http://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/16838/

Lots of good ideas and examples here.

http://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/16722/

and here.

I have learned it depends upon the song.

http://www.reverbnation.com/thegreasemonkeyz

Another question related to this thread : some studio engineers recommends to put less reverb in the original guitar sound and put it later in the mix. to me it seems stupid because it won't sound the same at all.

should we shot the guy in the head then burry his corpse or should we consider the is insane ?

seriously, does that makes sense ?

Monkey Ju

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DreadInBabylon wrote:

As for punishment, education is better. Tie him up in
his studio and force him to listen to The Astronauts
non stop for 24 hours.

Now, that makes sense !

Monkey Ju

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First, tell the engineer to shut up and listen. It's your guitar, make it sound the way you want. Second, listen for yourself, if there's too much reverb on your guitar you can't hear the other instruments, then make an adjustment.

THERE ARE 2 KINDS OF REVERB!
1- The room or atmosphere. This is the natural ambient sound of the room you record in. It becomes another instrument to be reckoned with in the mix, a kind of stew where all different instruments and drums come together. If the instruments are recorded separately, natural ambience can be faked many ways, including using digital reverbs, or by another technique I love-- during mix down, send your mix to a monitor in the studio room and set up a mic to re-record the sound.

2- The sound of the surf guitar, as we all know, is defined by the tick of the strings rattling the springs. It's true that you can have so much splash that it overwhelms all the other instruments. It's up to you to refine your sound so that the splash isn't long, but more percussive with a quick decay

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Last edited: Nov 30, 2011 10:58:53

jonastronaut wrote:

Interesting and helpful stuff! Something else related
to this thread as well: last time we were in the studio
I noticed the engineer didn't grasp the idea of the
lead guitar being "the voice" in the mix. He wanted to
record the songs as regular rock, but without the
vocals. So in the first mix, the lead guitar was almost
nowhere to be found. We made him listen to surfmusic
and for him the leadguitar was too loud and too present
there. Does that sound familiar to you?

Another thing: I guess reverby tones are hard to
record. The last time in the studio, the reverb ate up
a microfone (stopped recording here and there). Also,
in (semi-)live recordings the lead guitar sounds often
more in the background than you want to (at least I
do). Can you fix that with a reverby track and a dry
track, or are there other ways?

When we recorded our recent EP, we had to contend with an Engineer who had the same mentality. While the early mixes he came up with were good, they did not fit the surf asthetic of 'guitar as lead voice'. It took quite a few go-arounds with him to get them out in the mix like we wanted. While we were satisfied with the final product, there are still a few areas where I do not believe the real tone of the guitar was brought out enough(see Doomsday cults on the recent SG101 podcast).

Anyway, we find this problem to be more prevalent when we are out playing live. On average, we prefer to play floor level venues where you just plug into your amps and perform. None-the-less, we are often at clubs with stages and sound systems with soundguys. This is when it tends to be a problem. We usually have to spend the first three songs with our merch guy going back to the sound guy to get the guitar up in the mix.

THE KBK ... This is the last known signal. We offer Sanctuary.

www.thekbk.com
http://www.deepeddy.net/artists/thekbk/
www.reverbnation.com/thekbk
www.facebook.com/thekbkal

Las_Barracudas wrote:

killbabykill34 wrote:

jonastronaut wrote:

Interesting and helpful stuff! Something else
related
to this thread as well: last time we were in the
studio
I noticed the engineer didn't grasp the idea of
the
lead guitar being "the voice" in the mix. He
wanted
to
record the songs as regular rock, but without the
vocals. So in the first mix, the lead guitar was
almost
nowhere to be found. We made him listen to
surfmusic
and for him the leadguitar was too loud and too
present
there. Does that sound familiar to you?

Another thing: I guess reverby tones are hard to
record. The last time in the studio, the reverb
ate
up
a microfone (stopped recording here and there).
Also,
in (semi-)live recordings the lead guitar sounds
often
more in the background than you want to (at least
I
do). Can you fix that with a reverby track and a
dry
track, or are there other ways?

When we recorded our recent EP, we had to contend
with
an Engineer who had the same mentality. While the
early
mixes he came up with were good, they did not fit
the
surf asthetic of 'guitar as lead voice'. It took
quite
a few go-arounds with him to get them out in the mix
like we wanted. While we were satisfied with the
final
product, there are still a few areas where I do not
believe the real tone of the guitar was brought out
enough(see Doomsday cults on the recent SG101
podcast).

Anyway, we find this problem to be more prevalent
when
we are out playing live. On average, we prefer to
play
floor level venues where you just plug into your
amps
and perform. None-the-less, we are often at clubs
with
stages and sound systems with soundguys. This is
when
it tends to be a problem. We usually have to spend
the
first three songs with our merch guy going back to
the
sound guy to get the guitar up in the mix.

I hear ya...and these guys are "supposed to be the
pros", and they're usually the ones blowing smoke about
how much experience they have (recording / mixing)??

Meh...We usually do not get too upset unless it is somethign that they refuse to correct. Frankly, this isn't a style of music that most of these guys are exposed to outside of background music in cheesy commecials.

THE KBK ... This is the last known signal. We offer Sanctuary.

www.thekbk.com
http://www.deepeddy.net/artists/thekbk/
www.reverbnation.com/thekbk
www.facebook.com/thekbkal

insectsurfer wrote:

on our first LA record 'reverb Sun', the engineer had
us turn the reverb WAYYY down , and added it later.
Sounded ok.... Our 2nd recording "Death Valley
Coastline' the engineer let us use Our regular amp
settings, and it sounded WAYY BETTER!!

Haha...that was another thing that I argued with our engineer about while recording the EP. He was very staunch in his opinion that the reverb needed reduced.

THE KBK ... This is the last known signal. We offer Sanctuary.

www.thekbk.com
http://www.deepeddy.net/artists/thekbk/
www.reverbnation.com/thekbk
www.facebook.com/thekbkal

I guess Ferenc is going to be a lot busier. Great music deserves the best.

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

This conversation reminds me of something my dad told me. Dad started making records when performances were recorded live on a concert hall stage. If someone made a mistake, they all played the entire movement again. These records were as good as the orchestra could play, and the musicians loved making records because they really got to play their best. Everyone took pride in their concert hall because it had good acoustics and made good records.

When Andre Previn took over he instituted the modern recording techniques he learned making movie sound-tracks. One section of the orchestra played one measure, often one bar by itself, as often as necessary until it sounded the way Previn wanted. Then on to the next short segment, orchestra section by section (sometimes instrument by instrument) until it was over. Then post-production took over, perfecting tempo and eliminating the various artifacts that come with real people playing real instruments. The orchestra didn't play anything. They had no sense of accomplishment or pride in their performance; there wasn't one. The musians hated it. It was a nerve-wracking grind.

What had been something everyone looked forward to became a dreaded chore. It also became something that was never actually played and could never be performed on stage.

Here's a question. Is a guitar a computer input device or a musical instrument?

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

We did our first 7" on a tascam 2 track reel to reel with 2 SM57's plugged directly into it and hung from the ceiling of our friends basement. That's always been one of my most favorite things about the surf genre as it doesn't matter really about the quality of the recording to me. But just having the technology available seems to me to be enough of a reason to explore it to it's fullest. It is possible that someday someone will find something that does sound better given the rapid advancement of recording tools.

I actually just got my first exposure to Melodyne and that is just craziness.

Jeremy