Studio Pass: Kurt Ballou - Free 2-day course [Live Streaming Now!]

[Sweetnothing]

- Manually strip silencing the tom hits, then duplicating them, HP one and LP the other. Extend the HP'ed one to give a longer more natural decay to the hit without annoying cymbal bleed.

He extended the copy of the bottom mic tracks only, lowpassing them and keeping the top mics hipassed to keep the attack I think? It's been just 4 days and my old mind starts to be doubtful about it haha

I don't know, I loved the second day, everything sounded soooo pissed off but under control. He's just great for that.

 

[AzzaDutt]

He extended the copy of the bottom mic tracks only, lowpassing them and keeping the top mics hipassed to keep the attack I think? It's been just 4 days and my old mind starts to be doubtful about it haha

I don't know, I loved the second day, everything sounded soooo pissed off but under control. He's just great for that.

Welp, I wrote "HP'ed" when I meant LP'ed when talking about the extended track. I blame being ill

He split the tom tracks by duplicating them and putting a lo pass on the one and a hipass on the other. This way he could extend the lo, resonance of the toms without the brutal cymbal bleed.

There's the better description from earlier in the thread.

His mix sounded really nice. It's definitely given me a kick up the ass to try to process tracks to tape a lot more than I do.

 

[C_F_H_13]

Kind of off topic but having only really ever listened to jane doe and a few other converge songs, what would you guys say is Kurt's best production he's done?

Havn't listened to almost anything he does and now I'm pretty curious.

 

[Manicompression]

Young Widows is the band your thinking of, he also did one of their studio albums, very cool stuff. The Converge record Axe to Fall is probably my favorite production of his. I would add Doomriders black thunder to the list to check out, the bass is massive. Cave In untill your heart stops is a super old production of his but it stands up pretty well still.

 

[Seizure.]

That is also what I took from it. I think I struggle with attack and release settings on distorted guitar. On drums,vocals, bass etc. I have no issues but, on distorted guitar I always seem lose something when I compress. I will have to keep playing around with guitar bus compression.

http://weslachot.com/pub16.html

he uses a massey l2007

 

[~BURNY~]

Kind of off topic but having only really ever listened to jane doe and a few other converge songs, what would you guys say is Kurt's best production he's done?

Havn't listened to almost anything he does and now I'm pretty curious.

Definitely the three last Converge albums and the first Kvelertak, All Pigs Must Die, last Toxic Holocaust, Lewd Acts, Trap Them, The Secret, Disfear...

 

[JeffTD]

Here's where I'm confused... he has SO much money in gear and studio space, but there's no way that the bands he's in/works with have the budget that would prop that kind of environment up on their own. Is he independently wealthy? Loans/debt out the ass?

 

[C_F_H_13]

Here's where I'm confused... he has SO much money in gear and studio space, but there's no way that the bands he's in/works with have the budget that would prop that kind of environment up on their own. Is he independently wealthy? Loans/debt out the ass?

Well this might have a little to do with it:

"In the late 1990s, Kurt Ballou was working as a biomedical engineer when his then project got cancelled. Instead of selecting a different position within the same company that he had worked with for six years, Ballou opted to receive a severance package which he used to build his own recording studio"

Not saying that in any way funded all of it, but I'm sure it was a good jump start. I'm also going to guess that he's like everyone else and does a lot of nameless work on the side.

 

[DavePiatek]

Here's where I'm confused... he has SO much money in gear and studio space, but there's no way that the bands he's in/works with have the budget that would prop that kind of environment up on their own. Is he independently wealthy? Loans/debt out the ass?

I seem to remember reading an article/interview with him at some point where he talked about how he got started. From what I remember, he had a swanky job as some kind of biomedical engineer before Converge got huge. His company downsized and gave him a sweet severance package. He put it into the studio and ate Ramen noodles for a long time. I seem to remember him saying that the Converge stuff pays his bills and he gets medical insurance from the musicians union or something. I might be mis-remembering some stuff though.

 

[JeffTD]

Oh yeah, I didn't mean to deride him or anything, was just legitimately curious. That's fucking cool and I 100% back what he did.

 

[Rhorschack]

Been at his studio twice to have my band's records mixed and his outboard collection is indeed massive. He's not using much plugins except some fairly conventional effects here and there, or some surgical eq's.

He's also super fast and never loses perspective even after hours of non-stop mixing. Last time I went at Godcity (back in december 2009) we booked him for seven days. I was producing the record and after two days he had perfectly nailed what I was aiming for soundwise and each time I was giving him some indications regarding the mix/production he kept telling me he was already ten steps ahead, which was absolutely true.

He went so fast we ended with a day off and he managed to get the mix 99% close to what I envisionned.

Truly a master at what he does and he keeps evolving and pushing his mixing boundaries further. Just compare the latest High On Fire, Nails, Kvelertak or Beastmilk albums. Completely different flavours.

 

[mva801]

Oh yeah, I didn't mean to deride him or anything, was just legitimately curious. That's fucking cool and I 100% back what he did.

About two posts above where you asked about it, Seizure had already posted a link to that interview where he explains everything.

Pretty big leap for him. Sounds like he did take on a lot of debt and put in some serious man hours to get it off the ground. He's really good at what he does. Doomriders stuff is amazing. The last Black Breath record he did is insanely well mixed.

He manages to get everything so huge without sounding too processed.

 

[Rhorschack]

He manages to get everything so huge without sounding too processed.

It's processed quite a bit, but he knows how to keep it wild and organic.