Hello Neil! Thank you for doing this, I have a lot of respect for you, man!
I didn't realize you did this one until I stumbled upon this thread!
A few questions I have: You said you quad-tracked guitars. That really says something about the competence of these players! WOW! These were the main "rhythm" tracks, specifically? How were they panned in the mix, if you'd be so kind? Did you change the imaging much during the course of the record, if at all for any special effect or anything? I too am very impressed with the sound you got with a single SM57, but I bet the blend of 4 performances per side really helps thicken things up and using one mic would eliminate phase problems (is this your thinking?) and track-counts.
What was your approach for the OH and ambiance for the drums on this record? Any room or distant-micing going on?
(really sorry if this was answered already) Where was this tracked? As in, what studio, or was it a "remote" session in the band jam-room type-thing? Tape or Digital? (If digital) What AD converters (or interfaces) were used on the front-end? You said tracking was about 2 weeks @ 16 hours per day, do you recall what was allocated for setup (tuning, getting sounds, headphone mixes, etc...), then actual tracking of drums, bass, guitars, vocals (and of course all the "other" elements going on!) during that duration? Was there much comping going on, or do you punch-in mainly for any possible flubs? I imagine these cats were pretty on their game nevertheless! That's a good amount of time, so I am curious how you guys spent and best utilized it all!
What mic(s) were used for the vocals? Dynamic processing going on for tracking of those? Hardware used?
Also, did you have much/any parallel processing going on during the mix (compression or otherwise)? What's your approach to summing things on the console? How much time did you spend on the mix, roughly? Do you have much revision work normally, or do the bands take what you give them? I'm interested to hear how you deal with mix-downs. Oh yeah, do you use any 2-bus processing when you mix death metal, or do you leave that for mastering?
Thank you so much for your valuable information and time!!!
(OMG, I just realized there are 1,000 questions here, sorrY!! - I just enjoy hearing how other pro AE's deal with DM productions!)
-Geoff
