- Dec 25, 2009
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Asked him a couple questions and here is what he told me for any of you that are interested.
If you have not heard of his music, then do yourself a favor and go listen NOW!
http://www.myspace.com/cloudkicker
1. What is your guitar chain?
*Guitar -> Vox Tonelab -> PreSonus Firebox -> Computer. *The Firebox has a software-based mixer.
2. What do you use for your tone?*See above--and I don't have the floor/pedal Tonelab, it's just a box <http://www.chrisguitars.com/vox-tonelab-071129.jpg> *that sits on my desk. *Apparently they don't make it anymore but I'm sure the newer ones are exactly the same. *I add a little bit of eq--just to clean up the tone and get it to sit well in the mix (see attached picture)--and a touch of reverb in Logic Express but I try to get the tone as close as possible to what I want it to be before I record it.
3. *How do you process your instruments? For the lead bass it's only EQ--if I'm using a clean bass tone I'll compress it for extra punch--and lead guitars only EQ and reverb. *Ambient tracks are nothing too fancy, *a little more high end gain on the EQ to help it stand out (depending on how many layers I'm using I might cut a little bit of the low end--below about 250-500 hz--to not clutter the mix up) and a stereo delay with a reverb send to give it that kind of wishy-washy "huge space" feeling. *Sometimes I'll get fancy and experiment with other effects but 90% of the time it's pretty straight-forward.
4. *What drums do you use in superior?
These pieces:
Snare - Slangerland 70s
Kick - 18x22 GMS
Clear Head toms
Some other stuff
Check out the third attached image for what the drum sends look like. *Notice at the end of the chain I send the entire "Drums" track to a "Comp" effects bus. *Check out this great article about parallel drum compression <http://www.benvesco.com/blog/mixing/2007/phat-drums-new-york-style-parallel-compression-part-1/> . *His website has great info about drum mixing, it really helped me understand how to mix drums and how to really give them their own space in the recording. *Here's one on snare eq and compression <http://www.benvesco.com/blog/mixing/2007/mix-recipes-snare-drum-eq-and-compression/#more-188> ,*kick eq and compression <http://www.benvesco.com/blog/mixing/2007/mix-recipes-kick-drum-eq-and-compression/> , etc. *Definitely mess around with the stuff he talks about.
*Something new I'm doing this time is compressing the crap out of the room mics (see pic). *This really helps bring out the decay of the cymbals in the mix, which I think adds a lot more energy without sacrificing loudness by compressing everything else too much.
There. *Hope I didn't overload you. *New release is almost done by the way!
-Ben
If you have not heard of his music, then do yourself a favor and go listen NOW!
http://www.myspace.com/cloudkicker
1. What is your guitar chain?
*Guitar -> Vox Tonelab -> PreSonus Firebox -> Computer. *The Firebox has a software-based mixer.
2. What do you use for your tone?*See above--and I don't have the floor/pedal Tonelab, it's just a box <http://www.chrisguitars.com/vox-tonelab-071129.jpg> *that sits on my desk. *Apparently they don't make it anymore but I'm sure the newer ones are exactly the same. *I add a little bit of eq--just to clean up the tone and get it to sit well in the mix (see attached picture)--and a touch of reverb in Logic Express but I try to get the tone as close as possible to what I want it to be before I record it.
3. *How do you process your instruments? For the lead bass it's only EQ--if I'm using a clean bass tone I'll compress it for extra punch--and lead guitars only EQ and reverb. *Ambient tracks are nothing too fancy, *a little more high end gain on the EQ to help it stand out (depending on how many layers I'm using I might cut a little bit of the low end--below about 250-500 hz--to not clutter the mix up) and a stereo delay with a reverb send to give it that kind of wishy-washy "huge space" feeling. *Sometimes I'll get fancy and experiment with other effects but 90% of the time it's pretty straight-forward.
4. *What drums do you use in superior?
These pieces:
Snare - Slangerland 70s
Kick - 18x22 GMS
Clear Head toms
Some other stuff
Check out the third attached image for what the drum sends look like. *Notice at the end of the chain I send the entire "Drums" track to a "Comp" effects bus. *Check out this great article about parallel drum compression <http://www.benvesco.com/blog/mixing/2007/phat-drums-new-york-style-parallel-compression-part-1/> . *His website has great info about drum mixing, it really helped me understand how to mix drums and how to really give them their own space in the recording. *Here's one on snare eq and compression <http://www.benvesco.com/blog/mixing/2007/mix-recipes-snare-drum-eq-and-compression/#more-188> ,*kick eq and compression <http://www.benvesco.com/blog/mixing/2007/mix-recipes-kick-drum-eq-and-compression/> , etc. *Definitely mess around with the stuff he talks about.
*Something new I'm doing this time is compressing the crap out of the room mics (see pic). *This really helps bring out the decay of the cymbals in the mix, which I think adds a lot more energy without sacrificing loudness by compressing everything else too much.
There. *Hope I didn't overload you. *New release is almost done by the way!
-Ben
