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drumsound
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Post by drumsound » Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:34 am

Day Fifteen

Today we were finishing up ?One Wrong Turn.? Before Ed even showed up to the studio I started getting the piano ready. This involved moving most of the drums out of the way and grabbing the drum throne and raising it up for Ed to sit on. He likes to sit high and my bench is really creaky! I went with the AT Pro37r in ORTF stereo. I also kept the Octava MC012 that was the drum overhead on its stand. I swapped the hyper-cardioid for the omni capsule and kept the mic right where it was, but pointed it on axis to the piano. The room mic went through the Chameleon 7602 with no EQ and the close mics I believe were patched to the Aurora GTQ2, again with no EQ.


Ed had played Wurlie on during the basics and knew what to expect. The piano part went down pretty smoothly. I believe in two takes. There was one question about one of the moving riffs not being right, upon further inspection it just was played with one note and not the usual two. I really didn?t think it was an issue.

As we were cutting the piano I was also hatching the plan for the vocal. I planned to use two mics, one of them placed inside a metal tube that used to be a table leg in a previous live. It?s about four inches around and 3-4 feet long. I was going to put the mic in the bottom and stand the tube upright, but I was concerned about positioning ED and the other mic. He suggested that we prop it up on something to put it horizontal. This was a great idea. We stacked a couple of speaker cabinets and laid the tube on it. It has one flat flange that keeps it from rolling. I wrapped a 421 in a pillowcase to keep it from rattling on the tube. Because of the height Ed was going to sit on a chair to sing this one. Next to the tube I put a TOMB ribbon mic as the ?normal? vocal. I employed the Drawmer 1969 for its mic preamp and compression, each source going to its own track on the tape, which was running at 15ips.

Even in the live room the TOMB ribbon had a nice fairly tight sound. The 421 had a great live bright thing happening. The vocal went down really easily. It?s a little rough around the edges, but that?s kind of by design. There were a couple stops and starts but we got the whole take before Ed heard anything in the control room. He really liked the two different sounds. I then told him about phase two and tree of my vocal plan?

I?ve mentioned my speaker mic as it was used on the BD for most of this record. It?s just a cheap 8? or10? with ghettofabulous mounting by yours truly. It?s got a ?? male on a short length of cable. Whenever I do acoustic things that don?t require headphones I plug it into the headphone amp for talkback. My play today was to reamp the vocal through this little speaker, once with the tape in sync and once in repro creating a delay. I was thinking I?d get pre-delay, but that would require flipping the tape over (something I still may do). So now there are four vocal tracks from one master performance.

Ed had a percussive guitar idea. He wanted to react to the staccato bass part in the second section of the song. He liked the direct guitar sound we used earlier. I though it would be cool to change it slightly so instead of the GTQ2 we plugged into the DI on the face of the Drawmer ?69. It has tone controls and a couple of ?voicing? switches. Ed was playing his Les Paul Pro while standing right behind me in the control room. This was another part of maybe one punch-in on the master take.

At this point the song was pretty much tracked, and I think the goal of a ?non-blues? blues song was achieved. Ed looked at me and said ?Lets make the drums weirder!? with a devilish grin. The drums are only sitting on 3 tracks, BD, OH and Level Loc. I looked over at the rack and though for a second. I had an idea. I bussed the drums to the CBS Volumax to smash and distort, then its output was sent to the lowly Behringer composer (a better piece than some think?at least the older one like this) to use the gate. I was able to get a really great punch on the each beat. Short and odd and almost unrecognizable. Once both Ed and I were into the sound I patched the comp right to an open track. Then I got the weirdest crosstalk. The signal was huge and noisy on the two adjacent tracks. I though maybe I patched too close to the drum tracks on the tape, but when I move two more tracks over it was still happening. The gate was also not closing. I patched back to a channel on the console and the sound was fine. I then used the console bus to get to the tape deck and the same thing happened. I lowered the fader and I could make it go away, though I was not able to print to tape and hot as I?d liked. I?m going to have to trouble shoot my cabling at some point, as that?s the only thing I can think of for this.

Tim and Matt were called to come hear the progress. The band then loaded out because they had a gig the next night at the Uof I in Champaign/Urbana. The studio looks huge with all the cases and extra gear gone. I think I?m going to get rid of the couch that was in the live room so I can keep the vibes at the ready.

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Post by drumsound » Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:09 am

Day Sixteen



We had taken the weekend off because the band had a gig on Friday and I had a record release party for The Dirty Hands Band record I finished right before starting this one. We?ve been taking Sundays off as a matter of course.

I thought it would be a good idea to spend some time Monday listening to each of the songs and adding anything we may have glossed over. I also thought this would give us all a chance to make sure were liked everything as it sat. There are a couple things we know that need to be added to the record. One is a small string section and the other a trumpet. Those will need to be scheduled in, but anything else we?d cover today.

The first order of business was some backing vocals for ?How in the Hell.? Matt and ED decided to track together to double the track. I put them in the live room on either side of the U87 set in figure8. The Chameleon (with the 35hz filter) and the Drawmer ?69 made the vocal chain. Since there was space on the tape we double tracked the part thus having 4 voices of BVs. The parts went down really smoothly. They added the little extra that really makes the track sound like a record. It?s funny how some very simple background vocal can really elevate a song.

We continued listening to tracks. Sometime we?d take a little time for an experiment with one sound or another. At one point the violin on ?Rainy Day? had lots of distortion and a very long delay. That may be a bit too kooky for the mix, or it may be perfect?

I really wanted a nice high harmony on ?Rainy Day.? Ed obliged me and went to the live room to try some ideas. He was able to come up with a part pretty easily, though he needed a bit of warm-up because it was really pushing the limits of his range. We also had a bit of a problem with scoping up to pitch. I was having a lot of trouble explaining what it was that was bothering me. The problem being two phrases that end with a rhyme that?s achieved in one with a 2 syllable word and the next with a one syllable word. It really was a context issue. I had the part Ed was singing pretty high in the mix so I could hear what was going down. In reality it will be pretty far back in the mix. It will probably always one of those little moments the bug me and no one else on the planet.

We listened to a few more songs and were all pretty happy with how things lived on tape. For ?the Places we lived? Ed had a great idea (weeks ago)to add chimes in the waltz section to sound like a doorbell. I?m lucky enough to have a good relationship with on of the area?s High School band directors, Gordy Warren. He?s lent me an old set of Jenco chimes before. So I gave him a ring and we set up a time to meet he before his evening rehearsal. We got lucky because the old set of chimes was going to be taken by a parent to try to firm up the frame and make it sturdier. Because of that we got to take the really nice Musser chimes. We got them around dinner so we took our break then.

I gotta say there?s something really funny about walking up to your recording studio to see three musicians standing on the sidewalk having a smoke with a set of chimes right by the door. I?m still bummed out that my wife had her camera with her, I?d love a photo of that. As I cleaned the heads Ed found the part he wanted to play. I cued up the song and moved the U87 higher and in front of the chimes. The part went sown in one take, except for having to redo the first phrase because I added gain after it. The punch-in was just for a level match. It sounds great along with the sleigh bells and acoustic guitar making the section feel really personal.

AS we listened to more tracks everybody was in a good mood. We felt like the record was working as a whole and that there would be no problem coming up with solid mixes. As we listened to ?Legal Crime? Ed said we should add a backward cymbal to the very end. Matt and I both though it might be a bit much with all the other sonic delights already there. I also mentioned the Level Loc also already adding a similar sound all over the song. He then said, well then lets put it on ?Time With You? which I have learned is the real title for what I?ve been calling ?Spend Some Time.? We all liked that idea.

After listening to the rest of the tunes we went back to ?Time With You? to do the backward cymbal. I first needed to erase the click and the scratch vox so I?d have somewhere to put the new part. Instead of a big crash cymbal I opted for a Paiste Accent (yes I voluntarily put a Paiste product on a record!). These are small splash cymbal sized, but are thicker and have a sort of bell-ish sound. The build up at the end of the song just hangs on one chord and is already pretty thick, so I thought the higher, smaller sound would work. Here?s where it got tricky. I had to play a backwards part at the end of the song. I have a habit of stopping the click when the band hits the last note so I don?t have headphone bleed on the tail. Luckily the weird synth and Wurlie parts go a little past the band, though they?re not in tempo. Before I flipped the tape over I marked the last note with a grease pencil so I?d have some idea once the reels were flipped. Tim suggested that I put the cymbal right there next to the deck so I could watch the mark. This made sense. I put the U87 right inside the doorway and the cymbal next to the deck. I shuttled the tape a few time so I could learn how it sounded after I flipped the tape. Once I felt comfortable I donned the headphones and muted the speakers. I acted as my own tape op while the guys plugged their ears as they were sitting of the couch pretty close to the action. It took me a few tries to feel like I got it right. One time I totally whiffed and didn?t hit the cymbal at all, probably the finniest moment of the night. WE turned the tape back over and listened. It sounded great though it was shorter then Ed expected. HE suggested that we also add a backward chime. So we pulled the A off the chimes and hung it on the cymbal stand. I had to take off the felt washers and the plastic cup that holds the cymbals in place. They were rattling on the chime. The wire chord used to suspend was also rattling a bit. I tried a couple thing to spread it out and finally decided on razor blade with a bit of tape to hold it in place. I think it took me three tries on the chime after flipping the tape. I let it ring really long so it can have a more dramatic effect. We flipped the tape back to normal and to a listen. It?s a pretty cool ending for a pretty cool song, a nice added touch.

We listened to all of ?time with you a couple times and then called it a night.

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Post by drumsound » Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:34 am

Day Seventeen

After finishing touches yesterday all the record really needed was a trumpet and a string overdub. The string arrangement is not yet done, and I?m trying to schedule time with a trumpet player. We are doing pretty well as far as time and budget are concerned so I proposed the idea of mixing the record twice. Once fairly quickly and once more involved. I?ve wanted to do this on a project for a while but usually time and/or money prevents this from happening. The idea stems form wanting to a) have an alternative that isn?t just something like Vocal up or bass down type mixes and b) the charm that sometimes comes from not over-thinking something.

As is the case with out song at a time production ethic of this record I?m not feeling as intimate as I sometimes do once a project hits the mix phase. We pretty much worked on a song and by days end had all or most of the tracking done and then moved on the next day. When working this way its really great for freshness and spontaneity, and getting unique sounds all while just going with your gut. The down side is that there?s a lot of ?out of sight out of mind? for me anyway. If I?ve done basics over a couple days, and then done vocals over a couple days, and then guitars, and then ear candy etc, I?ve gone back to a song many times. I?ve tried different mixes just by virtue of bringing the tune back up on the console. I?ve learned where there?s a loud chord or work, a noise that needs to be muted, and any number of other things. By doing these quick mixes I?m giving myself a chance to reacquaint myself with the tracks.

Quick mixes are just that, quick. I?m trying to not get too bogged down by them, I?m spending an hour-hour and a half and getting them done. Some EQ here, some compression there, an effect or two, simple and painless. I am doing a couple things I generally do when I mix. First off the Drawmer 1969 is patched to the mix bus and I set up am RNC drum-bus parallel compressor. These are default for me. The drum-bus compressor sometimes gets swapped out but the ?69 lives on my mix bus, but I need it in from the get go, I mix into it. I realized about 4 passes in that I had not engaged the ?big? switch on the ?69. It is a high pass filter at 100Hz in the compressors detector circuit, not the audio path. It basically tells the compression to not react to signal below 100Hz. Once I put it in the mix got 10 times bigger and fuller. I?m not using automation for this batch of mixes, though the automation is on so I can take advantage of the VCA groups feature. I can then use one fader and mute to adjust a group when needed (drum mutes come to mind).

I spent a good part of the day getting the decks ready to mix. I ran the MRL calibration tape on the 2? deck, which seemed to be in pretty solid alignment. Except for a couple tracks nothing was more than .5-1.0 dB off. If you?ve never done this you?re setting reproduce level, hi frequency repro level and kinda of checking and adjusting low frequency level (though its really best to do that as part of the record calibration?I don?t remember why off the top of my head). Then I did the same on the ?? deck. After the repro cal, I did a record calibration, which is similar to repro, but you are running the machine in record while listening to repro while adjusting the levels. This is also when the bias is set. I?ll be mixing the whole record at 30ips. I can never seem to get my Tascam ATR-60 to sound the way I want at 15ips, it just gets to ?crunchy? for my tastes. I think 15ips is just not forgiving enough for how hot I tend to run things? I listened to too many Roy Thomas Baker productions as a kid I guess.

I started in the same place we started tracking, ?How In the Hell?? It?s a pretty straight up rock song. Bass, drums, a few guitars (including a tremolo guitar on the bridge that I don?t think I mentioned in the day one blog), a simple Hammond part plus lead and background vocals. I added a guitar parallel compressor about 20 minutes into the mix. Things were driving pretty well and I though the ART VLA would add a nice thick tone, and it did. I had taken a note when the cement mix was done, to use a 56ms delay with 6% feedback on the lead vocal. It came from the TC M3000. The second engine of the TC was being used for a de-esser on the lead vocal. I also dialed in a nice flanger from the Kurzweil Mangler for the backing vocals. Between the distortion and tracking compression I didn?t feel the need to compress any of the vocals and the bass was sitting nicely as well. It was time to print.

After dinner I started in on ?Shoulda Shut It? because it was on the same tape and had all of it?s needed parts. There?s more going on in this tune including vibes, piano, 2 12-string guitar parts, 6-string , plus every vocal part is doubled. There are also some random spoken words, one on the lead vocal and one on the vibe track. Ed had called and mentioned that he, his wife, and Tim wanted to come by to hear what I had. He said they were coming in an hour. I was only about 3-4 passes into the mix at this point. I was glad because this would help keep me on my quick mixes schedule. Being these mixes are by design from the gut and not being gone over with a fine-toothed comb, they are also not done ?by committee? as it were. Ed is just letting me do my thing, and maybe making a suggestion here or there, if I haven?t printed the mix before he comes by. When we get to the fine-toothed comb mixes I will spend a lot of time alone getting the mix together and about 80% done, then Ed will come in and give suggestions, ask for changes and bring it to the 100% mark. For now though I?m left to my own devices.

This mix saw a flanged reverb from the Mangler for the vocals. I kept adjusting the flange to reverb ratio and ended up with about 70% reverb (the patch starts at 100%). I?m not sure what the Mangler is doing when the parameter says reverb percent, whether it?s a send from the flange that?s first in the chain or adjusting the decay time, I just know I got it sounding how I wanted. As I mixed other elements went to the Mangler as well, though mostly in small doses. I compressed the BD a bit with another RNC and was doing some rides on the vocals. I wasn?t using the guitar parallel, but I did patch the VLA to the 12-string that was playing big lush chords. It needed to be tamed and fit into the track better. I had the bass DI and mic going to the other channel of the VLA. I used the small fader as a send/blend to the VLA and brought its return up independently on the console. My intention was to also send the uncompressed signal to the mix bus, but the VLA dealing with both sources really popped and the uncompressed signals just mucked things up. Tim showed up first and then Ed and his wife. I was still getting a few of my mute and fader moves down. Ed suggested lowering the 12-string that plays a line that we decided was going to bookend the tune but not be used during the verses (though it was played). Ed also asked if I was running the 2? deck fast, which I was. The day before when were listening to tracks we tried varispeeding the deck because Ed felt the chorus felt a bit slow. We went through trial and error and found the spot that didn?t make the verse feel rushed or the chorus dragged.

I took me a couple times to get a good print of the mix because I?d miss a mute or forget a fader ride. Once it was down I printed a copy to the RADAR at 24/88.2 off the repro head of the ?? as I had also done with ?how in the Hell.? I took a CD home but Ed opted to wait until I had some more tunes to get a CD (which surprised me).

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Post by drumsound » Sun Oct 14, 2007 3:02 pm

Day Eighteen


Wednesday started with me working on ?Time With You? which will be the record?s opener. It?s about as power pop as BTF has ever gotten. There are 2 electric guitars, 2 acoustics, Wurlie, 2 Moog parts, 3 vocals plus bass and drums and hands on lap percussion. We have already decided that the electric guitars won?t cone in until the second verse along with the bass and drums. Well that?s not totally true because there?s a lone bass slide that leads into the Wurlie and Moog entrance of the first verse. I opted to leave the slide out partially because I grouped the bass with the drums and electric guitar to do a nice clean intro mute and second verse entrance. When Matt and Tim heard the mix that night I was informed that they both wanted it in. I told them it would be no problem. But I?m getting ahead of myself. This song has really strong three part vocal all the way through the song. My first priority was keeping them present. My second was making sure the rhythm section had a lot of drive. Parallel compression for a vocal group was how I decided to approach keeping three distinct parts focused and present. I used an RNC because it?s nice and fast and there are a few peaks as well and various more subtle dynamics within the song. It?s kind of peppered into the mix put when it?s out the vocals don?t have the same command. The vocals also got a phaser from the Mangler, as Ed was pretty attached to the phaser from his demo. I also added a long delay that I?m fading up at the end of the hook, almost like a ducked delay.

On the drums there is the usual RNC parallel comp, which is set really fast and aggressively. The ?overheads? (they are in front of the diagonal, not over the drums) for this tune are a Blumlein pair of TOMB ribbons and I decided to not send them to the parallel, but the toms, CD and BD are all going there. I tried putting the lone room mic on a gate triggered by the snare. The effect was kind of cool but when I did an A/B with and without the gate I just preferred without the gate. The BD and SD got fair amounts of EQ. The groove is 4 on the floor with the BD and riding on the floor tom instead of hats, with accents on the rack, floor and snare. Its pretty thick and doing this mix has made me realize I?m going to need even more radical EQ later. It?s hard to keep the drums distinct while being able to tell what the bass is doing, especially once the guitars are in.

Speaking of the guitars, the parallel was brought back, again using the VLA. For a while the Wurlie also was going to it, but in the end ended up just hitting the mix bus. I also sent the bass to the VLA. I?m pretty sure it stayed there for the mix. Even the acoustic rhythm guitar (though not the acoustic accents guitar) is going to the VLA. Between the tone and action of that compressor I like how it?s adding to the drive of the song. In the quick mix the bass, guitar and drums are kind of functions as one, but I and the band are realizing that there needs to be more distinction between the elements. That will be a challenge.

I spent a lot of time balancing the vocals to ride on top of the tune. I really got into ho the different parts related to each other and the rest of the track. The high part has a bit more motion for arrangement, but the EQ on all three was really dialed in for blending reasons, as was the amount of signal sent to the phaser effect. Finding the blend of the Wurlie and Moog was also something I spent a good deal of thought on. For most of the tune they are playing the same line (along with the bass) in the B section. I went with the Wurly being aggressive with a big boost in the upper mids and I let the Moog sit a bit under it, and to the other side. The Wurlie was done through a guitar amp and is pretty cool sounding anyway. The ?second? mg part was treated pretty much the same way. It comes in during the very accent driven instrumental bridge and again during the outro build-up. These are the section where the band is chunking along and the Moog and Wurlie are kind of in freak out mode.

I still needed to shoehorn in the second acoustic and lap percussion into this thing. They just happen in the hook of the chorus and work best when panned together. I have a feeling they will still end up bigger and louder in the final mix, especially the percussion.

Ed was present at the beginning and the end of this mix. He had a couple ideas and concerns for the vocal blend that were addressed which mostly involved the high harmony placement. He also had the ides to add a cell phone ring at the beginning of the bridge. So I set up an Alesis/GT AM52 in omni and recorded the cell phone. Ed said it?s the first time he?s been happy about caring a cell phone.


If you can?t tell from this description, I spent more than the proposed hour and a half on this mix. I?m OK with that because I think it?s a really important song for the record and for the band. For them it?s really an expansion and a growth point. For the record, it?s the opener, the most important song. If new listeners don?t like the first song its doubtful they will listen to the second. We want the listener to be excited and curious as to what comes next, or may to want to hit the repeat button because that song was so cool.

After a dinner break I went back and worked on ?Rainy Day.? This song couldn?t be more different from ?Time With You.? Its piano based with violin, bass and drums. The vocal is a first take with no compression (mistake) done on two mics with a simple background vocal.

Before I even returned to the studio I had a mix concept in my mind. We?ve messed around with this song a few different ways. We?ve decided to bring the violin in later, and it?s been screwed with many ways, including distortion and delay. What we had never done was a really wet mix of the song. The first thing I did was patch in the Lexicon PCM 60, a great old school reverb with big buttons for size and decay, plus the choice of room or plate, and 2 tone buttons. I ended up with the room sound size 2 (of four), decay time 3 (of 4) and the treble cut in. There?s a lot of piano, vocal and violin sent to the reverb. The backing vocal is going only to the reverb, and no dry signal is being sent to the mix bus at all.

Matt played the hollow violin bass on this track and I relied more heavily on the DI than the mic signal. I felt the DI was portraying more of the character of the instrument than the SVT was. There is a lone snare drum with brushes on this track. All I really needed to do was blend it in with the fader.

The vocals were the hard part. I was really trying to get a first take when we tracked so there are gain adjustments made and some tonal variances because of it. There is the Pearlman TM1 and a cheap little mic from an old cassette recorder. I like the Pearlman track for its intimacy, but the cheapo adds a great color. During the spoken verse I?m just using the cheapo as a matter of fact. Getting the Pearlman to sit even with compression is a little rough, there?s some preamp distortion on the mic for the first line so it sounds a bit like it doesn?t come in until later, when the sound cleans up and gets thicker. Ed is really into the cheapo mic so I may become the dominant track in the mix.

When he came by to hear the mix he was pretty surprised by the large amount of reverb. It?s not swimming like some 80s hair metal thing, but it?s pretty obvious. I just really wanted to try something different with this tune. Ed has been doing mock voice over (which by the way is freaking hilarious!) to make it sound like it?s part of Ken Burns? Civil War. I wanted to take the track away from sounding like 1800s parlor music.

I made a couple CDs and we both went home.

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Post by drumsound » Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:15 pm

Day Nineteen and Twenty

I?ve decided to put 19 and 20 together as they are similar and kinds of short.

On Thursday I had a blaring headache and I had to deal with an insurance adjuster because my neighbor?s tree fell on my fence. This all got me started bit late. When I did got to the studio Ed cam by with John McGlassen the owner of O.I.E Records who has put out the last two Backyard Tire Fire records. Though this won?t be an O.I.E release he is still a close friend and ally of the band and myself. He cares about the band and music, a rare thing for a record company president. We all had a great talk.

After John left Ed and I chatted about a few things and then he left me to my own devices. If I were going to keep going in order I would have started ?Legal Crime.? because it was first up on the next tape. My mind however was jus not up to that. I looked over the list and ?Everybody?s Down? popped out at me. I have previously called this song ?Everybody?s Depressed? but have learned that is not the song?s title. This song is nice and short, with a great simple groove. There are 3 vocals, bass, drums, acoustic and electric (Wurlie from the basics) piano, and some direct distorted guitar. I think it clocks in right around two minutes.

There?s a lot of compression on the drums already. The close room mic has a liberal amount from the Joe Meek SC2.2 during tracking and there?s a Level Loc mic. The RNC was still patched and did come into play, but with a long release in super nice mode. It just evens out thing a touch. For a good part of the day I wasn?t even using the SD or floor tom mics. The floor tom mic never made it into this mix, but after getting other things happening I wanted more from the SD. Just turning up the fader wasn?t doing it and EQ didn?t do what I wanted either. I decided that distortion would be cool. I patched the snare into the ART MPA and got the tube drive happening. This however added a lot of noise so then I patched it to the Behringer for the gate. Because there?s so much space in the groove the distorted snare didn?t need to be really loud to still be present.

The piano also has a Level Loc track and it added some nice movement to the main stereo tracks. I EQ?d the piano to boost some upper-midrange. This gave it some bite and presence. I?m using the ?scratch? Wurlie to add a little depth and color. Near the end I even pull out the acoustic piano when Tim leaves out the BD for 4 bars. The bass has grind from the SVT head and with a little EQ is sitting right where it should be, and could easily be bigger or smaller if needed. The direct guitar is meant to sound a bit like something (not the song Something) on Abbey Road. Kinda pointy but still interesting is how I?d describe it. It only comes in for little accent stabs during two sections of the song. It was just a case of find it?s place n the mix.

I?m really happy with the lead vocal on this tune. Ed sang kind of softly and close to the mic. It sound very personal and has a really nice lower midrange color. I was able to accentuate that with some compression from the Mindprint T-comp. The backing vocals were sung a little louder, bet fit sonically well. I thin we may have done them out in the live room, which is a nice contrast for the lead vocal. I accentuated the difference with a little peppering of the PCM 60 reverb.

The mix came together without much searching. It was telling me what to do the whole way. After printing to 1/4? and then RADAR I made a quick mock up of the 5 songs to play like a record through the RADAR. The band?s road manager Nick was coming down and wanted to check out what we had done. Matt also called and I set up a time for everyone to come by after a rehearsal I had that evening. Nick ended up not coming to town, so Ed stayed home but Matt and Tim did come by and liked what they heard. They did express a couple things they?d prefer, especially on ?Time With You, ? including the intro bass slid and a preference for the Wurlie/Moog ?free? section to be down played.

On Friday I did a super quick mix of ?Home Today? for Chris my intern. He?s writing a string arrangement for the song. He?s studying composition at Illinois Wesleyan University and plays violin. There will be a string trio or possibly quartet on the song.

I then moved on to ?Legal Crime.? This tune is quite a soup with Level Loc and additional drums recorded at double speed, a few guitars including a 12-strind played through the Leslie, Wurlie, bass and a few vocals. The quick mix is pretty straightforward. I had the idea when we tracked this to take the drums out for the chorus. The problem Tim played a part that makes sense, but doesn?t have good breaks where I?d like them. Ed came in as I was finishing and I told him of my dilemma, and that I had a couple alternatives. He asked if the drums needed to come out. I eventually left the drums in for the first chorus and too the out for half of the second. There was a nice simple reverb for the chorus to open it up a bit.

After I finished this one Ed and I talked a bit about schedule and the fact that the band was ramping up the touring in a couple weeks. It was decided that I?d start the ?fine toothed comb? mixes on Monday, if not earlier.

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Post by drumsound » Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:47 am

Hello everybody.

I?d like to thank each and every one of you for reading this recording blog. I?ve had a lot of fun so far writing it.

I wanted to give you a little update.

I?ve been fervishly (not really sure if that's a word...) mixing for the past two weeks. I have also gone back to my accompanying gig, which is in the morning at Illinois State University. The time I?ve been accompanying dance classes is the time I had been writing, and thus no updates in a while. Last weekend when the band was on the road I spent one day in the studio working with Nicotine Poetic who was kind enough to let me postpone their session when the BTF record came up. Then I went to an early Halloween pumpkin carving party where I actually socialized and spent time with ?the wif.?

I had planned to spend last Sunday writing, but instead I got a call from a friend who scored free Springsteen tickets. So instead of a day off writing, it was up to Chicago fro a great set by The Boss.

So I will tell you this. We finished mixing last night and listened to a quick mock-up a few times. We hit Saff Mastering on Monday.

I?ll be working on getting some mix specific blogs during the next week.

Thank again for reading!

TS

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Post by drumsound » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:14 pm

DAY 21

The Mixes begin. Even though I hadn?t gotten through all of the songs for quick mixes it was decided that the it was time to get to the ?real? or ?fine toothed comb? mixes. I was feeling pretty comfortable and time was starting to be a factor. The band had tours booked and their manager and Ed were both eager to get shopping.

This decision came on a Friday and I decided to take the weekend off. I really planned to just take Saturday and go play poker at a local charity event, and on Sunday I decided to take the day off as I had a headache when I woke up and didn?t feel like working through it and the start of mixing.

When I got to the studio Monday I had already decided to start with ?Shoulda Shut It.? It was going through my mind and its one of my favorites on the record. Since I had been doing quick mixes there were some things already patched in including the Drawmer ?69 on the mix buss and the RNC on the drum bus. I pulled any effects patches and started with all of the EQs out. Any individual compressors were also taken out of the system. I started by putting up the faders and listening through a few times, making a few mental and physical notes. There was some speaking on the vocal and also on my vibraphone track. Then I started thinking about relationships and presentation, finding panning positions and relative levels. I think EQ and faders both determine relative levels and I started pretty early making sure the bass and BD worked together. The song is a mid tempo softer pop song. It reminds me of a lot of the mellower side of indie rock. The vibes and doubled vocals (lead and backing) really add to that vibe. The drums are simple but feel great. Tim is just sitting right where the song needs him to be. Matt is locked into the drums and they are really playing like textbook rhythm section. There room for the BD to be a bit bigger and longer so I made sure the bass was more on the tight side both with EQ and compression from the ART VLA. The BD was taking more of the lowest end of the spectrum and the bass riding above it on the frequency ladder. The hats and rhythm guitar along with the eight note bass pattern are supplying the drive and one of the 12-string electrics the vibes the color. The piano part plays the main turnaround melody when there are no vocals and a bit of added color and rhythm depending on where the song is at. There?s another 12-string part that creates a nice intro and outro melody. The vocal are very out front, with all three parts doubled for a total of six vocals. Instead of individual compression I went with one side of the Mindprint T-comp for a vocal sub parallel, almost thinking of the vocals as one big texture, all panned center as will become the norm for this record.

As I go along I change levels, EQ and compression characteristics all with the goal of balance and character. This song shouldn?t be overly bright but when it was too dark it didn?t have any impact. I needed to keep the drums to a certain level to interact with the rhythm guitar and keep the song moving. I did this through slowing down the release on the drum parallel compressor and raising its level. The snare was EQ?d to pop of the mix a bit more and this also helped with a pleasing effect on the hihat?s tone.. The piano needed to work as an accent so it got some upper-mid boost and was panned farther out to be a little more noticeable. The vibes were done with a single Octava MC012 and had a nice darker character and mostly needed to have the fader set in the right spot as the dynamics were built into the part. The vocals had plenty of brightness to float over the song and they all got at least some low shelving cut to make room for the rhythm section and to keep the compression from going nutty.

I spent some time automating mutes and some lead vocal rides and decided to give Ed a call. I was feeling that just a bit of tweaking with Ed there and I?d have this one in the can.

Ed got to the studio pretty quickly for his first listen. I?m pretty sure he was sitting home all day just chomping at the bit to hear what I had done. He listened twice without a lot of comment , just taking things in. One of his first comments was that the vocals were really up front, but that was the goal of the record. There were a couple tweaks here and there as I wrote more automation. Ed then said ?maybe we should fuck with it a bit, try something on the 12-string intro part. OK I said and patched in the Eventide H3000 and found a nice reflective room sound to put under its melody. As I?m doing that I look to the back of the control room and see that Ed has pulled out the MicroKorg and is asking where he can plug it in to hear it. I put it through the GR MP2H with its output hitting an open channel on the console. We?re both kind of luddites in the world of synthesizers mostly turning knobs to figure out what they do and trying not to turn them again if we like the sound. Ed stumbled on a wispy sweeping thing he liked. The problem is making the sweeps occur when we want them to. We ended up recording the part, essentially a modulation drone, twice thinking that we?d had to chances to find the right sweep at any given moment. After tracking we realized that the two part together made a nice moving sweep that sounded really great and gave the song a new a different sense of movement. We went through the two parts and automated in sections adding or subtracting the swells created by the two synth parts. With the movement in place I took the synth faders out of the stereo mix and sent them to the mix-B so we could hear the part at different volumes in relation to the song, but keep the fader envelope shapes in tact. Once we had that where we wanted there was maybe one other little tweak and the mix was printed to ??. The ?? machine was set up for 30 ips at +6dB over 185nW/m. We?re mixing to RMGI SM900 tape, which I?ve really liked in recent months. It adds a nice presence to the vocals and the top and bottom are super smooth. While printing I?m taking the feed off the repro head to the RADAR recording a stereo mix at 24bit/88.2k that is then converted and dithered for CD references. I sent Ed home with a CD and we both left for dinner.

After dinner I gave Ed a quick call to see what he thought after listening on his system. He was quite happy with the mix but asked for a vocal down version as well. To make life simpler I just backed off the output of the vocal parallel compressor and ran the new mix to the ?? and RADAR.

I decided to mix ?One Wrong Turn? next. I wanted to try to have 4-5 songs mixed before the band left town Thursday for the weekend. If I got 5 done I?d have plenty of time for the next five as well as getting two additional overdubs done. ?One Wrong Turn? doesn?t have a lot of tracks and is fairly straight ahead from a mix standpoint. There?s stereo piano with mono room four tracks of drum that included one heavily screwed with track that was done after the part was recorded, bass, direct crunchy guitar and one vocal with a few different processed tracks, all from one performance. Two tracks are of the performance one with a ribbon mic and another with a 421 in a metal tube recorded at the same time. I then re-amped the main part through the small speaker I had been using in front of the BD and then another through the speaker off the repro head creating a delay.

I started by taking the faders and mutes into isolate on the automation. This basically makes them operate in real time as if the automation isn?t on. This is how mixes are started, no data just mix and then write things in as you go. The first thing I noticed was the direct crunchy guitar was on the track the 12-string melody was on from ?Shoulda Shut It.? I had put a stereo reverb on that part and on the direct guitar if made a really cool sound. When I panned the dry channel off to one side it made the reverb feel like it was moving across the stereo field. Cool! The drums were all kinds of goofy because the micing scheme was totally different. I panned all the drum tracks center. I made the processed track the main sound and just used the other three peppered in for a bit of tone. The processed track is the drum mix run through a broadcast limiter and then sent through a gate. The drum mics were a mono overhead, a 421 through the Level Loc pretty low and behind the floor tom and the d12e on the BD with no front head. The part is super straight four on the floor with snare and floor tom on 2 and 4. I used mostly the direct bass track because I though it gave more of the character of the little hollow violin bass with a bit of EQ it sat very well in the mix. The piano sounds pretty rich in the low-mids and I added a bit of highs to let it float above the drums and bass It?s also pretty loud because it?s the only really active part instrumentally. The vocals are a pretty even blend of the ribbon mic and the mic in a tube. There?s a bit of the speaker sound I think. The delayed speaker is sent to reverse delay patch in the Mangler. The effect is on a post fader send and I?m just fading up the delay track for the chorus to add a bit of swirl. I don?t? remember if I added a bunch of compression to the vocal while mixing or tracking, but it sits pretty solidly still with very little automation as I recall.

When I called Ed to hear the mix he was glad I had another one ready for him to hear. He really liked the effect on the guitar and asked the guitar to be a bit louder, and the drums too. He wanted something different for the piano intro, but not something really processed or silly, just different. As this was the only piano song with a room mic on the piano I automated the intro to just have the room mic and the close mics come in with the band. We printed this mix and then Ed asked about putting a short slap delay on the vocal. I patched one in and found a time pretty quickly. We printed that mix but also kept the first. Ultimately they are pretty similar but the vocal with delay is what you?ll hear on the record.

drumsound
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Post by drumsound » Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:46 pm

DAY 22

Today I mixed ?Legal Crime? and let me tell you it was a bit of a roller coaster.

The song is pretty thick and has a lot going on. Drums with an important vibe from the Level Loc, bass with some nice crunch/distortion from the SVT, Wurlie, 2 cleans guitars, Leslie guitar and a super crunchy accent and solo guitar. These all with lead and two background vocals. Add to those fairly standard things some toms and hihat recorded at double speed so they are now playing an octave lower in the mix. Suffice it to say that there would need to be a lot of tonal shoehorning to make this mix work.

Part of the reason that the blog is so behind and why the mix process of this song is a little goofy are one in the same. I needed to get back to the 2 part-time jobs that I maintain in addition to running the studio. One is accompanying modern and jazz dance classes at Illinois State University, the other is teaching 7 private percussion students. I started by only playing the morning classes so I could use my afternoons to get mixes happening and keep this train on track. The first part of the day had been relegated to the blog. The teaching only happens on Tuesdays from 4-7.

So after dance class I got to the studio and started working, but I?d take a long break while I taught, and then ate dinner. Most of the first hours were spent making the tones work together. The bass was sitting nicely because the distortion from the amp was working as compression and midrange EQ. I used a bit of the DI to add a little bottom. I used the Chameleon Labs 7602 on the BD to utilize the low cut filter along with the low EQ to shape the low end to work with the bass. I also deviated from the RNC as my drum bus parallel. I wanted something gooier. The Joe Meek SC2.2 got patched in and I could tell tonally it was gonna be great. It?s a kind of sensitive unit so getting it set just right between gain staging, compression amount and slope, along with attack and release times was actually something that took most of the mix. As adjustments were made in any part of the mix the Meek would often need adjustment to make sense in context.

The rhythm guitars are pretty clean and simple. Mostly chunking quarter notes. I kept them panned pretty far out with the bulk of the drum mix being pretty tight to the center. The Wurlie works in conjunction with the Leslie guitar line on some parts of the song and more with the rhythm guitar parts I others. I EQ?d it to favor the high end and it was also played up an octave to cut through. The Leslie and Wurlie are panned apart (though not exactly symmetrical) from each other and not as wide as the main rhythm guitars. All four of these parts were sent to the ART VLA in parallel more for tone than straight up compression.

There?s another guitar part that was cut with a boutique octave fuzz pedal that really kills. It?s totally gnarly and just perfect for the song. It is used for emphasis of a repeating triplet motif and the solo. I EQ it to be even more midrange-y and put it right in the center and fairly loud. Part of the reason I think the solo on this track is so good was the sound we had going. Ed?s plan was to record all of the emphasis parts on one track and then put the solo on another. As he was playing the emphasis track he was inspired and played the solo and its great! I think we may have punched the last phrase of the solo to clean it up just a bit. This part did take some automation rides as it had different functions through the song. The solo has a few rides of its one to really keep it upfront. From the night we tracked this part I have been patching in the Lexicon PCM41 delay for the solo. The PCM41 has delay and a separate modulation section where you can adjust wave shape modulation amount and rate. You can really fuck with a sound with this thing and it just takes the solo to a whole new place, adding weird bends and dives to the part. The delay channel also got some judicious automation riding to shape the solo and its impact.

The double speed hihat and toms come in and out of the tune (via automation). They leave during the chorus, which is a lot more sing-song-y than the verses. The toms have a ton of low end and are panned hard and add a really cool low-end motion to the track. the hat helps the backbeat on 2, and adds a nice sonic color as well. I?m really glad I recorded the toms and hat on separate tracks. It gave option for panning and placement that I might not have had otherwise. These did not go to the drum parallel comp as I didn?t want them ?influencing? the motion of the comp.

I really wanted to take the main drums out of the chorus, but there was no way in conjunction with the part the Tim played to do it. Had it come to me in tracking we might have been able to alter the part some to make it work. I don?t thing the mix suffers from it, and maybe it makes it even stronger. There?s already a ton of contrast going on and taking the drums out may have been overkill and taken away from the presentation.

With all of this going on the vocals needed to make sense and convey the story of ?questionable? lawyer trying to take the rains of the bands career. The composition itself is like a meeting with shady types. It?s solid and tough but still has a nice shine over the top. The melody in the chorus is very catchy and easy to sing along to, yet it?s calling out the BS from the experience, a perfect analog.

The lead vocal has a rally focused upper midrange to ride over the think rhythm section. The doubled backgrounds have a lot of the lows cut out and a nice added top EQ to they open up the vocal range when the chorus hits. The lead vocal is going through the Mindprint T-comp and all of the vocals have a parallel compressor that I think is an RNC, though may be the other side of the T-comp. I was able to do the parallel in mono because during the same conversation about ending the ?quick mix? process Ed talked of how much he liked keeping all of the vocals straight up the middle on his most recent demos. I ended up micing every vocal on the record straight up the middle (though there?s an exception that you?ll hear about when we get to mastering).

This all sounds pretty straight forward but it was not simple to achieve. I really felt like I was chasing my tail for pretty much the entire time I was mixing Legal Crime. Because of the teaching break I ended up at the studio pretty late. When I talked to Ed at about 11:30 I told him I wasn?t sure if I would even finish it before the next day. When he called back an hour later I told him I was still trying to make everything work. By that time I was doing fader rides on the vocals but still turning a lot of EQ and compression knobs. I had added just a touch of reverb from the Lexicon PCM 60, one of the simplest and coolest units ever. I started with it on vocals but I added just a touch of many elements of the mix for a nice glue. I told Ed that I?d make a CD and put it in his mailbox when I left, but to not come by. When I finally left sometime after 2:00AM I was convinced that I couldn?t mix brownies let alone an important record. I decided after dropping off Ed?s copy that I would not listen to the CD I mad for myself until the next day. I pushed it one step farther and left it in the car and couldn?t listen until I was on my way to the accompanist gig the next morning. I was beat up by this tune!

To my surprise the next morning I really liked the mix. I though the balance was really solid and the vibe was oozing from the speakers. When I got to the studio after class I wanted to put one extra ride in the guitar solo and Ed wanted one little vocal adjustment.

Whew what a relief!

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Post by drumsound » Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:23 pm

Day 23

Today I mixed ?Welcome to the Factory.? If you remember this is one that the loop of found sounds created within the RADAR. The loop was mixed in stereo while the band was tracking and luckily didn?t need any tweaking just mix placement. Ed was so convinced that he wanted a short slap-back delay on this that we tracked hi vocal with the delay and that way he could sing to it as it were. I printed the delay to it?s own track. That freed up TC M3000 to be used on another patch if I so chose. There is only one vocal, three guitars, drums, bass, Wurlie and eBow pad in the chorus only, a stomp-clap that hits twice and the loop.

The song is pretty focused in the low and low mids. It?s thick and chunky with a plodding feel. Tim is riding on the 16? floor tom and Matt is locked into him playing a lot of warm low notes in the verse. In the chorus the bas get more active and provides a lot of the movement. There was a pretty good amount of compression on the bass in tracking so when I mixed it was more about the mic and DI blend and the EQ to make it work with the BD. The guitars are more present in the upper mids riding nicely over the bass and drums. There are two guitars playing the main riff that are panned fairly hard and sent to the ART VLA in parallel along with the third guitar that plays long chords tucked under the main guitars along with some riff accents. The solo was played at the same time as the pad guitar. The solo guts mixed up and there?s a short delay from the PCM 41 that only comes in for the solo. The vocal sits on top of the song tonally and slightly level wise. A good part of that is the way the song is put together, there?s all kinds of space for the vocal. I used the Mindprint T-comp in parallel for the voice helping the softer sung parts to pre present but keep the aggressive parts from taking over.

Ed (and the first mystery producer) had the idea that the chorus of this would kind of break down. I ended up taking out the guitars and drums for the chorus. So it goes from this thick aggressive thing to the open sound. There?s a nice Wurlie line and a pad created from the eBow chorus from ?Home Today.? The bass is providing the forward motion. There?s a dark long reverb that comes in for the chorus. All of the instruments get a touch of it to glue them together a bit. I?m pretty sure it?s the plate setting on the PCM 60 with the treble contour on. I still wanted something extra to really hammer home the complete sonic left turn. I patched in the Kurzweil Mangler and started hunting around for something useful. After some search I found a patch called Falling. It?s a super short delay and pitch-shift program with a lot of feedback. Each delay lowers in pitch giving a type of Doppler effect. I ended up putting the eBow pad and a bit of the vocal through it. To get the effect to sit where I wanted it I couldn?t just let go for the whole chorus. What I needed to do was send the beginning of each phrase through it and then let it does its thing through the rest of the phrase. I can?t automate my effects sends, but I did have two open tracks on the multitrack. What I did was put the tape machine into sync and recorded the effect returns to tracks 15 and 16 over the click and scratch vocal. This worked great because no, like the vocal delay the effect was right there on the tape. The effect is really cool and is song enough that it keeps falling as the band comes back in for the next verse. At the end of the song it runs out past the band along with the loop and goes a bit longer still.

At this point the mix was framed in really nicely and I was focusing on relationships. There was a lot of tweaking on the drum parallel compressor. It finally ended with a medium attack and fairly long release. This helped make the drums pretty meaty. I believe the BD got the other side of the T-comp, which really helped it to push the mix and put a lot of ?whoomp? around it. Around this time I also patched in my Ashley SC-50 as a bass parallel compressor. The thing I really dig about that unit is how it brings out the midrange of bass guitars. It can really help define the notes of a bass track that has a lot of thick lows. The rhythm section now felt really solid. I mixed in more of the guitar comp more for tone than compression. I kept turning it up, but turning the uncompressed tracks down. The VLA tone just makes guitars up front and cool, which was perfect in this mix.

I spent a little time placing the vocal. I wanted to make sure it?s frequency range between the delay and the dry made sense together and with the backing track. I cut some lows and sculpted liberally with both mid bands on both tracks. I then spent a little automating the vocal to really make it sit just right.

I had been at it for a while, and was quite hungry. I was pretty focused and it didn?t even occur to me to grab lunch. It was also a little later than I have been taking dinner breaks. I called Ed from home and we set up a meeting time for him to hear the mix.

Once back at the studio I was still feeling really happy about this mix. It?s kind of like a mini-movie. There?s a simple easy to grab story and a couple very distinct ?scenes? created within the mix. By the end it feels like a statement has been made but keeps the listener thinking beyond the end. Or maybe I?m just full of myself?

Ed really liked the mix and how I integrated the changes for the chorus. I think he asked for a slight tweak of the vocal delay (h wanted it louder) and maybe an adjustment of the guitar solo. We experimented a bit with the level of the loop and found a place where it was obvious but not taking over the focus. I printed the mix to ?? and RADAR and made each of us a CD. I decided to call it a night a I didn?t think I?d have enough time to get into a mix before my brain went to mush.

Upon listening the next day I heard one little glitch that I needed to identify. Ed called as I was on my way to the studio to tell me about it, but I assured him I heard it too. It turned out to be a slightly late mute on the loop. I simple automation update and reprint before I started the next mix.

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Post by drumsound » Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:34 pm

Besides the record I blogged back in the fall Backyard Tire Fire and I also recently did an acoustic EP that they are offering FREE off their website.

It's called "Sick of Debt" and was tracked (and rehearsed with a dobro/steel player) in 5 hours including set-up and ruffs. I think it was mixed in about 2.5 hours and I even mastered it (sorry Carl)

Check it out here

Enjoy


p.s someday I'll finish riting about the mixes of the electric record

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