Mod Bod


I've tried to find what albums Bobby Owsinski is credited on and I don't seem to come up with anything.  I always hesitate when I see someone who is considered an expert and I don't have concrete results to judge them by.  It's kind of like a clairvoyant that can't hit the Lotto.


It's like the guys who are putting the hits on the charts aren't talking and the guys who are the "also ran" types have all kinds of advice to teach how to get the results they get.  Is that what I want?

Not to degrade this guy's instruction - just an observation.  I welcome any enlightenment I can get.

It's a grey area for sure and I feel the same way as you but with a twist. I wouldn't care how many awards or albums he had if they existed....if I hated his work and the sounds he's gotten. Quite a few engineers and producers fit this bill to me that have quite a few albums under their belts. I can't stomach their sounds though and feel it wouldn't have mattered who worked with the bands they worked with....if you or me would have gotten those jobs, we would be stars too. The band has a lot to do with how something sounds. Producers and engineers matter...but could someone really make The Doobies, Van Halen or Brett Garsed sound bad? Only if the performances sucked and the songs sucked.
 
The other side of the coin...though I feel as you do and like to listen to credible people that lead by example, I think there has to be a few exceptions there. If we went by "albums" or "credibility" as far as popularity goes, we'd miss out on a lot of good information shared by our forum members....whom (to my knowledge) don't have any awards or album credits anyone would know of.
 
Do listen: If you like the sounds someone gets and they explain themselves well. That's all the credibility *I* need.
 
Do listen: If the explanation is good without audio, makes sense, is thorough and delivered like a brother helping a brother. If I try it and it works...more credibility. If it doesn't work....maybe that technique isn't for me.
 
DON'T listen: If they can't lead by example and you hate all the production work they have shared thus far. There's no sense listening to a person that talks the talk yet falls on their face in the production and sound category. 
 
Just my take though.
 
-Danny

Mod BodOnce again, I don't mean to cast doubt on the author's instruction. I would guess that he would base his information on his contact with top notch engineers and their information or his observation of their techniques. Very valid, IMHO. And more than likely, he's making a boatload of money doing instructional videos, books and teaching so why go into the jungle and battle it out with the others for a limited number of good paying projects?

 
Man there's a long list of dudes that fit this bill. When I was learning to play guitar, there was a dude named Doug Marks who had this Metal Method video lesson plan. He looked cool as heck, had all this cool gear, really looked the part. Well I took a chance on the video collection and was pretty upset with the majority of it. I was in my 10th year of playing at the time...and this dude sounded like me in my 4th year of playing. There were some good things that I DID learn from the series, but it was pretty horrible. And I know he made a killing on these video's because everyone was buying them.
 
There are quite a few guys that do well with stuff like this. I have Bobby O's Mix Engineer's handbook here. Though it has some good stuff in it, it's not anything that has helped me nor does the stuff in it cater to my personal needs. This is the problem with books like this as I've mentioned. What someone does on another DAW, analog gear or in an environment that *I* myself am not in.....it's not going to help ME. There are things we can all learn from books like this...but the majority of them are either subjective or not pertaining to what WE use while using OUR sounds.
 
Hey I feel ya on the dirt bike thing....that was my reason to live until a bad accident and a brain injury forced me to retire. I actually talked to Roger quite a few times....remember Bob "Hurricane" Hannah? That's who was helping me at the time. Still have my bike and take it out from time to time. :) Definitely not an easy sport.
 
-Danny

"When I was trying learn how to be a motocross racer, I bought a bike that matched the requirements I needed.  I hung out with guys that had the same sort of bike.  If they told me to crank the bike up in order to win the race, well, I could evaluate that technique pretty quickly and judge it as gospel.  If they told me to go as fast I can around the track until I fall off and then ease off the gas a fraction, that would help me at my current experience level.  But they couldn't tell me how to get to Roger Decoster's level because they couldn't keep up with him if they were pushed out the backside of a cargo plane with him.

Once again, I don't mean to cast doubt on the author's instruction.  I would guess that he would base his information on his contact with top notch engineers and their information or his observation of their techniques.  Very valid, IMHO.  And more than likely, he's making a boatload of money doing instructional videos, books and teaching so why go into the jungle and battle it out with the others for a limited number of good paying projects? 


EDIT: ( I never did get anywhere with that Motocross thing.  I couldn't get past that falling off bit.)  "


:-)

I am an acquaintance of Ricky Charmichael. He lives up here since he moved up from your area. You may remember him from Croom.

He learned to race Moto X from his Dad, a guy who looks way more comfortable on a John Deer than a moto bike. His coach from the G.O.A.T. days is a runner and fitness expert who is into bicycling.

They didn't have no credits or resume in Moto X.

Some stuff just is.

:-)

A little perspective on Bobby. At the time his first book came out there were literally only two books on the market the other being "Behind the Glass" both of which were the first books to attempt to capture what was going on in the mixing room to create the sounds of albums. The tips and insights provided were prior to this, top inside industry secrets. Back in those days, no one would dare give up their methods on how to create an album and, unless you were a junior engineer in the old large studios, you would not be privy to the information these two books covered. 

Bobby's first book and the second edition are gleaned from people he knew in the industry and he has some credible sources in his book, although he has limited credentials in the music industry himself. That does not make the information wrong. These books came out in the era when tape was dying and people were switching to protools. The industry was starting to erode and Bobby and Howard Massey did interviews with the people from the "Golden Era" of music who had made a lot of the albums people loved. It was the first time they talked about their craft in other than a few magazine articles. These exposed for the first time the inner circle methods of making commercial music.

I do agree, there are a lot of so called industry "experts" that pass along a lot of information and make a living of passing along information that have no music credits other than being kind of "students of" or self proclaimed "professors" of music as it were.

Just a reminder that back in 1999 when these early books came out the internet was just getting to graphical interfaces and the relative ease of tapping into Dave Pensados series or even Joe Barresi's videos for download were unheard of. I think Dave's or Joe's series or even the mixing series out of Nashville videos that came out a few years ago are the most reliable sources of engineering information out there. These books seem dated now and there are better sources for learning engineering available to everyone today via the internet.

As Danny mentions above, there are a lot of people who banter about "methods of the pros" like parallel compression, gated snares etc. but when they provide an example of how to use the method, fall flat on their face because they don't understand the context of when to use these methods or actually how to make them work in a mix.

mike_mccue





Consider that a 1176 has a 20-800 microsecond attack range and it's easy to see that it is really a limiter that just happens to also be a favorite *compressor*. 

From what I understand - and as Owsinski points out - to function as a limiter, a compressor has to be used w/ a drastic ratio, say 20:1 and beyond. That is effectively "limiting" since nothing passes through. 


A compressor w/ the attack set at the very minimum value but w/ a ratio of 2:1 or such isn't really limiting (well, depending on where you set the threshold, of course) because it will potentially let the signal go a few db over threshold if you hit it hard enough. (and yes, they exist, I have a DBX right in front of me which I use to prime my guitars which doesn't even reach 2:1 until you turn the knob mid-way through. ;) 


Of course, if you're want to limit something, you probably want to use the shortest attack time also.


In other words, it's not only how fast it reacts but how much it lets through. I guess that's what you meant when you mentioned the threshold and ratio.


BUT - I may be mistaken.

It seems like you have a fine understanding of how it all inter relates. There's no need to feel as if you are mistaken.

I guess, in some ways, it's just how you may wish to define the word limiting.

For example; in these illustrations you can see that a 0.1ms attack time is nearly instantaneous. You can also see how a 12:1 ratio that initiates at a -6dBFS threshold clamps down the peak and effectively *limits* the peaks. Here we see an instance where 12:1 reduces the peak by 4dB:

 





Here's what a 2:1 ratio looks like. It's grabbing the peak pretty well itself with a 2dB reduction.



With the 1176, you can't set it for a slow attack... even the 0.8ms is FAST, so no matter what ratio you choose there is going to a be a "limiting" characteristic, if you will, in that the reduction in level will happen so quickly that few peaks will sneak by without some limiting effect occurring.

In any event, the 1176 has a 20:1 ratio available as one of it's choices. It doesn't have a 2:1 but it does have a 4:1.



best regards,
mike

I can't get past Mr. O's EQ technique of boosting a 200hz shelf EQ 5db on an acoustic guit in a dense mix. 
I don't know. Maybe that's why I'm not rich and famous:)

Guys, 

I never do this, but I see a whole bunch of misinformation being thrown about so I have to jump in.

1) As far as the boosting 200Hz thing, I never said anything like that at all. What I said is that you can clean up your mixes substantially if you use a hi-pass filter on some of the instruments to get the low end out of the way of other instruments where you really want to hear that low end. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Use your ears. There are times when it works well on an acoustic, especially if it's being used more to push the song than anything, and other times when it's not appropriate.

2) Wow, the compressor thing really got blown out of proportion. Forget the numbers on the things and use your ears. It doesn't matter if you start with the attack time all the way short or all the way long. What counts is that it's set so you can hear some of the attack getting through so the sound isn't too dull. As for the release time, you set it to where you don't hear it breathe, which usually works best if it's timed to the track. As far as the ratio, it's great if you can set it low and it works for you, but another way is the more dynamics, the higher you set the ratio. Again, use your ears. If you can hear it working, maybe that's perfect for the song and maybe it's not. 


Guys, 

I never do this, but I see a whole bunch of misinformation being thrown about so I have to jump in.

1) As far as the boosting 200Hz thing, I never said anything like that at all. What I said is that you can clean up your mixes substantially if you use a hi-pass filter on some of the instruments to get the low end out of the way of other instruments where you really want to hear that low end. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Use your ears. There are times when it works well on an acoustic, especially if it's being used more to push the song than anything, and other times when it's not appropriate.

2) Wow, the compressor thing really got blown out of proportion. Forget the numbers on the things and use your ears. It doesn't matter if you start with the attack time all the way short or all the way long. What counts is that it's set so you can hear some of the attack getting through so the sound isn't too dull. As for the release time, you set it to where you don't hear it breathe, which usually works best if it's timed to the track. As far as the ratio, it's great if you can set it low and it works for you, but another way is the more dynamics, the higher you set the ratio. Again, use your ears. If you can hear it working, maybe that's perfect for the song and maybe it's not. 

3) My books and the Internet. All of my books feature interviews with people who are a lot smarter than I am. I'm trying to capture their industrial knowledge before it fades away, since we no longer have the master/apprentice way of learning anymore. When I first wrote The Mixing Engineer's Handbook, it was the only book on the market on mixing. Now there's plenty of great info everywhere and I encourage you to seek it out. For what it's worth, I'm doing an updated version of the Mixing Handbook at this moment, and it will have a number of topics that aren't touched or are overlooked by other mixing courses or books, as well as many of the interviews being updated and a few new ones with Ken Scott, Andrew Scheps, Bob Brockman, Bob Bullock, among others. It's the wisdom of people who have sold hundreds of millions of records.

4) Every great mixer knows that there are a lot of ways to get the same place. One of the things that Dave Pensado and I always joke about is that two guys can approach a mix totally differently and get more or less the same result. One guy will push things one way and the other will do just the opposite. Neither is right or wrong. Take what you read or hear, keep what works and discard the rest.

5) Regarding my credits, frankly I never bothered to look until this morning. I was amused at some of the omissions and things they got flat out wrong. No big deal because I don't really care and probably won't ever bother to look at them again. For those of you interested though, I don't see any of the more than 100 DVDs that I did surround music mixes for (some of which include The Who, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, The Ramones, etc.), or the records I did with blues legends Joe Houston, Willie Dixon, Gerry Groom and a couple of great ones with the not-so-lblues-legend Mick Taylor.

OK, I hope this clears some things up. Be careful when you sling those examples. They're easy to take out of context.

Bobby

mike_mccue


It seems like you have a fine understanding of how it all inter relates. There's no need to feel as if you are mistaken.

I guess, in some ways, it's just how you may wish to define the word limiting.

best regards,
mike

Thanks for the explanation, Mike. Since english isn't my native language and all the resources are in english, it's entirely possible that I tend to agonize over terminology and the exact meaning of things - I don't always grasp nuances when/if there are any, so my definition of limiting may very well be a bit rigid.

Thanks for chiming in, Bobby!

Thanks Bobby. Your books have been and still are an inspiration and guide for me. Thanks for your contributions and the trend you pioneered.