In the mix

ThePrettyDamned

Been listening to this



which is probably my favourite album ever. I think it's got *perfect* tone. 

But isolate it as above and... It would be interesting to know what you all think really! I wouldn't change it one bit.

hugbot

More room sound than I'd expect

ThePrettyDamned

hugbot said:

More room sound than I'd expect

The drums for Give It Away were recorded in a conservatory, and the album was mostly recorded in an old house believed to be haunted or something. Give It Away has a 'room' sound to the extreme - and the rest of the album feels the same. It really does sound like you can hear John absolutely slamming the strings. 

Absolutely beautiful recording work - despite the tone that many would argue sounds ver clangy.  

Quite a bit of the distortion that's very harsh is from a Fender H.O.T amp. Awful, horrid sounding box of bees. But in context, with Flea's basslines... Perfect. 

ThePrettyDamned

It's got more life in the sound than pretty much anything I've heard recorded with a Dumble

guitargeek62

I love it, but I'm a huge fan of JF's style so I'm pretty biased!

JDE

I'm far from the biggest Chilis fan (I'll refrain from saying what I really think about them as I am in a total minority, and my opinion is pretty worthless) but I thought some of those tones were pretty good. Two things hit me most - I'm surprised how heavy/hard his right hand is, he sounds like he's really smacking the shit out of his strings, and it shows what a propulsive and interesting drummer Smith is - all those parts sounded so slow! 

Very interesting, thanks for the link!

guitargeek62

^ he's said in interviews before that he normally hits all of the strings when playing rythm, and mutes any that shouldn't be played using his left hand. It results in a really percussive sound that works brilliantly for this band.

ThePrettyDamned

No dramas. 

I love his hard hitting style, I've adopted it into my own playing. It comes with an advantange that you barely ever have to use the volume knob - just easing up on how hard you hit the strings gives you all of the dynamics you need.  

Sassafras

He's up there with my top ten guitarists. Great stuff.

Moss

His tehnique sounds very similar to mine - I tend to do all my muting with my left hand and just hit all strings hard, even in solos

JDE

Yeah, I didn't want to appear dismissive - I listened to it because I'm interested in mixing, and you don't learn anything by cutting your nose off to spite your face. Now, if it was a Joe B record, I probably wouldn't have clicked it...

I do actually quite like Frusciante's playing. Not too precise for funk (which i respect but find it boring to listen to, tbh),  it's quite "sloppy" punk rock-y in feel. I think his "feel" comes across well in most things he plays, and he adheres to the golden rule of not playing loads when there's a lot of other shit going on (I'm looking at you, Flea). It also helps to give a great rhythmic feel to the scat-type vocals. 

ThePrettyDamned

JDE said:

Yeah, I didn't want to appear dismissive - I listened to it because I'm interested in mixing, and you don't learn anything by cutting your nose off to spite your face. Now, if it was a Joe B record, I probably wouldn't have clicked it...

I do actually quite like Frusciante's playing. Not too precise for funk (which i respect but find it boring to listen to, tbh),  it's quite "sloppy" punk rock-y in feel. I think his "feel" comes across well in most things he plays, and he adheres to the golden rule of not playing loads when there's a lot of other shit going on (I'm looking at you, Flea). It also helps to give a great rhythmic feel to the scat-type vocals. 

We can't all love the same stuff. 

It's very interesting though. I try to mute everything as I play with the left hand and sometimes use my right hand too. So everything I play is accompanied by a hit. 

I love the mixing. I love where the combination of distortion, slapback delay (double tracking possibly) and chorus makes that bright, fizzy, harsh, quite nasty sound (righteous and the wicked chorus is a good example of the distortion) and yet in the mix it's absolutely perfect. Just goes to show the value of note choice and play style. 

The solo tone in I could have lied proves, to me, the tones were intentional, because that's a wonderful solo tone. 

hugbot

I think "ugly" strident tones are often the ones that sound best on a record. 

I dont think there is such a thing as good tone or bad tone tbh, its just a matter of personality. Every tone has its own character that may or may not support the emotion and feel of the song. 

JDE

Agree with @hugbot - I don't really think there's such a thing as bad tone, but there's certainly badly recorded, badly mixed and poorly chosen tone. But it's obviously opinion and as with all performance and playing, it's a contextual thing. 

meltedbuzzbox

ThePrettyDamned said:

JDE said:

Yeah, I didn't want to appear dismissive - I listened to it because I'm interested in mixing, and you don't learn anything by cutting your nose off to spite your face. Now, if it was a Joe B record, I probably wouldn't have clicked it...

I do actually quite like Frusciante's playing. Not too precise for funk (which i respect but find it boring to listen to, tbh),  it's quite "sloppy" punk rock-y in feel. I think his "feel" comes across well in most things he plays, and he adheres to the golden rule of not playing loads when there's a lot of other shit going on (I'm looking at you, Flea). It also helps to give a great rhythmic feel to the scat-type vocals. 

We can't all love the same stuff. 

It's very interesting though. I try to mute everything as I play with the left hand and sometimes use my right hand too. So everything I play is accompanied by a hit. 

I love the mixing. I love where the combination of distortion, slapback delay (double tracking possibly) and chorus makes that bright, fizzy, harsh, quite nasty sound (righteous and the wicked chorus is a good example of the distortion) and yet in the mix it's absolutely perfect. Just goes to show the value of note choice and play style. 

The solo tone in I could have lied proves, to me, the tones were intentional, because that's a wonderful solo tone. 

You seem to be forgetting the brilliance of Rick Rubin too

rsvmark

Yup, RR's first of many with RHCP. The making of this album was the subject of one episode of 'Classic Albums' series. Not sure about the haunted bit but they hired a feck off house in LA to write and record the album. This catapulted them into mega stardom and the resulting world tour did for Frusciante who couldn't handle it and iirc began his descent into his class A years.