"Big" Sounding Vocals

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Haha, ok I clicked at your link and I must admit that I recognized the songs in the first 2 or 3 seconds (Maneater and I Can't Go For That, didn't know the other ones), I just didn't know the name of the band ! That's 80's Classic !!! I love the 80's, I've been thinking for a long long time about doing a "80's Metal" cover album (A-Ha, Talk Talk, Tears For Fears...), maybe I'll go for it one day, who knows...

It's true that we have our own market yes, but still american "shit" is very present : R&B, Rap and stuff... But we have huge stars in France (and I mean huge, selling Millions) not even known outside our country... Funny... Also it's not well accepted when French pop artists try to break outside, or even sing in English... Weird mentallity really...

Provence is really a nice place to live, my favorite one (tho I haven't lived in many places yet, lol), but prices are so insanely high over there that's it's ridiculous and impossible to buy something... That's why so many american, english, dutch or german people are living here now, because they have the cash...

Studio Miraval is a very very famous studio, probably one of the biggest in France and many bands recorded here (Pink Floyd "The Wall", Rammstein, The Cranberries, UB40, The Cure, AC/DC, Sade, Judas Priest, Yes...). I'd surely love to visit the place

 

[NK]

Miraval was not in the best shape when I was there. Their multitrack (Studer A80) was in terrible condition and I spent ages working on it to try to get it up to speed. In the end, I had to call a friend of mine who used to work at Le Chateau D'Herouville (where I worked a lot in 75-77) to bring in another multitrack.

By contrast, Le Chateau D'Herouville was a terrific place to work. I moved to Paris in '75 after leaving Trident to go freelance, and worked at the Chateau a lot. That's where I did the last Mahavishnu album I worked on, plus work with Higelin, Magma etc. The remainder of the French artistes I worked with were albums I did at Trident in London - Julien Clerc, Polnareff, Sylvie Vartan, The Peppers, Cerrone etc. etc.

Do you know Jean-Paul Iliesco? He brought in a lot of work to Trident in the 70s. He was something of an entrepreneur, and eventually went into partnership to buy Trident after it closed down in 1981.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Don't know Jean-Paul Iliesco, nope... But maybe if I hear the first two or three seconds of him my memory will come back

Ha, le Château d'Herouville, another famous place. Did you ever work at Guillaume Tell as well ?

So do you speak French ?

And, maybe that's out of subject, but how can one come from recording Julien Clerc and Sylvie Vartan to recording Nile and Cannibal Corpse ??? That's, errr, pretty unusual I guess

 

[NK]

Oui, je parle Francais encore, mais seulement un petit peu..

Never worked at William Tell. Is that in Paris? I seem to remember that it is..

Well, "recording" is in fact the operative word. I was an engineer when I worked with Leclerc and Sylvie V. I was working at Trident, and we were assigned sessions that came in, so in many cases there wasn't a choice of what we'd work on. However, we all had the opportunity to take the rough with the smooth, and we all did our fair share of sessions that we weren't necessarily 100% into. Of course, once you start freelancing you can pick whatever you want to work on, and since then I've been very fortunate to have been able to pick and choose my projects to fit my mindset.

That being said, I really enjoyed working with a lot of the clients that came through Trident, and I loved working in Herouville. It was an exciting time of my life and I soaked up everything I could at the maximum speed possible.

As far as my work these days goes, I only produce music I'm really into, that pushes my buttons as it were. As far as mixing, that's an entirely different hat to wear. I can mix anything (and in many cases have). To me it's all about doing the right job for the style of music and material. That's the fun part, and I think it really helps you increase your engineering versatility and expertise, not to mention growing one's musical vocabulary. My years of producing jazz-fusion set me up to be able to accept anything musically, rather than have my outlook restricted by only working on music of one style. I'd probably retire if I had to work on one type of music all the time - I'd be so bored, that's for sure. Variety is the spice of life in my book, especially in the studio where fresh ideas are really important to every project.

 

[NK]

By the way...Iliesco was a businessman, not a singer..hehe.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Oui, je parle Francais encore, mais seulement un petit peu..

Never worked at William Tell. Is that in Paris? I seem to remember that it is..

Guillaume Tell, not William Yes, it's in the Parisian suburbs, also one of the big studios out there (Mariah Carey, The Rolling Stones, Kylie Minogue, Phil Collins, Depeche Mode, Peter Gabriel, Jean-Michel Jarre, Elton John, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Rush, Radiohead, Prince, Yes, etc etc, you get the idea).

Well, "recording" is in fact the operative word. I was an engineer when I worked with Leclerc and Sylvie V. I was working at Trident, and we were assigned sessions that came in, so in many cases there wasn't a choice of what we'd work on. However, we all had the opportunity to take the rough with the smooth, and we all did our fair share of sessions that we weren't necessarily 100% into. Of course, once you start freelancing you can pick whatever you want to work on, and since then I've been very fortunate to have been able to pick and choose my projects to fit my mindset.

That being said, I really enjoyed working with a lot of the clients that came through Trident, and I loved working in Herouville. It was an exciting time of my life and I soaked up everything I could at the maximum speed possible.

As far as my work these days goes, I only produce music I'm really into, that pushes my buttons as it were. As far as mixing, that's an entirely different hat to wear. I can mix anything (and in many cases have). To me it's all about doing the right job for the style of music and material. That's the fun part, and I think it really helps you increase your engineering versatility and expertise, not to mention growing one's musical vocabulary. My years of producing jazz-fusion set me up to be able to accept anything musically, rather than have my outlook restricted by only working on music of one style. I'd probably retire if I had to work on one type of music all the time - I'd be so bored, that's for sure. Variety is the spice of life in my book, especially in the studio where fresh ideas are really important to every project.

Yeah I hear you on that, it's true that the more open you are, the better you become (this works not just for music). But I could hardly figure myself working on a style of music that I don't like (like Reggae for instance), I'd have no idea of how it must sound, but this would be a good learning experience nonetheless.

By the way...Iliesco was a businessman, not a singer..hehe.

Je sais, je plaisantais, c'était de l'humour pas drôle

 

[NK]

It's weird, but I used to hate reggae when I was doing a lot of work on it. Just couldn't get the hang of it at all, but my clients really loved what I did. They kept calling me back for more sessions, and I kept rying to like it, over and over.

Funny thing is, now I really have a feel for it, and listen to quite a bit of dub. No one ever calls me to work on it now though...haha.

 

[Ermz]

Ah dub, it feels like my entire faculty listens to that stuff. It's all hip-hop, breakbeat and dub. I think it's good to be exposed to it, even though I'm hardly a fan. Walking out of a thrash metal session and hearing that stuff is almost soothing.

 

[Razorjack]

Ah dub, it feels like my entire faculty listens to that stuff. It's all hip-hop, breakbeat and dub. I think it's good to be exposed to it, even though I'm hardly a fan. Walking out of a thrash metal session and hearing that stuff is almost soothing.

Haha, it's the same at my university here in London. Everyone else is programing break beats and making garage/d'n'b/dub stuff and I'm there working on a recent death metal session.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Maybe you have to be "high" to like reggae (haha, just kiddin', reggae lovers please don't get at me ).

 

[Ermz]

Haha, represent. The 'tr00' minority

 

[NK]

Maybe you have to be "high" to like reggae (haha, just kiddin', reggae lovers please don't get at me ).

Yeah, good point. I know that all the band members I worked with back then had huge hash spliffs EACH. That's probably why I was scratching my head while they were leaping around loving everything...haha.

Whatever blows yer dress up I suppose..

:hotjump:

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Clients easy to satisfy then I guess, and easy to deal with, so it's pretty cool. Hey bro yo da man (in a raggae muffin' style) :Smokin: uke:

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

The wider you pan stuff the more you'll notice timing issues

That is PRECISELY why the more I record my own stuff the less stereo treatment my guitars seem to get. LOL. I've pretty much abandoned 100% L/R panning for my own guitar stuff and at the rate I'm going 5 years from now I'll probably just have two tracks dead center haha.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Raggae-men motto : "Maximum bass at all frequencies man".

 

[silverwulf]

That is PRECISELY why the more I record my own stuff the less stereo treatment my guitars seem to get. LOL. I've pretty much abandoned 100% L/R panning for my own guitar stuff and at the rate I'm going 5 years from now I'll probably just have two tracks dead center haha.

I've brought them in a bit at times too, to around 85% left right. Other times I'm still hitting it 100 to both sides. anyone else here not panning 100% left and right on guitars?

 

[Ermz]

Yeah. Panning 100% tends to give too much seperation. It doesn't sound as fat and obviously even the least audible nuance will stand right out when you're doing that.

It's cool when you want to give it an old-school melodic death feel, like there's 2 guitarists playing off each other, but otherwise I see no point.

UNLESS quad tracking. When you quad track you can afford to have two of the takes panned hard left and right and the other two in a bit more to add fatness.

That's just my experience anyway.

 

[ArtisanBass]

I like 100% sep. like carcass. But I'm finding that they thin out quite a bit and get a bit tin sounding if they are all the way panned. But, I'm still messing with EQ, I haven't given up yet.

 

[NK]

For the biggest sounding mix, 100% is the most effective. However, getting them really tight needs a lot of practice.

:Spin: :Spin:

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

For the biggest sounding mix, 100% is the most effective. However, getting them really tight needs a lot of practice.

:Spin: :Spin:

Or editing ? Just kiddin' (am I ?)