Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Splittin’ hairs

It’s getting down to crunch time on the new OakTeam record. If we’re gonna get it mastered, manufactured and in the hands of the loud loving public by February we all gotta jump in the ditch and push. It’s coming down to not only combing hairs but in many cases splitting them. Mixing is a time of very close listening and the lingo of changing the mix is not unlike that of being in the van. Levels of volume are mostly measured in hairs, as in “turn that down (or up) a hair.” Then you go smaller from that, “turn that down a “cock hair” and then down to a “teenage cock hair”. From there you’re really just breathing on the fader to get it to move, those are included the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stages of volume. They go something like this; “turn it down a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cock hair”, then down to that of a ten year old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and finally when you’re just really staring hard at the fader and pretending that it moved, that would be moving it a TMT baby ass hair. It’s all very technical really, but there’s so much involved that you have to have a way of communicating. WHERE things are placed is discussed in relation to positions on the clock. When you’re mixing stereo (almost always) and looking across the scope of the speakers things can go from far left “9 o’clock” to far right “3 o’clock” or anywhere in between. EQ is discussed in various terms of bright or boomy. There is still lots to do and we’ll be back at it tonight, yelling at Jon to “Turn that boomy kick drum up a cock hair and move it a little more one o'clock!” and such. It’s getting pretty exciting and starting to sound like a damn record, finally!

6 comments:

halfpear said...

"Everything louder than everything else." The anti- cock hair.

Good luck, can't wait to hear it.

PH

Anonymous said...

Terry,
Still holding my breath for the Woods box set. I sure hope that sees the light of day. If not, please please please at least get out another Woods disc. Those tunes deserves to see the light of day. I'm excited about the new OAK Team disc, but for us old timers there's nothing quite like the early stuff!

Anonymous said...

I know what you're talking about, Terry. When I start mixing a home recorded song it could last up to a week before I'm satisfied. But I found a trick. Open up a bottle of really fine wine downstairs and see if you still have the patience to think about turning up tracks by cock hairs.
Sometimes good is good enough.
Cheers,
Gerben in NL

Anonymous said...

"Sometimes good is good enough".
- Gerben in NL

Very well spoken my Dutch friend. I raise my glass to all of you. And Terry, take yer time but get the damn reccor' finished. Rather sooner than later.

johan/hell-sinki

Moose said...

Well... now there's your problem. Y'all are just an RCH off. 'Cause er're body knows red is the thinnest.

Moose

Anonymous said...

Damn straight, Moose! I was gonna bring up the ol' RCH - but I'm a glad a fellow broadcaster beat me to it!