Start to Finish: Tracking Rock With Vance Powell

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Hi everybody, my name is Vance Powell.

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We're here in Nashville, Tennessee at the studio Sputnik Sound, my studio I share with my partner Mitch Dane.

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Today we're gonna be recording a band I've recorded before by the name of Tyler Bryant & the Shakedown.

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They've been out on the road touring with AC/DC and Guns'n'Roses, very well rehearsed, which is really awesome.

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I'm gonna walk you through the tracking, how I like to track, walk you through..

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how I do overdubs, I'm gonna walk you through mixing the song, here, over the next few hours.

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This is my tracking room.

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I have the drum set in the room along with both guitar amps.

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There's a reason for that.

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I like the band sound to be cohesive together, with the drums.

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Strangely, as we'll see in a little bit, there's not a lot of bleed but, with the band in here, their drums and amps, I feel like it makes them perform better and I like the way it sounds.

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The band's very well rehearsed, isolation is not that important an issue.

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So, other than a couple other downsides to doing this, it works really well.

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All the time.

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Also you're gonna notice in here now all the microphones right now are just a willy-nilly, I haven't placed them yet, we just have them in general areas..

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A few things in here you'll notice there's a little piece of Auralex over the top of the kick drum the reason the Auralex is on top of the kick drum is that I like to isolate the two kick drum mics which I like out, away from the drums from the right cymbal and from the cymbals above it.

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So really, it's a little bit of an acoustic shield for the high frequencies.

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Beyond that you can see here this is Tyler's setup, he has a Princeton Reverb, the band is playing through small amps.

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And part of that reason is that small amps are really easy to get nice and loud but not be hugely loud.

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Tyler normally.. like, when they tour, on stage he's playing through two full stacks.

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200W full stacks.

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Strangely enough, I can get that sound out of a small amp, pretty easily.

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Over here is Graham's setup, he has a small J&P, low-power Marshall with a 2x12 cabinet and then I have Noah, the bass player, his rig is around the corner in my little booth, and that's a B15, my B15.

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I wanna talk a little bit about each station.

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I'm a fan of the artist getting the sound they want, however it happens.

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If that means there's a pedal and that goes to an amp, the combination of the pedal and the amp volume will get the sound they want.

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You know, Tyler is gonna plug in, he's gonna hit some buttons, he's gonna turn a knob, it's gonna sound like what he wants it to sound like.

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I'm totally down for that, I am not gonna try to you know.. reinvent the wheel, I personally never ever take a DI, ever..

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I figure, in my opinion, if I can't record a simple guitar amp, what am I doing? It kinda goes against my mantra of making decisions, and it leads to a lot of in my opinion, later re-inventing the wheel or or.. 'revision of history', kind of..

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Have there been times that I wanted to have a DI for something I screwed up? Sure! But, 90% of the time I am pretty cool with the sound that we get.

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Graham is the same way, his situation over here..

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he has a pedalboard, he has a small amp, we're gonna get the sound that he wants.

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Noah's rig is a little bit different, 'cause Noah's rig I am not gonna put in the room and I am not gonna put it in the room, because it makes the snares rattle like crazy.

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If I did put it in the room, I couldn't get the amp quite loud enough, to get that amp break-up that I want, so I'm gonna put the amp around the corner here in this booth, it's an Ampeg B15, we'll get a you know.. you'll see it here in a minute.

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I take the bass first, into the DI, this is ACME Wolf Box, which is a Motown DI, exactly the same transformers they used in the Motown's you know.. studio, comes out of that DI and then it goes to his two pedals, I'm getting the distortion signal from his pedal, that goes to the amp, after I am getting the DI, so I'm gonna get a clean DI out of the ..out of the guitar, out of the bass, and then I'm gonna get the distorted side, out of the amp.

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And this gets the clarity that I want, in the bass, the picking, all that with all the aggression and edge that the distorsion is gonna have, with the amp.

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The other thing that's going on here is, you see..

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3 of the Furman HDS-16 Cue Systems These are a 16-channel Cue system, my console, I have an SSL console, it has a mix-to-cues button, I hit mix-to-cues and it basically sends my mix..

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my stereo mix, my monitor mix..

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to the cue..

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out of the console.

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My mix, what I am hearing in the control room will be in Stereo 1.

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Then I am gonna send a stereo drum mix off the Aux sends, the stereo Aux sends of my SSL.

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To Stereo B, here.

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That'll be for the drums.

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And then I am gonna give a 'more me' setup, for each player, so Tyler's gonna have one..

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he'll be maybe on 1..

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Noah will be on 2, Graham will be on 3.

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And then there'll be one for the vocal.

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And then if I have any effects or anything on the vocal, I'll put one, down there.

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And this is will be for the scratch vocal.

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Most of the time we're not really gonna cut a scratch vocal, but early on in the tracking you know, we might hear it just 'cause I wanna hear it, in the track later.

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So that's the deal.

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I'm gonna do everything in my power to make it so that the stereo cue sounds kick-ass.

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And if the stereo cue sounds kick-ass, then the band won't have to turn much up or down in their headphones.

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In a perfect world, they don't actually need to use headphones, except for Noah, 'cause he's playing bass, the guitar guys, they can hear the drums, they're right here, they can hear their amps, they're right in front of them, they can just play in here without headphones, but usually they like to hear the bass, they like to hear the other stuff.

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From time to time I've been known to leave this door to the bass rig open, so that the bass bleeds into the room, I like the sound of the band as a whole, instead of..

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individual instruments, I like that it all sort of..

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'smooshes' together into a big..

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'schmear' of room and band and things..

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I have a pair of Coles ribbon mics behind you that're gonna be for the room, those Coles are in a stereo X/Y pair, they're gonna hear the room as someone who is in the room is gonna hear it.

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It's gonna hear Graham's guitar over on the right, Tyler's guitar over on the left, exactly how we're set up in here.

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It's all sound great together.

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And as I'll show here a little bit later there's surprisingly little bleed between each one of these, in this scenario.

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All right, we're here in my, weird booth, I call this 'the weird booth'..

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with the bass rig.

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It's an Ampeg B15 from about '73, the signal from this bass rig is coming from the DI, the line is short enough that I don't need an amplifier, an extender or..

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or do anything, 'cause it's just really right on the other side of the wall, here.

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I've got an old basically just a D12, a renamed D12, as you can see here, it's a Echolette, it says 'Echolette' on it, 'Top 12', it's kinda cheesy to be honest with you but it sounds amazing.

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And it's on the B15 here, I have a place that I like to put microphones it's kind of right on the edge near the surround.

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That's where I like microphones on all guitar amps.

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Guitar or bass..

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something about that edge of the cone that it just means I don't have to add all those high frequencies, not much edge to it, you know, it's not as bass-y, all those things like..

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trying to go somewhere in the middle.

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Right now the amp has been set by Noah, I wanna bring the mic up, and I hear it in the track, I might come back here and tweak a little more top end, or take a little top end off, all I might do is take a little low end off..

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and then drive the amp a little harder, to get it a little more edgy.

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I don't know that yet, until I hear the track.

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But this is it, just sitting, kind of..

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quietly, hissing away..

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I kinda like the way this room sounds.

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Even though it's a little bizarre, something about it seems to work pretty well for bass.

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All right, so.. a couple things I wanna talk about next: the mic placement for the guitar amps and the mic choice.

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I like a condenser and then another mic which would be a dynamic or ribbon.

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I like two mics on guitars.

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I do, normally, record them on two tracks.

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If I am doing a tape session, I would put them together on one track.

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A couple years ago, I was lucky enough to find this Sony C48, and the C48.. I believe, was sort of an 87 wannabe, a U87 wannabe.

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They wanted to go against that sort of things.

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It's a large diaphragm, FET condenser.

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They're not terribly expensive, they might be up to this, but they're not terribly expensive now I think I've paid between 1,000 and 1,300 dollars, I have 3 of them, I think they're fantastic.

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They really, really sound great they run off phantom power, or, they have a 9V battery, you just put a 9V battery on them and they run off that 9V and they'll run forever on a 9V battery.

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And then, the standard 57.

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Every studio has 8 or 10 or 15 57s 57s to me are like: the best mic ever.

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I could do a whole drumset with 57s, and be happy with it, except for the kick drum..

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but I love 57s. Now..

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how I like to mic these? Again, back to the 'edge of the cone' idea, I try and get this flashlight in here, let's..

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see if we can..

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see where this is at.

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Sometimes it's a little harder..

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but basically the center of the cone is right here, and these 2 mics are gonna be on the edge and they're just one right on top of the other.

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The condenser's capsule is here, the dynamic's capsule is right here.

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They're gonna be right under each other.

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I find that I never have to really ever tweak this, as long as they stay just like this.

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It works great.

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I've had guitar players bump them and then of course you cut the track suddenly you're like..

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'that was a little weird', you know.. the good thing is, you know..

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if it's in Pro Tools, you know, you can just move it. It will work.

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But, as long as they stay like this..

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this is gonna work, and they're gonna sound great.

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I'm moving on the other side of the room here, this is Graham's amp, and you notice, the same exact miking setup, same exact microphones, his pedals are right here, right next to the drums..

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it's all pretty close, there's some little baffles here, these are nothing, really fancy, believe me.

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This is just the amp running by itself, a little noisy, in the grand scheme of it, that little bit of noise isn't gonna matter, when I..

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once he plugs in, there'll be a lotta more noise.

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A couple things you can see, here.

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This is not a very big room.

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Unfortunately, this is the bigger room that I could get.

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It's the biggest we could build, but..

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it's not a very big room but that actually plays into this a little bit.

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Because, the bigger the room gets, the less cohesive everything gets.

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Now, the bigger the room gets also the more detailed the room is.

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So, it's a little bit of a trade-off, but as you can see here, I've got, some microphones into a sort of this semi-general position and we're gonna place a few of these to sort of, a little more of where I want them.

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For the kick drum I have a D12, AKG D12..

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It's not an 'E', it's a D12, it's an old one, it has a cable on it, and then I have a Neumann FET47, an old one, not one of the new ones.

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Those two mics, as we see, are really close together, and they're about a foot back from the skin of the drum. Notice there's no hole on the skin of the drum.

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That's by design. I like this band to have this sort of big..

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you know, I hate the comparison to John Bonham's kick or whatever..

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but basically it's like drums the way drums used be, you know, like..

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It's a drum, it's not a you know it's not a skin with a bunch of pillows inside it.

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There's nothing inside, it's just it just is how it is.

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But, if you..

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..if you look down here a little bit you'll notice there's a big, black, round circle down low..

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that's an old muffler.

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This drumkit is a 1947 Leedy, I'm gonna take this little piece of Auralex off so you guys can see the drumkit, it's a 1947 Leedy kit, you know.. it's awesome! Now that dampener, right now is screwed all the way out, so the front head is wide open, it should be pretty..

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you know, pretty live..

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I'm gonna at some point we're gonna adjust this dampener, to get the note the right length, that I'm gonna want.

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Because a bass drum is a bass instrument, it is creating a note.

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Not just a snap, it's creating a note.

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Fills a space.

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And that's how I feel about all the drums.

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I like the snare to fill a note.

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..the kick fills a note, the snare fills a note.

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Toms fill a note.

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All of those are notes, they're not just transients.

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Very important to me, we don't use a lot of damping, tape and things like that on the drums.

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I like them to ring, I like them to make noise.

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I like it when the drummer's playing the kick drum that the bottom snares rattle.

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I like it that the floor tom.. I like all that rattling and stuff.

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Now, what's this piece of Auralex for.

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You've noticed, with the microphones being out about a foot this may move a little bit when he starts playing..

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but them being out they're in indirect maybe 'microphone ear-shot' of the ride cymbal and the crash cymbal.

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This is a little roof, basically.. over that kick drum.

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It also makes the kick drum sound a little more 'cannon-like' because you're making a little tunnel out of it..

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I'm gonna just set this up on top, here.

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I'm gonna get it in here a little bit, like this, and you're gonna see that these are now underneath this piece of Auralex. I'm gonna use an R88 stereo coincident ribbon overhead, which is a X/Y, and it's gonna pick up the overhead and the space above it.

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It's the overhead and the overhead.

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Since it's a coincident stereo pair, a figure of 8.

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421s on the toms..

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My snare drum mic is not just a regular 57..

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this is a Unidyne 545.

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You can see that it's an older microphone with a cannon connector on it.

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This is basically, as I understand it, take a 57 and take the transformer out of it, this is a lower-output 57.

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It's a slightly different capsule, I don't know why but to me it just really sounds different and great.

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I like it, I use this on the top not quite as much low end on the top.. not quite as much and the high frequencies.. just a little cooler, to me.. all right? And then the bottom snare mic is down here, it's just a standard 57..

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but, this is a..

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you know, probably late '50s whacky 4-pin cannon connector and it actually came with a little bag.

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A cool Shure bag.

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Pretty awesome.

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I got this as a gift from my assistant Mike, for Christmas, last year, ..that's all we do! We give each other gifts, that we can use at work! Kinda dumb.. but, it is what it is.

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KM-84 on the hi-hat, I hate the hi-hat but..

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I always feel like 'oh, I should put a hi-hat mic up..' and what I'm gonna do is, that hi-hat mic will just blend into the overhead sound.

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It's not gonna be a separate track, this, I am gonna turn it on..

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make sure it sounds good, and then put it on and then hopefully we'll never think about it ever again.

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Then, there's this little microphone here in the middle, this is a..

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Ampex 1101.

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I've talked about this microphone a bunch, but never actually said its number..

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because, every time I tell somebody, about this microphone all the ones on eBay disappear.

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And the price goes up.

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I bought my original pair, for $9 each.

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They were $9 each.

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These microphones were made for Ampex tape recorders in the '60s and '70s, they're a goofy little mic, there's one here on this vocal booth stand, I don't know best to describe it, it is a dynamic, I believe it's an omni, really awesome-sounding.

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It's an amazing vocal mic just on its own.

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Great for upright bass that clarity thing that you always want in upright bass but can hardly get..

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put this one side of the f-hole, put a 44 on the other side: fantastic.

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I'm gonna use this for what a lot of people call this a knee mic, for that kinda vibe, I call it: 'sprinkle to taste'.

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That's what that track is gonna be called in my Pro Tools session and..

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I'm gonna take this, it's DI, but it's gonna go through some..

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some stuff, in the control room.

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And this is just a microphone that does a couple things.

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It hears the shell of the snare drum and it hears the batter of the kick drum so that it hears that knock of the kick drum and it hears all of the sound around the shell of the snare.

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Now, what else does it hear? It hears the ride cymbal, it hears the crash cymbal, it hears that stuff a little bit.

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But, where am I gonna put it..

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and where it's gonna go in here..

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You know, it's gonna get a lot of the shell and a lot of the kick drum, so..

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I'm just gonna put it first. I'm gonna place it here, watch my..

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in here..

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there.

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Yeah, so kinda way down in here..

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and then the next thing is this front mic, and that's this: this is a Coles 4030 kind of a new Coles mic, I tried one up at VintageKing and I just needed to buy a pair of them.

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This mic is gonna move around a little bit it's gonna get basically the front head of the drum, away from the drums and it's gonna get a little bit of the bottom snare and the bottom of the rack tom.

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So, I don't exactly know where this is gonna go yet..

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but if I was to guess..

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where it was gonna go, and, you know, sometimes, I've been doing this long enough, I can can kinda get this right..

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sometimes! I maybe place it about right there.

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This is gonna be..

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2 1/2 feet or so..

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back from the kick drum, kind of aimed at the kick drum and aimed at the bottom of the snare and the bottom of this rack tom.

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I don't have a microphone on the bottom of the rack tom this is gonna get a little bit of that.

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Lemme get Caleb, drummer down here, and we'll do the rest of it.

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Overheads, rack toms and snare.

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I like to do the overhead and drum mic placement with the drummer in place..

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because, you know, sometimes..

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the best place for the microphone is the is place where it's not the best place for the drummer.

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Where're gonna kinda do this sort of together, I'm gonna place the microphones and say: 'Does that work?' 'Does this work for you?' And then, you know, he's gonna say 'yes, no.. I'm gonna hit it', whatever..

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first thing is gonna be the overhead..

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Now on this session I'm gonna use an AEA R88 one of my favorite mics in my whole entire world and we're gonna use it coincident stereo, X/Y pair.

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What I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna place it somewhere over the snare right? And then..

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I'm gonna sort of adjust the level and make sure that it's low enough that it does what I want it to do..

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and high enough that it doesn't get in his way.

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So, first thing is: I'm gonna take it up just a little bit if I can here, it's gonna clear it that's gonna be pretty high I have a reason for doing this, I'll get to that in a minute..

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get the angle..

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so.. I think that's about where I'd like it Caleb does that feel pretty cool for you? Kinda like, seems ok? - Yeah All right, cool. What if I put it around here? - Aah.. No, I think we're good, man.

00:20:37
Think so? - Yeah, cymbals are here, so..

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yeah, cool, so no crossover, nothing? - No.

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Now, how about when you spin sticks? *laughs* When you do this? Is that a..

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- That's how you get a good sound in the studio. - Yeah! You'd be amazed I've actually had video rolling of of a band and the drummer is playing *pam* *boom boom pam* like, spinning sticks.. *laughs* I was like: 'hold it, hold it, hold it..' 'You're actually spinning sticks, in the studio?' He says like: 'was I?' like..

00:21:06
'yes...' - Ahahah! All right, cool.

00:21:08
So..

00:21:09
you noticed the overhead has a slightly tilted-forward kinda vibe? And..

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why I am doing that is I actually want the overhead to have a little bit of the sound of the room coming out this way, into it.

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So, I don't want it to be exactly straight down on the drums.

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Also, sometimes I find that if the overhead mic is coming - as a ribbon - coming down to the snare drum sometimes it's a little too much of a good thing.

00:21:37
I really kinda just want the cymbals but I want this sound and when we go in the control room I really would love nothing more than have a kick drum on and this microphone.

00:21:48
That would be great.

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So, we'll adjust this a little but I think this is probably pretty close.

00:21:52
Next thing we're gonna do the rack tom and floor tom, and then we'll do the snare. So, I'm gonna walk around here to the floor tom, Sennheiser 421 with the worst mic clip ever made, you know.. it is what it is.

00:22:04
And, what I'm gonna like to do here, is I really would like to get this microphone if it was up to me sort of pretty far out into the middle of the drum head itself..

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I like it out here in the middle, where the tone of the drum is instead of that on the edge, I mean..

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you know, just..

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lower, higher.

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So, I really want this part out here.

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So, what I have to do is say: 'Caleb, is that gonna be in your way?' - I would probably hit that a little bit.

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So I have to move..

00:22:35
So, cool, let's move back a little bit..

00:22:38
- Yeah, that'd be great. And tilt down.. is this seems to be pretty good? Alright, great. Cool. Now let's do the rack tom..

00:22:49
I'm gonna take a little shot at you guys.

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Somebody..

00:22:53
have already hit this..

00:22:55
- It wasn't me! It wasn't you.

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Alright, you know.. I bought these they were perfect! - Yeah..so..

00:23:02
Alright, cool, so.. again: you know, the position is pretty important a little further, here this will be a little weird until I get it in the right spot.

00:23:21
Ok, so now..

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How's that look for you? - I won't hit that. How about this guy? Cool? Good? Alright, cool! So now, the snare! This..

00:23:33
This is gonna require you and me a little bit I'm gonna slide this in.. - Kinda in the middle, here..

00:23:40
Yeah, we're gonna kinda have to..

00:23:42
hear this out..

00:23:44
I think it's gonna have to go..

00:23:46
sort of..

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now..

00:23:56
this guy here's gonna need a little bit of work.

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Is that gonna work for you, there? - Yeah, man.

00:24:01
Now, this bottom snare mic..

00:24:04
the position is a little bizarre..

00:24:11
Alright, cool.

00:24:14
So, what I really want, here..

00:24:16
is, I kinda want these microphones to be at a 90 degree angle to each other. So, to the top mic like this, the bottom mic like this.

00:24:24
Oh, under the snare drum.

00:24:26
And I want it, you know..

00:24:28
because..

00:24:30
it's gonna sound good.. - Yeah, it cranks just a little..

00:24:36
And, about the same distance off the head it's a little..

00:24:41
tough here.

00:24:44
I don't think this is as much math as I'm making it out to be: it is a snare drum, you know.. he's gonna hit it.

00:24:50
It's gonna be loud, you know.. and it's gonna kinda be that.

00:24:55
I think it looks good. - Yeah! - Totally out of my way! Cool! Hi-hat mic.

00:25:04
Did I tell you how much I hate the hi-hat mic? It's like the..

00:25:07
it's like the microphone that I..

00:25:09
sort of hate more than all others.

00:25:11
I just like to place it out on the edge of the hat so that it can pick all that..

00:25:16
that.

00:25:18
Thump that happens around here at the edge.

00:25:21
And, you know, he's gonna hit on this side.. so, that's where I kinda like it, as much as I hate it, that's where I like it.

00:25:28
If that makes any sense whatsoever.

00:25:32
You might notice that the R88 is at a little bit of an angle.

00:25:36
There's two reasons for this.

00:25:38
One, purely physical reason.

00:25:41
And that is, that..

00:25:43
I don't have a lot of room behind me.

00:25:45
Normally I would this like sort of, up and over..

00:25:48
so we decided to go from the side but even then, I'm..

00:25:52
what I'm doing is, I'm centering this microphone in the kit, so, yeah, the snare drum may be a little bit off to one side..

00:26:00
If the overhead was here the snare drum would be on one side a little bit.

00:26:04
but I am taking the pattern here, cutting across the drums in an even path to left and right side for the cymbals, toms, snare.

00:26:14
For the snare, it's actually gonna be pretty much dead on right here in the middle of the image.

00:26:19
And this cymbal will be to one side of the image this cymbals will be to the other side of the image so that we'll make the drum image wider.

00:26:27
I don't want them too wide..

00:26:30
I don't really like it when cymbals happen way around this side or way around this side anyway 'cause drums are right in front of you so..

00:26:37
this will get this in an even left and right sort of vibe..

00:26:41
and when he goes to the ride it's gonna be a little bit on one side when he goes over here to the crash it'll be a little bit on the other side and when he goes to the hi-hat they'll be a little more on one side.

00:26:53
Second thing is..

00:26:55
I hate drummer perspective.

00:26:57
Drummer perspective makes no sense to me.

00:27:01
Most drummers' perspectives make no sense to me! Know what I mean? You guys know what I mean? I don't know what you mean! *laughs* So, for me the band is always..

00:27:13
I'm an old FOH sound guy, the band is always right in front of me, the guitar player on the right is on the right, the guitar player on the left is on the left, the cymbals are always exactly the way they're seen.. the floor tom is always on the left.

00:27:26
Rack tom, always on the right hi-hat, always on the right because that's how you see drums.

00:27:31
Unless they're left handed then the whole thing goes out of the window, I don't want to do then.

00:27:36
But.. it does happen from time to time and I actually will take the drums in that perspective and just them exactly the way they are on stage, so..

00:27:44
In other words, the floor tom is now on the right the rack and hats are all backwards, it just messes up my mind, but..

00:27:51
I like..

00:27:52
I like stage perspective.

00:27:54
That's how I see the sound field.

00:27:57
So, I get drummers often to be like: 'Hey, my toms are on the wrong side.' I'd be like 'no?!' 'No..' 'No!' 'But, but, on mine..

00:28:05
So, for their headphones..

00:28:07
I pan everything opposite so that when he hits the rack tom he hears it on the left and the floor tom on the right.

00:28:16
I've googled them.

00:28:18
Alright, so, let's talk about drums a little bit.

00:28:21
The drumset that we're using today is mine.

00:28:25
Caleb called me earlier and asked me if I needed drums I said no, because..

00:28:30
this kit is the kit we used on the last record it's a 1947 Leedy drumkit it's really amazing I have a Sugar Percussion Snare that is one of my favorite snares in the world..

00:28:43
this kit just records so well it's big-sounding, toms are big, the kick drum is unbelievable - It just feels great, the response of it, is just like it..

00:28:53
you hit, it's like: yeah, that's what drums should sound like.

00:28:56
And so, especially the kick drum for me, I personally have to play it a little bit differently especially with the way that we record it with this, and..

00:29:04
you know, really pull off the head, just to get that Yeah, he has to bounce the beater, so..

00:29:10
when you bury the beater the drum gets really short so, if we want this if we want the beat to be kinda big he has to bounce the kick drums. - You know, with the records that've made, I've really learnt how to do that, because I didn't do that before so really pulling off the drums to let it speak to let it, you know, sound like it should sound and.. I mean, you know, I like kind of like not..

00:29:37
traditional cymbals, like some of these are broken and and don't really speak a lot..

00:29:42
and that's a lot of times really nice especially when tracking in the room together.

00:29:47
And.. just one of the things that was really cool, like 'what was that?' you know, just like, a lot of cheap cymbals in here and not like brilliant, kind-of like..

00:29:55
you know, super-cymbal-y sounding stuff, you know? 'Super perfect drum nerd stuff.' - Yeah, exactly! Not..

00:30:02
pristine.

00:30:03
I am not a fan of cymbals, yeah..

00:30:06
you know, I say that cymbals are things that drummers hit when they don't have a better idea..

00:30:12
but the fact is that cymbals eat up a lot of power in the mid range.

00:30:16
There's a great band called 'Cymbals eat guitars' it's kinda like, I love that title.. because it's a fact.

00:30:23
You know, a lot of drummers would just ride cymbals or ride crashes and stuff.. and that's just I mean, there's a better way to do it.

00:30:30
We can figure that out.

00:30:32
And so, as we go along, in the track, like, I may want to hear at some point, that sort of explosive kind of crazy cymbal sound that you just can't buy cymbals to do it.

00:30:45
So we're gonna have to make it So we may stack cymbals on top of other cymbals just to get a different sound than just your regular cymbal sounds.

00:30:54
My cymbals that I have are pretty much all trash.

00:30:58
They're all bad cymbals.

00:31:00
Because everybody has good cymbals.

00:31:02
All the drummers bring in good cymbals so I have all these broken ones and, you know, Caleb is gonna start to kinda like 'yeah, maybe I get this'.

00:31:11
- It totally translates..

00:31:13
pretty cool, and I think it's it's again, it's also just kind of inspiring, it's a cool sound.

00:31:18
The great thing of music of any kind especially rock'n'roll is that there are no rules.

00:31:22
So, there's no rule that says I have to have the Zildjian K ride, or this sort of specific type of hi-hat or whatever because you know..

00:31:32
I mean, the roots of rock'n'roll were the drums that the drummer owned in this room and they just played and that was it, that was the sound of it.

00:31:41
Nobody worried about all the technical parts of what kind of drums and all this and that..

00:31:46
I personally like old drums I don't really like new drums.

00:31:50
I have a relatively new drum set and it sounds really good.

00:31:54
But, this one.. has its own thing, the heads that we chose for this are the Evans half-tone heads.. - Yeah they're really awesome, again, there's a muffler on the front that I'm gonna tweak when we start sort of to get sounds and figure out what the band and the tempo is I'm gonna start tweaking that so that I can shorten that time of that front head up but I mean, I love it just wide open and noisy I love it when things rattle and - you know - all that stuff that's real I like it when the bottom snare rattles Graham's gonna start playing here in a little bit the snare is gonna rattle, while we're playing you know that kinda like, 'ok!' Maybe it's rattling too long.

00:32:37
Ok then maybe we have to change the snare, maybe tune it differently.

00:32:40
You know, when you start getting sounds and..

00:32:42
and see how we go here.

00:32:44
So I'm gonna show up this little contraption that..

00:32:49
we kinda came up with to get a sound for the vocal, now: this microphone setup is probably not exactly what we're gonna use for the vocals but this is what we're gonna use for the scratch vocal, 'cause every now and then, something fantastic comes out of it and what it is, basically, is a Shure SM7 and then, again, the Ampex 1101.

00:33:13
Now, this microphone you can find on eBay they range in price from $19 to $200 depends on just how available they are.

00:33:24
I've probably bought 20 of them at least..

00:33:27
I've given them away to people I've given them away to all kinds of people.

00:33:31
But, they're really awesome and it works really well for this little thing.

00:33:36
I found this little piece of mechanical thing at a yard sale at a yard sale at an old A/V company, it's some sort of weird microphone thing and it works out that we could put these two together. Now..

00:33:50
the capsule, both of these are pretty close to about in the same place.

00:33:55
You know, if it's wildly wrong, I'll just loosen this and move it around a little bit to get it to be closer in phase, but kind of the phase difference is actually part of the sound of it and this SM7 is gonna go in, it's just a standard microphone, to my console.

00:34:11
But this mic, isn't.

00:34:13
This mic is gonna come down and go into this amplifier on the floor, here that's made by a company up in Champaign, called Analog Outfitters.

00:34:20
This is an AO SuperSarge.

00:34:24
It's basically a Hammond amp, I think it's out of an M3 or something that they've modified into a guitar amp and put into a metal box that's an old electrician test-set box and then that it is gonna come out and go in to a TG-Labs Hot Plate and that's gonna drive the DI so basically this amplifier is gonna run this microphone pretty rock'n'roll, pretty high-volume, into that Hot Plate.

00:34:53
That will run a little fan and a light inside of it that creates an inductive load, that sounds like a speaker and that signal is gonna come up and I'm gonna combine these two sounds in the control room, probably with a compressor like an 1176 or something for a scratch vocal sound. Now, 90% of the time this doesn't get used for scratch vocals.

00:35:14
I end up blending this distorted, crazy sound, into my room mics.

00:35:21
And just provide, it's just kind of a thing it will be super distorted but this is also gonna allow Tyler to talk to me or to anybody else in the band in their headphones, at any time.

00:35:32
And I'm gonna have it in the mix just enough that is gonna create some distortion and some fun for the mix.

00:35:41
You know, we did probably record the vocals let's say on this record the record we did? On this microphone setup.

00:35:49
It really works.

00:35:50
For some weird reason..

00:35:52
and it will come up on 2 different channels on the desk I'm gonna turn the distortion up in and out as needed.

00:35:56
If the song needs to be clean, I turn it down.

00:35:58
If it needed to be kinda clean, I just turn it down, leave it on.

00:36:01
If it needed to not be clean it needed to be kinda crunchy'n'fun, I'll leave it up..

00:36:05
that's what this whole scenario is.

00:00:00
The most important thing in the studio isn't the console, it isn't the microphone, it isn't the band..

00:00:04
well, that's pretty important.. but: the most important thing is your assistant.

00:00:09
And my assistant is Mike Fahey he's.. oh, he's right there.

00:00:13
Uh, right there! Mike Fadey Mike and I have worked together now for a couple years, Mike has been here at Sputnik for almost 4 years is that right? And Mike's worked for me exclusively for 2 years and Mike actually knows more about how all this works than how I work, than I know, because..

00:00:31
I don't really know how I know what I know..

00:00:35
so Mike's the one who's reminding me of all that because.. I'm kind of old, now.

00:00:39
Mike and I just had a little small chat about some mic pres, I'm gonna use this UTA 4-channel mic preamp, in MPDI-4, this is a Eric Valentine's design, really fantastic I'm really looking forward to trying it out, this is a first for me, I haven't tried it yet, I've used them in other studios but not in mine, so I'm looking forward to that and then these mic pres, these are CAPI, it's Classic Audio Products from Illinois, a man by the name of Jeff Steiger he's designing and building these, these are basically like an API knockoff with some extra special stuff, really really nice, I'm gonna use them for the room, floor, the rack, the hi-hat, the front mic and the 'sprinkle to taste', down here on the end I have an AEA it's basically the ribbon mic pre in a 500 I'm not exactly sure what it's called.. something '500..

00:01:32
Yeah, RPQ-500.

00:01:35
We're gonna use this for the R88 for the overhead.

00:01:38
And that's it! That's our mic pres, that's what we're gonna use for mic pres.

00:01:42
We're gonna come out of these mic pres and we're gonna drop them into the line inputs of the SSL where I'm then gonna route them to Pro Tools.

00:01:52
We're gonna start doing that now.

00:01:54
All right? So, Mike let's do..

00:01:56
these rooms..

00:01:57
and let's put them..

00:01:58
they're gonna come in to Line Inputs of channel 5-6..

00:02:03
We're gonna route those to 1-2 'cause those are gonna be our channels, we're gonna put ourselves in AFL, a'ight man, just make some noise out there! I'm gonna get a basic level here, in Pro Tools.

00:02:18
This is just the 2 Coles it's totally 100% flat, I just bring them up..

00:02:41
alright, that's great. Ok, cool, we're gonna do a little insert here on the rooms, real quick.

00:02:46
With Mike we're gonna do, the..

00:02:48
TG1 Chandler Limiter, that will be 9-10 on our patchbay.

00:03:08
All right, cool, let's talk a little bit about these room mics.

00:03:10
This is the 2 Coles, they're in X/Y right now, they're in coincident stereo pair like this, X/Y, they're actually cross each other instead of this way, they're actually like this.

00:03:22
Hence they're 'figure of 8' or 'figures of eight'..

00:03:24
they're in the back of the room, they're up pretty high, I'd say about 8-9 feet, something like that..

00:03:29
and they're coming in the desk, in these 2 preamps and they come to the desk and the desk I am sending to the Chandler Limiter in the insert so, lemme play you what they're like before it hits the Chandler, that would be this..

00:04:08
There's a bunch of gain going on there, I am totally cool with that.

00:04:12
Part of the way that piece of gear works the more you drive the front end the more harmonic distortion you get I want all that stuff.

00:04:19
I do set up my console in faders to busses so it's a split desk and most people run this is SSL-mode 'nerd-ery' here..

00:04:31
Record and VCA-to-Monitor therefore this is the monitor..

00:04:34
but I actually don't like that.

00:04:36
I like to have these faders down here, it's just from working with Neves forever, basically the sound of the VCAs, I'm gonna take that hit just so that it works the way I like to work and then I'm gonna run the monitor section which is these faders here, these 32 faders, up to 32, well..

00:04:53
these I haven't yet, but I will..

00:04:54
these are all gonna run at zero, these are gonna set at zero and I'm gonna do everything in my power to never move them from now on.

00:05:01
So, I'm gonna build the whole mix into this fader-zero-unity-gain- situation, as best I can.

00:05:12
Next step we're gonna patch, Mike..

00:05:14
it's gonna be the overheads and those are gonna come in to the AEA, and they're gonna return back in 13-14.

00:05:23
Ok, those are gonna route to channel 7-8 in my Pro Tools session, here..

00:05:34
Ok..

00:06:43
What I am doing here is I am listening to phase relationship between the rooms and the overheads.

00:06:47
I realize they're wildly far apart, but there is a phase relationship there that..

00:06:51
needs to be taken into account.

00:06:53
It will really come up actually here in a minute when we start bringing the kick drum in, start working that phase relationship.

00:06:59
I find that most of the time the overheads to the snare drum are usually out of phase.

00:07:05
Especially when using ribbon mics.

00:07:07
So I'm almost always flipping them out of phase..

00:07:09
they are currently in phase so I am not gonna put that switch until we get to that point.

00:07:14
We're gonna start listening to the kick drum, here.

00:07:16
Listen to the first channel of the UTA pre, I talked to Eric the other day he told me to put it in '20-mode', the -20, which is pad.

00:07:24
And so.. I've got the preamp cranked up pretty high, it has a little nice meter here you can monitor from..

00:07:31
and this is peaking at about -5.

00:07:34
I'm gonna start bringing this up, listen..

00:07:35
Listen to just the kick drum, now in the mix, here.

00:07:48
Now we're gonna listen to the D12.

00:08:12
Gonna listen to the different modes of the UTA, here..

00:08:15
I'm gonna listen to the transformer in/out and the load in/out..

00:08:33
Transformer adds some low end, it's cool.

00:08:46
For the D12, the load helps, a little bit.

00:08:50
Pretty cool! Feels to me like the room mics are better out of phase with the kick drum.

00:09:34
So we're gonna flip those out of phase, with the kick..

00:09:36
and we're gonna move on. This is just basic level setting, what I'm doing now, all right Mike, so the snare is gonna be the next 2 of these UTAs, and..

00:09:46
uh.. 9-10.

00:09:50
This is gonna go to track 4 on the desk.

00:09:53
Pro Tools term..

00:10:49
And as I expected flipping the overheads out of phase is better.. so here's..

00:10:55
this is gonna be with the overheads in phase..

00:11:20
And the next thing would be, So, the toms are just simple 421s, they're straight patches into these CAPI mic pres.

00:11:37
Again, I am in non-drummer perspective so I do the floor tom first, then the rack tom.

00:11:44
Hey, lemme hear some toms..

00:12:43
Ok so, I'm gonna listen real quick to see if the phase of the toms with the overheads are in or out sometimes the floor tom is out..

00:12:52
sometimes it's in, sometimes the rack is in..

00:12:54
sometimes is out..

00:12:55
with the overheads..

00:12:56
so now I've got the overheads in phase with the snare drum, I wanna make sure the toms are in phase with them, so..

00:13:02
Hey, one second, can I hear can I hear just the rack tom? Yeah.

00:13:19
Now, just the floor.

00:13:31
Great, all right. Cool, now lemme hear all of this..

00:13:45
Hey, Caleb? Lemme hear the Leedy snare.

00:13:48
Can I hear the Leedy snare? - Yeah, where is it? Right around the corner, right around the..

00:13:53
ISO that.. you know..

00:13:54
- Yeah, got it! We're gonna listen to this other snare.

00:14:39
So what I'm doing here is, I'm actually just trying to get a balance, no EQ engaged anywhere, just mic pres, straight mic pres, and that's it.

00:14:48
Kick drum's a little floppy.

00:14:50
You know, we'll get there.

00:14:51
We're gonna do the front mic.

00:14:53
All right? So, I'm gonna mute all these others.

00:14:58
All right, Caleb, just play that same thing you were playing..

00:15:00
Tap the toms in, you know..

00:15:03
you know the drill! So, we're gonna go, the front mic is gonna come to these CAPI, it's gonna come back in channel 15, and then we're gonna insert 39.

00:15:44
This is the Coles 4030 down kinda low, I've put that in, I've added the insert and I'm gonna start adding it back in the other drums.

00:15:53
Pretty.. it's a pretty cool sound.

00:16:02
Cool, so let's now see if it's in phase with the kick drum.

00:16:06
The kick drum as we have it right now, just..

00:16:08
no EQ, nothing.

00:16:13
And I know it's pretty wool-y, we'll get to that.

00:16:37
All right, so now the next thing is..

00:16:39
The 'sprinkle to taste'.

00:16:41
This is my favorite mic of the bunch, All right? And..

00:16:45
What we're gonna do is we're gonna just, it's a DI, comes out there into a DI, it's 1/4" microphone, it's gonna come into a mic pre, over here..

00:16:53
and that's gonna come back into channel 16, Mike.

00:16:57
All right, Caleb.. rock it, dawg! Why wouldn't you like that sound?! So, uh..

00:17:21
we're gonna take that now we're gonna make sure it's in phase with the snare drum.

00:17:52
Now, the fun part! All right, Mike.. can I get a loop 61..

00:19:23
We're gonna patch a couple other little things, here.

00:19:27
One of them is gonna be a mono drum buss.

00:19:31
What that is, I'm gonna take a bus on my console..

00:19:35
and I'm gonna bus some of these tracks together.

00:19:38
It's gonna be the kick and the snare and the overheads I'm gonna just, and..

00:19:43
..maybe the toms in here, not sure whether I will..

00:19:45
let's see if.. it seems to be pretty rocking.

00:19:47
And then that's gonna come down a bus, a mono bus at the desk, it's gonna go out to one of my compressors and is gonna come back in straight into a Pro Tools channel.

00:19:57
It may go through an EQ then back to a Pro Tools channel.

00:19:59
And then we'll take a listen to that.

00:20:01
And see.. and I'll either use a bus or I'll use an aux, depending on, if the balance isn't quite right, in here.

00:20:08
That's gonna be Bus 11 out.

00:20:11
And then let's hit the first 1176..

00:20:15
which is also 11! Go figure.

00:20:17
And then out of that, let's go to..

00:20:20
20 of the SSL rack.

00:20:24
All right Caleb, rock it for me, a'ight? I recorded a little piece of this..

00:21:09
and what I'm gonna do is..

00:21:11
as nerdy as it, I'm actually just gonna look at the phase relationship.

00:21:15
I have a few things here, so..

00:21:17
I'm gonna check out what's going on, here..

00:21:19
let's make sure that kick drum and that kick drum is..

00:21:22
on the same phase.. and they appear to be.

00:21:24
Or that's the snare I should say.

00:21:26
And we're gonna look down here at the kick and that appears to be.

00:21:29
Notice, this is the kick track and this is the mono track.

00:21:31
This is the snare, this is the snare.

00:21:33
I'm just taking a look at that it's stupid and silly but that's kind of what I'm doing, here.

00:21:39
We're gonna patch a couple more things that I may or may not need and they're gonna be busses, also..

00:21:46
So, Mike? Bus..

00:21:49
29 and..

00:21:52
30.

00:21:54
29..

00:21:57
and 30.

00:21:58
Are going to be Distressors 1-2.

00:22:00
13-14.

00:22:03
You know this drill, right? Let's do a little something.

00:22:09
Let's do 29..

00:22:12
to a mult.

00:22:15
You know, I'm gonna use one of these..

00:22:18
and then, that goes to..

00:22:20
13..

00:22:22
and 15 input.

00:22:24
I'll explain shortly.

00:22:28
Ok? And then the..

00:22:30
the next one is just 30, is gonna go to 14 and 16 input.

00:22:47
All right, cool.

00:22:49
All right, so those are gonna return 13 to 1..

00:22:53
15 to 2..

00:22:55
14 to 3..

00:22:58
16 to 4..

00:23:02
What I just asked Mike to do is..

00:23:07
to set up a pair of parallel groups for kick and snare.

00:23:14
So, on this session I'm not gonna do any compression on the drums live.

00:23:20
I'm not gonna compress anything to tape or to Pro Tools, whatever..

00:23:23
but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do a little bit of dynamic control in parallel.

00:23:27
So, I've set up a bus bus 29 on my console so the 2 kick channels are gonna go to bus 29 as they're gonna go out they're gonna hit a mult, that mult is gonna go to this Distressor..

00:23:40
and this Transient Designer.

00:23:42
Those two pieces are gonna come back to channels 1-2 which then route to bus 3, they're in parallel I'm gonna compress these and send them back in.

00:23:53
Gonna do the same thing to the snare drum.

00:23:55
Are you ready to lay down some stinky groove? - Sure, man! Cool! So just play a little for me and then we'll come back to it.

00:24:48
So I'm just trying to get the kick drum to be a little more rounder and a little more low-end-y the thing to deal with is.. I think I'm gonna have to have Mike go there and adjust it.

00:24:57
Tighten it up a little bit.

00:24:58
So, let's do that real quick.

00:25:03
Tighten it up so it just starts to dampen it.

00:25:18
All right, a little tighter.

00:25:28
All right, cool! Let me hear that in the groove.

00:25:44
Let's move the kick mics about 3 inches in.

00:25:49
Okay? I wanna move the mics in just a little bit 'cause I think I can get that..

00:25:58
the kick drum a little more closer.

00:26:00
..best word I can describe it! So.. we'll see! A couple things I wanna talk about it: I wanna talk about the whole patch thing. So..

00:26:16
over here in this rack, this is my preamp/EQ rack, right? So, basically it's very simple this UTA mic pres are doing the kick and snare there's 2 kick drum mics: there's a D12 and a FET47, and these 2 levels are here and then there's 2 snare mics: those are literally just here..

00:26:36
there's no EQ on the channel on anything but the kick drum at the moment I've got a little bit of EQ on the kick drum.

00:26:44
The tom mics are here..

00:26:46
these 2 CAPI mics, are totally flat, for the moment.

00:26:50
The front mic is totally flat for the moment, The 'taste' mic is totally flat for the moment.

00:26:55
The front mic hits the console, hits an insert, comes over to a Q2 Audio Compex Limiter 500, really nice sounding.

00:27:04
And that comes back to the desk.

00:27:05
All of these faders are feeding the busses therefore feeding Pro Tools input, like a tape machine.

00:27:10
At the moment there are 11 drum tracks: there are 2 room mics, kick drum, snare drum, floor, rack, overhead, left and right, including the hi hat, front mic, I'm gonna be able to add that into the mix, 'taste' added in the mix, and the 'mono'.

00:27:27
Now, let's talk about the 'mono'.

00:27:29
So, these levels they're going to tape, are also sending to bus 11. Bus 11..

00:27:36
comes out of the console his this mono right here, and then comes into this equalizer.

00:27:42
I haven't felt the need to need this equalizer.

00:27:44
That comes back into a fader, it's a Pro Tools return, I never.. there's no touching it.

00:27:51
I'm trying my best to keep all of the monitor faders at zero.

00:27:56
I'm gonna mix these levels a little bit as the band goes on, things are gonna turn up and down, they may change, a little bit of level may change, but as of right now, this..

00:28:04
everything is going in, and you know, nothing's clipping and everything sounds really, you know.. pretty rock'n'roll.

00:28:11
The room mics, have the EMI TG1 Chandler EMI Limiter, this sounds so good! And that's it! So, no EQ on the room, no EQ on the overheads.. yet! None on the toms, I like to just try to make this sound good first, and before we start to just adding a bunch of willy-nilly EQ.

00:28:32
There is a bit of EQ on the console on the kick channels and I'm just not quite settled on the sound of it, yet.

00:28:39
But, it's got the low end that I want, it's got the attack I wanted, it may just not be the 'note', I quite want yet.

00:28:45
Hi hat goes into the stereo bus..

00:28:47
I had to pan it a little bit..

00:28:49
hopefully I never have to look at it, again.

00:28:51
So the parallel compressor path for the snare, is this, and the kick drum.

00:28:56
The channels on the desk route to bus channel 27.

00:29:02
For the kick drum.. 27, Bus out, goes to my patchbay to a mult.

00:29:08
That mult has 1 in, 3 out.

00:29:12
One of those output goes to the input of the Distressor 1, 1 out of the outputs goes to the input of Transient Designer 1.

00:29:19
Those 2 inputs now see the same output of the bus.

00:29:24
The output of those 2 units then come back into channels 1-2.

00:29:28
Line inputs, on my desk.

00:29:30
That routes to bus 3 of my console.

00:29:35
And then the snare is the same thing: just 28.

00:29:38
The two units go to a mult.

00:29:40
And then, it goes to 3-4 of the console, and routes to bus 4 of Pro Tools.

00:29:48
The thing for me and drums, what I like to do is, I like to sort of layer compression on top of compression.

00:29:56
Like, in other words, like..

00:29:57
Like: here's the drums without any compression. And then here's a..

00:30:00
little bit compression! Layered on top of it! That is gonna bring those levels up.

00:30:06
There's no compression on the overheads at the moment, there might be later..

00:30:10
but there isn't any at the moment. There is compression 'out the wazoo', obviously on the room mics.

00:30:16
And that's cool, that sounds great.

00:30:17
There's a fair amount of compression on that front mic.

00:30:21
The 'taste mic' is just distortion that's the - by the way, I should've explained that the 'taste' comes in, goes to..

00:30:29
the insert send comes over here, to a pair of Radial EXTCs I'm using this one right here which is 61, notice the label 'taste', it comes out of the EXTC goes into this Pigtronix Polysat out of the Polysat into the BeardVerb! Now, what's the BeardVerb! Well..

00:30:52
this is a custom pedal that one of my old assistants had built for me.

00:30:56
So: can you buy one of these? Nooooope! But, I'll tell you what it is: it's an analog BucketBrigade delay. That's it.

00:31:04
That's all it is.

00:31:06
And a distortion. I don't use the distortion in it in this mode, sometimes I use it on keyboards and things but not using it now. I gonna use the Pigtronix.

00:31:13
And then that just comes back in and that comes back into the channel.

00:31:17
So it's an insert loop.

00:31:19
Through this pedal The great thing about this is that as the band plays, I'm gonna solo this from time to time and I'll sit and adjust the time to get it so the delays are falling in triplets: *triplet rhythm sound* *Vance Signature-Series Triplets®* You know, so it's..

00:31:35
it's falling in triplets, so it's filling in the holes in-between all the beats with this little bit of distortion and echo.

00:31:44
Giving away all my secrets! Most people today that are recording they take this mic pre and they plug into a channel of Pro Tools through some EQ and that's a channel, I'm not interested in that.

00:31:58
I would rather sort of make decisions to kinda make that sound and then when we go to mix, I can just hit play and the sound that I want just plays back into the console at the right level.

00:32:12
That, to me, makes a lot of sense.

00:32:14
Now, why the red tape, why the white? Well, the reason for the red and the white tape is that the red is the record side of my console in other words the red is gonna be the record side.

00:32:27
This white tape right here that I am writing on here in a minute, I'm gonna place up here, on the monitor side of my console.

00:32:35
So, now that I've got these figured out there's a couple other things we're gonna need to put up on the desk.

00:32:41
Next one's gonna be the bass.

00:32:44
There'll be a DI, here.

00:32:46
Then there's gonna be TB Guitar Graham's guitars, this is gonna be the 48, this is gonna be the 57, this is gonna be the 48, this is gonna be the 57..

00:32:59
All right? That leaves an empty channel right here I am gonna ignore it.

00:33:03
Down here..

00:33:05
on 30 and 32..

00:33:08
on these channels I'm gonna put the X-Vocal.

00:33:12
That'll be Tyler's scratch vocal.

00:33:15
One of these is gonna be the 7.

00:33:17
This will be the Sarge.

00:33:19
Let's call that the..

00:33:24
Dist. Distortion..

00:33:26
All right. SM7..

00:33:31
And most likely what's gonna happen is I'll put a couple VCAs up for these so, this is gonna be 'Kit', ..be the 'bass', ..Tyler Bryant..

00:33:48
..Graham..

00:33:51
..Vox..

00:33:53
All right, these up at 0.

00:33:55
Like this..

00:33:57
And..

00:33:58
That will allow me to adjust levels to tape..

00:34:03
All right? So I can adjust the level to tape or Pro Tools, in this instance.

00:00:00
All right, so.. we're gonna start with the bass.

00:00:02
The bass is..

00:00:04
Noah Denney is the bass player, he's great! He's playing my P-Bass, just 'cause it sounded good, today, Into an ACME Wolf DI Box which is a little Motown DI Box, really amazing, and then out of the DI box it goes into one of his pedals, and his tuner, and that goes into my B15.

00:00:22
So, the distortion pedal is before the amp, but after the DI, so I am getting a clean sound out of the DI.

00:00:29
The WolfBox comes in here, into this Flickinger mic pre, this is Bill Skibbe up in Benton Harbor, Michigan, builds these Flickinger mic pres, they're fantastic, that's gonna come back into the desk.

00:00:40
You're probably wondering now why I am using all these outboard pres? My console has no preamps! It is a film desk.

00:00:47
It's all dual line inputs.

00:00:48
So the console has no mic pres into it at all, that's why all these outboard mic pres.

00:00:53
And it allows me to pick and choose all the cool pres I wanna use on cool things, so.. that's why I'll keep coming over here for pres.

00:01:01
So, for the bass I'm gonna use Flickinger on both the DI and the amp mic.

00:01:08
So, he's gonna play a little bit for me, I did get a little bit of level on both of these so you can hear what will go between them.

00:01:15
On the DI I am using the Retro STA Level on the bass.

00:01:21
Awesome! Fantastic piece of gear.

00:01:23
I have a STA Level, and I have a 176, both of them are fantastic.

00:01:27
So let's check this out.

00:01:29
All right Noah, let's..

00:01:30
hear a little bit of the bass, please.

00:01:36
So this will be the DI.

00:01:47
Cool, now I am gonna add in the amp.

00:01:54
We're gonna check the phase, all right, cool.

00:02:03
Now, I am gonna let you hear just the amp.

00:02:10
I'm adding a little bit of EQ to the amp, just to get it to break up this is one of the things the SSL EQ is really cool for, because I can actually drive the EQ and get it to break up a bit so..

00:02:28
I have one more little trick and that is..

00:02:31
the DI out goes to bus 25 25 leaves..

00:02:36
my console, comes over here to the DBX 500 Professional Disco Boombox, Subharmonic Synth.

00:02:48
That comes back over here into a bus and it sounds like this.

00:03:04
Which basically, you're really not gonna hear very much unless you turn your subs up really fast..

00:03:08
so here's what all 3 of those things sound like, together.

00:03:21
Pretty kick-ass! All right, one second, guys! I just wanna hear the band..

00:03:26
play a little bit together, I'm gonna sit down here and let them play, just the drums and bass.

00:03:31
All right, can I have you guys just play the groove a little bit, please? - Great! Cool..

00:04:41
We're gonna need that guitar, guys, in there..

00:04:43
- Yeah, Graham?! Graham, yeah, let's do some guitars.

00:04:47
Let's recap a little bit.

00:04:49
So basically what I was doing was, listening to the band..

00:04:51
listening to the drums, listen to how the drums and bass fit together and just work on a little bit of levels, levels in Pro Tools, just changing a few things around so, now, gimme one second guys, just Graham.

00:05:02
Now we're gonna work a little bit on guitars.

00:05:05
So, these are the 2 microphones you saw earlier: the C48, and the 57.

00:05:10
Those 2 mics, are gonna come in and are gonna hit a couple of very special preamps.

00:05:15
Special to me.

00:05:16
These are RCA BA11A, tube mic pres..

00:05:21
not sure when they're from, probably the '50s maybe? Maybe early '60s? They really sound great, I really love 'em so, we'll just..

00:05:31
show'em to you, now.

00:05:39
Another thing about this is that they have a lot of gain, I think the pre has about 60dB of gain, so you have to kinda pad them down, and then I had'em modified so there's a gain reduction in the feedback loop, so I had the gain reduction all the way down the feedback loop with the pad out, which basically means that I have to run this pretty low, I'm down to around -10 with my fader to get an acceptable level in Pro Tools.

00:06:05
But for some reason for me it just really sounds cool that way, so..

00:06:09
They're probably running hotter than they should, but..

00:06:11
that's kinda cool. So this is the C48, I'm gonna lower my input gain just a little bit ok that's the C48, now we'll hear the 57.

00:06:56
Now we're gonna put'em both in.

00:07:20
So I'm gonna add a little bit of EQ here because I'm gonna take a little of the low mids out of the guitar.

00:07:59
These are 2 mics, 2 different mics.

00:08:01
I'm gonna wide pan them so you can hear them and then I'm gonna pan'em back together so you can hear them together.

00:08:21
All right Graham, that sounds pretty great! - Cool! Cool! Do we have Mr. Bryant, Tyler? T.B.? - Yeah! All right, let's hear that guy.

00:08:30
Ok, same exact path: C48, RCA B11A and then back.

00:08:44
This is the C48, pretty big sounding.

00:08:46
From a small amp.

00:08:52
This is a 57.

00:08:58
That's the C48.

00:09:01
So I'm gonna do a little bit of the same EQ.

00:09:02
Just to take a little bit of the low end out.

00:09:33
All right.

00:09:34
Let me hear you guys groove the verse groove a little bit, all right? What I was just doing is I was listening to the 'taste' mic and I was setting a delay time so that that 'taste' mic is providing some sort of triplet sort-of echo.

00:11:56
I'll play it for you one more time in solo.

00:12:17
All right, man! That sounds pretty awesome! Tyler, lemme hear your vocal real quick, all right? Lemme just hear that! - Ah, ah, check, hey hey! Hey, Tyler! - Yeah! Down there on the floor, that Sarge amp, - Yeah, what do you want? Turn that output up a bit.

00:13:04
- Which one's the output? It's the one with the volume.

00:13:07
- None of these have a.. It's got a piece of tape! Next to it! - Ok, you got it! Coming at ya! Turn it up some.

00:13:13
Rock'n'roll, you know! - Hey, hey! Ah, ah! - About there? Keep going! - More?!! MOAR! - Hey, hey! One, two! There we go! Let's see how it sounds like if you guys play and sing it a little bit.

00:13:33
Just the verse.

00:14:08
All right, man! That sounds good! - Cool.

00:14:10
So, on channel 5 of your mixer there'd be a little bit of slapback.

00:14:16
- Yeah, yeah, yeah! What I was just doing there was..

00:14:21
there's 2 channels for the vocal.

00:14:22
There's the SM7 and that SM7 comes in, goes to an API 512, and then there's the Sarge amp.

00:14:29
And so, what I was doing was actually driving the Sarge amp harder, that's the other microphone..

00:14:34
and then I'm bringing those two in here, together.

00:14:37
And then, the other thing I had is that..

00:14:40
I have a little Tape Echo over here That was coming back in to a channel and I was sending that Tape Echo out the insert send of my desk to the cue system.

00:14:50
So Tyler now has a little bit of echo in here, no other effects, just a little bit of echo, in here.

00:14:57
And.. he can turn it up a little bit in there if he wants it.

00:15:00
Most likely is not gonna sing, but it might be that we get something kinda cool with this microphone..

00:15:07
in a room mic-sort of scenario.

00:15:10
So, I don't like to just throw away anything, we might as well.. if we're gonna record it..

00:15:14
we might as well make it cool! We're gonna do a couple little production stub things here..

00:15:20
there's a part of the song that runs at a different tempo, obviously..

00:15:22
so, we're gonna do the whole take then I wanna chop a piece out and we're gonna do a couple little insert pieces on that, to make a clean take, then we're gonna take into the fast part and then I'm gonna put the fast part into the take we're gonna keep and then we'll touch up the tops and tails.

00:20:10
Yeah, man! That felt great.

00:20:12
- Vance, for shits and giggles should we just do a solo Yeah, let's do it! - I'd love to try one! - Did you try one with the click? Yeah, try it! You have the tempo? Or you want the tempo? - Yes. Ok, I'm gonna play it for ya.

00:20:25
Check it.

00:20:51
Ah, Mike got..

00:20:52
129! - Yeah, that's what I got! - Well..

00:22:04
That was good feedback.

00:22:06
Lemme chop this together, man! We got one, cool. Awesome.

00:22:11
Yeah.

00:22:13
Ok, cool.

00:22:31
Ok, Mike this is gonna be..

00:22:34
20 and 21..

00:22:36
we just need to move Graham over to..

00:22:41
from.. 20 to 21..

00:22:44
22! Gimme 21 and 22.

00:22:46
Lemme hear you play a little, Graham! Yeah! So, I want you to do that.. all the choruses, and then the end, all right? - All the choruses? Yeah, last chorus is a little bit different, I realized, but..

00:23:09
let's just hear what it sounds like with all the choruses.

00:23:12
- Ok. Ok? Here we go.

00:23:14
Half way through the first verse.

00:24:03
Yeah, man! Chorus 2! Yeah, man! Felt great! You're done! - I'm excited to..

00:24:28
put a solo on there, you know, Vance? - Oh, I am sure you are.

00:24:31
Oh, I bet you are. - I think it was like your least favorite thing to do! - I'm sure he'll do about 90 of 'em, too! - Nope, I think I can do it in 2.

00:24:38
- Whooooa Whooooa! - Now, I'll do it in ONE! Whaaat?! Let's make it happen, let's go!! Hey Vance, has Tyler got the vocal down yet? He's gonna be like: "no, man, he's been doing solos since 00:11.

00:24:53
- Going there.

00:24:54
- I wanna hear it! - One time, you get one take Tyler, whatever you play, it stays. - Yes, Tyler, you..

00:24:59
you play great solos all the time, but..

00:25:01
you like to play 58 of them, before you pick one.

00:25:04
- Can I do a placeholder solo, Vance? - Just give me one track? All right! Placeholder solo! Listen, I like to shine a light in the darkness of their negativity.

00:25:17
I'm putting 'placeholder..

00:25:20
solo' - No, no. This is the keeper.

00:25:23
- This is the keeper, this is the one.

00:25:25
- Yeah, if he's doing this.. - He only gets one! You guys are so, like..cool! But yet.. funny.

00:25:35
- We just call him out when he's full of shit.

00:25:38
- Yeah, I'm fine! All right, here we go..

00:26:47
Oh, you need one more! - Noo! All right. - Noo, no way!! - That's no way that's a keeper! One more! One more! - No way that's the keeper! - That one sounded good to me! Yeah, pretty good..

00:28:22
- Yeah, whatever! Yeah, whatever. - Placeholder! All right, come on in.

00:28:26
- I thought you were saying it was gonna be one and done..

00:28:29
Mmh.. yeah..

00:28:31
- So much adrenaline, like..

00:28:33
That's what he said, originally.

00:28:35
Bastards. - Is that middle section..

00:28:38
that longer, or that little bit is that longer, or..

00:28:41
is that gonna be cut down or it's gonna stay like that? No, I think it's gonna stay like that.

00:28:46
- I thought the first one was good, too.

00:28:49
- I mean, it's a placeholder, guys! - Yeah, placeholder! Sonically, a placeholder.

00:28:53
All right. - Ah, so you're saying it's on you? Totally on me, dude! - I'm kidding.

00:28:58
"Totally on me!" " " Totally on me " " ..placeholder solo! You know..

00:29:05
could be so much better! "Sonically." - It could be so much better "sonically"..

00:29:10
Yeah. - So, you know, yeah..

00:29:13
Let's talk *claps* about singing! How you feel about it! - I'm ready. Let's do it! All right, let's do it! - Let's sing it! Like that? See how we roll? I think that sounds pretty good, man! I'm gonna have you sing all of the tracks a little bit and let me..

00:29:32
tweak on it, all right? You can probably take me to the last chorus, if you want.

00:33:08
Ok, cool.

00:33:09
- Yeah! How does the vocal sound, is it cool? Sounds cool! There's a couple things going on with the vocal that I should explain for these tracks.

00:33:16
We're using the SM7 and then the 1101 through the Sarge, I'm bringing those into 2 channels on my desk and routing them to 23-24 on my console.

00:33:29
23-24 go to Pro Tools they come back on 31-32.

00:33:34
I use 2 vocal channels because I like to have the extra gain of the two channels but on these I'm using in a stereo track in a very weird way.

00:33:46
I'm recording the dry or the clean channel, on 31 and the dirty on 32, but in Pro Tools, it's a stereo channel.

00:33:55
So left and right.

00:33:56
I bring them back in mono and that way I can adjust them in mono here on my playback.

00:34:02
So when I play it if I want a little less distortion I just turn down 32.

00:34:06
If I want a little less clean I turn down 31.

00:34:09
The reason I am doing it as a stereo track in Pro Tools is that - if for some reason I need to process these - if I need to tune a note or I need to do something with them I can just make one edit, very easy.

00:34:24
And, I am not having to group them, chase multiple things around, I'm done having to go down that all route.. it's just I'm just cutting the stereo track it just so happens to be that one side is clean and one side is distorted.

00:34:38
But when you bring them in mono it doesn't matter.

00:34:41
It keeps the blend in Pro Tools fixed, but yet, if I need to split'em apart I just split them into mono tracks.

00:34:48
One last thing I wanna bring up and that is that, when I am tracking and when I am mixing I track and mix through the same 2-bus monitoring path.

00:34:58
In other words, what I mean by that is I have an API 2500 on my 2-Bus and this EQ3D it's a Nightpro, now it's called Maag and I have those 2 pieces the API 2500 comes out of my insert of the console then goes to the EQ3D then back to the insert return of the 2-Mix. Those are always on..

00:35:19
the EQ, I turn off.

00:35:22
For tracking, of course.

00:35:23
I only turn the EQ on when mixing..

00:35:25
if I need just a little bit of EQ but the 2500 I'll leave on and I'll leave it on for a reason.

00:35:30
Because..

00:35:31
I'm..

00:35:32
tracking..

00:35:34
the mix, I am tracking to mix it.

00:35:36
So, I'm adding the amount of compression I feel like I need on the 2-Bus and if something feels slightly out of control, or something pops out to me, it doesn't feel like a mix when I am tracking then, there's something in the tracking setup that I need to to adjust..

00:35:54
I can watch the API 2500, I can watch my 2-Bus I can watch my meters, my master meters, and know exactly what..

00:36:03
my mix is going to translate when I, you know, hit..

00:36:07
a couple switches of the desk and it flips over back to the big faders.

00:36:12
On the 2500, one of the things I'm looking for is..

00:36:16
the amount of compression from my 2-Mix.

00:36:20
Mine is setup so that, the VU meters some of them are set differently, mine is set up so the VU meter set almost all the way over at 0 instead of at 0 here that they set it, the "other zero".

00:36:34
I try my best to do every mix less than 4dB of compression at all times.

00:36:41
So less than 4dB of 2-Mix compression.

00:36:44
My settings basically don't change.

00:36:47
The only thing that changes is..

00:36:49
really is the release..

00:36:51
on the 2500 threshold will change..

00:36:55
a little bit, from +4 to 0 to +8 depending on how hard I am hitting the bus, sometimes, some rock'n'roll stuff if you hit the bus harder, it actually feels a little bit cooler sometimes, you know, you don't need that.

00:37:08
So, I adjust it to get the proper amount of compression that I want.

00:37:11
The attack on mine, I set at 10.

00:37:14
Which I believe is 10ms.

00:37:17
The ratio is 4:1 and the release is .100ms or .200ms, or .500ms.

00:37:25
It does have a variable and every now and then I'll use the variable and adjust it, but usually 1/10 or .100ms or .200ms it works for me.

00:37:36
My knee is at medium, the thrust is at medium and the type is 'old', I like the old feedback version.

00:37:43
I do link the two together with the high-pass filter on the low end.

00:37:48
I link them at about 80%.

00:37:50
The 2500 does have a weird little thing and that is, it has auto make-up gain unless the gain button is pushed.

00:37:56
I like the gain button in..

00:37:58
which basically means it ignores the auto make-up gain.

00:38:02
And then I run that control all the way down.

00:38:05
I don't like the auto make-up gain.

00:38:07
So, that's really pretty much it.

00:38:09
It's really simple.

00:38:11
And, you know..

00:38:13
That's how I use it for every mix I've ever done since the day I bought mine some time in the mid 2000s.

00:38:20
Or early 2000s.

00:38:23
So, that's always on the mix, at all time.

00:38:27
I love the way it sounds, I love everything about it.

00:38:29
It's really just a fantastic piece of gear I cannot go on and on about it, enough.

00:38:36
API 2500 on the 2-Mix insert and the EQ3D, why - you say - do I not use the SSL compressor? I'm not gonna say I don't, ever..

00:38:50
but I don't, normally.

00:38:53
I like it, a lot..

00:38:56
but I really love the 2500 and I've gotten used to it I've gotten used to the way it works and, so..

00:39:03
for me it's just a little bit of a comfort thing.

00:39:06
It's probably, in a mix situation, the only thing I feel like I have to have in a mix situation..

00:39:13
I can pretty much do everything else as long as I have a 2500.

00:39:17
And the EQ3D, which is a was made by a company called Nightpro, like I said, again..

00:39:21
like, later on now, that's Maag.

00:39:25
It's just a really great little weird EQ that I just really like, and I use it because it does have the 'Air band'.

00:39:31
I use those just a little bit, sometimes, when mixing.

00:39:35
So, that's a very important thing, that I wanted to insert into this.

00:39:39
It's always on my 2-Mix.