and salvation. So you try it It's too fucking OLD. It chimes alright Sounds like a fucking busted church-bell being hydro-phoned by a crack head to a submarine salvage vehicle thru a Korean-War era walkie-talkie.

Strike 1. Kid thinks you're a fucking retard. Twist the gain down a little Now he's got that look on his face like somebody farted.

Try twisting up the mids to get a little clarity back, as you do this you may be able to drop the gain a little, as the preamp starts to saturate more in the 'hurt zone'. This is helping but, of course, the first thing the kid starts to do is CHUG again. And ya know what? Very 'bleacky' A technical term they teach at GIT. How you gonna get around this? Can you guys? Kick it around if you'd like I'll be back soon. Here we go. I was chatting online with a buddy of mine the other day, and he says It's so fucking endless.

Fark it I started thinking about the various records I have done over the years, and the original question presented by 'carnederes' in the now almost 2 year old thread again And I remembered an album I did about years ago for a very talented, and now sadly defunct, heavy rock outfit from NY.

As I have stated here and elsewhere ad nauseum -1 find ALL my work pretty much unlistenable, as do most other people I've been looking for an excuse to determine which channels on my main tracking desk need to be re-capped so One of the assistants goes scurrying into the tape locker and eventually fishes out the masters.

We pile into the proper control room, and he puts the thing up. Faders up. I'm kinda amazed by this and it gets the old Slipper-Noggin-Espresso-Maker set to 'fine grind'. The assistant is pretty familiar with the band, but has never heard this particular record, and is occasionally commenting on various things in the fray as I proceed to just solo here and there, and noodle a tad with the various instrument tracks.

So basically This really IS a great record They know how to play their own music Sometimes you hit those admittedly diminutive cathartic moments. It is the fortuitous ineptitude inherent in the appearance of these minor epiphanies that I use as a glib internal rejoinder to the unspoken daily interrogative So, I proceed to stop the tape machine and sit and talk with the assistant for about an hour, to attempt to explain WHY I think our mutual assessments of the inherent workability of this particular recording are based in some profound truths.

Some fairly obvious and some a bit more oblique. My next post will focus on these. Please accept my apologies in advance for this unfortunate situation. Chaotic' and "Entropic". OR: Dr. Smith to Robot: "Spare me your poisonous platitudes you floundering flunky!!! Imagine yer 2 buss is a telephone booth.

Imagine yer mix is a bus stop full of loomers from a local college cheering section. You might have Ya might even have baby Mastodons Hey! He might be the mascot!!! Yer mission, should you be stupid or crazy enough to accept it, is to jam all these characters into the telephone booth in a fashion where. The smartest and most important guys can reach the handset. You can close the door and the booth is still primarily intact. As few people as possible die in the process. Take a photo of the whole shebang where the chick with the great face and stunning lungs is jammed up against the front glass looking like she's getting rogered by the drum major.

All common scenarios. See it every day. Be right back. Duty beckons. No sleep yet. Insomnia again. Here we go My preceding post was obviously referring to the various elements in a mix, and how you, as the mix AE, would have to determine WHO everybody usually would be shaped, and HOW they would be shaped. When yer up against dense mixes like the kind ya get in various 'Heavy Music' forms.

The way ya manage to fit everybody in the phone booth can get pretty convoluted This is because mixing most 'heavy music' records is like trying to find order and lucidity in a recording of a Cathedral Pipe Organ, all stops out, randomly veering between Handel's Messiah, Ginestera's 2nd and a coupla Bach Fugues And that's on the lighter side of the genre.

I am dead serious about the previous mix analogy. You got a half million belligerent yahoos all competing for the same lousy 22 cubic feet of phone booth, and they are all insistent that every last minute detail of the stitch of their gogo boots AND the gigantic pink penis parade float is "cast in stone", "artistically relevant", "imperative to accomplishing the song objectives" and of course This is why I mix alone.

So I can curse and rebuke God while hurling random breakable items around the control room. So I can threaten to stab, bludgeon, shoot, burn, gut, fillet the cocks of, draw and quarter, hang, crucify, and otherwise generally express my extreme displeasure at the mindless assemblage of cretins that DID THIS TO ME I usually do this till I'm eventually discovered the next morning But HEY!!!!!

Not Vitalis. Nexus 'Super-hold' styling gel. Back to the subject at hand. Here's the funny thing. All art finds its impact in contrast. This is da muthafukka. How we gonna get around this? Be back sooner than you might be wishing. Can't say if it's gonna get any clearer. It's me. I'm on a fucking mission now. I had a mix job slated for this week and the producer decide to go to Amsterdam without notifying anybody.. Genius move huh? Nothing but time and insomnia on my hands for a day or two That would be novel.

As I'm listening to this record I was speaking about earlier in this thread And how I'm supposing here Let's do a track by track rundown. And we'll go thru the early paces and problems. A cursory glance at psychological similarities between my mindset on that matter entering the mix room unpaid and the mindset of your average provider of "commercial companionship" A prostitute are quite telling As I said.

Be Right Back. Our beloved Slipperman has spent many hours educating us, confounding us, annoying us, amusing us, and yanking our individual and collective chains. Has he not brought us enough joy while wearing his mask of anonimity? Slip, keep up the good work. I don't need to know your real name. And when you take off the moderator pin, will you go back to being your surly and profane self?

I can always hope.. Whir Lee. I am really breaking Rule 1 right now, but here it is anyways: Brian Boitano. He's a real cool cat and he lives on top of Manhatten Chase. When the elevator's broke he slides down a rope. Curious G. Of course that was the 70's so things may be a bit hazy The prize is an autographed LA-2A.

Malice is holding it in France and he's waiting at the Post Office to ship it to the winner. I know because he gave my niece a ticket. Chessman, you did it again heh malice. So my guess is Phil Spector. If they do I hope it's a dialup. I don't want my tax dollars to pay for someone's cable modem. Originally posted by Jay Kahrs If they do I hope it's a dialup.

Maniac His initials are TG. No one does. Sorry to bust your bubble. Jules wrote on Thu, 28 May Like the hilariously accidentally banned 'Malice', I hadn't actually meant to ban you "forever", despite that being the message presented to you when you tried to log in.. That achieved, you are 'unbanned',your temporary suspension has been lifted.

I realize I don't know you very well, Jules, but this is coming off as a crock to me. How many parameters are there for banning someone? I count three. I'd hope you pay closer attention to detail in your recordings than you do with your job. Kris Hero Member Offline Posts: Blair wrote on Thu, 28 May A friend who is a very well known and popular engineer whose name I'm not disclosing because he told me this in confidence told me that because of the quality of discourse, he stopped going there.

Can I guess??? Rhymes with bukake??? You guys are too much! Start your own damn forum and run it however you please! With affection and a dose of humor,. Sean Eldon Qualls wrote on Thu, 28 May Jules wrote on Thu, 28 May Anyway Sean, now you know I think its two-faced of you to trawl the GS community for sales as 'one of the gang' and then to 'amusingly' carry round a message slagging them all off elsewhere. That's probably true in your world, but to someone like me, it looks exactly like Jules described.

I bet money you'll be right back to posting at Gearslutz I'm SURE your employer would like that. I may be wrong though. I'd guess that there are a few sales to be had through Gearslutz association, even if a personal commission isn't attached. With that said, I am a fan of Mercenary and do find value in much of the posts your crew has made over the years I think it is nice of Jules to lift the 'ban' and you should be a stand up pimp and remove the tasteless quote from your sig here!

Wow, I think maybe I was the first to be banned from Gearslutz!! Hurray for me!!! Actually I would disagree with some in here, I think that Gearslutz has wonderful, wonderful potential.

I gleaned a lot of info from the site maybe that means I'm a moron I was actually a bit pissed that they banned me, I felt like I was fighting the fight they should have been fighting. I got into a long argument with the usual douche suspects about the new TLM I simply thought it was wrong to allow posts about how the mic sucked before it came out and that slamming a company which I do sell for BTW, but not the reason without anything to back it up was wrong.

Posts that read nothing more than "Neumann sucks" are uninformative nor useful, yet it seems gearslutz embraces this amateur style. I have no problem with a post that says "I have used several new Neumann's and they sucked so I'd imagine the new one won't be much better" that is an informed opinion.

In the process Gearslutz' obviously beloved gearpimp to the hip hop crowd Tony Belmont goes out and find pics posted on my other websites and brings them into the mix on one of the threads.

He thought it was somehow insulting to me Jules WTF is up with Gearslutz? Who IS running the show over there? You are letting possibly one of the best forums for audio on the net be hacked up with morons. I think the signature line from the guy you all just banned is to the point and frankly honest about the state of your site. As a guy who owns several of his own businesses I'd gladly take any abuse I could about my business if it meant it would improve what I do.

I see the guys sig line as a way for you to reach out rather than slay yet another potentially good poster to protect the worthless, to embrace him and say "why do you feel that way?