Collective questions for Mr. Sneap -thread

[::XeS::]

Thanks for all your answers Andy...we missed you and all your informations
Do you still work with megadeth right now or do you have new works to do?
About Exodus: Did you only track in their reharseal (and mixed at your place) or did you do everything there?
Finally: Do you live in the same farm where you have the studio? Do you own it?

 

[Lasse Lammert]

Here's another one:
I do love the MH CS on drums (and other sources)...
I think it's really versatile and just by switching through the different settings (smooth, earm, fast) you'll get a variety of usable sounds.
what setting do you you prefer on drums (not talking about atk and rel etc but about the three characteristivs the plugin provides)?

(my guess would be "smooth"...at least that's what I'm prefering for drums atm..."warm" if I have to control transients and dynamics more)

I find smooth can fatten the snare nicely, I tend to go with the warm setting so I get that pop on the front end.

 

[DominikJW]

Whoohaa, Yamaha Subkick? How does that work with a bass cab?

Shit that things huge! I've seen it in a MusicTown catalog but I didn't realize it's that big

And Andy, thanks for your time and answering so many questions! Many kudos to ahjteam too for making and taking care of this thread!

 

[krokit]

Hey Andy what I'd love to know is: What albums do you use as a reference when you're mixing?

Peace









www.myspace.com/deadrival

 

[Soundlurker]

Hey Andy what I'd love to know is: What albums do you use as a reference when you're mixing?

+1
Also do you use references from early on in the mixing process or only after you're happy with the mix you got without references.

 

[Gomez]

Andy,

I understand you master your own records. What do you think about DIY mastering vs taking you mixes to an ME/mastering suite?

Thanks in advance. Really cool of you to answer all this questions.

 

[Aaron Smith]

There was a thread on gearslutz in 2004 where a guy was asking about why his kick drums and snares sometimes get swallowed up by mastering engineers, and Andy had this to say:

This used to happen to me all the time, I'd get my mixes back and it would be so slammed the dynamics would be inside out!!! As soon as you start brickwalling the mix, it's the kick and snare that'll suffer first. I went out, got myself a finalizer and mixed through that, so I'm actually listening to my final master when mixing.

"finalizer, oh my god" I hear you cry, well, put it this way, I've had stuff mastered all over the world, through god knows how many $$$ of gear and I still get better results doing it myself, through this, crazy but true,( I do keep it all in the digital domain)

I imagine he's still basically got the same mindset. Ted Jensen is one of the better guys out there when it comes to mastering dense mixes like metal, but even he can be hit and miss, because I remember Andy being kind of bummed about Ted's "Resurrection" mastering job...

 

[MetalJonesy]

the finalizer is a great bit of kit, i used to use one all the time at my old studio, and they cost too much for me to get in my current situation, cant wait to get using it again, really, really great piece of gear

 

[NickL]

the grinding noise on Doomsday was some ship that cleans the bottom of the harbour in Halmstad, Sweden, Daniel recorded it, sounds great doesnt it.

Yes, it sounds very cool! I was actually expecting it to be more than one thing layered, it has a bizarre character. Mega points on the megadeth pictures.

 

[ahjteam]

Whoohaa, Yamaha Subkick? How does that work with a bass cab?

Sennheiser e901 + DIY subkick and some slight processing (which is pretty equivalent to the Andy beta91 + Yamaha subkick): http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/2008/kicktest-02.wav

Individual tracks (samples 1 and 4): http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/2008/kicktest-01.wav

 

[kev]

Thanks for all your answers Andy...we missed you and all your informations
Do you still work with megadeth right now or do you have new works to do?
About Exodus: Did you only track in their reharseal (and mixed at your place) or did you do everything there?
Finally: Do you live in the same farm where you have the studio? Do you own it?

He lives at the farm (to the best of my knowledge )

 

[ahjteam]

Oh yeah, and 3 more questions:

- Do you usually use just ears when mixing or do you heavily rely on spectrum analyzers (and which one do you use? Waves PAZ?) and what do you use to measure the RMS of your songs?
- What delay plugins do you use?
- Do you have a custom preset on the finalizer that you always use or is it something you tweak with every project? What kind of settings do you use?
- and +1 to the "what do you use as reference when mixing"?

I've used an analyzer in studios before but I just trust my ears normally, I use a waves meter to measure RMS.
Delay plugins are usually just the standard digidelays and echo farm.

I have a rough setting on the finalizer I go to then tweak from there.

 

[GuitarHack]

Might be pushing my luck with another question, but anyway.........

Do you ever EQ or HP/LP a Guitar DI before sending out to the amp?

Thanks.

 

[ahjteam]

And another question came into mind... When you are tracking drums (and actually everything in general), how hot do you track them? How loud are the loudest peaks?

common sense really, so its not clipping but a good level.

 

[Dom Ostarig]

Thanks again mr. Sneap, but i have more questions again, sorry...

There's any kind of sound that you think we can't get with digital recording???
In your opinion, which was your last big step to become the engineer you are???
Do you use sidechain compression??? Where?

 

[KeithTidd]

what's your favorite sandwich? I'm partial to pastrami.

 

[~BURNY~]

How do you deal with cold, flu, ear infections and such when you're in rush?


This thread is out of control...haha

 

[gabriel g.]

1.I hope he goes to a doctor when he is ill

Mr. Sneap is there a band you always want to work with but never had the chance?
Like Metallica, Slayer.......

 

[Joematthews]

How do you deal with cold, flu, ear infections and such when you're in rush?

+1

Joe

 

[ahjteam]

How do you deal with cold, flu, ear infections and such when you're in rush?

After I gave this one a thought, I'll give it a +1. Because if the band has a reservation for 3 weeks and you have a flu for two weeks from that time, you still have to work right?