Comments on: Mastering Experiment: “But They Do” with the Focusrite Liquid Mix

By: Dan Connor

Dan Connor — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:40:49 +0000

I just use it to brighten up the high-end very subtly on especially dark material, such as the track I used it on in this post. We used some cheap mics that didn’t have a lot of good high-end articulation. It’s not a typical part of my mastering process, as I feel it sizzles and brittles up the high-end too aggressively. Better to use a good linear-phase EQ to boost the airy ranges.

By: armando montiel ortiz

armando montiel ortiz — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:03:51 +0000

excuseme . .

Multiband Harmonic exiter . .

By: armando montiel ortiz

armando montiel ortiz — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:02:59 +0000

what settings u use inthe armonic exioter in the ozone ?

By: Dan Connor

Dan Connor — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:12:34 +0000

Thanks for listening Anthony! The Liquid Mix is amazing. I’m going to rely on Liquid Mixes quite heavily for my new studio in the Bay area.

By: anthony pittarelli

anthony pittarelli — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:31:06 +0000

Hey,
just stumbled in on this cruising around looking for stuff about the liquid mix. cool stuff kind of sounds like modern bruce springsteen less the vocals.
great sounds!

anthony pittarelli

By: Zaki

Zaki — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:27:35 +0000

Great post, I really like your place and I would like to add a link to my blog.

http://zakirostom.wordpress.com/

Thanks

By: araam tehrani

araam tehrani — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:00:43 +0000

very impreseed with the quality of the liquid mix, but more with the composition. Right on!

By: Bryan Tewell

Bryan Tewell — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:58:44 +0000

are the more than one kind of preamp tube you can put in the NTK? The one in mine is kind of obscure if I remember correctly.

By: Dan Connor

Dan Connor — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:13:12 +0000

Bryan – thanks for listening! heh. The NTK was used for the neck of the bass, the key holes of the clarinet and as a room mic for the horn. I like the NTK a lot but it is a little fizzy sometimes. I often roll off a bit of 10k to control it. I used it to record all the vocals of my album, but now I prefer the more rounded ribbon on my voice.

I sold my NTKs about eight months ago and I sorta miss them. I had put NOS vintage Telefunken tubes in them, which also rolled off the fizziness a little bit compared to the stock Sovtek.

The secret to getting the strings to sound wide? Not panning them wide. Seriously, it’s weird but as I said in my stereo image post, the wideness is relative. For this song the only things I panned hard were a scratchy bowed upright bass part played like a cello and the clarinet. The bass part is on the left and the clarinet is on the right. I used room mics extensively with the strings, usually using all three mics in various positions and I panned these mics a bit into subgroups to increase the size of sounds. Each is a little extra voluminous as compared to a mono spot mic.

To achieve a larger sound with the strings and other elements, I chose three reverbs: a hall from Waves IR-1, a convolution of Lexicon’s ‘Cathedral’, and a woody room sound for the main guitar and vocals. These verbs are all panned to avoid pure center and never hit the left or right extremes. The cathedral is mostly used for the horn and the clarinet to help them sustain.

By: Bryan Tewell

Bryan Tewell — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:01:18 +0000

So I decided to listen to the song and leave a comment, after reading the post you left after this one haha. Anyway, It sounds great! I’m interested in two things. 1st, how did you get the strings so wide? it sounds really good! 2nd, I’m curious as to what you used the NTK for, just because I personally own an NTK. I’m guessing you didnt use it on vocals because it has a lot of a high end boost that I dont hear. If you did you use it on vocals, then my bonus question is how did you remove that high end?