- Dec 1, 2008
- 896
- 2
- 16
Alright guys, since I learn stuff off this forum every day and have done for a long time I thought I'd give some info back. I'm studying audio engineering in Sweden, and I went to visit Fascination Street Studios last Thursday to see Jens Bogren's studio and learn a bit about how he works. We were there for a few hours, so it'd be impossible for me to sum up everything, but I'll try to share some of the stuff that he shared with me. He's probably my favourite producer at the moment, and I'm quite sure that there are quite a few Bogren admirers on here 
Jens rarely records stuff anymore, he works on one big production a year, and mixes the rest of the time. He built a new studio two years ago, but since he mostly does mixing and mastering nowadays he doesn't have a huge live room. He has a fantastic control room with Barefoot monitors and lots of really, really tasty outboard. The control room and speaker setup sounds very honest and clear, as you would expect. It's specifically designed so that he can do mastering in there as well. He mixes at high volumes. He has a small live room too, which is acoustically treated, and sounds really good. But he usually records drums out of the house, the drums on Soilwork's latest album were recorded in a church!
He pretty much always uses drum bus compression. He uses Waves VComp as the first compressor on the bus to get the transients to pop a little more and he then uses a hardware 1178 to smash the bus. He only recently got his 1178, before that he used a stereo 1176 or some plugin emulation of an 1176.
When he records guitars he doesn't have any standard amp or cab or micing technique. He usually tests several amp heads and he has three cabinets in the studio. A Mesa with V30s, a Marshall(probably with 75s but I didn't ask) and something else which I can't remember. I found his approach to micing quite interesting, he usually puts lots of 57s in front of the cab in random positions, but usually quite close to the centre of the cone. He then compares all of them and chooses his two favourites, at which point he goes in and repositions all the other mics to see if he can get something that sounds even better. After a few times he usually does some fine adjustments, but it seems as if he simply works his way to the best sounding mic placement. When I was there he had two 57s on one cone and a Royer R121 on another cone of a Mesa cab.
We discussed the Waves "noob" plugins, like CLA-drums/bass whatever, and he actually uses them sometimes. If he gets sent tracks to mix that don't sound good, especially vocal tracks with lots of comb filtering going on, he usually tries a few of the "noob" plugins to see if he can get the tracks to sound cool in some unexpected way.
He gave very specific answers to most questions, but it was interesting to see that he didn't really have any golden rules. He just tweaked stuff until it sounded good to him. He uses outboard where he thinks it's necessary and plugins for the rest of his mixing. He didn't have a control surface, he just used a mouse and screen like most of the rest of us. He used to have an SSL 4k in his old studio, but it became too much of a hassle when having to switch between projects. He doesn't listen to metal at all in his spare time, so he didn't follow any specific trends, he just does what sounds good to him. He was not too fond of when everything is clinically edited to the grid.
Some of the stuff that he uses:
Drum bus compression: Waves VComp -> 1178
Vocal compression - LA2A
Reverb and delays - TC System 6000(rarely anything else)
Guitars - He usually tests lots of amps, he's fond of his Road King II, he was pleasantly surprised over how well the JVM410 sounds, and he had GAS for a H&K Triamp, which had won a recent blind test that he had done on the Amon Amarth album. He usually ends up with a single 57 on the cab. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think that he had a 5150.
There were a few things that I forgot to ask him about like his bass processing, but overall I learned quite a bit about his techniques by going there, and I got to meet the man who in my opinion produces some of the best sounding albums in the world. Jens is a really cool guy, and it was amazing to hear him speak about a few of his productions and about how he works. He's going to master a few new Hamferð tracks that I'm working on, I can't wait!
Jens rarely records stuff anymore, he works on one big production a year, and mixes the rest of the time. He built a new studio two years ago, but since he mostly does mixing and mastering nowadays he doesn't have a huge live room. He has a fantastic control room with Barefoot monitors and lots of really, really tasty outboard. The control room and speaker setup sounds very honest and clear, as you would expect. It's specifically designed so that he can do mastering in there as well. He mixes at high volumes. He has a small live room too, which is acoustically treated, and sounds really good. But he usually records drums out of the house, the drums on Soilwork's latest album were recorded in a church!
He pretty much always uses drum bus compression. He uses Waves VComp as the first compressor on the bus to get the transients to pop a little more and he then uses a hardware 1178 to smash the bus. He only recently got his 1178, before that he used a stereo 1176 or some plugin emulation of an 1176.
When he records guitars he doesn't have any standard amp or cab or micing technique. He usually tests several amp heads and he has three cabinets in the studio. A Mesa with V30s, a Marshall(probably with 75s but I didn't ask) and something else which I can't remember. I found his approach to micing quite interesting, he usually puts lots of 57s in front of the cab in random positions, but usually quite close to the centre of the cone. He then compares all of them and chooses his two favourites, at which point he goes in and repositions all the other mics to see if he can get something that sounds even better. After a few times he usually does some fine adjustments, but it seems as if he simply works his way to the best sounding mic placement. When I was there he had two 57s on one cone and a Royer R121 on another cone of a Mesa cab.
We discussed the Waves "noob" plugins, like CLA-drums/bass whatever, and he actually uses them sometimes. If he gets sent tracks to mix that don't sound good, especially vocal tracks with lots of comb filtering going on, he usually tries a few of the "noob" plugins to see if he can get the tracks to sound cool in some unexpected way.
He gave very specific answers to most questions, but it was interesting to see that he didn't really have any golden rules. He just tweaked stuff until it sounded good to him. He uses outboard where he thinks it's necessary and plugins for the rest of his mixing. He didn't have a control surface, he just used a mouse and screen like most of the rest of us. He used to have an SSL 4k in his old studio, but it became too much of a hassle when having to switch between projects. He doesn't listen to metal at all in his spare time, so he didn't follow any specific trends, he just does what sounds good to him. He was not too fond of when everything is clinically edited to the grid.
Some of the stuff that he uses:
Drum bus compression: Waves VComp -> 1178
Vocal compression - LA2A
Reverb and delays - TC System 6000(rarely anything else)
Guitars - He usually tests lots of amps, he's fond of his Road King II, he was pleasantly surprised over how well the JVM410 sounds, and he had GAS for a H&K Triamp, which had won a recent blind test that he had done on the Amon Amarth album. He usually ends up with a single 57 on the cab. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think that he had a 5150.
There were a few things that I forgot to ask him about like his bass processing, but overall I learned quite a bit about his techniques by going there, and I got to meet the man who in my opinion produces some of the best sounding albums in the world. Jens is a really cool guy, and it was amazing to hear him speak about a few of his productions and about how he works. He's going to master a few new Hamferð tracks that I'm working on, I can't wait!
