Nathanael,

Remember we are talking vocals alone.

The part i love is when they have 8 different kicks and hihats(?).

And if you take one insignificant kick or hihat out, the producer is all over you because "it makes the track".

I hate to say it but nowadays i just don't have the desire to go the extra mile as much.

What's there is what i use, if in their heads they wanted to me to add something or take it away, my answer is"you left it there so i gathered its what you wanted".

I hate having to go back and do recalls because "now they realize it wasn't supposed to be there".

Thats so true!...I had a session a few months ago which was exactly like that...what a nightmare...sessions like this are the ones that in my mind would compromise the summing of PT. Although I haven't made any analog summing tests myself (I will soon) , seeing PT with more then a 100 tracks and having plugs on most of them is a scary thing

I think with the advent of ADC on 6.4, the fear will slowly go away.

But to be honest, i've always spread my choruses on stems up to 4 depending on the harmony.

They always sound bigger and more dynamic than smashing them on a buss.

Sure it takes up more faders and that's more fader movements in the automation, but hey its sounds nice.

Also i like them on an analog console please.heh

Well, Thrill, I stand in awe. I suppose it's like anything else, you work with what you have, make decisions as you go and keep working. I caught that we are talking about 120+ tracks here. Someone would definitely have to pay me well to sort that mess out. It is a lot of work to do any kind of fixes to that many tracks, and then there's the balance issues too.

In all fairness some of the big classical productions have lots of mics and tracks too, but that is a pretty different aesthetic again from what I'm typically after.

It is truly amazing how creative we can be with a microphone, preamps, a recorder and some math/semiconductors/tubes depending on your religion.

- Nathanael

LOL

I don't even bother when clients would ask me if I can mix all that stuff together; 2 tracks of kick is more than enough, although, I even don't see the point of using a mic outside the kick.
Even more useless is a second mic under the snare.
Using so many mics, triggers, takes and ask to mix them all together, simply states that the recording is terrible.
Or one chooses to keep all the clients happy, and gather as much clients as one can get...I'd keep keep some prozac and speed within my reachheh
I'm still waiting for the day when a Jazz-trio will come to my place with their recordings and say: "Well, we miced the bass from 26 different angles, but finally we got it right, can you mix this together?"
It's nice to have total control though, but it takes away a LOT of creativity...

I think in some cases, like Mutt Lang, it's the creativity that makes these situations happen. If there's a purpose for all those tracks, then I'm all for it. If I don't see the purpose, then I'd better discover it or I'll probably end up unhappy on that session.

You've got to give the artist the benefit of the doubt sometimes in order to see their vision. It's what we get paid for.

A lot of today's hiphop/RnB kicks, snares, hats, etc., are made with multiple samples layered and processed differently... so seeing 8 different kicks isn't all that uncommon, albeit unnecessary much of the time as well. You'll have a 'thud" track, an 808 sub, an attack/clicky track, etc., all playing on the same hits. Plus there's usually a couple of different parts during more complex rhythms, so one rhythm might have 4 layers, the counter-rhythm might have it's own 3 or 4 layers, etc. I assisted a mix engineer who handled tons of urban music that was mostly horribly tracked, and this guy could easily waste a 20 hour day, not know what end was up on the final mix, do a recall a week later that took another 12 hours, and end up with a hit. Hope that doesn't sound like i'm complimenting him, cause it was more like dumb luck. I don't miss those sessions one bit.

Yeah, wouldn't it be great to have just 1 kick-track which is awesome.....check out
www.modernbeats.com

Layer kicks in NI-Battery (great sampleplayer for urban/dance stuff!)
And record it in mono/stereo, violá, your kick-track.
Same goes for snare, hihats, perc, etc...
A lot of people have misunderstood the power of layering samples, while in midi, just mix it right before going to audio!
How hard can it be?
It saves up soooo much tracks, stress and hours/days of work.
As I said before; clients who come to your studio, and ask if they can mix together 8 kick-tracks, 6 snare-tracks, 4 hihat-tracks,etc,
states that they are NOT certain of the sound of their own project.
Urban music, (with sampled drums) is so damn easy to do; one can mix one song in 1 or 2 hours if necessairy, as long as the pre-production kicks ass!
If not, say a prayer and play some Russian rouletteheh

I can't speak personally as I don't have much experience mixing said style of music, but after seeing some of the big guns really dig in and do their thing, it seems like a style that can be fun and exciting to mix when the producer knows what he's doing during writing and tracking. Just like anything else, if the producer/artist knows what they want from the start, then mixing is pure fun regardless of the time involved.

I spent a couple of years working out of Record One in L.A and I would block out one room and Dr. Dre had the other room blocked out and it always amazed me how fast they wold get a song done.
Considering how "messed up " thos guys get everday I just couldn't understand it ''till I would hang out in their sessions and it is such another world to rock or pop but it was an eye opener for sure. Dre would definately spend a while mixing . He mixed on ns10's pretty much always after tracking on the mains , at enough volume to give you a bowel movement!! He mixes himself and knows his stuff!!