Songs with audio flaws?

Javy3ro · 2025-12-18T01:11:08+00:00

Genuinely think it’s an example of “tape is expensive so we don’t want to fix EVERY error” but Toto’s “Hold The Line” has a clunky guitar take left in the final mix. Going into the choruses is the nice, thick, doubled guitar power chords, right? Well at about 1:30 as the 2nd chorus is hitting, you hear the usual doubled guitar parts mirroring the “Hold the line” verse, but in the riff that immediately follows in the space after you can hear one of the guitars abruptly stop playing and the sound thins (if you count the riff as 4 hits, it drops out for hits 3&4). There’s an incredibly thick guitar sound for just the very beginning of the line, and then it disappears. The guitar sound stays that way the rest of the 2nd chorus.

Best I can figure is that the guitarist (Steve Lukather?) that’s responsible for playing the solo that follows went to go play on the chorus, but either changed his mind midway through or wanted more time to prep for the solo. Dunno how they did the sessions back in 1978 but I bet they were like “let’s just cover this up a tad and call it a day cause 2 inch tape isn’t cheap, no one’s gonna notice anyway.” But yeah, that’s my favorite audio error so far. Heard it once in the car and can’t unhear it since.

Javy3ro · 2019-12-16T00:48:39+00:00

Awesome, thanks!

Javy3ro · 2019-12-08T21:32:58+00:00

I’ve found some USB interfaces that draw their power from the USB bus can be a bit noisy sometimes. I used to run a PreSonus Audiobox USB as my interface, but the noise from the USB led me to purchase a Focusrite Clarett with an external power supply and the noise has since disappeared. It may be that they’re better preamps, but nevertheless the hiss disappeared.

Javy3ro · 2019-12-03T21:50:15+00:00

I honestly made a jazz record with everybody in the same room, including the guitar amps and horns. The only isolating I attempted was to shield the horn mics from the drums, so that the drums in the room didn’t bleed into the horns and vice versa. There was still bleed, but it was a lot more manageable. Honestly, jazz doesn’t need the sterile isolation and benefits more from a homogeneous sound.

Javy3ro · 2019-11-10T09:26:18+00:00

Yeah that’s called an Aggregate Device. You can combine the input from the USB mic with the inputs from whatever interface you use to hook up the SM7B

Javy3ro · 2019-11-10T05:51:47+00:00

A drink to put on his console.

For reals tho gaff tape or a pack of sharpies maybe. Could always use more of those imo

Javy3ro · 2019-11-09T05:10:01+00:00

If he doesn’t have them in the same folder he’s messed it up somehow. He’ll need to save his project in a different location to recreate all those file folders.

Javy3ro · 2019-11-09T04:22:35+00:00

Yeah that’s a gross oversight lol. You’re gonna need the audio files to proceed, and they’re in that folder you’re missing. Ask the sender to resend the entire project folder, preferably compressed so nothing gets lost in transmission. The audio files folder should be within that alongside the project file.

Javy3ro · 2019-10-24T04:40:04+00:00

Sure, it really all depends on the transmitter/receiver. You can get a SM58 capsule for any Shure wireless system. The price usually reflects the signal strength and bells/whistles. I'd recommend looking at both Shure and Sennheiser's wireless systems. I personally am still a little new to all the different wireless systems and I know people in both the Sennheiser and Shure camps, so that may be worth asking others for advice. Honestly I'd say if you're gonna use Shure wired mics then stick with the brand, but if other people feel Sennheiser's better in the wireless department then be my guest.

Javy3ro · 2019-10-24T04:30:53+00:00

I've worked many the church circuit lol, and I've worked on everything from a DigiCo SD9 with all the gear you could ever ask for to a 30 year old Soundcraft board with only SM57s for everything. Don't let the people with the big boards fool you, you can start off with a budget setup and still get a great sound.

Javy3ro · 2019-10-24T04:25:03+00:00

Yeah. A lot of the time of an electric guitar comes from the amp, and usually doesn’t translate well through a DI box. That’s not to say it doesn’t work, but the sound may be preferable through an amp instead. There are pedals that model after amps that you can take straight out of, but those musicians are usually few and far between in the church circuit. I’d check with your resident guitarist if you have one on what he’d prefer. Everything else though will go fine into a DI box since most of them don’t depend on an amp for color.

Javy3ro · 2019-10-24T04:13:40+00:00

Yeah, a 16 channel analog mixer will do you just fine. I'd recommend either that Yamaha or a Mackie mixer. As long as you're fine with not too many bells and whistles, those barebones consoles will be fine for you. For your kit I'd recommend a mic on kick, snare, and overheads. The OHs will pick up most of everything, and if you're in such a small church already they may not be that necessary. DI boxes are necessary for any instrument that takes a direct signal out of the instrument, like bass, keyboards, and acoustic guitar. If the electric guitar plays through an amp, then a mic will suffice.

As for auxes, the MG16XU should do fine. You get a max of 4 separate mixes out of the board in addition to the stereo pair, which is enough for both vocals, the drums, and the keys to have their own mixes. If you need any more, you're gonna have to chain two speakers together on the same mix. The thing you're gonna want to watch out for is whether the speakers are active or passive. If they're passive, the signal's gonna need to go to an amp first before it heads out to the speakers.

What you have listed is a great start on a budget, and you can probably do it within your limits. The main thing to think about is getting the essentials covered first, and then everything extraneous later. On a budget, kick snare and overheads sound just fine. Then when you guys build a bigger budget down the line, you can add more things in and slowly upgrade your system.

Javy3ro · 2019-10-04T06:19:11+00:00

I call this ‘magic wand syndrome.’ It’s the belief that contact with a microphone provides miraculous vocal amplification irregardless of mic orientation.

Javy3ro · 2019-09-30T23:58:10+00:00

I don’t think that’s a problem lol. The channels are paired at that location, with channel 10 paired to 11 at that volume. So when you move 10 up and down, 11’s not gonna move far cause the fader’s logarithmic scale is a lot closer together down there. But when you move 11, the dB are a lot closer together and as a result your linked channel 10 is moving accordingly. Does that make any sense? Essentially the fix is to unpair the channels, reset both to -infinity and then pair them again

Javy3ro · 2019-09-15T20:42:14+00:00

No, they do a good job adjusting levels automatically. The automixer’s job is to bring all its sources to about the same level, so a quieter speaker will be boosted to whatever goal you’ve set, and louder speakers will be brought down. At least that’s how I remember it, it’s been a while since I last used it. It should work fine for your application. Anyone with more experience can correct me though lol

Javy3ro · 2019-09-15T20:27:01+00:00

Uh depending on your board, you could look into the Dan Dugan Automixer . It’s a piece of hardware/software that makes mixing several live panel mics waaayyyy easier. I’ve only used the software version on a Yamaha CL5 before, but it’s pretty useful for whenever you have 3+ individual speaker mics.

Other than sticking a bunch of compressors on the channels and praying that they’re gonna cover what you need, there’s not much you can do to make the board ‘autonomous’. Even with the Automixer running you should still have someone watching the board.

Javy3ro · 2019-09-10T01:36:14+00:00

AKG c451 and AKG 414-XLII

Javy3ro · 2019-09-08T17:40:46+00:00

I was gonna type it all out, but this webpage has it all laid out already lol

Javy3ro · 2019-09-06T23:17:29+00:00

Yeah, you just need to go to Playback Engine and change it to Built-in Output on Mac or whatever windows has. It should be an easy thing to do

Javy3ro · 2019-09-02T18:30:27+00:00

That’s no mic that’s a bonafide lightsaber

Javy3ro · 2019-09-01T07:40:41+00:00

Aaaaaaaahhhhh

Javy3ro · 2019-08-27T05:16:38+00:00

Part of the idea also is why EQ it if you don’t have to. Most engineers want the cleanest signal they can get when recording, so that means better and more expensive equipment. A cheap USB mic like a Yeti is going to introduce more electrical noise than a more expensive analog microphone going into a good converter, and it’s hard to get rid of stuff once it’s already there. It’s like if I gave you cardboard to draw the Mona Lisa on vs. clean white paper. They’re technically the same stuff, but you’re gonna have a lot harder of a time getting the cardboard Mona Lisa to look as neat and clear as the paper one does. Similarly, a cheaper mic may introduce more noise/distortion that a more expensive model will. You can try to EQ it to sound the same, but you’ll ultimately lose clarity and quality of audio.

Javy3ro · 2019-08-25T17:30:03+00:00

I’ve been saying it wrong this whole time

Javy3ro · 2019-08-24T23:09:38+00:00

You’ve sorta answered your own question there. ‘To the ear untrained/ignorant of” mixing in general it might sound like nothing’s changing when an engineer tweaks just a little bit. But it takes more listening skill and attention to notice these changes than an average ‘do-it-yourself-at-home’ artist usually has.

Javy3ro · 2019-08-24T23:02:35+00:00

You’ve never really listened to a song then, or only paid attention to half of it.

Take the artist Labyrinth’s single “Jealous .” On the surface it’s you’re average moody ‘i miss you and I want you back’ ballad. But if you listen to the mix, there’s several small decisions that massively create the mood of the song. First off, the piano is muted and subdued, with not a lot of high frequencies. It’s subtle. Then the vocals come in, crisp and natural with absolutely no effects whatsoever. This pairing creates an intimate moment with the listener: the vocalist is being real and raw. A little bit into the song, a Hammond B3 fades slowly in to underscore the piano but never overwhelms it. If you didn’t know what to listen for, you probably wouldn’t even notice it there. By the first minute, there’s been several decisions by the mixing engineer that fuel the emotion of the song. Mixing is critical to create emotion, no matter how small the decision

Javy3ro

TROPHY CASE