Hi, Bob Boilen here. I'm the creator of Tiny Desk concerts. I love what you did here and appreciate your appreciation of the Tiny Desk sound. I won’t go into details on what you came up with other than to say you did a great job. You should see a Tiny Desk concert sometime. Given all you did here, you’d appreciate it immensely. The one thing I would critique that is vital to the Tiny Desk and an important part of my philosophy for these concerts is this: no headphones or monitors. The singer sings in the room without any amplification. Since there are also no monitors, everyone has to play at a volume that allows them to hear the singer and also every other instrument. So, in essence, the band is ‘self-mixing.’ That makes the performance unique, as well as the recording techniques.
Bob!! Can’t believe you took the time to watch. I’m the singer from this and just want to honor Ricky as well as the amazing musicians here. Thanks so much for listening and can’t wait to see you there ;)
Woa, Hi Bob its an honor! Means a lot that you took the time to out the vid! I would LOVE to check out a Tiny Desk show in person if I ever get the chance :) Totally heard on the monitoring, sounds like that would have solved some of my issues with regulating dynamics. Transparently, this was actually more of a video move than an audio one. I only have one camera and wanted to make a multicam edit. To do this I had them listen to a click, then shot 5 different takes/cam angles. Because they had a click I could sync up the timing of each shot in post. The audio you’re hearing is the final take :) Looking back, perhaps I should have just been fine with a single wide shot and left it unmonitored, noted for next time 🫡 and thanks again for checking the vid out!
I don't perform live or play well, or even really use mics, mostly a daw based electronic artist, but 'Emotional mixing decisions' is a fantastic concept that's going in the toolkit.
@@boimesa8190 I will try to post the link but usually they are rejected by youtube. --> just search "Tiny Desks recordings did an AMA" in google, it's the first answer. 😀
Unbelievable recreation. Sounds exactly like the NPR Edition. Amazing performances too.. We’ve been working with Ricky for the last few months on our debut EP. He’s been amazing to work with and his attention to detail is second to none.. send him those demos, you won’t regret it😅
I love tiny desk, and this channel. I would have never thought to break down the tiny desk production but this is fantastic. Reminds me of all the reasons I love folk and jazz recordings where all the people are in the room together with out headphones and they’re listening to each other and having a musical conversation.
Tiny desk is magical to me because they’re focused on capturing the energy of the room as you mentioned Now a days there isn’t a lot of that. The room mic might be blended to add depth but not to capture the energy/vibe of a room. I love you talked about this! I’m subbing!
@AudioHaze, you don't need a shotgun added to your OC818 to get a MID-SIDE signal! Your OC818 can do a "pseudo m/s" signal alone!! You need to connect the included mini XLR cable on its back so you get two outputs from the mic and have it sideways pointed to the band and use the free (inlcuded) AA Stereo Creator plugin to obtain pseudoM/S signal from just one mic. I believe that nowadays the NPR sound is heavily dependent on the Neumann KU-100 (Dummy head) also, that replaced the original MKH 418s (MID-SIDE Shotgun) for the overall ambience duties. As far as i understand, the 418s was used on the ceiling as an overall band /ambience mic and for spot miking on vocals, they use Sennheiser 416, which are regular shotgun mics with high side-rejection in order to block drums and other loud acoustic instruments placed around the drums, that's why they are pointed up to the vocalists' mouths. I dont believe they never used a 418s for vocals, which doesn't make any sense for that application unless your use the Mid channel only. Important to mention is that the ceiling tiles seem to be pretty absorbent, which help the room acoustics to some degree. Great technique! Thanks for the video!
Dude im in my 3rd year of sound engineering right now and ive gotta say your videos are brilliant! So underated ive been showing them to all of my friends! Im currently working on my final project, and im gonna use a lot of the techniques you've spoken about on an album!
You are absolutely on the right track (no pun intended) with doing the forensic videos. They are great as well as being a great inspiration. And this video is amazing. What a performance and what a great band! Well done to one and all including your production team! Keep up the great work, you now have one of the best and most important channels on TH-cam!
I recently discovered your channel and it's one of the best things has happened to me, cause it helped me to know what mic i should buy to work on my album
Your channel might be my favourite on YT right now. I’m learning so much and the quality and dedication for these videos is insane. I would love to see a video on Parcels in the future. Especially on their live vol. 1 recording.
When you mentioned panning I wondered if you had considered the reason it sounds better in many live recordings when things are panned as they are on stage. I always keep a stage plot handy in those situations where mic-leakage is inevitable because I found that panning to the stage plot brought all the phase information more accurately "together" and things almost magically clear up and ''crystallize''. Of course if one pans a mic that's picking up a lot of the other side of the stage opposite of where it was on stage the time difference between sound waves from the distant mics becomes a real problem with the typical unwanted phase issues.
There is a theory i accidentally found on an online forum from 2012 that Heil mics, american company, who makes only expensive high end mics are actually chinese OEM mics. If you google it there pictures of chinese or japanese mics that look the same as PR35 (and other models) externally and internally. What I didnt find is anyone comparing them. I find it a very interesting true crime unsolved mystery.
When I was a night club DJ, I referred to the people on my crowded dancefloor affectionately as "Meat Baffles". I really had to crank up the volume because of that.
Been watching your channel for a while and it's so cool to see you blow up. You seem to have a knack for making the exact videos I've been wanting to watch without me even realising until you've made it!
Tiny desk concerts are so well received because it’s simply organic. As fun as crazy sounding mixes are, nothing is more timeless than a great band playing great music, in front of a great audience, recorded by an audio engineer who knows how to capture it. Same principle goes for over processing the mix- just because you can, doesn’t mean you should
This two interface design is pretty common in many of the live gigs I've done. Often you'll have a mixer to handle the various drum mics, build a drum mix from those and then send it to the main desk.
MOST excellent as always. Very cool to see the setup (left to right) breakdown of the player placements and how it affected the recording. Taylor Crawford and crew killing it as always on Comfort Zone.
I’ve been a live musician and live sound engineer for many years…..DRUMS are always an issue. Despite your accidental close placement of the kit and vocalist you captured a decent mix. The observation I have is that the band, who are great soloists, are not used to this amount of restraint dynamically, and this performance demonstrates that. Again, the drums become the sonic obstacle that every other player ends up competing with and the overall performance lacks any dynamics. Not being critical of their musical talent, but their ability to “self-mix,” as Bob B. even pointed out in the comments. The headphone monitors likely were a huge part of why this experiment was less than perfect. The performers all had a mix that was completely different than the room capture and left for an “every man for himself” performance. Great job and appreciation for the format, regardless of any critique.
There is always so much value in these kinds of videos. I was so inspired by that sound, it frees me to think more organically about the feel of the song, then necessarily the scientific approach of mixing. I didn't say that very well but, great job and thank you!
really enjoyed how you look at this practically using what was available to you (and suggesting affordable alternatives) vs. this being all about using an expensive ass mic to try and just copy that sound. this mix sounds great for what it is - true to form in doing as little as possible to change the original sound. also great timing as i was just watching an npr video the other day marveling over the sound quality haha. great video!
Thanks Jack! Yeah although I was considering the sennheiser mic I really didn't want to blow that much change and it ended up being more useful to do a DIY solution anyhow :)
So glad to hear you cover this, I've been commenting on their videos about the SQ for years!!!! Love the quality, truly the best! Awesome video! every video is a master class of recording, and you did it! Thank you!
i would love to see a video on how big tours (era’s tour, love on tour, Still at their very best, etc) run their sound in context with backing tracks, click tracks, live talk back with crew, and how one member of the band controls the whole show and switches and initiates every guitar patch, keyboard patch, backing track with the click of one button in tandem with lighting and video projections.
I absolutely love this style and this was such a fun video to watch. Especially since it's so obvious the people in that room were having FUN with eachother and with the music. And that is awesome. Basically the only thing that bothered me about the mix is I had a really hard time hearing the guitar at all. I was actually straining my ears and brain trying to pick it out. I feel like that would be a place I'd have welcomed some accentuation. In every other way I loved this and think I actually discovered something totally new. It's like the perfect combination between a live and a studio recording. Live recordings can often either have pretty terrible audio quality, OR they might not sound like what they look like on the video. On the other hand, studio recordings can easily betray that the musicians weren't really hearing eachother, and that their sound was modified quite a lot. As a result they can end up kind of too perfect: Spatial cues are missing, everyone's in too good of a tune, there's no tempo drift, no mistakes, etc. This style is somewhere between those. It feels almost like you're actually there in a live situation: You can hear what you see (spatial cues), the artists are responding naturally to eachother (playing together), there's some variation and "imperfections" (maybe a missed note there, an out of tune one there, a bit of tempo drift). Yet it has the sound quality that also makes it pleasurable to listen: No excessive noise, no missing frequencies, vocals are present all of the time (not cut out because the singer went too far from the well-cancelling dynamic mic), and so on. It's like... A normal concert recording can be "natural, but sometimes not good", a studio recording can be "good, but sometimes not natural", but this style is both natural and good. And I guess that's why I was bothered by the guitar being almost inaudible. It sort of breaks the immersion when you can see the guitar being played like mad but can't really hear it. I guess that's where I would argue it would be better to stray from the "entirely natural" focus and bring the guitar up, so that it matches what you think you'd be hearing a bit better. But all in all, a fantastic video and I'm super grateful! (Note: It could be just my particular ears and my particular brain that has this guitar audibility problem and everyone else is hearing it perfect. Dunno. Listened on AKG Q701 headphones.)
Great job and great channel, your content is down to earth, basic information that gets to the point without all the needless bells and whistles most audio production channels have.
Not trying to nit pick an overall super informative video, but having the players wear headphones to presumably monitor themselves kinda goes against one of the key elements of the tiny desk sound. There ARE no monitors/amplified vocals, which adds to that super intimate, hushed sound. Doing it this way would also prevent stuff like the drummer playing too loud. Anyway, great video and I’m definitely going to take the mixing advice to heart when finishing my band’s tiny desk concert submission this week!
TH-cam already suggests your stuff so much I didn't realize I wasn't subscribed until now (better late than never I suppose). You've got an awesome channel here and I appreciate everything you're doing. Keep up the great work!
Holy crap, Batman! This is so well thought out and presented. New subscriber here immediately after watching this video, the first of yours that popped into my feed. Big fan!
I could be imagining it, but the vocals in the pre-COVID performances seem louder and more clear to me. Check out Lake Street Dive or Lianne La Havas, for example. The vocals these days just seem a little drowned out unless the singer is very powerful. I'm not an audio engineer, just a musician and music lover :)
Very revealing video with tons of straightforward good advice communicated in a modest and clear way - THAT‘S COOL! Gonna try out some of Josh‘s techniques very soon and maybe also make a video… keep up the great work!
Using a mid-side microphone should give you the ability to turn down the side facing figure of eight channel and focusing on the voice, of course if you don't have post production mix down you have to do it during production. Also hanging some fabric over the highly reflective glass in those cabinets could have taken some of the sting out of the drum set leakage also many of the drummers choose to use those "bundle sticks" so that is more controlled.
The shotgun mics are more sensitive than dynamic mics, but they're also far more directional- something like a super-cardioid pickup pattern as opposed to an sm58's regular cardioid pattern. Meaning while they're more sensitive- they'll actually have far stronger sound rejection than the dynamics- leading to a more isolated sound for each instrument, not an increase in bleed.
I think that it sounded great and the band has groove for days but to mimic the same sound you gotta be in a similar sized space. All their mic choices have been done depending on the sound in that particular room from the performers to the engineers. So the whole theory of mimicking the same mic setup crumbles upon itself because your room was a tiny intimate room that deserves to be taken into consideration.
as a frequent tiny desk listener (my favorite is Tom Misch’s), you guys kinda nailed it! the drum mics feel too roomy though, but at least now we know to get the drums away from the singer when trying to nail the sound
Very awesome video man, truly enjoyed the structure of the video and the way you go through every last detail. Personally have been trying to learn how to work with sound and such so this video definitely helped give me a better understanding of what I need to know.
Catching your community post about the thumbnail then seeing that thumbnail in my subscriptions made me much more likely to click this video. It is also one of the most interesting concepts that you've covered lately, too. Idk anything about being a content creator but hope this feedback helps. Good video!✌
Thanks! Its honestly just easier than trying to guess which thumbnail will have the best click through rate, but I guess in some ways it works as a good promo tool too you're so right
amazing video, I'm so grateful to find all this info for free, so thank u for sharing, sometimes it feels like there's not enough info on internet about this kind of things, and too much about the same mainstream topics
Glad I could help my friend! I'm humbled :) yeah I feel like its a good application of mixing topics, making something desirable rather than teaching production in vacuum. Thanks again dude!
Nice work. Super impressive approach and problem solvings! I'm wondering that NPR usually doesn't use headphones and has an audience hearing it from a PA, monitors, whatever. How does it work to avoid feeback and other issues with so many different types of microphones?
Great video as always ! One note: In the actual video clip at the end, we never see the whole band together as you show at 15:38 . So mixing as we'd see in a live situation doesn't translate to audience on TH-cam. So mixing and videography have to work together for that live feeling.
Gotcha, appreciate the feedback! Yeah we were going for a vizier shoot, but you're right it doesn't translate to a live show as much as the wide angle would have
Great video, very well done. Well researched, well executed. Solid! Only critique I would offer is that the guitar is getting lost in the mix. Listened to this on two different studio headsets and the monitors, still hard to pick out. Since he's not playing the entire song, it should stand out more when he does play. I don't say this to be negative at all, just to offer an outsider's ear. Keep it up, great content dude!
There’s this DIY Tiny Desk style TH-cam channel called Dud’s Dungeon and they do live sessions of underground bands and the quality is very impressive. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND CHECKING IT OUT.
This is absolutely amazing! My drummer sent this channel to me, I think he wants to do some better recordings😅 I was wondering, could you look at Snarky Puppy? Specifically their recordings for We Like It Here? I feel it could be really interesting
I almost want to unsubscribe just soni can subscribe again. Love watching your growth, as well as learning, and being inspired by you and your incredibly solid team. As always, respect 👊🏼
If you have enough broad room mics, does phase become somewhat less of an issue? is that where individual mics can step in to save an element being phased poorly?
Hi, Senti here. I see that none use headphones on npr concerts. If so how do synths operate. Are they connected to an amp? And does the singer’s mic is amped as well? Can you please help me with that?
@@AudioHaze me neither dude, there has to be a small pa at the back of the room?? with a dead silent crowd and a tiny bit coming thru the pa probably should be enough, or who knows, it is tiny desk and they seem to do things a little differently, maybe there's a single 4 inch satellite speaker hanging in the middle of the crowd pointing down from above them and they somehow make that work haha, thanks for inspiring me bud, great work, respect
Some good observations here. I was present when Josh Rogosin gave a talk at the Audio Engineering Society convention in NYC last fall. One thing I walked away with was how active he was being in managing the bleed from all those microphones. While Josh may use a lot of instrument spots when recording a large ensemble, when he showed his DAW session on the screen, it was clear that the majority of those mics were muted most of the time. Spot mics were unmuted only at specific points in the song where they were needed to highlight something. When unmuted, they were often heavily EQ'd to add only exactly what was needed to the mix and to keep unwanted bleed under control. Josh usually has some kind of ambience feed available -- sometimes just a more distant stereo mic -- but he doesn't use it continually in the mix. It might be faded up in the spaces (another production nod to field reporting) or used for a more distant perspective on a horn section, but it's not the sole source of ambience in the final mix. There are always those stereo mics, but Josh is also not afraid to use artificial reverb plug ins. The end result FEELS like intimate live capture, but what's really going on here is storytelling and, in service of that story, no post-production trick is off the table.
Hi, Bob Boilen here. I'm the creator of Tiny Desk concerts. I love what you did here and appreciate your appreciation of the Tiny Desk sound. I won’t go into details on what you came up with other than to say you did a great job. You should see a Tiny Desk concert sometime. Given all you did here, you’d appreciate it immensely. The one thing I would critique that is vital to the Tiny Desk and an important part of my philosophy for these concerts is this: no headphones or monitors. The singer sings in the room without any amplification. Since there are also no monitors, everyone has to play at a volume that allows them to hear the singer and also every other instrument. So, in essence, the band is ‘self-mixing.’ That makes the performance unique, as well as the recording techniques.
Bob!! Can’t believe you took the time to watch. I’m the singer from this and just want to honor Ricky as well as the amazing musicians here. Thanks so much for listening and can’t wait to see you there ;)
So why have microphones? For the feeling from both audience and artist perspective?
@@GTORTmicrophones to record the audio. Not to amplify.
The man himself!
Woa, Hi Bob its an honor! Means a lot that you took the time to out the vid! I would LOVE to check out a Tiny Desk show in person if I ever get the chance :)
Totally heard on the monitoring, sounds like that would have solved some of my issues with regulating dynamics. Transparently, this was actually more of a video move than an audio one. I only have one camera and wanted to make a multicam edit. To do this I had them listen to a click, then shot 5 different takes/cam angles. Because they had a click I could sync up the timing of each shot in post. The audio you’re hearing is the final take :)
Looking back, perhaps I should have just been fine with a single wide shot and left it unmonitored, noted for next time 🫡 and thanks again for checking the vid out!
I don't perform live or play well, or even really use mics, mostly a daw based electronic artist, but 'Emotional mixing decisions' is a fantastic concept that's going in the toolkit.
Yay glad I could spark some Inso in a small way!
If I remember correctly the guy in charge of Tiny Desks recordings did an AMA on Reddit with a list of equipment.
Oh Ince I'll check it out! I may have come across that in some of my research, I can't recall :)
Link please 🙏🙏🙏🙏
@@boimesa8190 I will try to post the link but usually they are rejected by youtube.
--> just search "Tiny Desks recordings did an AMA" in google, it's the first answer. 😀
@@boimesa8190search "Bob boilen ama reddit" can't post links here.
Unbelievable recreation. Sounds exactly like the NPR Edition. Amazing performances too..
We’ve been working with Ricky for the last few months on our debut EP. He’s been amazing to work with and his attention to detail is second to none.. send him those demos, you won’t regret it😅
EYYYYY MY BOYYYSSSS
I love tiny desk, and this channel. I would have never thought to break down the tiny desk production but this is fantastic. Reminds me of all the reasons I love folk and jazz recordings where all the people are in the room together with out headphones and they’re listening to each other and having a musical conversation.
Someone else in the comments said its like the modern version of the MTV unplugged series and that is SO accurate to me
@@AudioHaze for sure, that makes a lot of sense!
Tiny desk is magical to me because they’re focused on capturing the energy of the room as you mentioned
Now a days there isn’t a lot of that. The room mic might be blended to add depth but not to capture the energy/vibe of a room.
I love you talked about this! I’m subbing!
@AudioHaze, you don't need a shotgun added to your OC818 to get a MID-SIDE signal! Your OC818 can do a "pseudo m/s" signal alone!! You need to connect the included mini XLR cable on its back so you get two outputs from the mic and have it sideways pointed to the band and use the free (inlcuded) AA Stereo Creator plugin to obtain pseudoM/S signal from just one mic. I believe that nowadays the NPR sound is heavily dependent on the Neumann KU-100 (Dummy head) also, that replaced the original MKH 418s (MID-SIDE Shotgun) for the overall ambience duties. As far as i understand, the 418s was used on the ceiling as an overall band /ambience mic and for spot miking on vocals, they use Sennheiser 416, which are regular shotgun mics with high side-rejection in order to block drums and other loud acoustic instruments placed around the drums, that's why they are pointed up to the vocalists' mouths. I dont believe they never used a 418s for vocals, which doesn't make any sense for that application unless your use the Mid channel only. Important to mention is that the ceiling tiles seem to be pretty absorbent, which help the room acoustics to some degree. Great technique! Thanks for the video!
Dude im in my 3rd year of sound engineering right now and ive gotta say your videos are brilliant!
So underated ive been showing them to all of my friends! Im currently working on my final project, and im gonna use a lot of the techniques you've spoken about on an album!
You are absolutely on the right track (no pun intended) with doing the forensic videos. They are great as well as being a great inspiration. And this video is amazing. What a performance and what a great band! Well done to one and all including your production team! Keep up the great work, you now have one of the best and most important channels on TH-cam!
MOST IMPORTANT?? Holy cow thank you! Those are big words, can't thank you enough wow
I recently discovered your channel and it's one of the best things has happened to me, cause it helped me to know what mic i should buy to work on my album
Your channel might be my favourite on YT right now. I’m learning so much and the quality and dedication for these videos is insane. I would love to see a video on Parcels in the future. Especially on their live vol. 1 recording.
Thanks os much dude! I'm incredibly honored, still surreal to think I could be someones favorite channel lol. I'll check out Parcels!
When you mentioned panning I wondered if you had considered the reason it sounds better in many live recordings when things are panned as they are on stage. I always keep a stage plot handy in those situations where mic-leakage is inevitable because I found that panning to the stage plot brought all the phase information more accurately "together" and things almost magically clear up and ''crystallize''. Of course if one pans a mic that's picking up a lot of the other side of the stage opposite of where it was on stage the time difference between sound waves from the distant mics becomes a real problem with the typical unwanted phase issues.
There is a theory i accidentally found on an online forum from 2012 that Heil mics, american company, who makes only expensive high end mics are actually chinese OEM mics. If you google it there pictures of chinese or japanese mics that look the same as PR35 (and other models) externally and internally. What I didnt find is anyone comparing them. I find it a very interesting true crime unsolved mystery.
When I was a night club DJ, I referred to the people on my crowded dancefloor affectionately as "Meat Baffles". I really had to crank up the volume because of that.
Been watching your channel for a while and it's so cool to see you blow up. You seem to have a knack for making the exact videos I've been wanting to watch without me even realising until you've made it!
Thanks Louie! And thank you for sticking around as long as you have :)
You're such a legend...your content is so captivating. Thanks a million for your passion and what you bring to this space.
Thanks man, glad you enjoy the vids! Hope they're helpful in some way :)
Thank you for the vid, Mac was my fav rapper growing up and this brought so much nostalgia to me
Tiny desk concerts are so well received because it’s simply organic. As fun as crazy sounding mixes are, nothing is more timeless than a great band playing great music, in front of a great audience, recorded by an audio engineer who knows how to capture it. Same principle goes for over processing the mix- just because you can, doesn’t mean you should
Love that you're watching Andrew Huang while setting up the speakers. :)
This two interface design is pretty common in many of the live gigs I've done. Often you'll have a mixer to handle the various drum mics, build a drum mix from those and then send it to the main desk.
I'm so glad Kali is a sponsor. Best money I've ever spent on my mixing setup. Highly highly recommend them to anyone.
MOST excellent as always. Very cool to see the setup (left to right) breakdown of the player placements and how it affected the recording. Taylor Crawford and crew killing it as always on Comfort Zone.
THANKS AIDEN MY BOY
these tiny mics that they use to mic the violins and the acoustic guitars, are the DPA 4097 and the 4099
I’ve been a live musician and live sound engineer for many years…..DRUMS are always an issue. Despite your accidental close placement of the kit and vocalist you captured a decent mix. The observation I have is that the band, who are great soloists, are not used to this amount of restraint dynamically, and this performance demonstrates that. Again, the drums become the sonic obstacle that every other player ends up competing with and the overall performance lacks any dynamics. Not being critical of their musical talent, but their ability to “self-mix,” as Bob B. even pointed out in the comments. The headphone monitors likely were a huge part of why this experiment was less than perfect. The performers all had a mix that was completely different than the room capture and left for an “every man for himself” performance.
Great job and appreciation for the format, regardless of any critique.
There is always so much value in these kinds of videos. I was so inspired by that sound, it frees me to think more organically about the feel of the song, then necessarily the scientific approach of mixing. I didn't say that very well but, great job and thank you!
No that's totally the NPR approach though! The mixing always serves the overall artistic vision, tries to represent it as accurately as possible
really enjoyed how you look at this practically using what was available to you (and suggesting affordable alternatives) vs. this being all about using an expensive ass mic to try and just copy that sound. this mix sounds great for what it is - true to form in doing as little as possible to change the original sound. also great timing as i was just watching an npr video the other day marveling over the sound quality haha. great video!
Thanks Jack! Yeah although I was considering the sennheiser mic I really didn't want to blow that much change and it ended up being more useful to do a DIY solution anyhow :)
bro never misses! ur vids are always so good to study but also to just listen to passively. great performance here as well!
Thanks so much Kai!!
I'm very happy to discover this channel! Thank you so much.
So glad to hear you cover this, I've been commenting on their videos about the SQ for years!!!! Love the quality, truly the best! Awesome video! every video is a master class of recording, and you did it! Thank you!
Ty for this. Now i can recreate the sound from the desk that made my career 😅
i would love to see a video on how big tours (era’s tour, love on tour, Still at their very best, etc) run their sound in context with backing tracks, click tracks, live talk back with crew, and how one member of the band controls the whole show and switches and initiates every guitar patch, keyboard patch, backing track with the click of one button in tandem with lighting and video projections.
What a cool vid idea!! Maybe some time when I have a higher budget for vids that could be a cool high production series…
I absolutely love this style and this was such a fun video to watch. Especially since it's so obvious the people in that room were having FUN with eachother and with the music. And that is awesome.
Basically the only thing that bothered me about the mix is I had a really hard time hearing the guitar at all. I was actually straining my ears and brain trying to pick it out. I feel like that would be a place I'd have welcomed some accentuation.
In every other way I loved this and think I actually discovered something totally new. It's like the perfect combination between a live and a studio recording. Live recordings can often either have pretty terrible audio quality, OR they might not sound like what they look like on the video. On the other hand, studio recordings can easily betray that the musicians weren't really hearing eachother, and that their sound was modified quite a lot. As a result they can end up kind of too perfect: Spatial cues are missing, everyone's in too good of a tune, there's no tempo drift, no mistakes, etc.
This style is somewhere between those. It feels almost like you're actually there in a live situation: You can hear what you see (spatial cues), the artists are responding naturally to eachother (playing together), there's some variation and "imperfections" (maybe a missed note there, an out of tune one there, a bit of tempo drift). Yet it has the sound quality that also makes it pleasurable to listen: No excessive noise, no missing frequencies, vocals are present all of the time (not cut out because the singer went too far from the well-cancelling dynamic mic), and so on.
It's like... A normal concert recording can be "natural, but sometimes not good", a studio recording can be "good, but sometimes not natural", but this style is both natural and good.
And I guess that's why I was bothered by the guitar being almost inaudible. It sort of breaks the immersion when you can see the guitar being played like mad but can't really hear it. I guess that's where I would argue it would be better to stray from the "entirely natural" focus and bring the guitar up, so that it matches what you think you'd be hearing a bit better.
But all in all, a fantastic video and I'm super grateful!
(Note: It could be just my particular ears and my particular brain that has this guitar audibility problem and everyone else is hearing it perfect. Dunno. Listened on AKG Q701 headphones.)
Awesome, love it!! This is very similar to the show I just started producing. Thanks for showing your behind the scenes!
Great job and great channel, your content is down to earth, basic information that gets to the point without all the needless bells and whistles most audio production channels have.
Not trying to nit pick an overall super informative video, but having the players wear headphones to presumably monitor themselves kinda goes against one of the key elements of the tiny desk sound. There ARE no monitors/amplified vocals, which adds to that super intimate, hushed sound. Doing it this way would also prevent stuff like the drummer playing too loud. Anyway, great video and I’m definitely going to take the mixing advice to heart when finishing my band’s tiny desk concert submission this week!
TH-cam already suggests your stuff so much I didn't realize I wasn't subscribed until now (better late than never I suppose). You've got an awesome channel here and I appreciate everything you're doing. Keep up the great work!
Holy crap, Batman! This is so well thought out and presented. New subscriber here immediately after watching this video, the first of yours that popped into my feed. Big fan!
incredible video thank you for putting so much effort not only into the audio side but the video side aswell. i get so excited when you upload!
Thanks Izzy!! Yeah we get really into the graphics, I guess its my old degree coming out in some ways lol
I could be imagining it, but the vocals in the pre-COVID performances seem louder and more clear to me. Check out Lake Street Dive or Lianne La Havas, for example. The vocals these days just seem a little drowned out unless the singer is very powerful. I'm not an audio engineer, just a musician and music lover :)
Very revealing video with tons of straightforward good advice communicated in a modest and clear way - THAT‘S COOL! Gonna try out some of Josh‘s techniques very soon and maybe also make a video… keep up the great work!
Using a mid-side microphone should give you the ability to turn down the side facing figure of eight channel and focusing on the voice, of course if you don't have post production mix down you have to do it during production. Also hanging some fabric over the highly reflective glass in those cabinets could have taken some of the sting out of the drum set leakage also many of the drummers choose to use those "bundle sticks" so that is more controlled.
another fire video! you should do a breakdown on mk gee x dijon live performances, really cool sound those guys achieve
I love this channel and this video, but CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS BAND AND THIS PERFORMANCE???
would love to see a analysis of dijons live film , i think it has the same mindset of recording artists to serve the song.
This is so such a good video of yours. I bet you had a blast doing it.
I was SO excited to see that you did this topic! Thanks! So great!
Thanks Jeff, glad you liked it!!
The shotgun mics are more sensitive than dynamic mics, but they're also far more directional- something like a super-cardioid pickup pattern as opposed to an sm58's regular cardioid pattern. Meaning while they're more sensitive- they'll actually have far stronger sound rejection than the dynamics- leading to a more isolated sound for each instrument, not an increase in bleed.
I think that it sounded great and the band has groove for days but to mimic the same sound you gotta be in a similar sized space. All their mic choices have been done depending on the sound in that particular room from the performers to the engineers. So the whole theory of mimicking the same mic setup crumbles upon itself because your room was a tiny intimate room that deserves to be taken into consideration.
as a frequent tiny desk listener (my favorite is Tom Misch’s), you guys kinda nailed it! the drum mics feel too roomy though, but at least now we know to get the drums away from the singer when trying to nail the sound
Holy cow, I need more mics... and also to cram all my friends into my room while recording LOL. Great video as always :)
HAHA use whatever you have!! Even some cheap MXL or Behringer mics could get you there (or at least close)
Very awesome video man, truly enjoyed the structure of the video and the way you go through every last detail. Personally have been trying to learn how to work with sound and such so this video definitely helped give me a better understanding of what I need to know.
Very nice work and insight of the Tiny desk, thank you!
Catching your community post about the thumbnail then seeing that thumbnail in my subscriptions made me much more likely to click this video. It is also one of the most interesting concepts that you've covered lately, too. Idk anything about being a content creator but hope this feedback helps. Good video!✌
Thanks! Its honestly just easier than trying to guess which thumbnail will have the best click through rate, but I guess in some ways it works as a good promo tool too you're so right
amazing video, I'm so grateful to find all this info for free, so thank u for sharing, sometimes it feels like there's not enough info on internet about this kind of things, and too much about the same mainstream topics
Glad I could help my friend! I'm humbled :) yeah I feel like its a good application of mixing topics, making something desirable rather than teaching production in vacuum. Thanks again dude!
What a nice experiment you did here!!!! Greetings from Mexico UWU
Nice work. Super impressive approach and problem solvings! I'm wondering that NPR usually doesn't use headphones and has an audience hearing it from a PA, monitors, whatever. How does it work to avoid feeback and other issues with so many different types of microphones?
Love all your videos, man. Really informative, thx!
Thanks man, glad you liked it!
Really enjoyed this video. Super interesting watch!
Fuck i love these.
ME TOO, they're fun to make!
Amazing video, and actually a really dope tune as well.
Those close mics on the violins and Post Malone’s guitar look like DPA goose neck mics.
Thanks for the info!
DAMN man. That's a great mix and a great resulting track
Thanks so much Kevin :)
@@AudioHaze You're welcome!
Thanks for all that! Very informative. I’ve always wondered how they do it so well.
Great video as always !
One note: In the actual video clip at the end, we never see the whole band together as you show at 15:38 . So mixing as we'd see in a live situation doesn't translate to audience on TH-cam. So mixing and videography have to work together for that live feeling.
Gotcha, appreciate the feedback! Yeah we were going for a vizier shoot, but you're right it doesn't translate to a live show as much as the wide angle would have
This is the content I didn't know I needed. Amazing!!
Appreciate the kind words dude!
Another awesome vid! Appreciate all the work that goes into these.
Thanks dude!!
Beautiful performance
Thanks so much!
This is a great video. I'd love to see a breakdown of other channels like WesternAF and GemsonVHS. I'm fascinated by great sounding field recordings.
I'll check those out!
Thank you sooooo much for this. I've learned so much from your channel. Thank you thank you thank you for everything you do!!
I'm honored dude! That's always the goal, incredibly humbled to have helped in some way :)
Thanks!
omg thank you so much Shen, this is incredibly kind!
It’s like I’m listening to everyday chatter from a musicians mind but it’s all gold goddamn 💀
HAHA when I don't have a script thats how it goes I suppose lol
Hosting a rehearsal for my band soon, finally i know how to record us better than using a phone mic lol, such an informative video!
Hell yeah!! Good luck at rehearsal my friend :)
Great video. Loved the chicken talk
That was our final take and the chicken talk had been happening in every bridge for the last 4 takes hahaha
Great video, very well done. Well researched, well executed. Solid! Only critique I would offer is that the guitar is getting lost in the mix. Listened to this on two different studio headsets and the monitors, still hard to pick out. Since he's not playing the entire song, it should stand out more when he does play. I don't say this to be negative at all, just to offer an outsider's ear. Keep it up, great content dude!
There’s this DIY Tiny Desk style TH-cam channel called Dud’s Dungeon and they do live sessions of underground bands and the quality is very impressive.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND CHECKING IT OUT.
This is absolutely amazing! My drummer sent this channel to me, I think he wants to do some better recordings😅
I was wondering, could you look at Snarky Puppy? Specifically their recordings for We Like It Here? I feel it could be really interesting
love your videos! pure knowledge ❤
maaaaaaaaaannnnnnn YESSSSSS
3:08 is a DPA 4099
josh must be crying rn
I almost want to unsubscribe just soni can subscribe again. Love watching your growth, as well as learning, and being inspired by you and your incredibly solid team. As always, respect 👊🏼
HAHAHA you had me in the first half of this sentence ngl lol
What a bang up job you did here!. I do agree with you the bidirectional mic def did pickup to much of the drum kit. Nonetheless great vid!
Thanks so much!!
great vid absolutley loved the song!!!!
Thanks dude!!
Impressive, Very Nice! Let's see a "How to Sound Like Audiotree Live/Audiotree FarOut" Video.
I would've used the drum track with an inverted phase to cancel it out of the vocals
If you have enough broad room mics, does phase become somewhat less of an issue? is that where individual mics can step in to save an element being phased poorly?
Gotta upvote first, watch second with Audiohaze
LOL HONORED
This is so cool.. thx guys
Can you do Mitski mine all mine next?
Great job
99% sure those are DPA 4097s on the acoustic instruments
Hi, Senti here. I see that none use headphones on npr concerts. If so how do synths operate. Are they connected to an amp? And does the singer’s mic is amped as well? Can you please help me with that?
This band really reminds me of G. Love and the special sauce. Killer video.
I'll let Taylor know!
Such a great job. 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Thanks Kee!!
Bro I have the same sweater
is there a pa anywhere in that room for the crowd? never realised that room was big a enough for a crowd like that, great video thanks man))
right?? I didn't either until I saw that 360 video hahaha, I didn't see any PA's, but I wouldn't be surprised
@@AudioHaze me neither dude, there has to be a small pa at the back of the room?? with a dead silent crowd and a tiny bit coming thru the pa probably should be enough, or who knows, it is tiny desk and they seem to do things a little differently, maybe there's a single 4 inch satellite speaker hanging in the middle of the crowd pointing down from above them and they somehow make that work haha, thanks for inspiring me bud, great work, respect
That strat is filthy... 😮 what year? Anyone know?
Tiny Desk is the Unplugged of the 21st century. I love it so much. Thanks for this!
So true, never heard it put like that but that is so accurate :)
Facts@@AudioHaze
I was just thinking about this recently. Was talking to a friend “tiny desk or unplugged”
this is probably the best audio production channel on youtube at this point
This is ridiculously mind blowing to hear wow thank you SO much. Absolutely honored!
@@AudioHazeAbsolutely accurate honestly. Its tight competition but goddamn dude.
Some good observations here. I was present when Josh Rogosin gave a talk at the Audio Engineering Society convention in NYC last fall. One thing I walked away with was how active he was being in managing the bleed from all those microphones. While Josh may use a lot of instrument spots when recording a large ensemble, when he showed his DAW session on the screen, it was clear that the majority of those mics were muted most of the time. Spot mics were unmuted only at specific points in the song where they were needed to highlight something. When unmuted, they were often heavily EQ'd to add only exactly what was needed to the mix and to keep unwanted bleed under control. Josh usually has some kind of ambience feed available -- sometimes just a more distant stereo mic -- but he doesn't use it continually in the mix. It might be faded up in the spaces (another production nod to field reporting) or used for a more distant perspective on a horn section, but it's not the sole source of ambience in the final mix. There are always those stereo mics, but Josh is also not afraid to use artificial reverb plug ins. The end result FEELS like intimate live capture, but what's really going on here is storytelling and, in service of that story, no post-production trick is off the table.
very interesting approach!