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As a producer entering a big professional studio to record a new song with my band over the next month, I will give you some insight. In this instance, one has to create a production plan, submit it to get approved, have a demo and a reference track to work with which you don't have to do in your own project studio or home studio for hobby recording. The production plan is very important for preperation because with all the equipment, processes and steps and so many variables, you have to have it planned out to the finest detail especially with everything that can go wrong. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen; my studio production plan.
I have also attached the demo for the song we will be recording. It irecorded kinda rough with a drum machine, some of the lyrics and lead guitar is missing and I didn't spend a great deal of time processing or polishing it but it's suitable for our needs and captured the heavy vibe I was after.
Here it is:
Maybe there's a pair of orange '78s that can be used on the song.
AUDIO PRODUCTION PLAN 01/06/15
ISRC:
AU2Y01500100
Recording Artist:
Fragmenta
Producer:
Duncan Fisher
Song:
Repository of Human Ills
Reference Track:
Sepultura – Attitude.
Deadlines:
Pre-production – June 22
Drums tracking and editing – June 29
Guitars tracking and editing – July 10
Vocals tracking and editing – July 17
Final mix – July 31
Mastering – August 7
Distribution – August 15
Instrumentation and line lists.
Guitar.
The instrumentation for Repository of Human Ills for Fragmenta will have two rhythm guitars which will have six tracks each divided among two amplifiers and two close microphones per cabinet. The ideal setup will bea blend of a modular rig featuring a Blackstar hi-gain preamp into an ADA power amp with a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. A DI will be employed for all stringed instruments for both reamping and also to run for a “cleaner” sound for more note separation. Distant figure 8 pattern mics will be used for air, presence and mid-side positioning.
Backup options include a Fryette Pitbull Dual Ultra Lead, a Marshall JVM, a Randall RG100ES with a Marshall cabinet, a custom Fender “The Twin” combo through an external Cabinet (the amplifier used on the demo). The microphones will most likely be a Heil PR30 and a Senheiser MD421 on the Randall cabinet with the rack system and mic'd with a Sure SM57 and another MD421 on the custom cabinet with the Mesa Boogie head. There will also be another guitar track exclusively for feedback sounds with a condensed version of this setup plus two extra rhythm guitars with a fuzz pedal for extra aggression sparingly. There will also be a lead guitar track for an intense solo. In summary, guitars will be mic'd as follows. The rhythm guitar tracks will use a distant Royer 122 for the room ambience. The lead guitar tracks will use the cardioid dynamic and 122 in mid-side position.
Rhythm Guitars 1 and 2: Rack system w/Randall cabinet:
Dual Rectifier with Marshall cabinet:
Feedback Guitar 1 - Randall Cabinet:
Fuzz Guitars 1 and 2 - Randall cabinet
Solo guitar - Marshall cabinet:
Clean guitar:
Drums.
The drum kit will be a 7 to 10 piece Yamaha with the option of featuring two kick drums, a Tama snare drum, four to six toms to be revised for appropriatness in pre-production and numerous cymbals including the typcal hi-hat, two crashes and ride with the addition of splash, china, bell, a muted china and additional crashes. If it becomes logistically difficult to mic two kick drums, we will condense down to one kick drum with a direct drive double kick pedal set.
The kit will be dropped off at the studio in its respective tracking room 24 hours prior to recording. This is to allow the shells to acclimate to the temperature and pressure of the room to ensure consistent tuning. The drum throne will be at an appropriate height, the toms and snare as flat as possible for maximum energy transfer from the sticks.
The ideal drum mic setup for this project based on available equipment will be as follows.
Bass.
The bass guitar will either be a Douglass 6-string fretless bass, an Ibanez Soundgear 5-string or a Spector 5-string. The bass guitar will be split with a DI for a direct sound and run through a Hartke Transient Attack hybrid bass amp with a tube pre-amplifier, boosted by a Boss ODB-3 bass overdrive which has a blend control to preserve the clean low end and run through one 4x10 cabinet and a 1x15 bass cabinet. Ideally, they will be mic'd as follows:
1x15: Cabinet:
4x10 Cabinet:
Vocals.
The vocals will be quite aggressive throughout the song. Each vocal performance may have to be placed on a different track for separate processing.
V67G, Rhode NT1 or Shure SM-7
Industrial percussion.
Synths.
Pre-production and tracking.
When the session commences, every drum will be tested and fine tuned. The ideal source location will then be determined by establishing where the floor tom sounds best and assembling the rest of the kit around it. When the source sound is satisfactory to the producer and the artists, the drums will be set up in accordance with the drummers ideal positions and maximum possible vertical and horizontal separation between the cymbals, hats and the rest of the drums.
Mic positioning will begin with the room mics, comparing the sound of the propsed mic sets against each other in Pro Tools. They will then be positioned with each position compared against the reference track, keeping in mind the 3 to 1 rule in regards to the close mics to be placed. The session will be tracked to ProTools at a sample rate of 48000khz and a bit depth of 24-bit. Each track will be labelled correctly and each instrument type assigned a track colour.
Drums:
The kick drum mics will be placed beginning with the inside close mic. Once the best sound has been established, the outside mic will be placed and the blend will be compared against the reference track until it has the right sound and checked for phase compatibility, minimal comb-filtering and ensuring maximum power is obtained in the transients and compatibility with the room mics. The snare top and bottom microphones will be placed in a similar manner, combined together, tested with the room mics and compared to the reference track.
They will not interfere with the performer. The cymbals and hi-hat will be in the cardioid rejection zone of the top snare mic. The target sound will be a snappy, aggressive and full sounding snare with some “spread” when combined with the room mics. The tom mics will be placed a couple of inches from the batters of the toms where the most resonance is felt, without interfering with the performance and where maximum attack can be obtained with enough low end punch without mud. They will also be placed with the cymbals in the rejection zone of the cardioid pattern and shielded with a foam micro-baffle to reduce bleed as much as possible. The close mics will be routed into the ProTools rig through the Focusrite preamps for a combination of warmth and clarity. The ambient mics will go the VTB-1 tube mic pres for power and character. The band will be in the control room running direct with simulated amps which will be send as a cue mix to the drummer with a click track programmed for the tempos of the song.
This will help create a 'live' feel from the whole band playing together without interference from the other instruments to the mics on the drums. If issues arise with this process, a backup option involves the drummer, individual instrument stems of the demo demo will be imported into the ProTools session to create an adjustable cue mix for the drummer. Once the best possible performance has been captured to the satisfaction of the artists and producer, a rough mix of the drums will be made with simple compression, eq and balancing. All performance edits will take place at this point in the process if any is necessary and the tom and hi-hat close mics will be trimmed to only feature their respective instruments. Clean cymbal hits will be recorded and kept in the playlist so that if anything shoukd interfere with the cymbal tails, particular at the end of the song, they can be replaced without having to resort to strenuous processing or outboard samples.
Guitars:
The rhythm guitars will be tracked next. The main guitarist will have decided on the sound he wishes to use well before the tracking session. The guitar signal will be split among two amplifiers and a DI. The primary amplifier will be placed where the cabinet sounds its best, surrounded by baffles slightly offset from parallel to disperse reflections for the driest sound possible. The second amplifier and cabinet will be placed beside it at a reasonable distance with the speakers aligned. All guitars used in the session will be fitted with fresh strings worn in before the session, properly set up and connected to a high quality signal splitter with little to no signal loss and sent to each amplifier and a DI. The sound of the amplifiers will be adjusted for optimal sound to suit the song. The cabinets will be slightly lifted from the ground to prevent sub-bass rumbling.
The guitarist will either play or have a test riff play through a looper into the rig. The volume for each amplifier will be increased until the speaker visibly reaches it's excursion point. The volume setting where baseline excursion begins will be noted. The volume will be further increased until the cabinet itself begins to affect the sound which will also be noted while ensuring there are no artefacts from the cabinet such as hardware rattling. After turning the volume back down, the best sounding speaker in the cabinet with multiple speakers will be determined. This process will be done one at a time for each amplifier in the rig. The volumes will be turned back up to the noted “enclosure involvement” points and the engineer will step back from the cabinets to find the point in which the sound starts to bloom. The position in which the low end of the cabinets starts to swell musically will be marked with tape on the floor from the cabinets. (approx 3-5 feet).
The mics will be routed to the VTB-1 and either the focusrite or optical preamps for analogue warmth and punch and with a basic gain structure set up to begin placing the microphones. The first close mic on the best sounding speaker of the primary cabinet will be placed on axis between the edge of the cone and cap of the speaker 2-3 inches away as a starting point and then with the looped riff playing, the mic will be swept across the cabinet to obtain a 'steady-state' tone. The second mic will be brought in and swept about in combination with the first mic. Once an ideal sound has been achieved, the polarity will be inverted on the second mic while pink noise is run through the amplifier power section. The distance of the second mic will then be brought up until the pink noise is virtually eliminated to suggest the mics are in phase.
The first mic on the second cabinet will be phase checked against the first mic on the first cabinet in a similar fashion before repeating the process for the second amplifier. Once all the close mics are producing the desired sound in the control room, the ambient mic will be placed at the end of the floor tape marked earlier as a starting point. This will either be a ribbon mic in a figure 8 pattern or a mic with an omni-directional polar pattern depending on which sounds best.
While the test sounds play, the engineer will adjust the position of the ambient mic to find where it adds the most to the sound. Once the desired sound is achieved when the mics are summed with nominal gain structure, tracking will commence. The guitarist will play to a cue mix of the click, drums and scratch instruments sent to the headphones to taste. Once the best performance has been captured, a second performance will be captured with very subtle setting changes for a better stereo image. The performances playbacks will be listened to to ensure appropriate performances and any performance editing will take place here.
This includes clean crossfades between any composite takes and removing any unwanted noises such as amp hum or string noise. The mic tracks will be summed to a bus in a rudimentary mix to determine that the desired timbre was captured in which case a rough mix will be assembled for the next guitar parts which will be the “fuzz” guitars. This is a condensed version of the rhythm guitar rig with the same settings but with a single PR30 ideally positioned and a fuzz pedal to accentuate certain parts of the song. This same setup will also be used to track several tracks of guitar feedback. This is where the guitarist really gets to crank the gain and go wild!
The clean guitar tube combo will be positioned where it sounds best in the room. Once the desired sound has been set by the guitarist, the mid mic will be placed where it has the best balance of frequencies and then the side mic placed accordingly with the capsules aligned and the combined signals tested in the control room (keeping in mind it won't truly be mid-side until it is matrixed and decoded in editing). The lead guitar will be performed once the vocals and bass have been tracked and a decent rough mix has been assembled. The guitarist can then “play off” the arrangement for lead passages. Although it will most likely be a previously composed solo, several takes will be performed and the artists and producer will decide either which is the best one of make a composite using the best parts of each take. It should be noted that every guitar performance with the exception of the feedback effects will have a DI track captured.
Vocals:
Heavier bands typically leave the vocals for last but as the performers have some instruments play off the vocal performances, the vocals will be tracked after the guitars. Once the ideal mic has been determined and the vocalist has warmed up, the vocal booth will be set up with the baffles, nominal gain structure dialled in from the tube preamp and an ideal cue mix sent to the headphones. The vocalist will record as many takes as required until the ideal performances are captured for the lead vocals. The artists and producer will then decide on the best parts of each take and design a composite to use on the final product. The vocalist will then perform additional vocals to the completed main vocal track in a similar manner until all vocals are captured satisfactorily. The performance will be recorded dry to process later but will have compression, eq and slight reverb in the cue mix.
Bass:
The bass sound will start by fitting the bass guitar with fresh strings and fresh batteries in the active preamp. It will be split to two amplifiers in a wet/dry rig and a DI. The heads will be in the control room and the cabinets in the tracking room. A fairly neutral setting will be dialled into the amplifier and the microphones will be positioned in a similar manner to the guitar amps but without ambient micing. Once in optimal position, the sound will be adjusted from the control room while the rough mix is playing for a captured sound that begins sitting in the mix well with minimal EQ adjustment needed. The bassist will then track either in the control room or tracking room depending on whether it affects the sound quality or performance. Once the bass tracks are completed with satisfactory performances, any necessary editing will take place here.
Extras:
All synth arrangements will be scored in the writing stage and imported into the various synthesisers either in ProTools or other DAWs in Studio One with ReWire capability. When the desired sounds are achieved, they will be bounced to audio tracks. The original scores will still exist but simply be frozen or have their plugins disabled (with the presets saved to a flash drive) so that future adjustments may be made if required but also saves CPU resources. The industrial percussion is little more than a metal keg used very sparingly. It will be recorded using the mid-side position in the center of the room.
Mixing Preparation:
Before commencing mixing, each track will be organised into group buses for their respective instruments. Sources with multiple mics will be summed to an instrument bus and then sent to the group bus (eg. A kick drum with two mics will be summed to a “kick” bus which will then be summed to the “drums” bus) The mix will then be stabilised. This is done by making sure each instrument is panned to center and each fader is at unity gain. The song is then played while the monitors are brought up from nothing to an audible level. This is to ensure that each track peaks at the same level. If any tracks peak above the producer's preferred reference level, the track will be bounced to another track with a simple gain plugin inserted to drop the volume and the original removed. This makes balancing much easier later. A couple of aux sends will be added with decent reverb and delay respectively set 100% as a placeholder for ambience effects they will be dialled in to not affect the extreme highs and lows, have an appropriate pre-delay for clarity and not reverberate for too long. Each group will then have basic 'placeholder' eq applied to place each instrument into it's own fundamental frequency bracket. Once the mix is organised, prepared and ready, the processing will begin in mono to ensure instrument compatibility before working on the stereo elements.
Mixing:
The mix will begin with the rhythm guitars. If captured correctly, they will not need a lot of processing. Only unnecessary rumble notching in the 120-170hz region, some subtle low pass, some notching in the presence range to tame fizz without damping the sound, and balancing some of the low mids. A multiband compressor will be used to compress only the low end to prevent low end spikes during palm-muting. They will be A/Bd to the reference track, but not to copy the reference guitar sound entirely. Once the best possible baseline sound has been achieved, the guitars will be warmed up either by being dumped to 1/4” tape and brought back into the session or with a good saturation plugin. Further processing (such as modulation) will happen later. The mid-side clean and lead guitar tracks will be matrixed, decoded and bused. Each summed guitar can be sent out to an Old School Audio, Neve 1073 style channel strip and recorded back into an audio track in the session.
Next will come the D112 kick drum track. The 200-300hz range is dramatically reduced to remove any boxiness and. A low-pass is applied only if necessary as some kick drums have more surplus sub-bass than others. The fundamental frequency will be found, noted and only increased if necessary. A gate will be applied to remove bleed but will still allow the kick drum to “breathe”. A compressor will be employed with an attack of at least 25ms a quick release as to not choke off rapid double-kick runs and threshold and ratio to taste. The inside kick mic will be brought up with the outside track and hi-passed until there is no clashing low end.
It will then be eq'd to enhance the top end frequencies of the kick drum without having to resort to dramatic treble boosting. Next, the room mics will be brought up until they combine with the kick drum about half and half. Low end mud will be hi-passed and some notch filtering to remove any overly prominent frequencies and help balance with the guitars. The target sound will be air, presence and weight from the room reflections. The overheads will then be brought up and Eqd to add cymbal information to the room mics without clouding the sound. This will be compared to the reference track to get the right cymbal clarity.
Next, the snare top will be brought up until it combines with the overhead and room mics, double checking phase coherency. It add to the sound rather than cancel out but if not, it will be corrected in the DAW. It will have a hi-pass at about 70-100hz, any unwanted overtones notched tastefully and with enough low mid body. It will then be gated and compressed in a slightly similar manner to the kick for a heavy attack. The snare bottom will be brought up and Eqd to bring out the 'crunch' of the snare without too much of a 'trash-can' sound. When the kick and snare sounds are close to their desired sound, they will be bused to auxilary sends marked “snare” and “kick”. The toms will be smashed with compression with a 25ms attack minimum, boxy frequencies scooped out with a fairly wide Q and optionally copied with parallel distressing or a multi-band enveloper for heavy attack.
The hi-hat close mic track will be heavily hi-passed, have a bell curve brought up to accentuate the “trashy” frequency and have a heavy-set compressor with the kick drum side-chained into it for brutal pumping. This will be brought up to taste in combination with the drum mix to add aggression to the drum sound. The room mics will be copied and summed to another bus which will be heavily distressed and brought up to taste to the drum mix for air, presence and power. The toms will be affected with a subtle short delay and sent to the reverb along with the snare. The keg will be made to combine nicely with the snare to add the desired industrial percussion sound.
Bass guitar processing will happen next. All performances will be double checked against the drums to ensure good timing. Any serious 'flams' (when the transient of the bass guitar and drums are slightly out of time) will be fixed but the natural groove of the player will be retained. This is a band, not a synthesiser. The 1x15 mic fader will be brought up first into the rough mix of drums and rhythm guitar. A simple eq will be inserted with a 50hz bell. This will be then fed to a compressor set with a fast attack, medium-slow release, threshold and ratio set to keep consistency without sounding too squashed or adding noise.
More comprehensive eq will take place with the crucial frequencies identified, the low end frequencies that clash with the kick drum will be reduced, a high pass filter will remove unnecessary information below the fundamental frequencies. Once this element of the bass guitar adds girth to the sound without interfering with the kick drum or taking too much away from the body of the guitar, one more compressor will be inserted with the kick drum side-chained set very subtle for added clarity but without obvious pumping. Comparisons to the reference track will be made to ensure the right level of low end.
The 4x10 cabinet tracks will mixed to taste, then summed and processed together with subtractive eq and compression for consistency to blend properly with the 1x15 mic which takes care of the low end. This is to add presence to the bass guitar and make the performance audible in the mix rather than simply playing a supportive role. At this point in the rough mix, it should be beginning to approach the desired sound of the arrangement. The vocals will now begin their processing. The song features both aggressive and traditional melodic singing which will be mixed separately. First up will be the harsh vocals. After inserting a lo-pass filter and very basic compression for dynamic control, the track will be bused to a tube/tape delay machine using only the preamp module pushed into overdrive.
An optical compressor will be inserted on the original track for transparency while levelling out the dynamics but also for an aggressive and up-front compression character. Some eq will be applied to remove unwanted low-end information, to remove boxiness and not interfere with the instruments and to enhance the enunciation without adding excessive sibilance. The tube distorted track will be band-passed around the presence range and brought up against the main vocal in the mix until the desired balance of aggression and clarity is achieved. The harsh backing vocals will have a smoother, basic compression, low passed to not clash with the body of the main vocals and slightly high passed to not interfere with the plosives of the main vocals.
The clean vocals will also run through an optical compressor but with gentler settings and eq'd for a 'silkier' sound. Any doubling or backing vocals will be managed similar to above. At this point, the mix will be compared again to the reference track for balance adjustments and to get into the more subtle processing elements. The mid-side balance of the clean guitar will be fine tuned for the desired mix of warmth and clarity and its bus subtly compressed and eq'd to sit nicely in the mix with the vocals, sent to a bit of reverb and delay. The synthesisers, while audible will add to the feel of the arrangement without being too prominent. They will be hi-passed and tuned in the low frequencies and most likely be reduced in the presence range. The lead guitar will be tuned and processed against the mix without the rhythm guitar and adjusted for clarity, warmth without sounding shrill or boxy. The current mix will be compared to the reference track again to determine an ideal 'static mix' to then get into the more subtle processing elements and automation.
Tracks that use modulation and ambient effects (such as vocals, lead and clean guitar) will be sent to outboard gear such as the ME2000, Lexicon reverb unit and the Echoplex tube tape echo. They will be set 100% wet, parameters adjusted in the mix and sent to a new track to be combined with the original dry track in the mix. Tracks needing more punch will go through a similar process with the LA-2 compressor and Fatso distressor for New York style, parallel compression.
The arrangement will be balanced and fine-tuned starting from the heaviest parts of the song making sure that all the right elements of each instrument can be heard during the most aggressive moments. The fader positions will be noted for recording in automation. This process will be repeated for the softer parts and automated making for an exciting and dynamic arrangement that moves with emotional content. The mixing process will be revisited on as many separate occasions as possible to ensure a fresh perspective for each mixing session. Mixes will be rendered out for testing on different mediums. Notes will be made on each mixing pass pertaining to anything that should be adjusted. Once the ideal mix has been obtained, basic instrument sub-groups (drums, bass, guitars, vocals, synths) will be rendered to wave files at a sample rate of 48000Hz at a bit depth of 24bit to be mastered and 44100Hz at 16bit for release.
Mastering:
A new session will be created with the reference track for comparison and four stereo audio tracks for drums, guitar, vocals and synths, one mono audio track for bass and one stereo aux return track from the Neve summing mixer. The audio tracks sent to the Neve, the stereo tracks panned appropriately and all faders and panoramic controls set to unity. Once the levels, analogue distortion and widening is to taste, the stems will then be summed to one stereo track. At this point a high-quality linear phase EQ will be used to fine tune the mix for the best listening experience possible. A good quality compressor will be used to even out peaks and add some punch to the recording without 'pumping' from too much low end entering the compressor. Exciters may be used to sweeten the presence range and finally a good quality limiter and maximiser for red book output levels without resorting to clipping.
The result will be rendered to a .wav file with a sample rate of 44100hz and bit depth of 16bit and burned to a CD. After playing back the result on different entertainment units and ensuring there are no further adjustments to be made, the file will be submitted along with the session. Every step of the process from pre-production to mastering will be recorded in a word document with the date, time and sequence of events and documented on film.
ISRC:
AU2Y01500100
Recording Artist:
Fragmenta
Producer:
Duncan Fisher
Song:
Repository of Human Ills
Reference Track:
Sepultura – Attitude.
Deadlines:
Pre-production – June 22
Drums tracking and editing – June 29
Guitars tracking and editing – July 10
Vocals tracking and editing – July 17
Final mix – July 31
Mastering – August 7
Distribution – August 15
Instrumentation and line lists.
Guitar.
The instrumentation for Repository of Human Ills for Fragmenta will have two rhythm guitars which will have six tracks each divided among two amplifiers and two close microphones per cabinet. The ideal setup will bea blend of a modular rig featuring a Blackstar hi-gain preamp into an ADA power amp with a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. A DI will be employed for all stringed instruments for both reamping and also to run for a “cleaner” sound for more note separation. Distant figure 8 pattern mics will be used for air, presence and mid-side positioning.
Backup options include a Fryette Pitbull Dual Ultra Lead, a Marshall JVM, a Randall RG100ES with a Marshall cabinet, a custom Fender “The Twin” combo through an external Cabinet (the amplifier used on the demo). The microphones will most likely be a Heil PR30 and a Senheiser MD421 on the Randall cabinet with the rack system and mic'd with a Sure SM57 and another MD421 on the custom cabinet with the Mesa Boogie head. There will also be another guitar track exclusively for feedback sounds with a condensed version of this setup plus two extra rhythm guitars with a fuzz pedal for extra aggression sparingly. There will also be a lead guitar track for an intense solo. In summary, guitars will be mic'd as follows. The rhythm guitar tracks will use a distant Royer 122 for the room ambience. The lead guitar tracks will use the cardioid dynamic and 122 in mid-side position.
Rhythm Guitars 1 and 2: Rack system w/Randall cabinet:
- PR30 (close)
- 421 (close)
- 122 (distant)
- DI
Dual Rectifier with Marshall cabinet:
- 421 (close)
- 57 (close)
- 122 (distant)
Feedback Guitar 1 - Randall Cabinet:
- PR30 (close)
Fuzz Guitars 1 and 2 - Randall cabinet
- PR30
- DI
Solo guitar - Marshall cabinet:
- 421
- 122 (mid-side position)
Clean guitar:
- 57
- 122 (mid-side position)
- DI
Drums.
The drum kit will be a 7 to 10 piece Yamaha with the option of featuring two kick drums, a Tama snare drum, four to six toms to be revised for appropriatness in pre-production and numerous cymbals including the typcal hi-hat, two crashes and ride with the addition of splash, china, bell, a muted china and additional crashes. If it becomes logistically difficult to mic two kick drums, we will condense down to one kick drum with a direct drive double kick pedal set.
The kit will be dropped off at the studio in its respective tracking room 24 hours prior to recording. This is to allow the shells to acclimate to the temperature and pressure of the room to ensure consistent tuning. The drum throne will be at an appropriate height, the toms and snare as flat as possible for maximum energy transfer from the sticks.
The ideal drum mic setup for this project based on available equipment will be as follows.
- Kick 1 In (batter) - MD421 or Audix i5 (close)
- Kick 1 Out (resonater) – AKG D112 (close)
- Snare top – MD421 or SM57 but are likely to experiment during pre-production (close)
- Snare bottom – SM57 (will experiment with different mics during pre-production
- Rack Tom 1 MD 421/c414/KM86/E22
- Rack Tom 2 MD 421/c414/KM86/E22
- Rack Tom 3 MD 421/c414/KM86/E22
- Floor Tom: Beta 52
- Cybmals Hat side - C451B
- Cymbals Ride side – C451B (spaced pair
- Hi-hat: KSM-137/C3000B (close)
- Room 1 - Royer 122 Blumlein/cardioid condensor ROTF/Rhode NT-2 omni quasi binaural
- Room 2 - Royer 122 Blumlein/cardioid condensor ROTF/Rhode NT-2 omni quasi binaural
Bass.
The bass guitar will either be a Douglass 6-string fretless bass, an Ibanez Soundgear 5-string or a Spector 5-string. The bass guitar will be split with a DI for a direct sound and run through a Hartke Transient Attack hybrid bass amp with a tube pre-amplifier, boosted by a Boss ODB-3 bass overdrive which has a blend control to preserve the clean low end and run through one 4x10 cabinet and a 1x15 bass cabinet. Ideally, they will be mic'd as follows:
1x15: Cabinet:
- D112/Beta 52
4x10 Cabinet:
- 2x 421
- DI
Vocals.
The vocals will be quite aggressive throughout the song. Each vocal performance may have to be placed on a different track for separate processing.
- Lead Vocal
- Lead Vocal double
- Harmony 1
- Harmony 2
V67G, Rhode NT1 or Shure SM-7
Industrial percussion.
- 57 or 421
- 122 (mid-side)
Synths.
- Sawtooth bass
- Heavy percussion hit/drop
- 4x power electronic noise
- Lead string synth
- Drone pad
Pre-production and tracking.
When the session commences, every drum will be tested and fine tuned. The ideal source location will then be determined by establishing where the floor tom sounds best and assembling the rest of the kit around it. When the source sound is satisfactory to the producer and the artists, the drums will be set up in accordance with the drummers ideal positions and maximum possible vertical and horizontal separation between the cymbals, hats and the rest of the drums.
Mic positioning will begin with the room mics, comparing the sound of the propsed mic sets against each other in Pro Tools. They will then be positioned with each position compared against the reference track, keeping in mind the 3 to 1 rule in regards to the close mics to be placed. The session will be tracked to ProTools at a sample rate of 48000khz and a bit depth of 24-bit. Each track will be labelled correctly and each instrument type assigned a track colour.
Drums:
The kick drum mics will be placed beginning with the inside close mic. Once the best sound has been established, the outside mic will be placed and the blend will be compared against the reference track until it has the right sound and checked for phase compatibility, minimal comb-filtering and ensuring maximum power is obtained in the transients and compatibility with the room mics. The snare top and bottom microphones will be placed in a similar manner, combined together, tested with the room mics and compared to the reference track.
They will not interfere with the performer. The cymbals and hi-hat will be in the cardioid rejection zone of the top snare mic. The target sound will be a snappy, aggressive and full sounding snare with some “spread” when combined with the room mics. The tom mics will be placed a couple of inches from the batters of the toms where the most resonance is felt, without interfering with the performance and where maximum attack can be obtained with enough low end punch without mud. They will also be placed with the cymbals in the rejection zone of the cardioid pattern and shielded with a foam micro-baffle to reduce bleed as much as possible. The close mics will be routed into the ProTools rig through the Focusrite preamps for a combination of warmth and clarity. The ambient mics will go the VTB-1 tube mic pres for power and character. The band will be in the control room running direct with simulated amps which will be send as a cue mix to the drummer with a click track programmed for the tempos of the song.
This will help create a 'live' feel from the whole band playing together without interference from the other instruments to the mics on the drums. If issues arise with this process, a backup option involves the drummer, individual instrument stems of the demo demo will be imported into the ProTools session to create an adjustable cue mix for the drummer. Once the best possible performance has been captured to the satisfaction of the artists and producer, a rough mix of the drums will be made with simple compression, eq and balancing. All performance edits will take place at this point in the process if any is necessary and the tom and hi-hat close mics will be trimmed to only feature their respective instruments. Clean cymbal hits will be recorded and kept in the playlist so that if anything shoukd interfere with the cymbal tails, particular at the end of the song, they can be replaced without having to resort to strenuous processing or outboard samples.
Guitars:
The rhythm guitars will be tracked next. The main guitarist will have decided on the sound he wishes to use well before the tracking session. The guitar signal will be split among two amplifiers and a DI. The primary amplifier will be placed where the cabinet sounds its best, surrounded by baffles slightly offset from parallel to disperse reflections for the driest sound possible. The second amplifier and cabinet will be placed beside it at a reasonable distance with the speakers aligned. All guitars used in the session will be fitted with fresh strings worn in before the session, properly set up and connected to a high quality signal splitter with little to no signal loss and sent to each amplifier and a DI. The sound of the amplifiers will be adjusted for optimal sound to suit the song. The cabinets will be slightly lifted from the ground to prevent sub-bass rumbling.
The guitarist will either play or have a test riff play through a looper into the rig. The volume for each amplifier will be increased until the speaker visibly reaches it's excursion point. The volume setting where baseline excursion begins will be noted. The volume will be further increased until the cabinet itself begins to affect the sound which will also be noted while ensuring there are no artefacts from the cabinet such as hardware rattling. After turning the volume back down, the best sounding speaker in the cabinet with multiple speakers will be determined. This process will be done one at a time for each amplifier in the rig. The volumes will be turned back up to the noted “enclosure involvement” points and the engineer will step back from the cabinets to find the point in which the sound starts to bloom. The position in which the low end of the cabinets starts to swell musically will be marked with tape on the floor from the cabinets. (approx 3-5 feet).
The mics will be routed to the VTB-1 and either the focusrite or optical preamps for analogue warmth and punch and with a basic gain structure set up to begin placing the microphones. The first close mic on the best sounding speaker of the primary cabinet will be placed on axis between the edge of the cone and cap of the speaker 2-3 inches away as a starting point and then with the looped riff playing, the mic will be swept across the cabinet to obtain a 'steady-state' tone. The second mic will be brought in and swept about in combination with the first mic. Once an ideal sound has been achieved, the polarity will be inverted on the second mic while pink noise is run through the amplifier power section. The distance of the second mic will then be brought up until the pink noise is virtually eliminated to suggest the mics are in phase.
The first mic on the second cabinet will be phase checked against the first mic on the first cabinet in a similar fashion before repeating the process for the second amplifier. Once all the close mics are producing the desired sound in the control room, the ambient mic will be placed at the end of the floor tape marked earlier as a starting point. This will either be a ribbon mic in a figure 8 pattern or a mic with an omni-directional polar pattern depending on which sounds best.
While the test sounds play, the engineer will adjust the position of the ambient mic to find where it adds the most to the sound. Once the desired sound is achieved when the mics are summed with nominal gain structure, tracking will commence. The guitarist will play to a cue mix of the click, drums and scratch instruments sent to the headphones to taste. Once the best performance has been captured, a second performance will be captured with very subtle setting changes for a better stereo image. The performances playbacks will be listened to to ensure appropriate performances and any performance editing will take place here.
This includes clean crossfades between any composite takes and removing any unwanted noises such as amp hum or string noise. The mic tracks will be summed to a bus in a rudimentary mix to determine that the desired timbre was captured in which case a rough mix will be assembled for the next guitar parts which will be the “fuzz” guitars. This is a condensed version of the rhythm guitar rig with the same settings but with a single PR30 ideally positioned and a fuzz pedal to accentuate certain parts of the song. This same setup will also be used to track several tracks of guitar feedback. This is where the guitarist really gets to crank the gain and go wild!
The clean guitar tube combo will be positioned where it sounds best in the room. Once the desired sound has been set by the guitarist, the mid mic will be placed where it has the best balance of frequencies and then the side mic placed accordingly with the capsules aligned and the combined signals tested in the control room (keeping in mind it won't truly be mid-side until it is matrixed and decoded in editing). The lead guitar will be performed once the vocals and bass have been tracked and a decent rough mix has been assembled. The guitarist can then “play off” the arrangement for lead passages. Although it will most likely be a previously composed solo, several takes will be performed and the artists and producer will decide either which is the best one of make a composite using the best parts of each take. It should be noted that every guitar performance with the exception of the feedback effects will have a DI track captured.
Vocals:
Heavier bands typically leave the vocals for last but as the performers have some instruments play off the vocal performances, the vocals will be tracked after the guitars. Once the ideal mic has been determined and the vocalist has warmed up, the vocal booth will be set up with the baffles, nominal gain structure dialled in from the tube preamp and an ideal cue mix sent to the headphones. The vocalist will record as many takes as required until the ideal performances are captured for the lead vocals. The artists and producer will then decide on the best parts of each take and design a composite to use on the final product. The vocalist will then perform additional vocals to the completed main vocal track in a similar manner until all vocals are captured satisfactorily. The performance will be recorded dry to process later but will have compression, eq and slight reverb in the cue mix.
Bass:
The bass sound will start by fitting the bass guitar with fresh strings and fresh batteries in the active preamp. It will be split to two amplifiers in a wet/dry rig and a DI. The heads will be in the control room and the cabinets in the tracking room. A fairly neutral setting will be dialled into the amplifier and the microphones will be positioned in a similar manner to the guitar amps but without ambient micing. Once in optimal position, the sound will be adjusted from the control room while the rough mix is playing for a captured sound that begins sitting in the mix well with minimal EQ adjustment needed. The bassist will then track either in the control room or tracking room depending on whether it affects the sound quality or performance. Once the bass tracks are completed with satisfactory performances, any necessary editing will take place here.
Extras:
All synth arrangements will be scored in the writing stage and imported into the various synthesisers either in ProTools or other DAWs in Studio One with ReWire capability. When the desired sounds are achieved, they will be bounced to audio tracks. The original scores will still exist but simply be frozen or have their plugins disabled (with the presets saved to a flash drive) so that future adjustments may be made if required but also saves CPU resources. The industrial percussion is little more than a metal keg used very sparingly. It will be recorded using the mid-side position in the center of the room.
Mixing Preparation:
Before commencing mixing, each track will be organised into group buses for their respective instruments. Sources with multiple mics will be summed to an instrument bus and then sent to the group bus (eg. A kick drum with two mics will be summed to a “kick” bus which will then be summed to the “drums” bus) The mix will then be stabilised. This is done by making sure each instrument is panned to center and each fader is at unity gain. The song is then played while the monitors are brought up from nothing to an audible level. This is to ensure that each track peaks at the same level. If any tracks peak above the producer's preferred reference level, the track will be bounced to another track with a simple gain plugin inserted to drop the volume and the original removed. This makes balancing much easier later. A couple of aux sends will be added with decent reverb and delay respectively set 100% as a placeholder for ambience effects they will be dialled in to not affect the extreme highs and lows, have an appropriate pre-delay for clarity and not reverberate for too long. Each group will then have basic 'placeholder' eq applied to place each instrument into it's own fundamental frequency bracket. Once the mix is organised, prepared and ready, the processing will begin in mono to ensure instrument compatibility before working on the stereo elements.
Mixing:
The mix will begin with the rhythm guitars. If captured correctly, they will not need a lot of processing. Only unnecessary rumble notching in the 120-170hz region, some subtle low pass, some notching in the presence range to tame fizz without damping the sound, and balancing some of the low mids. A multiband compressor will be used to compress only the low end to prevent low end spikes during palm-muting. They will be A/Bd to the reference track, but not to copy the reference guitar sound entirely. Once the best possible baseline sound has been achieved, the guitars will be warmed up either by being dumped to 1/4” tape and brought back into the session or with a good saturation plugin. Further processing (such as modulation) will happen later. The mid-side clean and lead guitar tracks will be matrixed, decoded and bused. Each summed guitar can be sent out to an Old School Audio, Neve 1073 style channel strip and recorded back into an audio track in the session.
Next will come the D112 kick drum track. The 200-300hz range is dramatically reduced to remove any boxiness and. A low-pass is applied only if necessary as some kick drums have more surplus sub-bass than others. The fundamental frequency will be found, noted and only increased if necessary. A gate will be applied to remove bleed but will still allow the kick drum to “breathe”. A compressor will be employed with an attack of at least 25ms a quick release as to not choke off rapid double-kick runs and threshold and ratio to taste. The inside kick mic will be brought up with the outside track and hi-passed until there is no clashing low end.
It will then be eq'd to enhance the top end frequencies of the kick drum without having to resort to dramatic treble boosting. Next, the room mics will be brought up until they combine with the kick drum about half and half. Low end mud will be hi-passed and some notch filtering to remove any overly prominent frequencies and help balance with the guitars. The target sound will be air, presence and weight from the room reflections. The overheads will then be brought up and Eqd to add cymbal information to the room mics without clouding the sound. This will be compared to the reference track to get the right cymbal clarity.
Next, the snare top will be brought up until it combines with the overhead and room mics, double checking phase coherency. It add to the sound rather than cancel out but if not, it will be corrected in the DAW. It will have a hi-pass at about 70-100hz, any unwanted overtones notched tastefully and with enough low mid body. It will then be gated and compressed in a slightly similar manner to the kick for a heavy attack. The snare bottom will be brought up and Eqd to bring out the 'crunch' of the snare without too much of a 'trash-can' sound. When the kick and snare sounds are close to their desired sound, they will be bused to auxilary sends marked “snare” and “kick”. The toms will be smashed with compression with a 25ms attack minimum, boxy frequencies scooped out with a fairly wide Q and optionally copied with parallel distressing or a multi-band enveloper for heavy attack.
The hi-hat close mic track will be heavily hi-passed, have a bell curve brought up to accentuate the “trashy” frequency and have a heavy-set compressor with the kick drum side-chained into it for brutal pumping. This will be brought up to taste in combination with the drum mix to add aggression to the drum sound. The room mics will be copied and summed to another bus which will be heavily distressed and brought up to taste to the drum mix for air, presence and power. The toms will be affected with a subtle short delay and sent to the reverb along with the snare. The keg will be made to combine nicely with the snare to add the desired industrial percussion sound.
Bass guitar processing will happen next. All performances will be double checked against the drums to ensure good timing. Any serious 'flams' (when the transient of the bass guitar and drums are slightly out of time) will be fixed but the natural groove of the player will be retained. This is a band, not a synthesiser. The 1x15 mic fader will be brought up first into the rough mix of drums and rhythm guitar. A simple eq will be inserted with a 50hz bell. This will be then fed to a compressor set with a fast attack, medium-slow release, threshold and ratio set to keep consistency without sounding too squashed or adding noise.
More comprehensive eq will take place with the crucial frequencies identified, the low end frequencies that clash with the kick drum will be reduced, a high pass filter will remove unnecessary information below the fundamental frequencies. Once this element of the bass guitar adds girth to the sound without interfering with the kick drum or taking too much away from the body of the guitar, one more compressor will be inserted with the kick drum side-chained set very subtle for added clarity but without obvious pumping. Comparisons to the reference track will be made to ensure the right level of low end.
The 4x10 cabinet tracks will mixed to taste, then summed and processed together with subtractive eq and compression for consistency to blend properly with the 1x15 mic which takes care of the low end. This is to add presence to the bass guitar and make the performance audible in the mix rather than simply playing a supportive role. At this point in the rough mix, it should be beginning to approach the desired sound of the arrangement. The vocals will now begin their processing. The song features both aggressive and traditional melodic singing which will be mixed separately. First up will be the harsh vocals. After inserting a lo-pass filter and very basic compression for dynamic control, the track will be bused to a tube/tape delay machine using only the preamp module pushed into overdrive.
An optical compressor will be inserted on the original track for transparency while levelling out the dynamics but also for an aggressive and up-front compression character. Some eq will be applied to remove unwanted low-end information, to remove boxiness and not interfere with the instruments and to enhance the enunciation without adding excessive sibilance. The tube distorted track will be band-passed around the presence range and brought up against the main vocal in the mix until the desired balance of aggression and clarity is achieved. The harsh backing vocals will have a smoother, basic compression, low passed to not clash with the body of the main vocals and slightly high passed to not interfere with the plosives of the main vocals.
The clean vocals will also run through an optical compressor but with gentler settings and eq'd for a 'silkier' sound. Any doubling or backing vocals will be managed similar to above. At this point, the mix will be compared again to the reference track for balance adjustments and to get into the more subtle processing elements. The mid-side balance of the clean guitar will be fine tuned for the desired mix of warmth and clarity and its bus subtly compressed and eq'd to sit nicely in the mix with the vocals, sent to a bit of reverb and delay. The synthesisers, while audible will add to the feel of the arrangement without being too prominent. They will be hi-passed and tuned in the low frequencies and most likely be reduced in the presence range. The lead guitar will be tuned and processed against the mix without the rhythm guitar and adjusted for clarity, warmth without sounding shrill or boxy. The current mix will be compared to the reference track again to determine an ideal 'static mix' to then get into the more subtle processing elements and automation.
Tracks that use modulation and ambient effects (such as vocals, lead and clean guitar) will be sent to outboard gear such as the ME2000, Lexicon reverb unit and the Echoplex tube tape echo. They will be set 100% wet, parameters adjusted in the mix and sent to a new track to be combined with the original dry track in the mix. Tracks needing more punch will go through a similar process with the LA-2 compressor and Fatso distressor for New York style, parallel compression.
The arrangement will be balanced and fine-tuned starting from the heaviest parts of the song making sure that all the right elements of each instrument can be heard during the most aggressive moments. The fader positions will be noted for recording in automation. This process will be repeated for the softer parts and automated making for an exciting and dynamic arrangement that moves with emotional content. The mixing process will be revisited on as many separate occasions as possible to ensure a fresh perspective for each mixing session. Mixes will be rendered out for testing on different mediums. Notes will be made on each mixing pass pertaining to anything that should be adjusted. Once the ideal mix has been obtained, basic instrument sub-groups (drums, bass, guitars, vocals, synths) will be rendered to wave files at a sample rate of 48000Hz at a bit depth of 24bit to be mastered and 44100Hz at 16bit for release.
Mastering:
A new session will be created with the reference track for comparison and four stereo audio tracks for drums, guitar, vocals and synths, one mono audio track for bass and one stereo aux return track from the Neve summing mixer. The audio tracks sent to the Neve, the stereo tracks panned appropriately and all faders and panoramic controls set to unity. Once the levels, analogue distortion and widening is to taste, the stems will then be summed to one stereo track. At this point a high-quality linear phase EQ will be used to fine tune the mix for the best listening experience possible. A good quality compressor will be used to even out peaks and add some punch to the recording without 'pumping' from too much low end entering the compressor. Exciters may be used to sweeten the presence range and finally a good quality limiter and maximiser for red book output levels without resorting to clipping.
The result will be rendered to a .wav file with a sample rate of 44100hz and bit depth of 16bit and burned to a CD. After playing back the result on different entertainment units and ensuring there are no further adjustments to be made, the file will be submitted along with the session. Every step of the process from pre-production to mastering will be recorded in a word document with the date, time and sequence of events and documented on film.
Here it is:
Maybe there's a pair of orange '78s that can be used on the song.
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