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Poncho & Lefty Final Mix

Mixing this song was a bit of a challenge for me personally, because I have a very limited amount of experience when it comes to fully acoustic instrumentation. I started this mix by giving the drums a little of subtractive EQ by taking out 800Hz on everything to get ahead of the muddiness. From there I applied light compression to the kick-out (I didn’t use kick in on this mix at all) using the BF76. I came at it with a slow attack and a slightly faster release and a ratio of 4:1. I didn’t want to take away from the natural sound of the kick drum, I more so just wanted to accentuate its punch and transient. I then boosted around 7K to give the kick some high end-definition. 

After working on the kick, I moved on to working on the snare. On the snare I did a small amount of deductive EQ, doing some clean-up and then boosted around 250 to give the snare some body. After finishing up my EQ, I applied essentially the same attack and release settings as the kick, but pushed a little harder on the input. 

From there I applied a high pass filter to the hi-hat and ride tracks and left them at a lower volume, mostly because the cymbals were used primarily as an accent instrument, that only happen a handful of times. 

In terms of time-based effects for the drums, I sent only the snare drum to a D-Verb send, with it set to a medium hall with a decay of 1 second. I also set the HF Cut at 15.10Hz to shave off a little bit of the super sparkly high end. 

When moving onto bass guitar, I knew I wanted it to be essentially a low-end heavy bass to fill up the sonic spectrum of the entire mix because there are so many sparkly and picking type sounds. So I pocketed the bass guitar with the kick drum in the EQ, and applied a BF76 compressor with a ratio of 8:1, and a fast attack and slow release to flatten out the dynamic range of the bass guitar so that it stays consistent and strong throughout the whole track in order to tighten up the rhythm section. 

The acoustic guitars is where I had the most trouble in finding a sound that I felt super comfortable with. I started by taking 800 Hz out almost entirely, and cutting at 4.45K as well. I then applied my compression before my additive EQ. I used the Dyn3 compressor with a 3.5:1 ratio, with a slow attack and a little bit quicker of a release. I then added my additional EQ with a boost at about 5.5K using the Focusrite Red2 EQ. I then added a Softube Saturation Knob plug-in, setting it to the “keep high” setting and giving it a little bit of a boost to give the guitars a little more up front and live energy. I then sent the guitars to the same reverb I sent the snare drum to, in order to create a common space feeling. 

Finally, I spent a good minute on the main vocal in order to satisfy my standard as to where the vocals should sit in a recording of this nature. I started off by taking out 800 and boosting 250 and 7.41K with a shelf. I did this to try and work against Gage’s naturally bright voice. I knew he needed some high-end sparkle but not much below that needed to be boosted until it came to having a lack of body, which is why I ended up doing about a 1.6 dB boost at 250. 

From there I added a Focusrite Red3 compressor with a ratio set at 2:1, and a faster attack and slow release. I also have the make-up gain turned up a bit to give the vocals a little more energy, since he is singing rather delicately. From then I added in the AIR Enhancer plugin to give the vocals some high-end harmonic generation. In terms of verb, I knew the vocals would need their own verb to give it its own characteristics. I sent it to a Softube TSAR-R1 reverb plug in set to a 0.99 second tail. However, i wasn’t immediately satisfied and I believed that there was too much muddy low-end happening. So I put a 1-band EQ in front of the reverb plug-in and set a high-pass filter to 116.4 Hz to clean up that lower end. 

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(WalkerAtkinson)

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(WalkerAtkinson) 410G Tracking Session - Pancho and Lefty

Our session with Gage Cottle was an extremely enjoyable time for us. Gage is an extremely talented musician who does a whole slew of songwriting in his free time. He decided to do a cover of the popularly re-done tune, “Pancho and Lefty”, originally written and recorded by Townes Van Zandt. We started of our session by laying down an acoustic guitar track. We used a stereo miking technique known as the vertical space-pair in front of the sound-hole on the guitar using two U87′s. From there we ran those through the Focusrite preamps to utilize their super transparent and clean output. 

The drums were a very interesting set up. Using only a kick, snare, hats, and a ride cymbal, Gage channeled the sound of the outlaw country guys with very nice precision, especially since he used light brushes on the kit. We decided to go for a more tight sound, however, by double-miking the kit with a Beta-52 as a kick-in which was then sent through the UA preamp on the tube setting to pick up that harmonic content, and an EV RE20 as a kick-out sent through the focusrite for its clean properties. For the snare we went with an AKG-214 to pick up more of the light and crisp frequencies coming from the brushes. We then ran that signal through the vintech preamps to give it a little bit of character but not so much that it would be over the top or too boomy. We also did the same thing with our cymbal microphones, which were KM184′s. 

After recording drums we recorded bass through DI into the Shadow Hills, because Shadow Hills, and then through the distressor. This was a great decision, the bass had an extremely nice low end response to it without being too much, which was exactly what we were trying to go for. After finishing bass we did a number of vocal tracks recorded with a U87 through the manley and the chandler to fatten up the vocals a little to have a strong point to start from. 

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(WalkerAtkinson) 

In terms of how these microphones ended up sounding on Andy’s voice, it was a very interesting experiment. The SM57 came off being very flat, with not much character to it. Which this is great for post-production EQ work, because you start off with a very blank slate essentially and get to add your own character to the recording. The Re20 was a strange outcome, you could really hear the proximity effect of the microphone more than any other microphone in the shootout. The U87 essentially sounded like the SM57 but with a lot more character on both ends of the frequency spectrum. It had a little more low end boost, and just enough crispness on the higher end of things that made his voice sound more live and present. With the Schoepps, I had a very similar result. It was a little bright, but that was expected. However, since the mic was going through the Manley preamp, its low end was a little accentuated (even with a hi-pass at 120 Hz).

I recently ran a microphone shootout session in Studio F at Capital University with a very talented hip-hop vocalist, Andy Salend to experiment with various different types of microphone that are available to use in that space. I decided to primarily center my focus in on vocals because I haven’t had as much experience with doing just vocals in a session, so it was a nice learning curve to have that experience of experimenting with different microphones through the gear of Studio F

Before getting myself actually into the studio and familiar with the workflow of the space, I did some research into some techniques for tracking hip-hop vocals. According to an article posted by discmakers (http://blog.discmakers.com/2014/01/producing-great-hip-hop-vocals/) one key to tracking a solid take from the your vocalist is to make sure that you have your artist placed in a dry environment, which I most definitely found myself applying to my shootout. I placed Andy in the smallest iso booth with his left side facing me and his voice being directed into the smallest corner of the room to avoid glass reflections. The other tip that I came across that I ended up using carefully is the “compress with caution” guideline. (http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/the_tradecraft_of_recording_vocals/’)  A lot of times with hip-hop vocals, they can either be very monotone or very dynamic, so it’s better to play it safe so as not to over-compress the vocals and unintentionally create an overly “breathy” effect. With this in mind, I was careful not to push the Chandler Germanium too hard by keeping the ratio right around 3:1, and the curve set to the “Germ Soft” setting.

Once I had my preamp and compressor levels set-up, I had my microphones ready to go. I decided to divide my different mics up between dynamic and condensers. I eventually decided to experiment with an SM57, EV Re20, Neumann U87, and the small diaphragm condenser from Andrew Schoepps. The SM57 is generally a go-to microphone for a flat response and is often used on instruments such as snare drums and electric guitar amps. The EV Re20 is known most widely as a radio broadcast microphone, with a lower presence peak to focus in on the depth of an individual’s voice. The Nuemann U87 is sort of the “big gun” in the world of recording as a large diaphragm condenser that works beautifully for many different instruments. And last but not least, the Andrew Schoepps small diaphragm condenser, which typically is used on acoustic guitars or overheads.

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Dante Certification

I completed my Audinate Dante Level One Certification recently, and was very impressed with everything that I learned in the process. It really almost makes too much sense to create a networking system for the transfer of audio with cabling as simple as ethernet. Since the audio is being converted from analog to digital, it really is only data that is passing through, so it really simplifies the setup of a system by a very substantial margin. I was very impressed with the design of the software. Some of the perks that caught my attention were all of the automatic capabilities of Dante, including the immediate compatibility with any device that is connected, or subscribed, to the Dante software. It’s also great that the audio passing through via the ethernet is uncompressed. I would assume that a process as simple as Dante’s would make that ease available by compressing the audio going in, but the fact that it isn’t is even better so you can properly deal with waveforms in their raw forms. I did also learn that even though audio is passable via ethernet cables, they are not compatible with WiFi of any sort due to the latency that would occur from the lack of a physical connection or medium. Overall my experience learning Dante was a positive experience that helped me apply some knowledge I already had to a more specific application of that knowledge to create more efficient system setups for audio. 

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Music, A Way of Life.

You’ll very seldom find yourself in a situation where some kind of music or harmony isn’t being created. It can be the sound of somebody walking down a hallway, somebody tapping a pencil on a desk, a couple birds mimicking one another’s voices, or even something as simple as the person in front of you in line humming a song they heard on the radio that morning. Music is literally all around us at all times. I spend a vast majority of my time making rhythmic and melodic sense of the objects and happenings around me. It can be a blessing and a curse. It comes in handy when you’re stuck with nothing to do, because all of a sudden you have all of these various subjects to center your focus on, and before you know it, an hour has passed and you’re still sitting in the same spot. On the contrary, there are times when it works against me. I have been sitting in an exam for a class and very unexpectedly figured out that I was staring at the wall trying to come up with a new drum set groove in my head rather than taking my test. 

The bottom line is that if you get into music, it will often engulf most aspects of your life, seemingly at times being the only thing you’ll find yourself thinking about. Whether it’s your favorite song at that time, or a melody that popped into your head during biology class, it could be anything. 

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The Story So Far

Just this past weekend I went and saw one of my favorite bands for the first time in a venue that was more personal, since I had only seen them from a far distance at The Vans Warped Tour. It was definitely an experience to remember. The Story So Far is known for their extremely angsty and bitter lyrics, mostly surrounding a break-up. Since I was in high school once and went through all the stages of the crappy break-up experience I always loved their lyrical content, but also I absolutely love the energy the band produces sonically. Almost all their music has some sort of backbeat centered, high-energy feel to it. Most of their songs are quicker in their tempos so it’s very hard to listen to them, let alone watch them, without your heart-rate increasing. One thing I love specifically is their rhythm section. The drummer and bassist have such a unique tightness with one another that the band has this punchy feel to them that’s hard to not enjoy. What impressed me even more was that they maintain their syncopation with one another in a live setting as well. As a performing drummer, I love and appreciate that kind of attention to detail very much. A lot of bands fall short of their recordings live because they either polish them up too much in the studio, or they don’t rehearse enough to be up to par with their recordings. It’s obvious to me that they spend quite a bit of time playing music with one another. Overall, the concert was very enjoyable. The band was killing their set, and the crowd was just as equally into the music as they were. I have never seen so many stage dives in my whole life. I saw quite a few bloody noses as well on the way out. Like I said, this is some heart-rate changing music in a very peculiar fashion. I very much would recommend going to see a performance by The Story So Far at some point if ever given the chance. Nothing beats watching really talented individuals do what they do best and watching them love ever second of it. 

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Hickory or Oak? That is the real question.

Recently, I’ve come upon the dilemma as a drummer of what type of sticks to play with. Not many people know this, but there are a HUGE variety of drumsticks to choose from. You can buy drumsticks with endless combinations of wood types, lengths, widths, and weights. I realized after a few years of playing as a rather heavy hitter, that I would need something that would be able to take the beating I give my drums on a day to day basis. I started doing my research and found through various blogs and informational pages that oak was the densest and heaviest wood. So, naturally I figured that oak drumsticks were the way to go for me. After purchasing a pair of Pro-Mark’s Shira Kashi Oak 5B drumsticks, I learned that the balance of the sticks was less than stellar and after about 45 minutes of continuous playing they began to give my hands some significant discomfort. Subsequently, I was not satisfied. I began to venture into other options. I decided instead of picking drumsticks based on their wood types and weight, I should research what other drummers in the genre that I play in use. I decided to look into what type of sticks my biggest influence, Michael Kennedy, uses. Kennedy plays drums in the indie alternative group The Wonder Years and like me, hits way too hard when he plays. I discovered that Kennedy plays the Vater Power 5B model which is made of hickory. I finally ended up buying a pair and giving them a shot. I ended up LOVING these sticks and everything about them. Their balance is perfect along with their lighter feeling that allows you to play quicker without straining your wrist muscles. A lot of times you can end up researching something a little bit too much. Sometimes all you need is a recommendation from someone you can connect with in someway. 

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https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&authuser=0&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1240&bih=617&q=vater+power+5b&oq=vater+power&gs_l=img.1.1.0l2j0i8i30l2j0i24l5.804.3416.0.5275.12.11.0.0.0.0.197.933.0j7.7.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..5.7.932.1zJq5vS-EB0#hl=en&authuser=0&tbm=isch&q=michael+kennedy+the+wonder+years&imgrc=XvDDT4nQWJBN_M%3A