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Stripey

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ok so you've recorded your performance at captain toms or whatever other studio. Do you use the raw mix on your cd's or records or whatever, or do you take away stems and do your own mix? Do any of the local studios have the facilities to produce a proper high quality pre-master mix, e.g high quality sidechainable compressors, limiters, eq's, filters and so on (and an engineer with a clue obviously) ?

What sample rates do these studios operate at? Do they stretch as far as bitscopes and correlation meters? Have you ever left somewhere like captain toms with the assurance that your mix is mono compatible?

Secondly, have you ever paid for post-mix mastering and is there anywhere in aberdeen with the facilities and the knowhow to produce quality masters?

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sorry that was me logged in the wrong account.

Was i right about the list of things you were looking for are they just general things you would expect in a studio or what?

nah I'm curious to know what sort of service the studios around here actually offer, and what bands expect from them.

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well in terms of all that technical stuff i couldnt tell you. In terms of what i expect, all i really look for is an engineer i can work well with. Anything else should really come together if you have that, as you stated in the gas thread you dont need to have all the fancy equipment sometimes less is best. Ive found going to a "lesser" studio can test the band more that spending lots in a fancy place. it all depends on what you want from the money your going to spend.

We go to just outside mintlaw to record, the quality is great and i find steve amazing to work with, ive been to others but not liked them as much.

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You could speak to Steve or Paul in Stanley. They run a studio and might be able to answer your tech spec questions.

whats Stanley?

I'm more interested in hearing bands experiences of using these places, the process they go through and the quality of the results they acheive.

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whats Stanley?

I'm more interested in hearing bands experiences of using these places, the process they go through and the quality of the results they acheive.

I recorded at the old exile and the quality was pretty good to be honest. Mark Nicol produced it. I could try and hunt some CDs for you

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Guest Tam o' Shantie

stripey 10EW generally record at captain tom's these days and mix at home. this is not necessarily because I can do a better job (though easier to get the sound we desire) but because we don't really have money to spend more than a few hours in the studio. Our new single was done in this manner, and in my opinion sounds pretty good.

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Recorded in Captain Tom's years ago. Live recording with all the separate tracks to mix ourselves. Since then we have recorded in Musical vision. My technical knowlege is poor but it is 24 bit recording. Andy will mix it down for you on his desk and using Cubase. It does sound clearer done this way but again the expense of doing it can get in the way. We took the individual tracks away. Our bass player has become very proficient at mixing using Cubase and gets the sound that he is after. I think there would be a huge benefit in having a producer outside of the band though.

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I think it is more important that a recording studio offers good microphones, pre amps, converters and has a good set of studio monitors to mix on. All this is however irrelevant if the engineer doesn't know how to use the gear or is unpleasant to work with.

Sidechain compression is mainly personal taste to be used for particular circumstances. It also cannot be done with VST.

From the local studios that have websites I have not noticed much in the way of quality outboard processors listed. They aren't striclty necessary these days as there is plenty of VST plugins of reasonable quality.

Offering mastering is a waste of time for a local studio around here and most studios offering 'in house mastering' are usually not equipped to do it properly. You can get on-line mastering from many places around the world, if you search google. You will probably pay 300-600 for your CD to be mastered (a large proportion of people on this forum probably paid less than that for their entire recording session).

Another thing not mentioned, room acoustics...... Recording in a nice sounding room or a 'dead' room is preferable also.

For example: I recorded the same singer two weeks running. The 2nd week, I placed a number of large pieces of foam around the room the singer was recording in. There was a recognisable difference. The voice was a good bit 'clearer' and slightly more 'powerful' sounding. The room wasn't that bad for echos in the first place but even that tempory D.I.Y was worth doing.

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I have limited understand of mastering however I understand it is usually done with audio speakers (rather than studio monitors), and uses gear, well above the level you will find in even some fairly high end recording studios. It is also not done in a control room full of racks and other things which cause acoustic reflections.

The masteirng is applied across the entire mix before it is normalised.

I think it is quite possible that many people with a good understand of how to use audio software and suchlike could make some improvements to the overall sound of a mix, it however would not really be the same as 'mastering'.

It is also good to have a fresh set of ears master your mix.

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bump.

also, how much studio time do you allocate for the mix? Do you produce the mix on the same day as you record?

Id say a general answer to most of your questions is a general NO. Ive found that the local studios Im aware of dont do the proper mastering of which you speak or indeed have said gizmos.

Im the same as them - when I do my own recording I dont master it properly other than whack it through Wavelab and beef it up a bit. Reason: I dont know how to master ''properly'' and dont know anyone who can (locally). Ive had some commercial released tunes mastered professionally down south and they do indeed shit all over the unmastered mixes so I know the difference, but at the same time dont know any local facility that could do it.

As for mixing - I spend ridiculous amounts of time if the track is benefitting from it - and very little time if the track hits a brick wall or reaches the quality Im after really early on (quite rare). Knowing when to stop is the hard part. Diminishing returns and all that.

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