Analogue synths

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Hey, do you like the Churchills? My favorite Israeli psych band.

Hey, AspE, sure, a really talented, virtouso band playing very technical stuff.

Our drummer who is like in his 40s really really likes those bands from the 60s in israel and UK (well, he's a huge beatles fan and he tells me tales of the beatles when we're on the road). He knows some really obscure songs I never even heard of and just to note I like only old music because I think today's *mainstream* music is made for zombies and is not on par with the quality of alot of retro stuff (and it happens all over the world by the way).

Thanks for the info Chummy and Cat Ghost. There was always something about the sound that seemed flat (as in lacking depth) to me. Could be the analogue element I wanted to hear.

I've been intrigued hearing how Florian Schneider (Kraftwerk) built and adapted gear as did Paul Humphreys (OMD). I've done some vocal/guitar experiments (in GarageBand and Audacity) and when I get back to keyboard, I'll pursue analogue. Maybe see if constructing gear is feasible.

Cat Ghost, your site says you've got a gig on the 2nd (today). Is your group touring?

It does? haha.. nope. I've actually never performed any of those songs live. Purely a recording project.

However, if you wanted to hear more garage rock, here's a link to the band I played with before moving to Montreal. We toured, but only around Eastern Canada:

http://music.thebaketones.com


Edit: Bonus tip: Be sure to put a low-pass filter on your synth tracks. They can get a little squirrelly in the upper-frequencies. Start around 8k and bring it all the way down to 500hz to see how much high-end you need to roll off to make it play nice with the rest of the song.

Good to know. Is it to filter out noise/distortion?

When I mix, I like the 10-12k for pianos/keyboards/synths and clean (NOT distorted) guitars. My synth tracks I usually saturate with tape simulator or something to fatten 'em up.

I find the 1-2k range troublesome to many instruments, but the only rule is that there are no rules (you can record for example with 5000$ gear in perfect conditions and get a superb quality recording of any instrument that won't need any EQ, at all - or rather get the same instrument with a lower quality recording and need more effort put into sound design to get the same results). I once mixed a jazz track where I actually upped those certain frequencies on several brass tracks to get that 20s/30s vinyl noisy/distorted effect. If it sounds good, it's good.

Just remember to pan your instrument if neccesary (except for kick, snare and soloing guitar/lead/vocal). You should also experiment with HPFing instruments that interfere with your lower frequency oriented tracks like kick and bass, so those are emphasized and heard better.

Noise and distortion is your friend, funnily enough. Well, maybe not noise, but definitely distortion... let's use the audio term "saturation" though. It'll make it easier for me to type out my thought. haha.

I know this isn't exactly answering the question you asked but have you ever played a song on a great-sounding song and then played that same song on a clock radio or tiny portable speakers? If you have, you'll notice that the small speakers have way less bass. This is simply a physics problem, small speakers can't reproduce low frequencies very well. The good news is that we can help the small speakers along by adding "saturation" to the tracks that are likely to lose necessary low end when played on small speakers. What saturation (tube saturation, harmonic exciters, tape saturation, etc) does is enhance the harmonic content of the track, so while on a small speaker you might not be able to hear a low B on a 5-string bass (39Hz, if I remember correctly), adding saturation will enhance the harmonics above the fundamental and our brains will "hear" the low end because our brains are really good at interpreting this type of sensory input.

Take a nicely-muted kik drum, for example. It has two spikes: its fundamental which should be somewhere around 80Hz, and the attack of the beater hitting the drum, usually somewhere around 3-5kHz (depending on the beater material, the drum head, and the size of the drum). If the speaker can't reproduce 80Hz, the kik will sound like it has no body whatsoever and will be all clicky attack. Adding some saturation to the kick will fill out the lower-midrange and will allow the body of the drum to be easily heard on smaller speakers.

Wow, I didn't expect this post to be so long. haha. I tend to over-explain things.

BUT, to actually answer your question, you add a low-pass filter to synthesizers to kind of "push it back" into your mix. Things with little upper-frequency content are heard as being farther away.

Got it. The inclusion of the harmonics makes sense.

Here's a vid of Andy McCluskey (OMD) showing what the raw tracks of Enola Gay sound like:
https://youtu.be/Fq1r3mzi9jg

BTW, Cat Ghost, I like the organ sound on track 2 of your album (You're Slippin' Away). Are you using a Hammond B3?

Ummm... If memory serves, I tracked that song after I sold my Hammond so it'd have to either be my Nord Electro 2's B3 patch or the Native Instruments B4 virtual instrument. I'll check tomorrow and see. I tracked the drums at the drummer's house and then just did the rest of the stuff in my bedroom. I remember a time when I thought I needed $100K worth of gear to do an album.. haha.. those days are long gone.

I think I might offer to do free mixes for anybody on this site. Seems like a good way to give back to the community. Good idea?

Taken a few months ago, my bedroom studio. You can't see the Bass, uke, guitar and other stuff but just to show off the big boys, the thread is about synths I guess

Sweet setup! Are those the active reissues of the Yamaha ns10s? I had the old passive ns10s with a Bryston 4b power amp in my studio and I loved them. Best when paired with a sub though.

Hey, those are the YAMAHA HS-5, active I think but I don't care. My room's acoustics are not the best anyway I live with my roomie at a residential unit near a house, and that "addon" unit we live in is pretty much in an area without much reception ,walls are thick and I'm lucky to my my wireless net working

Haha awesome. I'm of the opinion that monitors don't really matter all that much as long as you "know" them. Honestly, I can do a mix just as well in my untreated living room with the old Tascam monitors I've been using for about 15 years as I could back in my treated studio with 3 sets of monitors (Adam A7, Yamaha NS10, and Tannoy Gold).

Gear is still really fun to talk about though.

Back to analog synths though (got a little off the rails there...), my old Moog MG1 was modded so that I could run anything with a 1/4" jack into the filter section of the synth. Had some good times plugging a guitar into it and messing around with the filters.

I also had a Casio DG20 (look it up if you've never heard of it, it's hilarious). It glitched like crazy and was insanely hard to play, but man, was it a lot of fun.

Well there in a nutshell is capitalism-- companies need to sell gear, so every so many years there's a "new and improved" model you have to have to stay relevant. Show me an absolutely flat response monitor and I'll show you a liar. Seeing as how the majority of speakers have a slight boost from 5k-10k it makes no sense to mix purely flat anyhow, best to have a variety of monitors and make sure it sounds good on all of them.

Yep. You nailed it.

I'm also sticking with my copy of Pro Tools 8 for as long as I can. It's rock solid and I know it inside and out. Kinda sucks that they're all the way up to Pro Tools 12 now, but I don't want to have to pay the upgrade/crossgrade/whatever fees to get all my RTAS plugins converted over to the new AAX format.

My studio ran Pro Tools 7.4 and we never considered upgrading because a HD/TDM system costs a fortune to upgrade.

I heard of the casio DG-20 lol!! ! There is also a Roland MIDI guitar which is better but more expensive. I wonder if it is worth getting one and what was your experience with it, or any other models alike.