Hey everybody! It's Friday. I hope you're gonna have an amazing weekend!
It's time for SMG viewers comments.
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Now, let's get right to it.
"How come albums for local bands always suck? There was a great Street Fair where I grew up (Blacksburg, VA),
.. and I can't tell you how many times I would be blown away by a great live band only to buy their album,
.. and find out that it had none of the passion and charm that I saw on stage". - William Appelquist
Well, there's a very simple answer to that,
because modern recording technology came along, everybody feels like they have to fuck with the music to make it perfect, and,
.. when you start editing out the human elements, like slightly off time, and slightly out of tune, and start making things
"perfect", and start making them "better"
Yeah, "better".... the music SUFFERS, and you LOSE
.. whatever the hell it was that was special that made that band kick-ass!
I mean, I've heard a million fuckin bands that sound exactly the same because they're all cookie cutter
copy-pasted bullshit
But I still remember one of my all-time favorite demos was from a band called "Nothing Matters" out of Windsor
That came out in like 1993, and they did it on a little Fostex four-tracker
cassette thing, and they had a song called "Scream if your brain hurts"
they did it live, off the floor, and it had some of the most intense energy I've ever heard, and,
Y'know, I'm thinking if this band did that song these days it would be
completely sanitized, and everything would be perfect, and it would SUCK!
Because it just wouldn't have any of that energy. People! You gotta learn when you make records,
remember to LEAVE THE MUSICIANS IN THE SONG!
It's okay to let minor flaws go by!
That's what we used to call "making music".
You should try it sometime.
It'd be nice if it came back.
"Regarding taping strings,
Why do stuff in the studio that you won't ever do while playing live?
Why make the studio version different from anything you will be able to replicate live?
Is it creativity gone haywire, or just technical jerking off?" - Peter Carlson
A guy named Peter makes a quote about jerking off. Huh. Pun intended or what?.
I don't know.
It's one thing to edit the living shit out of performances, but it's another thing to actually, y'know,
Give you the tools to make you get a better performance.
There's a slight difference there.
Taping off some strings you're not using,
.. isn't gonna ruin the player, if anything it's gonna enhance it
So anything that's gonna help you get to your goal faster is fine.
now I just ranted and raved about capturing the essence of the band in the studio, but the other thing is
.. restricting yourself to only what we can do live.
Remember it is a studio. We can do a lot of cool stuff in here.
So we shouldn't just restrict ourselves on what we're gonna do live
Especially if you're a smaller band, and nobody goes to see your band live, chances are,
more people are gonna hear your recording than they are going to see you
So you might as well give the person who's gonna hear that the best experience they possibly can.
Now that doesn't mean
sanitizing your record and making it as boring as everything else out there.
No, it means capturing the elements and what-not
But if you can tape off some strings and maybe get something a little better than you could without, then why not do it?
"Whenever I look at your shit, you just talk about gears you want to advertise for $
.. so I give you a middl finger, all these things could be done with proper mastering through computer ...
I don't say im an audio engineer in my works,
But most of these are equalizer work and all the gears shit you advertise for wouldn't affect more than five percent." - Sam YaZdian
Wow, Sam, You got me there!
All these little guitar enhancements I have to make your situation in the studio a little bit easier
YEP!, IT COULD ALL BE FIXED WITH MASTERING!
HOLY SHIT! WHAT A REVELATION! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT FIRST?!?!?!
UUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!
Here's another gem of wisdom here:
"..but most of these are equalizer work"
No, Sam. No, they are not. Equalizer is not gonna get rid of your strings ringing away in your staccato parts.
It's not going to help one bit.
Mastering will not help, either. It all comes down to editing.
The insane thing was I wasn't even selling anything in that video, you know if I'm going to sell you guys something. Believe me
I will let you guys know like right now.
Hey everybody
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Now, back to the show.
"Don't start a band with your significant other". "The white stripes are still around"
Ugggghhhhh. Yes, there are always going to be exceptions to the rule, sure,
the question is how much grief are you willing to put up with?
You know more often than not when a relationship ends the band ends
So while the White Stripes might be the exception to the rule, chances are in your band,
It's probably not going to go that way. Are you willing to risk that?
I don't know is your career worth that kind of risk of
being in a band with somebody you're in a relationship with and that band falling apart because your relationship ends
Are you really willing to put things to that kind of risk?
Ask yourself that. Yes, the 'Stripes might be the exception to the rule, but in your situation, it's probably not going to go that way
It's just gonna end fuckin badly.
"Speaking of recording on real amps,
what's your opinion of the Mesa Boogie dual rectifier Road King."? - bayou boat trash
I have never recorded on the road King
I've been a proud owner of a dual rectifier since the year 2000
I did the first two "Woods Of Ypres" records on that and I've had a rectifier cab since, I don't know,
2007, 2008, something like that. fantastic stuff.
as far as I know pretty much everything Mesa Boogie has ever put out as been absolutely stellar with the exception of being
the "Cab Clone" which was a
rampaging pile of dog shit and I can't wait 'til they stop building that fucking thing because it's just absolute garbage
Anything else by Mesa? Yeah, go for it. Their stuff's phenomenal.
"Hey Glenn after this I downloaded the emissary
I got the IR pack you sell and what I can say about the guitar sound I get now blows both of my practice
amps out the window
I'm still planning to get a Joyo Zombie and a Harley Benton cab later down the line,
but for now, the impulses are just fine. Cheers from Germany. Oh and fuck you Glenn" - Crack3D
Hey Crack3D, Glad to hear that my impulses are doing some good for you
I've been getting a lot of messages like that
Like I said, a lot of work went into those impulses
It took a couple days to make, but it took 20 years to get the tones to that point, 'til
I figured out what worked and all that kind of shit. Learning how to mic guitars can be a bit of a learning curve,
especially for metal tones, but hey, whatever that's the whole point of IR's, is to ..
shorten that whole learning process a little bit.
So you've at least got an idea of what guitar sounds should sound like,
should you want to go and mic up your own cab in the future. Anyway, thanks again for writing man
Always glad to hear that kind of stuff.
"Hey Glenn, greetings from North Carolina, USA. Long time subscriber, and I absolutely love your channel.
I've been Audio Engineering a little over eight years now and wanted to discuss my beef with avid Pro Tools
I've been using Pro Tools almost my whole career and recently decided to switch over to Logic Pro X
The amount of money I spend to keep my updates with avid is ridiculous and when they can't keep their software up to date on
The latest OS X. It's been three and a half months and still no update.
I also have an Avid 11 rack as my main interface and guess what, they can't keep drivers up-to-date with that either.
My whole system is falling apart and for no good reason! Avid really needs to get their shit together because I can't take
it anymore. oh and fuck you Glenn." - zach mills
Hey Zach
You know
I'm not a pro tools user but
I have used the 11 rack and all I can say is what in the fuck were they thinking when they designed that interface?
I mean if you're trying to use the 11 rack just from the knobs on the unit itself. Wow. What a clusterfuck!
Doesn't sound half bad, and I hear if you actually use the plug-in on it, it's not too bad either, but
Just the overall, you know hardware interface, geez,
I think you'd have an easier time piloting a 747
Now that being said I can't really say anything about Avid's upgrade path and OSX and all that kind of stuff
'coz I'm a PC guy using Reaper, and
every time you Pro Tools guys, start complaining about an upgrade, I laugh. I'm like what?
What's the big fucking deal? Don't they just hand you updates for free like a
company should?
I don't know?! You guys tell me!
Here's the thing, you know, ten years ago, you know
It was like you had to be on Pro Tools or you know, you wouldn't be taken seriously
I don't know if that's so true anymore. I'm really kind of curious
what DAWs you guys are using because right now I'm in Reaper, and studio one, and
Harrison mixbus, and I just got a copy of the new Cubase because I'm hearing all kinds of good things
Alex from gear gods is yelling at me. You gotta learn Cubase. You gotta learn Cubase
So, why don't you guys leave me a comment below? Let me know. What DAW you're on.
Maybe I'll make that a poll as well put a random thing up here. Let's see it
Let's see what you guys are recording on.
"Dear Glenn. I'm new to YouTube and have an idea.
You've shown great empathy to handicapped people in the past. It is now possible to speak with eye control on computer screens.
Is anyone looking into musical applications of this technology?
I'm sure controls could be developed to allow the handicapped to control a whole suite of instruments
You have access to manufacturers. Is anyone doing this? Bite me." - Gilbert Spader
Hey Gilbert. That's a great question. Yeah
Long story short my grandfather got multiple sclerosis
when I was about 11, I think and
I just saw a great man be completely consumed by this and it fucking sucked. I spent a lot of my
preteen and early teenage years
loading him in and out of his car so he could, drive around with hand controls and whatnot
So, I've got a lot of empathy to those who are dealing physical disabilities and, sure,
You know if you guys are getting into audio engineering I think that's fucking phenomenal
you know anyway as for the original question about the eye and sound control,
I believe Jason Becker did compositions with his eyes. There was some special optical
system, and this is going back even to the late 90s, I think,
It could be mid 2000s, somebody, if I got this wrong, please forgive me
It's been a while since I saw the news article. This was on CNN or something like that
I'm sure you guys know who Jason Becker is, you know suffering from ALS and whatnot
But he wound up doing compositions with some kind of optical system where a computer could read his eye movements, and he could do whole compositions
With just his eye movements. Well, I thought that was pretty freakin phenomenal
I don't know of any other systems
Again, I will put it to you guys the viewers if you know of cool
Cool systems out there to help the disabled
Create and compose and record music. Hey, let us know I'd really appreciate it
"Why have notifications not been showing up on random stations anyone else noticing the same thing?" - NIKKI REAGAN
Hey, Nikki
Thanks so much for asking
And again, I'm gonna put it to you guys. Boy! I'm really asking a lot from you guys this week
Are you guys getting the notifications? Have you been hitting the bell? Are you subscribed?
Inquiring minds want to know. Yeah, when I put a video out, are you guys getting the notifications?
I'd really like to know some guys say they're getting [them], some guys say they're not. [I'd] love to know.
What's up there?
"Evangelist's guitarist (Polish doom band) used to work in a music store and inspired terror in the hearts of noobs ..
who were trying different guitars or amps at the store and complained about "not enough gain" or "poor tone".
The guy just ripped guitars from the feeble hands of the uninitiated,
started picking like the hammer of Thor, with solid thick tone on any amp, and concluded:
"There's nothing wrong with this tone noob". Owned. " - Radio Zelaza
Fantastic story Mandy, I could totally see that happening too. That might actually go on a shirt at some point
"There's nothing wrong with this tone. Noob." That might be pretty cool.
Anyway.
Next question!
"You might want to go even more basic than what you're teaching
I had a friend for a year complained that his mixes weren't good
I later found out that he was setting his sound card input gain as low as possible and then trying to turn it up in
the DAW. He didn't know you want it as loud as you can without clipping. Simple thing, but many don't know. " - Whisker Biscuit
Uh, Hey Whisker Biscuit - Thanks for mentioning that.
Y'know, the more and more I hear from you guys and where I realize I really do need to do a bare-bones beginner system.
The whole thing where you learn about gain staging,
what levels you should be mixing at, what levels you should be listening to, how to hook things up,
I mean, like last week, we had a question: a guy wanted to know how to hook his monitors up
It seems like the the information out there for the young metalhead who wants to get his home studio happening,
It's pretty much slim to none. So
I'm think I'm going to do that. I might actually do a premium lesson for you guys
When it comes to just setting up your basic home studio. I think that might be really freaking cool
Thanks for the suggestion man, the more and more I get this kind of stuff the more and more
It makes me realize just how much it needs to be done
but as for your point as loud as you can get it before clipping that may have been true at 16-bit but in the
24-bit realm I'd
Actually argue against I'm gonna be doing a video on that and that's about the gain staging in the mix
I had a talk with the guys at Pro Audio LA there are a couple weeks back and they were saying hey
You know you should you even though you recorded everything hot you should wait to do is take all your your tracks and drop them
down by about six dB's and try making a mix and I did that the mix turned out great and that's
Exactly what we used on the five amp sim shoot out demo we did a couple weeks ago. The drums on that were just phenomenal
super punchy and
They weren't squashed at all. So there is something to be said to for leaving some headroom in your mixes
"I've been playing for 35 years and couldn't tell much diff apart from the snare on the cheaper range" - Troy Woodford
That's because you've been playing drums for 35 years
You probably don't have any hearing left.
Toontrack announced their new EZBass software at NAMM this year.
Do you think it will end up replacing subpar bass players to the same extent that EZDrummer has replaced live drums in so much independent rock and metal? and is
That better or worse than having to deal with actual bass players" - John Wass.
John, I think that's a fantastic question! First off,
thanks for bringing that to my attention.
Will it wind up replacing shitty bass players? We want to get only hope
Seriously, I don't know this is definitely kind of you know
Good and bad all the same time. Bass-lines might wind up getting a whole lot more accurate
But are they going to get better?
I dunno, it's like I'd still much rather hear, you know
A half assed recorded drummer than fucking EZDrummer on everything, like we're hearing so much today
I mean like this is definitely gonna be good for toontrack's bottom line
No question about these guys are gonna make a fucking mint off this
Is it gonna make music better? Probably not. You know, the bass players out there, you know
You could always just you know, try practicing.
"Do you prefer small or large diaphragm condenser?" - Paul Daluz
Well Paul, it really depends on the application
When it comes to drum overheads, I definitely prefer small diaphragms or in the case of earthworks really small diaphragms
They've got those tiny tiny tiny little diaphragms and those overheads are probably cleanest I've ever heard
The Roswell mini k47 as overheads though; Those are medium diaphragms and are great as well, but they're great for ..
.. capturing more than just the symbols - you can get
a lot of the Tom's in there, compress them pretty hard and they sound really fucking good.
When it comes to room mics again, you know large diaphragms can be cool. Small diaphragms can be good
Or the earthworks omni's in the rooms are a "holy crap do those sound great!"
but I mean
you know large diaphragm mics can be great as a crush mic if you throw it out at the end of a room and
Smack the living piss out of it with a compressor
You can have a lot of fun with those.
For crush mics on a room, Yeah, I definitely recommend large diaphragm.
Don't have just one set of rules. Just remember that the situation changes depending on the need
depends on the application depends on what you're doing and
depends on the mic and the player so the trick is to
Experiment and find out what works best for you
"Hey Glenn, I have this huge problem not really about recording; about gigs. When we played our piece in an event
We had to leave our instruments on the stage until this event ends when it finally ends these people took pictures with my drum kit
Without me, my permission or notice. And no, asking politely for them to go away doesn't work. What the fuck do I do?" - Gino Tuano
Okay, it really depends on how important this is to you because you remember they're just pictures
Some people get really pissy when you pull out a camera all of a sudden
I just don't fucking understand it your honor if it's like a public event or that kind of thing
I wouldn't worry about it too much
Although I can understand you know
If they're taking pictures with your kit and it's your money and that kind of thing, that might cheese me off a little bit.
If they're not gonna go away
Yeah, I could see why that could be a little frustrating. the thing
What do you do here? Especially if they don't go away?
When asked just remember you've got one of these and this you can take pictures of them
taking pictures posing with your shit and you can put that shit up on social media and you can share
Hey, look at these assholes posing with my kit like it's theirs or something
You know and make sure you tag them on it as well. Like if they're from another band or what what not
that might be pretty good, you know, because chances are they're not gonna like to get called out that way so
Just remember this thing can be your friend, especially when it comes to people own on their bullshit. All right everybody
That's it for this episode. Thank you so much for watching
Don't forget to check out our sponsor distro kid the greatest system to get your music online and out to the world
As always keep those comments and questions coming if they're cool
I will definitely see if I can put them on the show until next time don't let makin records make you crazy
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