Great Audio Mix- Firewater

If you do not own Firewater's Man on the Burning Tightrope album go to their official site here. On the top right of the main page pop up is a button that says "click here to listen to the new album." Skip ahead to track 8, "Secret."

Firewater albums have all generally been extremely well recorded. Check out this track. In addition to being a great song the mix is very interesting. It violates quite a few of my "rules" about where instruments should live in the stereo space, but everything is so well balanced it works.

As the song starts the acoustic guitar is hard left, with a strong stereo voice keeping both sides balanced. As the song kicks in, the acoustic stays hard left, accompanied by the ENTIRE DRUM KIT. The right channel gets all of the bass, and the electric guitar. The organ (for the most part) stays on the right, while strings are pretty close to hard left, with reverb trails coming in on the right.

This is the sort of thing that should get the "unlistenable in headphones" tag but I am floored by how clever use of instrument levels and EQ allows everything to sit perfectly balanced, even in headphones. I wonder why they chose to do something so bold for this ballad, unless they were consciously trying to emulate a vintage 60s Beatles mix.

Either way check it out. If you have only appreciated the band for their songs in the past take a moment to appreciate the craft. This could have easily fallen off the edge of disaster, but instead makes a good song extraordinary and memorable.

Two cans and some string

Reeling from the wall to wall akwardness that was yesterday, I remembered as I was leaving the office that today is payday. What better reason to swing by Guitar Center and check out their cans?

They were very cool about letting me try everything out. I grabbed a Seinnheiser pair (can't remember the model number), Ben's trusty AKG K240's and the Beyerdyamic DT 770 pro.

The Seinn's went out first. They were too bright and felt like an improper reference. At first I thought the AKG's were too dark, but then quickly realized I was hearing limitations in my own recording for the first time! The Beyer's were so accurate that at first I was completely taken aback. I started thinking they were TOO accurate, that maybe I need to hear with the hoi polloi. Maybe I really should be mixing with earbuds? Just kidding folks. I am a nerd.

I spent a LOT of time A/B'ing the AKG and the Beyer. I listened to my song "Dysgrace", and "The Dark Eternal Night" from the new Dream Theater. In addition to being very well recorded the new DT is the only album I had on my iPod that is encoded lossless and almost completely uncompressed.

At first I was having trouble noticing the differences between the two pairs of cans, but my patience was rewarded and I decided the Beyers are more accurate and have a subtle extra sense of space and definition.

One pair of headphones, a pop filter, and a free 2 year replacement warranty later (I can't go into GC without the jew in me coming out and wanting to haggle. I always gotta get SOME kinda deal) I was out the door, cans on my HEAD. The nerd equivalent of wearing your new shoes out of the store.

Yes, that picture is me on 2nd Place in Brooklyn happily walking around with huge freaking clompers on my head. My sweet shit lord they sound good. I put on Pink Floyd and "Welcome to the Machine" sounds very close to what I always assumed the true voice of God sounds like.

OK, enough talk, I'm firing up Sonar!

Unlistenable in Headphones Pt. 1

In the age of the iPod I find that I, for better or worse, do about 80% of my music listening in headphones only. Occasionally I notice a record, usually from the 60s or 70s, that commits so many crimes against stereo that it deserves to be called out. This series will be called Unlistenable in Headphones.

First up: Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Top 2 crimes against stereo-

#1 Hard Panning bass and guitar away from each other- I think the idea at a certain point in the mid to late 70s was that the stereo field should be an accurate re-creation of stage positions. This could explain why the engineer on this record decided to always keep Iommi and Butler separated, as if they were fighting fish.

HOWEVER.........

#2 Inconsistencies in instrument placements from song to song. On Iron Man, Butler's bass is hard left while Iommi's guitar is hard right. This is difficult and distracting enough to listen to as it is, especially when the two instruments start playing different parts. It makes my ears feel very unbalanced, and makes my head hurt. Then we get to Electric Funeral where Iommi is playing two guitar parts panned away from each other (perfect!) but Butler is now HARD PANNED RIGHT?? Wha??? I noticed my head tilting to the right as I was waking up 7th avenue.

If you want to make radical shifts in instrument placement on every song that is fine, but your band better have the words Stereo and Lab in your name.