Dan: how was White Darkness recorded?

[Highking]

Dan, I think the sound you get on White Darkness is one of the best production-wise that you've ever gotten.

Can you tell us a bit more about how you got it? What are you using to record on now? Still Nuendo? Preamps? Mics? Mic placement on drums? On acoustic guitars? How do you record your vocals? Which compressors? How do you record the electric guitars? Do your record the bass direct or w/ an amp? What do you mix on? How you do you tend to mix? Do you use a reference CD and if so, what was it for WD?

Sorry for all of the questions--anything you'd want to share would be of great interest to me and other recording nerds.

Best.

 

[Fuentealba]

nice questions, I would love to read about that too

 

[chrisdoig24k]

+1, anything from the Guru himself would be awesome

 

[Mr. Niel]

Email answer from Dan regarding the preamps used on this record:

PRESONUS DIGIMAX (the big one)

FOCUSRITE OCTOPRE with ADAT

BEHRINGER ADA8000 (Mainly trigpulses and other unimportant stuff, like Splash cymbal closemike, used 2 times in 45 min!!)

 

[Dan Swanö]

Howdy folkz...

OK. Here´s a little geektalk
I will try to remember to upload some photos from the session later
Remindification will be needed

OK..

Drums:

We used Tom´s Rockstar Pro with 12" 13" 14" racktoms 16" floortom and double 22" kickdrums
Coated Remo Emperor heads pretty much all over. Pearl Free Floating 14" X 6 ½ brass snare. Cymbals are often Big sizes Zildijan A-custom. I bought an old 24" (!!) Paiste China cymbal the we used for "Hideaway" I think there´s a Wuhan china in there somewhere to. The infamous hihats are a Z mixture, developed for killing small children
The mikes were AKG D112 for kick. Snare was SM57 on top and the bottom a C414 I think.. Rack toms were miked with Audio Technica AT25 and the floortom a Sennheiser MS421 (because I could only find 3 AT25!!) Cymbals were closemiked with Neumann KM184, Rode NT5, AKG C451, AKG C414, Shure SM94. The huuuuuge room was pick up by 2 vintage C414 in omnimode (Thanx to Fascination Jens for the loan and the tip!) The preamps you know.. Insignificant piece of equipment if you ask me. As long as they shut up and don´t get noisy, I have never heard the difference

Bass:

The bass was a Dean with Bartolini pickups, LIne thru the Digimax with a little analog splitband limiting. I only gave a serious knock with the UAD Multibandcompressor in the mix. I that was all. Sounded right from scratch.

Guitar:

The guitars were the Brown Wonder (Ibanez Blazer, early 80 with a DiMarzio Hotstack) for Dag, thru a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier with original cabinet. We used a Maxon Tubescreamer sometimes. Miked with 1 SM57. My guitars were Squier Barytone with EMG81 for a few songs, my Maverick with Tom Anderson pickups for the rest (Now sold to Another Life Andreas!!)

Vocals:

The vocals were track with the "classic Unisound mike" Audio Technica ATM4033. Digimaxpreamp and a 1176 compressor, a Waves DeEsser and some corrective eq with UAD Cambridge. Reverb was Plate 140.
The backing vox at Studio Brun was recorded with a Rode NT1A and DBX 286A preamp.

Add Guitars:

The leads were recorded with Line6 Engl Powerball emulation in the metalpack for PodXt. Some add clean guitars are GuitarRig 2

Synth:

Most synths were Native instruments softsynths, the grand piano is the Reason Piano refill. There is also a bunch of sounds from Korg X5061 and Atmosphere and Steinberg A1 (R.I.P.)

Mix:

Nuendo 2.0
PC with 3.2 ghz (Now replaced with a QuadCore 2.66 ghz Frost PC)+ 3 UAD-1 cards
Genelec 8240 studiomonitors

Dan

 

[Skaldir]

Thanks for the infos! Most welcome.

I think the Toms really sound amazing on this record.
I can't find infos about the AT 25. Is this the real name?
Did you blend the miced sound with another sample or a sample of their own?
It's not very often I like a tom sound. But this one is really special.

 

[Highking]

Howdy folkz...

OK. Here´s a little geektalk
I will try to remember to upload some photos from the session later
Remindification will be needed

OK..

Drums:

We used Tom´s Rockstar Pro with 12" 13" 14" racktoms 16" floortom and double 22" kickdrums
Coated Remo Emperor heads pretty much all over. Pearl Free Floating 14" X 6 ½ brass snare. Cymbals are often Big sizes Zildijan A-custom. I bought an old 24" (!!) Paiste China cymbal the we used for "Hideaway" I think there´s a Wuhan china in there somewhere to. The infamous hihats are a Z mixture, developed for killing small children
The mikes were AKG D112 for kick. Snare was SM57 on top and the bottom a C414 I think.. Rack toms were miked with Audio Technica AT25 and the floortom a Sennheiser MS421 (because I could only find 3 AT25!!) Cymbals were closemiked with Neumann KM184, Rode NT5, AKG C451, AKG C414, Shure SM94. The huuuuuge room was pick up by 2 vintage C414 in omnimode (Thanx to Fascination Jens for the loan and the tip!) The preamps you know.. Insignificant piece of equipment if you ask me. As long as they shut up and don´t get noisy, I have never heard the difference

Bass:

The bass was a Dean with Bartolini pickups, LIne thru the Digimax with a little analog splitband limiting. I only gave a serious knock with the UAD Multibandcompressor in the mix. I that was all. Sounded right from scratch.

Guitar:

The guitars were the Brown Wonder (Ibanez Blazer, early 80 with a DiMarzio Hotstack) for Dag, thru a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier with original cabinet. We used a Maxon Tubescreamer sometimes. Miked with 1 SM57. My guitars were Squier Barytone with EMG81 for a few songs, my Maverick with Tom Anderson pickups for the rest (Now sold to Another Life Andreas!!)

Vocals:

The vocals were track with the "classic Unisound mike" Audio Technica ATM4033. Digimaxpreamp and a 1176 compressor, a Waves DeEsser and some corrective eq with UAD Cambridge. Reverb was Plate 140.
The backing vox at Studio Brun was recorded with a Rode NT1A and DBX 286A preamp.

Add Guitars:

The leads were recorded with Line6 Engl Powerball emulation in the metalpack for PodXt. Some add clean guitars are GuitarRig 2

Synth:

Most synths were Native instruments softsynths, the grand piano is the Reason Piano refill. There is also a bunch of sounds from Korg X5061 and Atmosphere and Steinberg A1 (R.I.P.)

Mix:

Nuendo 2.0
PC with 3.2 ghz (Now replaced with a QuadCore 2.66 ghz Frost PC)+ 3 UAD-1 cards
Genelec 8240 studiomonitors

Dan

Dan--awesome! Thanks for the response.

Some follow up questions:

- The CD says you also did the mastering--what did you use for that? Did you master in the same room you mixed in?

- Guitar...I am amazed that you got the sound on this album w/ just a 57! Great job. You sure there wasn't a 414 mic'ing the room for the guitars as well?

- Also, guitar: how did you do the acoustics?

- Lastly, I remember when we last discussed gear (many years ago), you were really into using AKG K1000's for mixing...why the switch to the Genelecs?

Thanks!!!!

Best wishes.

 

[Highking]

Thanks for the infos! Most welcome.

I think the Toms really sound amazing on this record.
I can't find infos about the AT 25. Is this the real name?
Did you blend the miced sound with another sample or a sample of their own?
It's not very often I like a tom sound. But this one is really special.

Its technically the AT ATM25.

It's probably one of the best mics (in any price range) for toms...the only issue w/ it is that it is the only mic I have seen that varies very widely in its sale price from place to place.

 

[Highking]

Thanks for the infos! Most welcome.

I think the Toms really sound amazing on this record.
I can't find infos about the AT 25. Is this the real name?
Did you blend the miced sound with another sample or a sample of their own?
It's not very often I like a tom sound. But this one is really special.

Its technically the AT ATM25.

It's probably one of the best mics (in any price range) for toms...the only issue w/ it is that it is the only mic I have seen that varies very widely in its sale price from place to place.

 

[Skaldir]

Thanks, I will look for them. I need Tom mics.

- Lastly, I remember when we last discussed gear (many years ago), you were really into using AKG K1000's for mixing...why the switch to the Genelecs?

I think you can't only use headphones for mixing because you need to know how it sounds in a room for the Reverbaration

 

[Kenneth R.]

Bartolini makes amazing pickups

 

[fireangel]

I think you can't only use headphones for mixing because you need to know how it sounds in a room for the Reverbaration

yes, agree, didn´t we speak about it in this forum recently? that you need both studio version and the version of how it sounds on a really crappy car stereo When both is good in their own right, it´s the perfect mix

NP: Bleak - Burns Inside

 

[Highking]

yes, agree, didn´t we speak about it in this forum recently? that you need both studio version and the version of how it sounds on a really crappy car stereo When both is good in their own right, it´s the perfect mix

NP: Bleak - Burns Inside

Yes, of course.

But as Dan will chime in, the AKG K1000s are not *regular* headphones (first off, they retail for $500-1000US).

They are specially designed to sit *off* of your ears (it's like wearing mini-speakers on your head), so that one ear hears what the other ear is hearing (ala speakers), thereby giving you proper depth and bass response.

 

[fireangel]

well, okay, I`m no wizard of technology, so I don´t know all details. The way you describe the headphones, I can understand they are special and give a different sound (even though I was aware Dan uses mega-high-tech-headphones anyways - he told once about them and I would not expect otherwise ) . But even with this construction, can they reproduce how it would sound in a "normal" room?

 

[Highking]

well, okay, I`m no wizard of technology, so I don´t know all details. The way you describe the headphones, I can understand they are special and give a different sound (even though I was aware Dan uses mega-high-tech-headphones anyways - he told once about them and I would not expect otherwise ) . But even with this construction, can they reproduce how it would sound in a "normal" room?

Yes...in fact, they can sound better than a "normal" room since usually normal rooms are not very good for mixing. Most professional mix engineers have special rooms (that are specially treated).

 

[fireangel]

Most professional mix engineers have special rooms (that are specially treated).

I know
I meant something slightly different, but sorry for being unclear I meant that records sound different when listened to later on by normal people in a normal room, different from how the mixing-guy hears them. So I meant that when a record is perfect for headphones, that might not be perfect for "real life conditions".


btw, since here is tech-talk, I recently came across another phenomenon. I know that mp3s are reduced quality and so on, not the same as a song on CD.
For some bands, when I listen to their songs on myspace, I can still hear whether something is brilliant or not, and how the singer is and everything, and my impression gets confirmed by the CD when I buy it (and/ or the live gigs).
For some other bands, they sound boring and lame on myspace, however, I recently got to listen to the same songs from a stereo, and I thought, "whew, a brilliant band, I like that! Why didn´t I hear it that way before?"

Usually, for "normal" (death/melo-death) metal bands, the mp3s give a good impression.
For rock-metal bands and for Black Metal, impressions often are very wrong, especially the more rock-oriented metal bands sound way more boring than they really are. Prog-stuff is somewhere in the middle, can´t really say.

So why is it that in this condensated format, sometimes the magic is still there and other times not? Depending on the frequencies of the music?
Should songs be mixed in a different way for mp3s?

 

[chrisdoig24k]

Myspace has a 10mb limit on the mp3, so mine are all in 128kb/s, which is nasty.

 

[Mr. Niel]

Different mp3 rippers make different sounding mp3's.

You could rip the same song at a low bitrate like 128 with two different rippers and one might sound better than the other.

Myspace is also very very weird about their upload limits and stream conversions...I've had some of my stuff converted to 96kbps after I uploaded it even though it was under the upload limit.

Back on topic here:

@Dan, you don't find that preamps are all that important?

 

[karpsmom]

Wow this is awesome info for Dan to share!!!

 

[chrisdoig24k]

I'm interested in how you got the verse vocals in Hideaway? They sound really thin, and I love it!