Stephan Waltl – Recording Module
Red Balloons
Recording;
For the recording of this song, I used one acoustic guitar, 2 close se1000’s and 2 far se4400’s. I then recorded this to click in order to ensure a tighter take when it came to recording vocals afterwards.
I then used the exact same setup only this time with only one se1000 and recorded my vocal take in the same ‘space’. As this was a fairly intimate recording I wanted to help make things sound as glued as possible.
Mixing;
I started by only using the close microphones and found a balance between them. I then used an eq to cut some harsh frequencies at 7.38kHz and 7.41kHz then a broad cut to 500kHz on guitars. On vocals, I made a boost at 300Hz in order to make a more intimate sounding recording in order to try to emulate the proximity effect. This is where recordings with a boosted low end sound closer. I then added a de-esser as there was a little too much sibilance, but this was a fairly subtle addition.
After this, I brought in the far microphones until they seemed audible and then dropped them down a little more. Unfortunately, this didn’t glue the tracks together as well as I’d hoped and as such, I used a small 2.1second reverb on all of the far microphones to make the room sound bigger without changing the sound of the direct microphones which seemed to bring the tracks together.
Finally, I added some overall automation to balance out the loud part of the song to the
rest and some overall compression which was set at 4:1 with a fast attack and slow release in order to sooth any sudden guitar scrapes or sudden plosives.
Northern Horizon
Recording Northern Horizon Drums;
All of the Northern Horizon drum tracks had the exact same drum setup and were recorded over a series of days. The setup is detailed below in addition to the mic placements and tunings)
The drums were tuned as such; Snare E3
Kick E1
Tom 14” A2
Tom 16” D2
Top 229Hz
Top 66Hz Top 146Hz
Top 98Hz
Bottom 343Hz
Bottom 76Hz Bottom 245Hz
Bottom 163Hz
The microphone placements were greatly influenced by progressive rock producer Adam Nolly. One interesting technique was my use of additional condensers on the Tom’s and Snare due to the dynamic range of condensers. This allowed for more transient information to be captured from each mic which came in extremely useful both when triggering samples and when gating the microphones.
During the recording process, we decided that the drummer was not tight enough with the songs to play the kick patterns and parts of the kick rhythms were not yet fully written. We took samples of all the kit due to this and for the kick sample, moved the kick around the room until we found a place where the resonance sounded the fullest (Which was the far corner.) This is a technique from Andrew Wade when taking samples from a full kit, as he did with A Day To Remember.
Editing Northern Horizon Drums;
After recording the drums, I used protools beat detective to slice the audio at each transient (after grouping together the tracks so all the tracks stay phase locked) and proceeded to use the ‘0’ command in order to quantise audio to the grid section by section. I then used the beat detective smoothing tool and listened back for mistakes. Any mistakes I found on playback (like double transients) were solved through the use of the TCE tool, to stretch out the premature transient. Finally, I trimmed the close china track and the tom tracks to remove the spill found over the rest of the track where that specific instrument was not played (As excessive bleed can lead to an unwanted buildup of frequencies). And programmed in the midi kick to compliment the guitar riff.
Northern Horizon Track 1 – Black And Blue
Mixing Overheads;
The Stereo Overhead and China track were both sent to the Overhead bus.
Mixing Overhead Bus;
My first step involved mixing the
overheads. Firstly, I used JST finality
which is an aggressive limiter and set the
threshold to duck out the track whenever
the snare hit. This was so any processing
done to the overheads would not affect the
snare (as much) and it would be far easier to sit snare in with the overheads after this (as there would be less of a volume jump).
I then proceeded to add the ssl Channel strip in order to use the eq. On this strip, I started with a 350hz hi pass filter, then made a series of cuts at boxy or harsh frequencies starting with a -5db shelf at 8khz to remove the harsh high end and a -3db cut at 700hz and a -6db cut at 500hz to remove some of the boxy frequencies.
After this, I added a tape emulation plugin called Kramer Tape. I set it to 15ips and turned the flux up until I heard the high end of the cymbals smooth out without being too gritty (as it can do at higher flux settings). Would this not have been enough, the 7.5ips setting reduces the high end far
more aggressively but I found that this setting was just far too aggressive for this particular track. I then added another eq (q10) with some sharp cuts at 4.89khz, 3.16khz, 3.97khz and 4.29khz as these were all resonant frequencies which weren’t solved by the Kramer.
This was finally routed to the General Drum Bus.
Mixing Room Mics;
My first step when mixing the stereo room mic track was to make a large fairly wide ‘scooped’ cut at 560hz by -18db with a q of 2.82. This was to remove the unwanted ‘washy’ cymbal sound that made the mix incredibly muddy.
After this drastic move, I once more used finality to decrease the volume of the snare in that track. I then proceeded to add a general use eq and made a series of cuts starting with -3db broad cut at 4khz, two incredibly sharp cuts at 3.1khz and 3.2khz (all of which were also problem areas on the overhead track) and a -2db broad cut at 250hz.
Finally, I used the warmth setting on the Fatso Jr part of the plugin ‘disto’ to smooth out the high end. This track was then routed to the general drum bus.
Mixing Room Samples;
I left the Room Sample Track raw and simply routed them to the general drum bus.
Mixing Kick and Snare Room Samples;
My first step on the kick room sample was to add the Gain
Reduction plugin which is an incredibly aggressive
compressor with a built in high pass filter to the
compression algorithm, leaving your low end unaffected. I
set the ‘slay’ setting to maximum (which controls how much
compression is affecting the input signal) and a slight boost
to the ‘body’ setting (which is a way of controlling the
frequency tilt, helping you control the low end of your output
signal post compression). This compressor was used in order to increase the sustain on the sample as much as possible.
Despite this, I found that additional sustain was needed on the sample and as such, I added a transient designer. With this, I just added some sustain at both 2kHz and 5kHz. I then found that the snare room
sample was also lacking sustain
in the same areas and as such
copied those settings across.
These were then finally routed to
the general Drum Bus.
Mixing Snare Sample;
The only plugin used on the snare sample was the ssl channel for the eq on which I added a 3db shelf at 8kHz for high end snap and a 9db boost at 120Hz for an overhyped low end (as spill was not an issue with the sample. This was finally sent to the Snare Bus
Mixing Snare Microphones;
Both the Snare 57 track and the snare bottom track had the
same plugins.
This consisted of a D3 noise gate (which was set to trigger
on each snare bottom hit through a side chain send) with an
incredibly fast release, so you were only left with the initial
transient of the snare sound, with most of the body coming
from the sample. I then used the SSL Channel, first to add a
hi pass at 120, then to add a 9db shelf at 8kHz in order to
utilise the slight cymbal bleed on the track to create a high
end snap each time the snare was hit. I then cut a boxy frequency at 600Hz and boosted the low midrange at 200Hz by 6db to add some body.
I added the compressor to add some consistency to the performance at a fairly low ratio of 2:1 and utilised the gate to open on every snare hit as the gate was far more musical than the D3 (which was more accurate but sounded too aggressive and unnatural on it’s own). Finally, these were both also routed to the snare bus.
Mixing Snare Bus;
Initially, I added a trim plugin to reduce the volume of the snare bus by -18db (as the collective volume of all the snare tracks would clip any of the plugins I would want to add).
I then used an instance of the API-550B. Like the API-560, the 550B is an analogue emulation plugin and as such, adds some additional distortion to any tracks that run through it, making them sound fatter and more in your face. I then boosted 12.5kHz by 12db to add a desired amount of high end.
The next plugin I added was the Waves plugin; ‘RBass’.
RBass at it’s core is essentially a harmonics generator
which will add additional harmonic content at a frequency
you select (which in this case was 120Hz). The most
common use of RBass (which will be used later in the
song) is in order to emphasise a fundamental note that
can not be reproduced by some speakers. This creates
harmonics of that note and the human brain can then
essentially use the additional harmonics to recreate the
fundamental note. In this instance though, I instead used
it more like an exciter, to add additional harmonic content
at a frequency range that was uncluttered by the rest of the instrumentation, resulting in a fatter and more upfront snare sound while ensuring the fundamental of the tone was set at 120Hz.
Finally I used JST Clip to boost the volume of the snare bus
to -0.1db (This would result in easier gain staging on the drum
bus). I used a clipper here instead of a limiter because unlike
limiters, clippers are far more transparent on quick transient
instruments. This is because it distorts the peak of the
transient (for the duration of the transient) rather than reducing the gain of the track based on an attack and a release setting. This instant character of a clipper means that much of the transient information of the wave is preserved and as such, the instrument will still sound punchy and aggressive. This also allowed me to go back and change eq settings without having to worry about a volume change as the audio will still peak at -0.1 pre fader. This is important as a volume change can result in the relationship between instruments on the Drum Bus Compressors or Mix Bus Compressors changing. A similar technique is commonly used by Joey Sturgis. This was then routed to the general drum bus.
Mixing Tom Samples;
Both of the tom samples had the same processing on. First, I used an api 550b, boosting 200Hz by 6db on both tracks, 240Hz by 4db on the hi Tom and 240Hz by 6db on the Low Tom to make a boomier Tom sound. I then used a transient designer to reduce low end sustain (below 500Hz) and to increase high end attack. Finally I used the waves plugin ‘MaxxBass’ to add a synthesised range of harmonics using a fundamental of 85Hz, much in the same way that
RBass does so I could cut the low end below this on my tom microphones in order to create additional headroom in the lowed of my drum and master bus.
Finally, I added an instance of JST Clip on both tracks to make sure they both peaked at -0.1db pre fader. I then balanced the two Tom microphones so they were both perceived at the same volume by more aggressively clipping the Hi Tom and as such, adding additional distortion which results in additional harmonic content and as such, a fatter and more in your face sound. Because of this, I could keep the faders of both Tom Microphones the same and the volume relationship between the two wouldn’t change. These were then both routed to the General Drum Bus.
Mixing Kick Sample;
To start, I used RBass to set the fundamental note at
45Hz. In this instance though, I was less interested in
placing the kick in that frequency range and more
interested in the standard use of RBass for the use of
creating Harmonic Content to help the low end of the
kick be heard on other systems. I then found that the
kick was a little too boomy for the track and used Transfy
to reduce the sustain of the kick below 200Hz. I then
made 2 eq cuts one at 120Hz by -5db to make room for the body of the snare and the other at 3kHz by 9.5db as it was an annoying resonant frequency. Finally, I used JST clip in a similar way to the snare.
Mixing Drum Bus;
I set levels by using the overheads as a reference to get a balanced ‘in the room’ drum sound. After this, I used a trim plugin to bring the peak down to -18db. This is because the next plugin, Kramer Pie is an analogue emulation that works best at -18db.
This is because the compressor was modelled at that reference level. This compressor has a set attack time and a fairly slow release time (which I set at 100ms) but this results in a great glue on the drum track.
After this, I simply added another instance of JST clip to bring it back up to -0.1db (as up until that point, the plugin just acts as a clean gain control).
Recording Rhythm Guitars;
Recorded through a Kemper using a black pearl guitar profile. When recording guitars, I took a DI and a direct amp tone (without a cabinet). This allowed me to use a convolution plugin to add a ‘cab impulse response’ in post. I started with a cab sim with a v30 in the left hand side and a cream back in the right hand side. This pairing works fairly well as one has a slight bump in the midrange and the other has a slightly more ‘scooped’ midrange
which allowed for a wider guitar tone. We then did a shoot out between two different guitars, a Gibson with p90’s and a fender with
a hum-bucker. We then decided on the hum-
bucker as it had a more rounded sound with a
less pronounced midrange. After tracking the other instruments, we decided to change the cabinet impulse response to that of a Mesa Boogie due to the smoother high end (as the other cabinets seemed somewhat fizzy).
Editing Rhythm Guitars;
When recording guitars, we took a DI recording of each guitar take and grouped them to ensure that each DI take would always match the amp take. We then comped the guitars so we had a tight guitar take for each side. After this, I separated the guitar audio after each note by using tab to transient and the command ‘e’ shortcut. I then lined up guitar takes roughly to the grid. After this, I used the beat detective ‘smooth’ function to auto fill and crossfade all takes. I played back for errors and used flex time to fix any multiple hits (where more than one transient would be heard) and silenced and faded any pauses where guitars wouldn’t be played).
Mixing Rhythm Guitars;
After sending both of the rhythm guitars to a guitar bus, I used an API-560 plugin as a primary eq. I used this eq for a couple of reasons. The primary reason is because all of the frequency bands are at important areas that can commonly be considered problem areas. For example, 1k and 4k are useful frequencies to
add presence, whereas 8k and 16k are useful to add different types of sheen or remove fizz. The second reason for using this plugin is due to the analogue emulation algorithm. Due to this, when driving the input of the plugin, it adds a small level of distortion and as such can create a slightly thicker sound due to the increased harmonic content of the sound.
In this instance though, I simply added some 250Hz and 500Hz to add body and to weave it more tightly with the bass tracks. I then added some 1kHz and 2kHz for added presence and a small boost at 16kHz for an added high end ‘sheen’.
I then added RBass at 180Hz, again using it as a type of
exciter. This resulted in a thicker more upfront guitar tone due to the additional harmonic content (which is a technique commonly used by Andrew Scheps) while still ensuring the fundamental of the guitar would always sit at 180Hz.
This was then routed to a general ‘Guitar’ Bus.
Recording Lead Guitars;
Recorded using a similar method as above, but instead used a Bogner XTC profile with a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier profile on each side. For this recording, we also used the Gibson with p90’s due to the more pronounced midrange, letting it cut through the mix a little better.
These guitars were also edited in a similar way than the rhythm guitars, but were quantised to grid instead of roughly dragging to grid.
Mixing Lead Guitars;
The only process made on lead guitars was an API-650. I increased some 4kHz for presence and 8kHz for high end sheen. These boosts are in different areas than the boosts made on the rhythm guitar tracks. This was to ensure the frequency ranges of both would compliment each other without fighting to occupy the same space.
This was then routed to a general ‘Guitar’ Bus.
Mixing General Guitar Bus;
Primarily, I used Q1 to filter off anything below 150Hz. This is to help ensure a clean low end, as there was no desirable low end on the lead and rhythm guitar tracks below this frequency (as RBass ensured that the fundamental of the track with the lowest register was 180Hz).
Secondly, I used an eq called ‘SonEQ’ to add a 6db shelf at 6kHz. This eq was used due to the incredibly smooth nature of the high shelf. This added a high end sheen to all the guitar tracks
as a whole without adding an unappealing hiss which many plugins can emphasise. After this, I used the q10 EQ and made a range of moves in order to fit the guitars around the other instrumentation. This involved things such as a 3db cut at 6kHz (which was fighting the vocals for
space in that frequency range) and a sharp cut at 250Hz to make space for the midrange attack of the bass.
Finally, I used the L1 Limiter and set it to the level of
the rhythm guitar on its own. This allowed me to
change the relationship between the lead guitar and
rhythm guitar without changing the overall volume of
the track. In addition to this, It also ensured that the
volume would remain constant when the lead guitar
part entered or ended without a sudden boost of
volume. This was incredibly important in the opening riff of the song, as I wanted to introduce a harmonised guitar part without a sudden volume change.
This was then sent to the Master Bus.
Solo Guitars;
For the solo, we only used a single take and used various techniques to make the solo sound wider. The recording process was essentially identical to the Lead guitars, but the guitars were treated extremely differently in post.
Editing Solo Guitars;
The solo guitar had no editing and instead just took a great deal of takes to get right. I felt that this was important as the solo in this part essentially takes over as the forefront of the song with little to hide any artefacts created in the editing process. In addition to artefacts, due to the continuous nature of a guitar solo (as it’s essentially one long uninterrupted sound) unnatural phrasing will be extremely obvious.
Mixing Solo Guitars;
The initial mixing move I made is the addition of a pitch shift, adding a subtle octave over the top of the original track (11% mix). This was to fill up more space in the higher register of the track (as the lead guitar drops out when the solo begins). To ensure the high end of the track is constant throughout, I used some incredibly aggressive eq boosts from 1kHz up, boosting 6dB at 1kHz (which is the midrange presence the vocals would have previously occupied) and 8db-10db at 4kHz, 8kHz and 16kHz to occupy the space previously filled by lead guitar.
This was then routed to a Solo delay bus, a solo reverb bus and a general Solo bus (Which was just to have a volume control over the solo, reverb and delay bus without changing the volume relationship between the three)
Mixing Solo Delay;
On the delay bus, I simply added a stereo delay to the track. On the delay, I used a fairly fast delay time in order to thicken up the solo part. After this, I used a trim plugin to control the level of the track without having to worry about any volume automation in place.
Mixing Solo Reverb;
First, I added the Air Stereo Width plugin. This was in order to create a fake stereo field to add additional width to the solo track. This was once more to fill space previously filled by the lead guitars. The plugin was used on the phase
setting. This uses phase shifters at three designated points in the frequency range (which in my case was 289Hz, 610Hz and 2.50kHz) and brings them out by a designated amount (which in my case was 168%). In most cases, a phase shift this big would be incredibly noticeable, but due to the subtle nature of this track and the additional processing to follow (by delaying the sound through reverb) the phase relationship between the three solo tracks were fine.
After this, I added a fairly long plate reverb of 2.1 seconds with the plugin Dverb. The long reverb is the exact same reverb used on the vocal reverb bus. This adds a general consistency throughout the song (although it’s far too subtle to notice). Finally, I added a trim plugin to control relative volume without affecting automation.
The solo bus was finally routed to the master bus.
Recording Bass;
Recorded using only a DI with a 5 string vintage bass. Most work was done on the bass in post.
Editing Bass;
Bass edits were done through protools ‘beat detection’ algorithm, which sliced the DI at the transients. This was incredibly accurate as the bass player was incredibly tight and had a strong picking hand so each transient was well defined. I then aligned these to the rhythm guitar takes to make it sound as tight as possible.
Mixing Bass;
The initial step was duplicating the bass track into two separate tracks labelled ‘bass DI’ and ‘bass low’. I then proceeded to filter Bass DI above 400Hz and bass DI below 400Hz. After this they were treated in fairly different ways.
Mixing Bass Low;
Initially, I used an 1176 compressor with a fast
attack and release and a ratio of 4:1 in order
to catch any transients in an aggressive way;
evening out the low end of the track by
reducing the dynamics. After this, I proceeded
to pin the volume of the low end in place through the use of a limiter. This was to ensure the low end would remain constant throughout the song.
This was then sent to a general Bass Buss
Mixing Bass DI
After the filter, I loaded up an instance of the Amp simulator plugin ‘Amplitube’ and brought up a ‘HIWATT’ amp and played it with the rhythm guitar tracks while tweaking settings. I was looking to find a position where the bass track would blend well with the guitar takes through the use of only the amp eq. After finding a spot I was happy with, I brought it up to volume in the context of the rest of the tracks by using a limiter. Finally, I cut 500Hz by 3db in order to compliment the boost I made previously on the guitar tracks to tie them together. This was then sent to the general Bass Buss.
Mixing Bass Bus;
The initial step I made on the bass bus was the addition of the Q10 plugin. I cut in all the places where I wanted other instruments to sit; for example, -7db at 120Hz to make room for the snare, -5db at 180Hz to make space for the rhythm guitars and -2db at 900Hz to make space for the lead guitar. I also added a high pass filter at 60Hz to clean up that low end space for the kick and to allow for more headroom on the master compressors.
After this I added RBass once more to set the fundamental frequency of the bass at 80Hz which was once more, an unoccupied space in the frequency range.
Finally, I added another limiter to use in a similar way as was used on the general guitar bus, in that it would allow me to change the relationship between the bass low and bass di without changing the overall volume of the bass.
This was then routed to the Master Bus.
Recording Vocals;
For Jake’s vocals (first verse), we used a Shure pga27. This was because we found that this mic suited his voice incredibly well after shooting out a couple of others. For the rest of the vocals, we recorded using an SE1000. When recording vocals, we recorded various takes during both verse and choruses of the main melody line. This was to ensure we had one whole take after comping various parts. After this, we pieced together two tight takes for vocal doubles and aligned both takes to the primary vocal take to be panned hard left and right for added width. After this, we started on harmonies. The first harmony was recorded by Jake, and was based around the 3rd note of the scale and the root (C and E). We again recorded enough vocals to get 2 consistent takes and panned them hard left and right. Finally, we recorded a high harmony based around the root note and the 5th note in the scale.
Editing Vocals;
I edited the pitch of the vocals in Melodyne, pulling all of the tracks aggressively to the grid and editing the amplitude of certain notes to make each take consistent in both pitch and volume. After this, I aligned each track to the centre vocal by cutting before any words of phrases that were slightly out of time and moving them. I then filled the gaps and crossfaded them.
Mixing Vocals;
I started by de-essing the Verse Vocal as
there was too much sibilance in the
recording. After this, I added the API-550B
on all of the vocal tracks, adding 4db at
8kHz and 4db at 7kHz for added sheen and
then by 4db at 200Hz for body. (This makes
the vocal sound closer and more intimate
due to the proximity effect) Finally I added JST Gain Reduction on all of the vocal tracks with the ‘slay’ setting on max to have an aggressive compressor add consistency and aggression to the take, as well as to add tone. Every vocal track had a reverb send and every track was then sent to a general vocal bus.
Mixing Vocal Reverb;
The vocal reverb bus only consisted of a single instance of DVerb with a fairly slow decay of 2.1 seconds. This was to create depth in the vocal track. This was then sent to a general vocal bus.
Mixing General Vocal Bus;
The general vocal bus was just used so I could maintain the volume relationship between the vocal reverb and the vocal tracks. This was then sent to the master bus.
Mixing Master Bus;
I started by adding a trim on the track, bring the track
down by -8db. This was to give me extra headroom
when mastering. After this, I added the ssl compressor
with a slow attack and fast release. The slow attack
setting allowed transient information to remain punchy
while the fast release added a certain amount of
pumping. This resulted in a small amount of added
excitement in the track by the additional movement
created. This effect occurs because the sound directly
after each transient is slightly compressed, resulting in the initial transient sounding punchier and more powerful due to the dynamic contrast despite no overall volume boost occurring. I then used SonEQ to add a
high shelf at 6kHz. This was used for the same reason it was used on guitars due to its smooth transparent nature.
I then made sure the low end was
transferable to other systems by adding MaxxBass, with the frequency set at 85Hz. Finally I added a limiter to bring it up to a commercial perceived loudness by referencing other commercial mixes.
I then proceeded to save this song as a template which I used when mixing the other Northern Horizon songs.
Rewind
I started this song by loading up the template made from the single track ‘Black and Blue’. After this, I found that I didn’t make many changes other than volume. Instead of repeating everything, I’ll simply list what has changed.
Recording Vocals;
On this track, the vocals are mostly ‘screamed’. Because of this, instead of adding additional harmonies, we added additional doubles. These were then processed as the vocal harmonies were on Black and Blue.
Editing Vocals;
We wanted this track to be far more raw than the other and as such, I decided not to tune the vocals. Instead I just ensured that all of the separate vocal takes were tight timing wise by cutting and moving individual elements of each vocal take to line up with the centre take.
Mixing Kick and Snare Room Samples;
I found that in this song, these particular stems were too resonant and as such, I removed the transient designer.
Work This Out
I also began this song by loading up the template made from the single track ‘Black and Blue’. I found once more that only minimal changes were needed.
Snare Tracks Mixing
My initial move was to remove all plugins from the snare sample, snare 57, snare bottom and snare room track. This left only the processing on the snare bus. This is because those plugins were primarily there to boost the high end of the snare and in this instance, I found that the aggressive midrange was more suited to the song.
Bass Low Mixing
In order to achieve a more aggressive bass tone, I ended up using the Bass Low track as more of a fundamental bass tone by removing the low pass and instead putting a midrange cut at 200Hz to make room for the snare.