Amp sims on latest sleepmakeswaves album

D

daxliniere

New Metal Member
Sep 15, 2009
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Hey guys,
Not sure if this is the right sub-forum to post this, but I thought there might be some interest in an album I produced and mixed for Sydney band sleepmakeswaves.

http://sleepmakeswaves.bandcamp.com/
(For the impatient ones, tracks 4 and 8 might be the best for you.)

It's interesting from a technical point of view since there was no drum replacement and not one physical guitar amp used on this record.

From memory, the amp sims I used were LeXTAC, NRR-1, Vandal (for bass), Legion and probably some LE456 in there somewhere.
Mokafix pedal sims were essential part of the sounds too, used on almost every channel of guitars.
IRs were mostly Alu's legendary Framus and Diezel V30 SM57 (Soldano HR Poweramp) for distorted and some clean/OD tracks with 'vox intern normal_m930 on axis1' and doubtlessly a few others.
Kudos to Poulin, Mokafix & Alu!

***This has been re-posted on the Gearslutz forum with the intention of educating a larger audience***
You can post any new questions you have for me here: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-m...-production-latest-sleepmakeswaves-album.html

Hope you find it interesting.

All the best,
 
This is really great.
The mix is awesome.
How much did you bring to the table when it came to producing the band?
Did they come prepared with all of the electronics and atmosphere ideas or were the electronics ideas your own?
 
Hey TPCalm,
Thanks for the compliments!

Well, with permission from the band, I might be able to post the pre-production demos they did.
98% of the electronics were brought by the band, though I did do a fair bit of arrangement work with Alex.

Cheers,
 
wow! fantastic mix dude.....the drum sound is excellent. really roomy and big. what reverb did you use on the kit if you don't mind me asking? did you use some room mic's when tracking drums for natural ambience aswell? the guitars sound rediculously real and natural....I would never have guessed they were all amp sims and IR's. crazy! which of the mokafix pedal sims did you find useful on this record? the bass sound is really nice too.....i must check out vandal!!

btw, the songs are cool too. mega epic....ambient. nice!
 
Thanks everyone. I was glad to see some people were interested in this project.

I have gotten clearance from the band to post some of the pre-production demos so you can hear how the songs sounded just before we entered the studio.
They've asked that the samples are provided listen-only (no download), so I'll have to organise a dedicated music player for this purpose to embed into a page on my studio website. For ease of listening, I'll also put the final track as it appears on the album so you can compare if you don't already know the song.

You'll need to give me some days for this as I'm away recording and mixing at the moment and won't have time right away.

@OneTruth; Someone on the guitarampmodelling.com forum asked me about reverbs and delays, here was my response:

[On this album] I used a lot of different reverbs (some tracks have up to 12 aux busses) SignalDust Tila, 2C-Audio Aether, Audio Damage EOS, QuikQuak Fusion Field, Poor Plate, Rhythm Lab Mo Verb and even a bit of Redline Reverb and VariVerbPro. Not all of these were used in every song, of course.
I'm a fan of algorithmic reverbs. Just bought EAReverb, not used on this album, but is being used on the Beaufields album.
Delays are mostly SoundToys EchoBoy, Rhythm Lab Twin Delay and Bootsy's NastyDLA.

There are times where I used something than what's listed, but these would be the most commonly used ones.

I did record a room mic, which was actually placed in the metal-clad shower/bathroom in the adjoining room. The sliding door was kept open about an inch. Mic was Crown PZM plate (boundary mic) running into Amek 9098 preamp, but it was only used in a few places on the record. From memory, one part is the furious tom roll part in track 6 before the guitars crash in.

Incidentally, this album was recorded in a little cabin in the forest. I went there and setup the studio that would be our home for 8 days. Lots of fun :) One interview I read described the temporary studio as a glorified home-studio or some words to that effect, but I guess they can't be expected to know of Great River, SSL, Pendulum, Altas Pro Audio (Buzz Audio), Amek or Cranesong ;)

Mokafix pedal sims used were (again, from memory) D-Plus, EZ-Driver, Lamp Driver, Goldie-OD, Kung Fuzz, Muffin Rider, D-380, Sen'tor and The Bat.

Cheers,
 
I just literally just bought this after reading your post. The music is AWESOME and the production is really cool also. I love those snare rolls. Awesome work!
 
I've had a few people ask me more about the guitar sounds via PM, so I thought I'd answer here for the benefit of all.

First of all, good players. Great gear is all good and well, but in the right hands...

To DI the guitars, I used Atlas Pro Audio Juggernaut Twin (by Buzz Audio, NZ). It has switchable input and output trafos, I think I mostly tracked with Nickel input, Nickel or Iron output. Iron in & out on the Les Paul for a super-warm, thick sound. (The nickel trafos give a really clean and smooth sound.) This went into the Cranesong HEDD 192 A/D with a little Triode, a bit more Pentode and about the same Tape processing.

There were quite a few guitars used on this record. Between Kid and Otto, there was a lovely little collection, of which my favourite is probably the custom built 2012 baritone. (TwentyTwelve Guitars is an Australian brand)
As you can hear, that thing has such amazingly crushing, yet tight lows. I think the shining moment for this guitar on the album would be the last track.

The default chain for the standard distorted sounds was Mokafix D-Plus into Poulin LeXTAC (clean channel, poweramp ~90%) into Alu's Framus or 'Diezel V30 SM57 (Soldano HR Poweramp)' IR.
This definitely got tweaked a lot across the record, but it was a good starting point. I think if you can't get a good sound with this chain, then there's something wrong upstream (A/D, preamp, DI, guitar, ...player)

For 3 reasons, it is a damn shame that Mokafix are not currently operating; 1) IMHO, they are easily the best pedals sims ever made, I've never heard anything that comes close to the range of amazing sounds possible with them, 2) SynthEdit is a crummy platform which makes plugins that chew RAM like crazy, 3) It's unlikely they will ever make their way to Mac, which is where I see myself in a year or so.

All the best,
 
that baritone really has some balls!

awesome tone, awesome mix, you did a top job on presenting an awesome band.

thanks for sharing the chain too
 
Hi everyone,

Regarding the unanswered questions in this thread, I haven't abandoned them or changed my mind about sharing information, I'm just very busy at the moment.

I promise there will be answers as soon as I can manage it!

Cheers,
 
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