I've posted some clips of this project in the past, but I'm delivering the masters tomorrow to the band, so I though I'd post a song.
This was a full album project and the band's goal was to keep it from sounding "slick and polished" in their words. The instruments were all recorded in the same room (amps, drums, musicians), set up in a round, 2 guitars, bass and drums.
Vocals were recorded in a iso booth, but the takes were pumped into the band's room via PA.
2 room mics as well as individual mics on both guitarists' amps, mic and DI for the bass, close miking for the drums with OH's.
For the instruments, there are no overdubs, all completely live, so if mistakes were made, the whole group started over.
No click.
Main Vocals were usually doubled - if not the whole song, then parts at least.
Then of course backing and supplemental vocals were overdubbed.
For me, the challenge was to keep it relatively raw, but at the same time keep it suitable for airplay (as the band's last release has seen a bit of airplay on local radio stations).
There's not a lot of EQ tweaks on individual tracks, and not a lot of compression, either...I did use some compression on the drum tracks, and parallel compression off the drum bus. No auto tune, minimal in track mutes/cuts/silence. On some of the songs you can hear them tapping pedals, sliding on strings during breaks, etc. This was to be left in per their request.
Most of the EQ tweaks came in when trying to level out the guitars. Left side is a Marshall JCM 900 with a 1960, right is a Peavey Supreme SS with a Peavey cab, so I did try to match them a little better.
Anyway, I like the mixes overall. I would have preferred a bit more polish, but I'd get called on it if I went "over the top".
I had the Modern Bouncer plugin (SSL style bus comp I believe) on the master bus knocking off maybe a dB, but makeup gain was up a bit to provide a 3dB increase after the comp.
Mastering chain was phase EQ and L2 into a TC Finalizer...Got the tip of using a limiter before the Finalizer from Aaron Smith on here and I liked the result...it's barely doing anything, but I did find it helped even things out going into the finalizer. I pretty much only used the finalizer MB comp with makeup gain adding a bit of volume. From there, back ITB to a couple GClip plugs which did nothing more than add volume and finally another L2 with a 1.5dB threshold. I feel it's definitely loud enough but still dynamic, but it's not nearly as loud as most metal mixes.
Song is called In the Blink of an Eye (if you couldn't guess)
http://geetarguy.tripod.com/In_the_Blink_of_an_Eye.mp3
This was a full album project and the band's goal was to keep it from sounding "slick and polished" in their words. The instruments were all recorded in the same room (amps, drums, musicians), set up in a round, 2 guitars, bass and drums.
Vocals were recorded in a iso booth, but the takes were pumped into the band's room via PA.
2 room mics as well as individual mics on both guitarists' amps, mic and DI for the bass, close miking for the drums with OH's.
For the instruments, there are no overdubs, all completely live, so if mistakes were made, the whole group started over.
No click.
Main Vocals were usually doubled - if not the whole song, then parts at least.
Then of course backing and supplemental vocals were overdubbed.
For me, the challenge was to keep it relatively raw, but at the same time keep it suitable for airplay (as the band's last release has seen a bit of airplay on local radio stations).
There's not a lot of EQ tweaks on individual tracks, and not a lot of compression, either...I did use some compression on the drum tracks, and parallel compression off the drum bus. No auto tune, minimal in track mutes/cuts/silence. On some of the songs you can hear them tapping pedals, sliding on strings during breaks, etc. This was to be left in per their request.
Most of the EQ tweaks came in when trying to level out the guitars. Left side is a Marshall JCM 900 with a 1960, right is a Peavey Supreme SS with a Peavey cab, so I did try to match them a little better.
Anyway, I like the mixes overall. I would have preferred a bit more polish, but I'd get called on it if I went "over the top".
I had the Modern Bouncer plugin (SSL style bus comp I believe) on the master bus knocking off maybe a dB, but makeup gain was up a bit to provide a 3dB increase after the comp.
Mastering chain was phase EQ and L2 into a TC Finalizer...Got the tip of using a limiter before the Finalizer from Aaron Smith on here and I liked the result...it's barely doing anything, but I did find it helped even things out going into the finalizer. I pretty much only used the finalizer MB comp with makeup gain adding a bit of volume. From there, back ITB to a couple GClip plugs which did nothing more than add volume and finally another L2 with a 1.5dB threshold. I feel it's definitely loud enough but still dynamic, but it's not nearly as loud as most metal mixes.
Song is called In the Blink of an Eye (if you couldn't guess)
http://geetarguy.tripod.com/In_the_Blink_of_an_Eye.mp3
