Sandrob: Yeah, I know about vinco is a 1176LN clone, and I think its rigth upthere with UAD-1 qualitywize. I'm disapointed though that they didn't implement the "all-buttons" feature as UAD. I simply love that.
The vocal chain is actually a bit more complex. It starts with a Ultrafunk Gate, and then pultec, LA2A, routed to a bus where Waves R-vox, R-deesser is (I don't use UAD stuff on busses, mainly becourse I'm in Cubase SX (waiting for Nuendo 2) and don't wanna mess with the latency issues. The vocals are also routed to a SPF mixer with Qdrive on the channel mixed low, to get distorted harmonies. I think in the final mix, I'll turn down the lower frequencies on the vocal, to get a more balanced mix. Also I will sidechain compress the vocals with the other elements, to ensure every word can be heard.
deejaysly:
Thank you for your nice reaction.
First of all, in this mix, great attention was made to ensure that most overlaping frequencies were eleminated. That means that fx the bass or the drums really doesn't sound that great when you solo them, but in the mix context it sounds great. Also, very few times, sounds which share the same spectrum, rarely plays at the same time.
1) Both LA2A and 1176LN has both a very distinct character, and is preferred by many many top engineres, producers and even singers (Michael Jackson, Cher, Kate Bush etc). They are originally hardware compressors from the past made by Universal Audio/Teletronix (
http://www.uaudio.com ), and are very expensive vintage units, course they went out of production years ago. Universal Audio recently reissued both units, but they are still VERY expensive. As an alternative you can buy Universal Audios UAD-1 pci-card, which emulates those two effects as VST effects and many more, and it does it damn well.
When you say bass you almost allways say bass through a LA2A, course it just sounds soooooooo smooth and nice. The device has like two knobs that does it's magic, where many modern compressors many more. But those two knobs is enough, course it's just like whatever you run through the LA2A just sound so smooth and natural. You can even dail in insane amount of compression, and it's barely noticeably. Vocals, drums, bass. It surely is a magic box. The 1176 is in the same legue, for smashing the hell out of a drumbus, or sqeuzing vocals. It has a few more options like attack, release and ratio. Go get em, highly recommended...
2) Yeah, in hip-hop everything should sound upfront, so mostly everything is compressed. Especially vocals and drums. When you do that you can, in the end, have a louder master, but surely, if you dail in too much compression, things start to sound lifeless.
3) The Pultec EQ is also a very rare and vintage unit, originally developed for telephone aplications. Its extremely expensive, but furtunatly also included in the UAD-1 package. I haven't tried an original Pultec, but the plugin sound so nice, that I don't really care. I have yet to discover a plugin or hardware EQ (except maybe for a Tubetech EQ I borrow from time to time, Manley EQ is also up there!), where I can throw an awfull amount of treble or bass, and the sound never get harsh or muddy. It's THE thing to add breath to vocals, and tight bass to drums or bass. The funny thing about about it, is that you can boost and cut at the same time, resulting in a strange, but very musical EQ curve.
Hope to be to any help...
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<FONT FACE=verdana SIZE=2>Yours truely
Noah Laux
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http://www.thalamusic.dk
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Thalamus on 2003-06-22 19:03 ]</font>
