Some Updates

Well it has been a long time since I have posted anything. As many of you know, I have moved back to Santa Fe, NM. It is nice to be back and I have been swamped with business. Hopefully there will some releases that I will be able to talk about here soon.

I have teamed up with Jesse Albright of DMBD Audio and renamed his studio to Desert Den Studios (www.desertden.com). With his rooms and my gear, we have built a fairly capable studio.

For the past 9 months it has been extremely busy which is good! But hence why the web presence and other musical endeavors have been ignored. That is about to change! Since I have some time away from my dayjob due to the Las Conchas fire, I can refocus on getting things back up to date.

GSP1101 Impulse Testing with 5150 Model

Well just in case you hadn't heard, the C55 Beta Firmware was released for the Digitech GSP1101 on http://www.mustbebeta.com/. If you haven't tried the beta firmware yet, DO IT. It adds so many features to the GSP1101. Stan, as he calls himself, has been a lifesaver to the GSP1101 and I hope that Digitech takes notice of how customer service and product support should work.

There have been tons of additional features. The C48 and previous added a 5150 model for high gain, plus a bunch others. C55 adds more flexible routing like a compressor in the loop, pre/post FX, etc.

The most notable new feature is the ability to load up to 10 Impulse Response cabinets. Personally I feel the stock cabinet modeling is the weakness of most modelers, GSP1101 included.

The downside to the GSP1101 Impulse Response loading is that it can only load the first 128 "taps" due to memory restrictions. This test is to see how much it affects the tone.

The Impulse I used is one I made with my ENGL Powerball for the Impulse vs. Mic Test. But to put things into perspective, I also used S-PresHigh by Catharsis. Then to test the modeling, I also ran the Nick Crow 8505 through both impulses.

Guitar is a Schecter A-7 7-String with Seymour Duncan Jazz Pickups Reamped through an Edcor Transformer. DI was cut with my LineDriver/Buffer box.

Drums are Steven Slate, Bass is a Lakland through Guitar Rig 4 and a limiter. Master bus has T-Racks Linear Phase EQ just rolling off the rumbly low end and then Steven Slate's FG-X for level.

Guitars have ZERO PROCESSING on them. These are just raw, lots of issues of course with low end rumble and high end fizz. For impulses a high and low-pass are essential, but I wanted to give the raw sound. I did do my best to match levels.

The GSP1101 settings are an 808 low drive, high volume, tone around 70% into the 5150II model set flat with gain around 70%.

Nick Crow 8505 Settings are Flat with gain around 70% with BTE's TS Secret boosting with the same settings as the GSP1101.

Impulse was made with an ENGL Powerball into and ENGL V412 with Celestion Vintage 30's. Single SM57 through an ACMP-73 chinese N*eve clone.

Special thanks to LePou's LeCab, Nick Crow's 8505 Amp Simluator and BTE Audio TS Secret.

So here is the order of the clip:

• GSP1101 -> Powerball Impulse 128 Taps into GSP1101
• GSP1101 -> Powerball Impulse using LeCab
• GSP1101 -> Catharsis S-PresHigh using LeCab
• Nick Crow 8505 -> Catharsis S-PresHigh using LeCab
• Nick Crow 8505 -> Powerball Impulse using LeCab
• GSP1101 -> Vintage 4x12 Stock Cab Sim

FULL BAND CLIP:

GUITARS ONLY:

Obviously some big differences! It is almost like GSP1101 is tuned for the Powerball Impulses and the 8505 for the Catharsis ones.

I tried other impulses from Catharsis, Alu, and Recabinet loaded into the GSP1101. They sounded really hollow and generally bad. I didn't spend a ton of time with it, but that is definitely something to consider. I bet it has something to do with the length or the impulses not being cut at zero. But I do like the improvement of sound with my own, which is what I care about.

Right now, the GSP1101 will continue to be in my Live Rig since I think it sounds great there. Been GAS'ing for an AxeFX, but the price just scares me. I like the processors for live work and for writing scratch tracks, but it would be sweet to have keeper tracks or at least better sounding tracks.

By popular demand, here is the The Powerball Impulse I used.

Impulse vs. Real Cabinet

I have always been a fan of modelers and hope that the next generation will be better than the last. It is a great theory, a whole room of amps and FX in a single software package or device. The problem is that they sound usable at best. Tube amps just dominate in so many ways.

However, the tube amps are large and heavy, require expensive maintenance, and are just a pain all the way around. Not to mention they are comparatively much more expensive even with offshore manufacturing closing the gap. Also in the studio (and even live) they are incredibly inconvenient. In order to sound good they must be loud and mic'd properly in a good room. Modelers can sound their best completely direct.

The reason I still support modeling is that I can record at anytime and anywhere with a laptop and USB interface. Also when mixing, a badly mic'd or improperly dialed amp can sound horrible. Or you need a specific tone that you don't have or don't have the time to mic, a modeler can be just the ticket.

Anyway I personally think one of the biggest breakthroughs and a weakness with modeling has been impulse responses of speaker cabinets. Essentially it is a sine sweep sampling. Do some searches and you will find that there are lots of links and discussion and packs for sale.

They sound very good, especially compared to other speaker simulation techniques, but they still lack something. Many say they don't breathe, that they are static and not 3D sounding. The problem is that most people don't really have the time to do a proper shoot out. Then using 3rd party impulses is a crap shoot since there is no way for you to compare with the real mic counterparts.

With free individual impulses it is often frustrating since there are so many out there of varying quality. Then with packs for sale or free, they have positions and combinations and such, but sometimes positions even down to a 1/2" is not enough. Millimeters in any direction or angle can have rather large effect on the tone.

But even for myself I have never done a proper shootout properly isolating all the variables... until now.

Testing Procedure

The goal here is to isolate everything but the speaker cabinet vs. impulse. So I mic'd up an ENGL 4x12 Pro (Celestion Vintage 30 speakers) with a single SM57. It is roughly at the edge of the cap where the cone starts, maybe 5mm more on the cone side. Straight on and about 1 inch from the grill.

The amp is an ENGL Powerball. The impulse was generated via the ENGL Powerball FX return. Master volume: 9:00, Depth Punch: 11:30, Presence 2:30. Sine Sweep and Deconvolved with Voxengo's Deconvolver 12-Seconds at 32-bit float 44.1khz.

Preamp is a TNC-73 Chinese Neve Clone from a group buy. They are similar to a Chameleon Labs. I had it set to low impedance and driving the it a little hard with the output rolled back.

DI's were cut with a Schecter A-7 7-string (mahogany body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard) , bridge pickup, Seymour Duncan JB7, tuned to standard with low B. DI was an EWI LDB-1 into a Behringer ADA8000 modded with BB OPA4134 clocked via a DBX Quantum mastering processor.

Re-amping was done via a DIY Jensen style Re-amping interface with an Edcor WSM 10k:10k.

The reamping was done with all the same settings through the mic'd cab. Then again but capturing the signal from the pre-amp and run through the impulse of the mic'd cab set-up loaded up in Poulin's LeCab, no high pass or low-pass filters. All variables isolated except the cab/poweramp combination and speaker impulse.

Results

Each clip has 4-bars of 3 riffs double tracked on their own, then in a mix. Peak levels matched then adjusted slightly by ear.

16-bit 44.1Khz WAV Files. Below are 320kpbs MP3's.

ENGL Powerball Real Cab and SM57

ENGL Powerball Impulse

Interestingly I am having a hard time hearing a difference on my Roland MA-8's that are in my office. But in the studio the first thing that popped out was a increased high-end/upper mid-range and just sort of lacked depth and was just grindy.

From another perspective the Mic'd cab could be described as wooly and muddy and warm and distant. The Impulse being more clear and in your face. Plus people tend to like more high-end just like they like things louder and perceive distortion as being louder.

So to help minimize this perspective, I added a high-shelf to the Mic'd cab:

ENGL Powerball Real Cab and SM57 with a High Shelf

Oh how the plot thickens! Now the Mic'd cab to me has more buzz, but it has a crunch and a grind to it with a 3D-ness. The impulse sounds 2D and lacks depth, just something unpleasant.

So how do we add depth? Well besides EQing with the rest of the mix and using mids to move instruments, how about reverb? In this case the impulse should have grabbed the room as well. But maybe without the percussive nature of the sine sweep, we need a separate room impulse. So I threw on Cubase's REVerence with the default Studio Room Sample and blended to taste.

ENGL Powerball Impulse with REVerence

Future Tests

At this point it would be time for a blind test, and that will probably be for another time. My opinion is that you could work with this. To send this out blind without some "training" like this, it would be a total crap shoot, you can hear differences, but which is better? Which is the cab vs. the impulse. Maybe some new riffs and testing is in order.

Also I would like to take some modelers, plugins and hardware and do the same tests. Through a cab and then through an impulse of the same setup. Maybe with some forum support, this can happen. Although I will likely have to start over with a new impulse since I can't leave my cab mic'd up into eternity.

Other Arguments

One could argue that the tone is bad to begin with so it is impossible to make a fair judgement. Well that may be true, but that isn't the point, it is relative to each other. Also the playing is so bad... well yeah. I focused on what I do, lots of chunk, some thrash, and some diminished chords, I mean at some point every engineer should do their own tests and come up with their own conclusions.

With one mic (SM57) on the Powerball it is a careful balance. Usually I need to two mics, one getting mud and beef and a condenser for the highs. With a single 57 fizz is a problem, so I minimized that. But it is a bit muddy. Plus it needs some EQ as well. AKA. Mudball in some parts.

PHASE: Personally I could hear a big difference between the two on my monitors RAW, so I didn't try too hard to flip the phase. Once you get into processing, things get out of control. You can try on your own though since the guitars are panned hard left and right. But consider that there is a time delay between the speaker and the mic vs. the impulse. So you will have to compensate. Then you will want a frequency aware phase adjuster because of the time shift. Then since they are different takes, there will be some inherent clock skew which will give an exaggerated amount of left-over that will change over time. So go by the lowest amount.

At least for me this answers a BIG question: Are impulses a waste of time? I really wasn't sure. At this point I don't think they are, they are very close and definitely usable. Especially to the point where the average listener probably won't notice or care.

That being said I would probably still elect to mic a cab given the option.

Audio CD Mastering Drives and Lite-On iHAP422 Review

Well I just installed my new Lite-On Drive iHAP422. In Audio Mastering the "standard" I guess was to get a Plextor Drive since they had this awesome CD tester called Plextools. Well Lite-On has a similar product called K-Probe. Plextor and Lite-On are the only ones that provide this capability. But Lite-On does make drive for lots of other brands. There is also Nero's DVD-Speed and DVDInfoPro which support selected brands and models as well.

"Mastering" technically is the creation of a glass master for replicated or stamping CD's. Duplication is burning CD-R's. So besides the sonic and creative aspects, a mastering engineers job is to pre-master a CD ready for the replication plant. To spec, a CD must have below 220 C1 errors per 10 second chunk which is actually quite high. Most respected mastering houses shoot for below 100, many for below 50. And you want no C2 Errors or CU errors.

In a nutshell C1 Errors are correctable errors, the others are not. They are caused by a combination of the media, drive, and the speed. There are a lot of internet folklore as to why this happens and I don't really know either. In general, slower tends to be better, but on modern faster drives, half the recommended speed tends to give better results. But really every drive and media combination is different. Some media/drive combinations may want full speed.

Taiyo-Yuden is regarded as the most consistently good media. They recently got bought out by JVC and used to be TDK. Most shelf brands buy their media from wherever they can get it the cheapest, so your results will definitely vary. So you will have to test on your own, but Taiyo-Yuden is cheaper in bulk online than shelf-brands anyway.

Back in the old days, things were a LOT more finicky. I own a SCSI Plextor Drive and a SCSI Yamaha drive since they were the best for their time. They were very picky about media. These days it doesn't matter as much but it is still something to keep in mind if you are burning your own masters for replication.

Better yet, leave it to a Mastering Engineer. But so many bands are going DIY or having their Mixing Engineers do the mastering. So for you guys:

• Plextors are hard to find and are expensive. Lite-On's are cheap and relatively easy to find.
  Buy Taiyo-Yuden, JVC, or TDK media, or do a lot of testing and tuning.
  
• Get K-Probe. Test your masters after burning them. Shoot for below 100 C1 Errors per Second, I would say 50.
  
• Learn your burner and find which speed gives the lowest BLER/C1. But half-speed is a good starting point.
  
• Test EVERY disc. It only takes a minute and you know what you are sending out is good.
  
• I still listen to every disc too on an old CD-Player just to be extra sure and listen for clicks and pops or any other weirdness. The band should do the same.
  

This particular drive so far is quite nice. From reading reviews, many are DOA so test it as soon as you get it so you can get another if it breaks. It is very fast and pretty quiet while burning. It has LightScribe which is cool for labeling discs, but terribly slow (20 mins for a full Disc). Now that I have a Disc Printer I will not bother with it anymore, but I have media to get through.

Just pulling some craptastic media, I was able to get a BLER of 11 and 66 TOTAL at 16X. Can't complain about that! I think on the report it was actually POSTECH!

With my new stock of Taiyo-Yuden Ink Jet Hub Printable Non-Branded media I got 0.. that's right ZERO C1 errors across the board! AMAZING! Call me crazy, but I think it even SOUNDS better than the crappy media. I have heard this theory before, I think it might be mostly placebo and I don't have the time to scientifically A/B double blind.

My old stock of TDK media on my ASUS drive gave me a BLER of 5 with 31 total which is quite impressive as well. So many drives will be fine for burning, but you can only test with a handful of them. You might as well go with a Lite-On where K-Probe is free and you get an awesome drive as well!

Couple projects done and some updates.

Well it has been a while since I have had time to blog. But things are going pretty well in the Ortiz Audio side of things.

In January I finished up with Younger Brother. Straight up Rock and Roll that came out really well. It was a long haul with them, but the final product was worth it. There are samples on my site to hear for yourself. You can also find them on iTunes, Amazon, etc. Or you can get a disc off their website http://www.youngerbrotherband.com

Also finished up with Independent Progress. Started them in Feb. and was able to knock them out in month. Ty and I tried a new technique with these guys. Instead of doing DI's and re-amping, we built some awesome looking and sounding gobos. These allowed us to track them live and do overdubs on the spot.  It was definitely the way to go. Their album came out great!  You can grab their stuff off their website as well http://www.myspace.com/independentprogress

Also check Independent Progress on tour over the next couple of weeks. For you NM folks, they will be hitting The Underground in Albuquerque on April 12th.  So check them out and say hello. They are cool dudes, so don't worry.

On the geeky side of things, I am checking out a new flash MP3 player for the site. Hopefully it will make things a bit smoother.  Also got some new card designs and maybe website ideas in the works.  Lots of stuff to post on, from new gear, to all sorts of fun things happening.

NAMM 2010 Day 1 and 2

Well just back to the hotel after a long Day 2 at NAMM. Thanks to Keith Miller (www.km-guitarslinger.com) and Morley Pedals (www.morleypedals.com).

Thursday we flew in around noon and got stuck waiting to check in to the Hotel. So after some pizza and chicken buffet, we got all settled in and grabbed a shuttle to the show. We only had a couple of hours so Keith and I spent the time saying hi to the guys we know. Hit up the Carvin booth talked a few of the reps there. Then hit up the Morley booth to talk to Bill and check out their new mini-wah and mini-volume pedals which look sweet. Ran up to Digitech to see any new stuff they have, the highlights were their new stereo looper and single pedal looper.

Then for the rest of the day we got a full demo of the new Cakewalk V-Studio 700 and V-Studio 100. The V-Studio 100 is sweet.  Full 8x6 interface with control surface and digital mixer. It also has 2-track recording standalone.  The 700 is way crazy cool. Tons of neat features... very expensive though. Also talked with Ronnie North and watched him shred for a bit.  Also watched some 12-year olds absolutely kill at singing some Dio-Era Black Sabbath covers. F'n awesome!  Then turned in a bit early to chill.

Today we got there early. Saw a ton of gear and a ton of artists doing demos and just jamming.  It is very humbling to come to NAMM, the amount of talent is just staggering.  Performance highlights were definitely Flametal which were awesome!  Checked out a wicked 80's shredder that I don't know at the Boss/Roland...arena.  Saw some wicked jazz guys and chapman stick dudes.

Gearwise, the new Steven Slate plugins and hardware are amazing!  Their new mastering suite is awesome and the plans are for it to come with a MIDI controller.  It is super easy and really really good sounding mastering stuff and console simulation.   We got to sit through a full on demo of all their products... amazing! Mesa has a new lunch-box type amp which looks really sweet!  Checked out all the Eminence speakers with their magic speaker switcher... oh and I got to demo them for PRS guitars! 

Played on the new Egnater amps geared for Metal. They were sweet and had tons of options...going to stick to ENGL though.   Played on some Carvin stuff which was sweet. Their BX500 rocks, but their new B2000 and B1500 sound great and are also lightweight.  They got some new mixers, dual cut-away guitars, and basses. Their finishes are downright spectacular. I see a new bass amp and probably a 7-string in my future. Presonus is releasing a 24-channel studio-live mixer. They have new controller software which makes it a perfect console for live use and recording. 

Starwise, there are tons of people this year, so artists are just getting mobbed and the lines are really long.  Plus you really see stars everywhere, I mean everywhere. But they are often busy and I hate bothering them. So I stargazed last year, this year it is about the gear!

Really cool thing is that this year we have "Artist" passes. So we were cool enough to get into the Coffin Case fashion show and event.  Saw Renegade Brides, Iron Maidens, and Thunderstruck.  Awesome awesome awesome and deadly hot.  Then the 2 fashion shows were jaw dropping. Beautiful girls and actually cool clothing.  I got lots of video to share a bit later.  It was very cool to get in there and check it out.

Definitely looking forward to hitting it again tomorrow. I think I might check out some classical guitars and see if I can actually play the new little Mesa Lunchbox.  

RAWK ON!

Tracking for Third Party Mix (part 1)

I often get approached by bands to do their mixing for them. Sometimes I have an offer to do mixing.  I enjoy it and I think it is a good opportunity to get another set of ears on a project.  Or maybe you are tracking your project at home, to save some money. 

This is the first part of a series that will talk about getting tracks ready for another engineer.  This first part will be about tracking techniques that many engineers use, but many don't.

Most of these is what I call "insurance" so I do them anyway, even if I am mixing. But basically it gives the next engineer a lot more options and can make up for some of the pitfalls of smaller/home studios.

So here are some things to think about when tracking:

1. Crap In = Crap out: This applies to performance and instrument quality. DO NOT depend on "We'll fix it in the mix."  So strive to get the best sound you can dry.  If the mix sounds pretty awesome with just the faders up, then the final mix will really sound awesome.   You can refer to this: Bare Minimum Preparation for the Studio.  But your performances really need to be solid, that is probably the most important part.
2. Drums: This is the foundation of a mix. The kit must absolutely be in tune! Also make sure the heads are new (or at least not totally dead) and that all the squaks, rattling, and excessive ringing are taken care of.  With remixes I tend to do a lot of sample blending or replacement. In rock and metal it is pretty much mandatory.
   
1. I like to try and get the kit to sound pretty good with just Overheads and Kick. Then the other mics are just extra.
2. Mic every drum.  I prefer dynamic cardioid mics because they give a distinct transient that is great for sample replacement if necessary.
3. Mic snare top and bottom. This is handy to get some extra snap.
4. Mic HighHat and Ride. Since these tend to get buried, I like to have them just in case. 90% of the time I don't actually use them. But the 10% I used them, I really really needed them.
5. Room mic, these are really handy and can add a lot of extra ambience. Even if this is a 1-room live tracking session, that room mic can really fill out the mix.
   
6. Be careful of mic phase!! This can be a huge deal.
7. Name the Overheads in regards to Hat and Ride. DO NOT use right and left, I have no idea what perspective that is from and it can be a real PITA trying to figure it out.
   
3. Guitars: Make sure they are in tune and intonated. Can't fix bad tuning.
1. Take some time with mic placement to get a good tone from the amp. Please don't just "throw a mic" on there unless you aren't trying for good tone.  Even modelers are fine here which leads me to #2.
2. Take a straight GUITAR DI. This is insurance so I can re-amp that signal later.  If the pickups are passive, ideally you want an Active DI box with an Input Impedance of 1M Ohm or more. Active pickups you can use anything as long as it isn't noisy.  But I will take what I can get.
3. Effects DI. This is if the guitar player uses a lot of wah or special effects before going into their amp. 
4. Amp FX Loop out DI. This is essentially the amps preamp out. Again this is insurance for tonal options. I can run this signal through "Impulses" of acoustic spaces and speaker cabinet mic combinations. This can help make up for non-deal rooms, cabs, and mic combinations.
5. This is a lot of DI's and a LOT of tracks. Many studios don't even have this many DI's. So the most important is the Guitar DI track or the Effects DI depending on the player.  Most I can use just the Guitar DI for most of the stuff. Then I will do another set of takes with Wahs, which I consider leads. With Wah's definintely take a DI after the wah. But most stuff like Delay, Reverb, Compression I handle in the.
6. Ideally you want the best sound you can from the mic and the amp. It is just insurance. I don't know how many times I have gotten a band to mix and the amps just sound like rattling plastic in a cardboard box.
4. Bass: Yet another foundation of the mix. Depending on the player and the bass, this can be the easiest and the hardest to get right.
1. Use a good DI right from the bass. I will use this for re-amping or sometimes just as is.
2. Mic the cab.  I like to use a large diaphragm dynamic for things like kick drums and floor toms. Then I will use an SM57 for attack.  This is especially true if the player likes distorted or overdriven bass. The DI will just not capture that.
3. Listen very carefully for intonation and out of tune issues. Also listen for tightness with the kick. This can make the difference between a really punchy sound and a sorta punchy sound.
5. Vocals: Performance is everything here and again shoot for a good sound without any mix magic.
1. For mics, use a large diaphragm condenser at least. Don't even care about the brand. But better brands are much nicer. Ideally you really want to spend the time to find a good mic and pre combination that captures and accents the voice.  
2. Try to minimize excessive echos, noise, and bleed from headphones.  
3. Minmize the ssss' and the pop's. Use a pop filter and rotate the mic a bit at an angle.
4. I can do some atrocious things with pitch correction and fixing timing, but I can't add feeling or angst or sadness or whatever you are trying to portray.

That pretty much covers the foundations of rock and metal. For other instruments it is all about capture.  There are a million different ways to capture all instruments. And no way is right, and no way is wrong.    The DI's and close micing are just insurance and give the mixing engineer the most options.

But have fun, that attitude shows on a recording.  Don't rush, get solid performances, that is the most important.  Back in the early days, recordings were done with the equivalent of coffee cans and boom boxes, and those sounded amazing because the performances were awesome and the musicians were awesome.

Also be realistic to some degree. You won't sound like a grammy winning band by paying your tracking engineer a few hundred bucks, mixing engineer a few hundred, through your cheap amps and cheap guitars, in a basement or garage with some foam lined closets. There are exceptions of course... But grammy winning songs are still grammy winning songs.