Andrew Scheps Mixing Ziggy Marley All Analog
02h 04min
(85)
Mixing "Fly Rasta" 100% Analog with 2 Neve 8068 Consoles
Grammy Award winning mixing engineer Andrew Scheps mixes the song “Fly Rasta” by the amazing Ziggy Marley using exclusively hardware equipment.
This is the way records used to be made and it is a truly exceptional learning opportunity for all aspiring producers and engineers. Even if you don’t have access to analog gear like Andrew’s remember it’s not about the gear, it’s about the vision you bring and techniques you use - that’s the key to a successful mix.
In this 2-hour tutorial Andrew Scheps mixes Ziggy Marley across his twin analog Neve 8068 consoles explaining all his decisions, sharing his signature rear bus parallel compression concept and using the best vintage gems from his world-famous wall of gear.
This video is a deep dive into the world of analog, see and hear compression and equalization techniques as Andrew demonstrates his unique workflows that will be truly inspiring to all engineers.
This tutorial is best complemented by Andrew Scheps Mixing Ziggy Marley In The Box - see how he mixes the same song but this time entirely inside of Pro Tools. Compare the two mixes then download the stems from Andrew's session and mix your own!
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Once logged in, you will be able to click on those chapter titles and jump around in the video.
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:56 - The Neve 8068 Console
- 03:41 - Preparing the Sesssion
- 23:15 - Patching Outboard
- 34:56 - Outboard Overview
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:2 - Mixing on Analog Console
- 05:22 - Drums
- 21:12 - Bass
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:2 - Guitars & Keyboards
- 07:14 - 2-Bus Processing in Pro Tools
- 09:27 - Rebalancing
- 14:52 - Percussions
- 19:26 - Horns
- 20:53 - Managing Headroom
- 23:27 - Background Vocals
- 26:42 - Lead Vocals
- 32:04 - Rebalancing the Full Mix
- 37:32 - Automation
- 49:20 - Conclusion
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
00:00:08
Good morning children, welcome back to
Punkerpad West in Van Nuys, California.
00:00:12
I'm Andrew Scheps and today we are
going to mix a song called Fly Rasta
by Ziggy Marley, of his last
album, also called Fly Rasta.
00:00:21
In a previous video you may have seen
us mix this song completely in the box.
00:00:25
Today we're going
to do the opposite.
00:00:27
We're gonna mix it
out of the box.
00:00:29
We're still gonna be using Pro Tools
as a playback device,
I didn't bother transferring
this one to tape.
00:00:35
And we're gonna do a little bit
of processing inside of Pro Tools
because there are some things
that I'll always do inside the computer
rather than try and
recreate them outside.
00:00:44
But the bulk of the mix is gonna
be done on a Neve 8068 console,
it's two of them actually,
because I'm greedy.
00:00:52
We're gonna be using tons of
analog outboard gear,
which we're gonna
patch up in a second,
but before we go over the patchbay
I just want to describe the console
so you have some idea of
what it is we're working on.
00:01:02
The Neve 8068 is probably the most
flexible of the Class A/Class AB consoles
that were made up until
right around 1980.
00:01:12
The main console that
I have in front of me
is from 1979 and
the satellite console,
which is just next door, is from 1980.
00:01:21
It is a 16 bus console.
00:01:23
There are 8 sends, so that's 2 more
than an SSL, if you are keeping score.
00:01:28
There are 4 mono sends
and 2 stereo sends
and you can switch them
pre and post, very flexible.
00:01:34
It was meant to be used as
a split console while recording.
00:01:37
So you had a microphone input
that would go through half of the sends
and go up to the busses
through the fader.
00:01:44
And then you would have the
tape return, going to a knob
and hit the monitor section
which is quad monitor section,
and you'd have four sends.
00:01:52
The mark 2 version of this console has
a fantastic mode called Remix Mode.
00:01:57
It basically just gives you one input
per channel that hits all 8 sends,
all 16 busses and the Quad Bus.
00:02:04
So, one signal goes everywhere.
00:02:06
The only limitation of these consoles
is that there's one line input per channel,
so you can't cheat
when you're mixing and leave
it in record mode
and have 2 line inputs both
hitting the mix bus,
you'd have to do some
heavy modifications.
00:02:20
And I'm a fan of how the
console came.
00:02:22
And when 32 inputs wasn't enough
I just got another console.
00:02:26
Because again, I'm greedy.
00:02:28
The way we're gonna
be working is
the first 24 channels of this console
are really gonna be the tracks.
00:02:34
I haven't laid out the session
yet but I'm pretty confident
that we're gonna fit in
24 pretty easily
because we're gonna be doing
some sub-mixing inside of Pro Tools,
there's no point in bringing
all the tracks up individually.
00:02:47
So this last set of 8 on this console
probably won't be used a whole lot.
00:02:51
Then the other console
is gonna be mostly returns
and you'll see, using the
automation group masters
I'll be controlling some of
the faders from that console on this one.
00:03:01
But that will mostly be for returns
of reverbs, delays, parallel compressors.
00:03:06
All of the things that I'm sending
to from this console.
00:03:09
The very first thing I'm gonna
do is to set up the session.
00:03:13
It's a very clean session that came
to me with a few edits
but they were very good about
consolidating tracks
and not giving me lots
of options on things.
00:03:22
There are quite a few tracks
but as I go through and organize
you'll start to see that we can
really start to combine some things.
00:03:29
So while there are this many tracks,
we're gonna definitely
be able to fit this into 24 outputs.
00:03:37
Let me make the tracks
a little bit bigger,
so we can see what's going on,
and let's start.
00:03:41
For me, whether I'm working
in or out of the box,
a very important part of the
session setup is the color coding.
00:03:47
Because for me, that just allows
me to organize the session,
I can find things and it makes
every session I get look familiar.
00:03:55
When I'm working on the consoles,
I have these.
00:03:59
These are multi-colored sharpies
and these are the colors that
I use for writing on the console,
and they happen to be very close
to the colors that I use
inside the session.
00:04:09
Let's begin, shall we?
I'll start on the top of
my session
and the left hand side
of the console, with drums.
00:04:17
So, I have my drums first.
00:04:19
You noticed I've got
three kick tracks
and we're gonna go through the three
tracks, decide what we wanna use,
but as far as I'm concerned
on the console,
these are going to
come out of output 1.
00:04:30
They're also...
00:04:31
going to be this dark blue.
00:04:34
This is my drum color.
00:04:36
Let me go ahead and color
code the drums completely.
00:04:40
Now we're gonna start
assigning outputs.
00:04:42
Kick is 1.
00:04:43
I'm gonna take my black sharpie
which corresponds to this
very dark blue.
00:04:47
The only reason is...
00:04:48
black in Pro Tools is no color
and I reserve that for tracks
that for some reason have to be
in the session but I
don't have to deal with them.
00:04:56
So, I'm gonna come down here.
00:04:59
Write a K for kick.
00:05:02
Next is snare and
as usually happens,
when recording
multi miked drums,
there's a top and a bottom,
I'm gonna assign that to output 2.
00:05:14
The next in the
kit is a hat mike
which I'm actually just gonna save
for later for a second.
00:05:20
I'm gonna come down
here and find the toms.
00:05:23
There are 3 tracks of toms and
there's also a track called timbale.
00:05:26
From having looked at
the song before,
I already know that the timbale
is actually used like a tom,
high pitched tom.
00:05:33
So I'm gonna take all
four of these tracks.
00:05:35
And I'm going to route them
to a bus which is already
in the session
from having imported
the template earlier,
to a Stereo Aux called Toms.
00:05:45
And we'll go ahead and
make an Aux
to send that out of Pro Tools.
00:05:52
Call it 'Toms'.
00:05:56
Oh, there's already a playlist
called that, so call that Toms Aux...
00:06:02
And, as its input, it will get
the Toms Bus,
which is...
00:06:10
Here.
00:06:11
And we're gonna come out
of outputs 3 and 4.
00:06:17
And there we go.
00:06:20
Toms.
00:06:21
Very exciting, you're
gonna get a really good look
at this piece of tape later,
the most exciting thing in the world.
00:06:27
Looking at the rest of the
drum kit, I've got overheads.
00:06:30
So that's good, I'm just
gonna bring those out of...
00:06:34
5 and 6.
00:06:36
And then I have a few
more drum tracks.
00:06:39
So now, basically,
what I'm gonna do
before I finish laying out
the rest of the drum mikes,
is look at my bass
and see how many tracks
I'm gonna need for bass.
00:06:48
I'm gonna skip some percussion.
00:06:52
Come down here to bass,
and I've got 3 tracks of bass,
one of which is actually
a copy of the DI.
00:07:00
This is something
I set up from before,
because I actually know
I was gonna need it.
00:07:05
And I'm gonna just say that
I'm gonna need 2 outputs for the bass,
I feel confident that I can combine
either these 2 DI tracks
which are gonna be
treated differently,
and then leave the
Amp track on its own,
or I'll come back and put the
treated DI with the Amp
on output 12.
00:07:23
So now I've kind of hemmed in
the right side of this pocket.
00:07:27
Blue sharpie because
bass is blue.
00:07:29
It should be obvious, I've heard
other people use other colors
but that's because there's
something wrong with them.
00:07:36
Bass, and we'll call it
DI and Amp.
00:07:41
Alright, now let's go up and have
a look at the rest of the drum mikes.
00:07:45
I've got four faders opened.
00:07:47
And I have a few different things,
I've got a mono here.
00:07:52
I've got a couple of stereo rooms.
00:07:56
And then I've got
this hat track from before.
00:08:00
I think I'm gonna put the hat
on Output 7.
00:08:06
I may not even need
this extra microphone
but I'll have it just in case.
00:08:09
Then that leaves me 8
for my mono room.
00:08:14
Which I'll assign now.
00:08:20
And then, I'm gonna take
my 2 room tracks here,
and assign them both to 9 and 10.
00:08:28
When we have a listen later on,
we'll just make a blend
and that's it.
00:08:32
So I'm just gonna call that 'Room'.
00:08:35
Done!
1 through 12 are done.
00:08:38
Now I'm gonna have a look
at how many other tracks I have
and make some decisions about
how much to combine
how much not to combine.
00:08:47
The very first thing
I'm gonna do
is come down to the bottom of
the session and look at my vocals.
00:08:51
Because, one of the great
things about working on a console
is things don't move.
00:08:56
It's not a control surface where
one fader can be one thing one time
and then another thing
some other time.
00:09:01
You might see that as
a limitation, but for me
I see it as this amazing
intro to muscle memory,
and always knowing
where certain things are.
00:09:10
So, the lead vocal, on
every single mix I've done
in the last 10 years has
been on fader 24.
00:09:16
So, we've got a
lead vocal down here,
which is Ziggy's lead vocal,
we're gonna assign that to 24.
00:09:23
Noticed I picked up
my orange sharpie.
00:09:27
Obviously the lead vocal is orange.
00:09:29
Come down here, Lead.
00:09:32
Now there's also a
secondary lead vocal,
a guy named U-Roy
is on this track, who is a legend
in the Jamaican Reggae scene.
00:09:40
Look him up on Wikipedia
if you don't know who he is.
00:09:43
He gets fader 23.
00:09:47
Call that U-Roy.
00:09:49
Then there are a few tracks
of background vocals
but again, I don't see any point
in having these separated.
00:09:55
There are only four tracks.
00:09:56
They're all groups, I've listened
to them before
and we'll go through
and listen later but...
00:10:00
They are already
panned and balanced
as they came to and I'm gonna assume
that's a really good starting point.
00:10:06
So they get to go next
working right to left,
on Outputs 21 and 22.
00:10:15
Background vocals.
00:10:17
So, just like I did with the bass,
now I've sort of
defined how many faders I have
left for everything that is not
Drums, Bass and Vocals.
00:10:27
And then, we'll see that I have
got 2, 4, 6, 8 faders
and I have lots of tracks.
00:10:34
But looking at the session,
I've got a lot of percussion,
but not a whole lot of the percussion
happens at the same time,
so I'm gonna take a
chance for right now
and group all of the percussion
out of a stereo output pair.
00:10:46
And I'm going to do it
by going to an Aux again.
00:10:50
I'm gonna make a Stereo Aux,
And call it Perc Aux.
00:10:57
Then I solo safe it.
00:11:00
And now I'm gonna
assign that to...
00:11:03
19 and 20. I don't know why.
00:11:05
Generally my guitars
start at 13,
so miscellaneous things and keyboards
tend to gravitate over towards the vocals.
00:11:12
That's what I'm gonna do.
00:11:13
I don't have a working brown sharpie,
which makes me very sad.
00:11:17
But I'm gonna color the tracks brown
because obviously percussion is brown.
00:11:21
There's really no argument about it.
We're gonna use a very dark purple
on the tape.
00:11:27
It's not even coming out
as dark as I would have liked.
00:11:30
It's OK, I'll get over it.
00:11:32
Another thing that I do is you
always have to bracket your colors.
00:11:37
So when I transition
from black to blue
we've got a black line
and a blue line,
when I transition from purplish
brown to orange, we have both.
00:11:46
Don't ask, it's just otherwise it looks
like things are bleeding into each other.
00:11:50
They need walls.
00:11:51
So I built the wall.
00:11:53
And yes, I'm as crazy as you think.
00:11:55
OK now looking at the rest
of the instruments,
I did say that I like guitars to
start on 13.
00:12:01
There were two guitars sent.
00:12:03
There was a whole decision-making
process while we were mixing
this song for the album about whether
to use this second rhythm guitar.
00:12:09
We decided not to. I'm just gonna
hide it and get rid of it.
00:12:12
While you're working in the box,
keeping stuff around is no big deal,
working on a console, you have
a physical number of outputs
and once you fill that hole,
that's what that output is for.
00:12:23
And it has a panning setting,
it has send settings,
you’re not really back
on individual tracks anymore.
00:12:29
So I'm just gonna get rid of
things I know don't need.
00:12:31
We're definitely gonna put
that guitar on 13.
00:12:36
And obviously guitars are green.
00:12:38
Before I assign it actually,
noticed it's panned hard right.
00:12:41
All of this pannings
have come from the
producer, engineer and artist
who have worked on the song
until they sent it to me.
00:12:48
And they were listening to the
mix through a stereo bus.
00:12:52
Which means that they've actually
set theirs pannings already.
00:12:55
We preserved the panning of the
percussion, toms and background vocals
by assigning them to a Stereo Aux
or a stereo set of outputs.
00:13:04
Once I'm starting to have
mono sources, I actually
wanna pay attention to the
panning as I assign them.
00:13:10
So I'm gonna assign this
to output 13
but while I do that, I'm gonna
immediately go to the console
and assign to the right
front bus.
00:13:20
This console has a quad bus
and the front bus is the
stereo bus that we listen to.
00:13:25
There's a button for left,
a button for right.
00:13:28
And then there is a pan circuit
that you can engage
to go somewhere in between
left and right.
00:13:34
But...
00:13:35
As you may or may not know,
there's something called pan law
which means when you pan
to the center,
you actually turn down the
signal going to both speakers
so that it's the same
relative level
as when you pan hard left
and hard right
and there's only one signal
in one speaker.
00:13:50
I think somewhere between 3 and 4.5 dB
is standard depending on
what console you're working on.
00:13:56
There actually is a preference
for it in Pro Tools
so you can mimic different styles.
00:14:00
SSL is different from Neve,
is different from Focusrite,
is different from the
original Pro Tools mixer.
00:14:05
I believe the Neve is 3.5 dB,
I could be totally wrong.
00:14:10
I really don't care.
The point is...
00:14:12
When you switch in
the pan circuit.
00:14:15
It actually attenuates
the signal,
which doesn't sound good
because louder is better,
we all know that.
00:14:21
But it actually does switch in
a resistor network
and I don't like the sound of it
so I tend to use only hard panning
when I'm working on the console.
00:14:30
A good thing about having
Pro Tools as my tape machine
is if I really wanna
do some subtle panning
I can setup a stereo pair
of channels that are hard left
and hard right on the console
and then do my panning
in Pro Tools.
00:14:42
I don't know if we're
really gonna be doing
a whole lot of that on this song
but that's the theory anyway.
So I'm gonna go hard right,
get my green sharpie,
and this is just gonna
be called guitar.
00:14:53
It's the only guitar in the mix.
00:14:55
And...
00:14:56
In the session...
00:14:58
It's green.
00:15:00
Now I have to make a decision about
how I'm gonna lay out these keyboards.
00:15:03
And very quickly let me play them
for you so you see what they're doing.
00:15:06
They are all doing the back-beat
part of the reggae groove.
00:15:09
So, in choruses.
00:15:13
Piano and B3.
00:15:15
Then in the verses.
00:15:18
Piano and Rhodes.
00:15:20
Later on, piano and B3 again.
00:15:23
Same for the outro.
00:15:26
So the only thing that happens
that's different is this B3
in the bridge.
00:15:32
He's playing more of
a sustained part.
00:15:34
So that's gonna be something
I might wanna deal with separately.
00:15:37
So I think what I'm gonna do
is I am going to take
all of these keyboards out of
one stereo output.
00:15:46
And see if I can get
away with that
and if I can't, later on
I'm gonna split the B3 out.
00:15:50
But I have a feeling that I can
because while the B3 is doing its
chord thing
all that's going on in the piano
are a couple of back-beats.
00:15:58
So I'm gonna take
all of these keyboards.
00:16:00
The bold move.
00:16:01
But I'm trying to fit it in 24.
00:16:03
It could be a huge mistake
and we'll come back to this later.
00:16:06
Put them on 15 and 16.
00:16:08
And then we'll color code them
in some sort of purplish thing.
00:16:12
And then I'm gonna get
a lighter purple
to differentiate from my
not brown purple from earlier.
00:16:19
And on 15 and 16.
00:16:25
The line is to me to note
that it's stereo.
00:16:29
And then, what we've got left here
are a ton of horn tracks.
00:16:33
Again, these are horn sections,
they are playing the same part,
this is just doubled.
00:16:38
I'm gonna treat the horns as
one big stereo thing.
00:16:42
So, I take all my horn tracks,
make them some sort of dark red
because they're a live thing.
00:16:49
And just because I'm not gonna go
hunting for more sharpies
we're gonna make them
the same color as the keys.
00:16:57
Horns.
00:16:59
And now I'm gonna color
U-Roy's vocal.
00:17:02
He's a lead vocal so he gets
to be orange.
00:17:05
The next thing I'm gonna do
is very quickly go back through
the session and for all of the
things that I've split out
I'm gonna go ahead and normalize
their volumes in a way.
00:17:16
So I've got three kick tracks
and one of them is
up around zero
so I'm gonna assume that's
a pretty good level there.
00:17:22
For the snare, they both
look a little low.
00:17:25
I don't really care about the
balance between these microphones
because I'm gonna re-balance myself.
00:17:30
So let me go ahead and put
the snare top mike to zero.
00:17:33
Bring up the snare bottom a little bit.
00:17:35
The hat is on its own output.
It can go to zero.
00:17:38
The toms, I'm gonna leave
at the levels that they're at.
00:17:42
Because that balance was already
done and we're gonna work on the toms
specifically in a minute.
00:17:48
The overheads are on their own,
so they get to get
turned all the way up.
00:17:52
The mono room is on its own,
so it can come up to zero.
00:17:55
And then the other rooms
are both
turned down almost to zero
so I'm just go ahead
and make them zero.
00:18:02
Turn that close room
down a bit.
00:18:06
There are a couple of tracks
I haven't dealt with yet
because they were from
a drum overdub
and we'll hear later on
they're just cymbal back-beats
to go along with the groove.
00:18:15
I'm going to assign the tracks
within the overdub
to the same outputs as those
same tracks in the regular kit.
00:18:21
So there's a mono room,
that needs to go to 8.
00:18:27
Overheads...
00:18:28
go to 5 and 6.
00:18:32
And both of those get
turned up to zero.
00:18:37
Then the room tracks get
assigned to 9 and 10.
00:18:42
And again, pop
those guys up to zero.
00:18:46
This one was quieter, for some reason.
00:18:48
Then the only thing I've got left are
these tracks here called 'Lightning'.
00:18:52
Which are some sound effects
so I'm just gonna pop those
down on 25 and 26.
00:18:58
So I've lied about staying
inside this pocket
but it happens once
in the middle of the song,
it's gonna be
easy to take care of.
00:19:05
And these are offset a tiny bit
so once again, I'm gonna bring
that up to zero.
00:19:09
This was about 2 dB lower so I'll
bring that down to -2.
00:19:13
Let's make it this color purple
Because we're close to this purple,
come over here.
00:19:23
I was going to call it 'Lightning'...
00:19:26
But that's too many letters,
hard to write.
00:19:29
And in my brain, I'd rather
actually spend the time
to get a new piece of tape.
00:19:34
Right?
FX. Done.
00:19:37
Now I'm gonna very quickly
go through the console
and do panning.
00:19:43
Again, this console has a
quad bus, there are 4 buttons
here in the middle of the module
just above the monitor pot
which is unused in remix mode.
00:19:50
There's a button for the left front
speaker, the right front speaker.
00:19:53
Which are the actual
stereo bus speakers.
00:19:56
And then there are left rear
and right rear.
00:19:59
And we're gonna make great use
of this rear bus but not yet.
00:20:02
I'm gonna go down the entire console
and just pan everything
so I've got a starting point.
00:20:06
Kick is left and right,
that's already in.
00:20:09
Snare, left and right. The toms
is a stereo pair, so left and right.
00:20:13
Overheads, stereo pair,
left and right.
00:20:15
The hat, most likely, left-ish.
00:20:18
We'll figure out the panning
on that in a second.
00:20:20
Mono room in the center,
both left and right.
00:20:23
Room is a stereo pair.
00:20:26
Bass, up the middle.
00:20:28
Guitar was panned right, we did
that as we assigned things.
00:20:32
Keyboards is a stereo pair
again, so left and right.
00:20:35
Horns, left and right.
00:20:37
Percussion, left and right.
00:20:39
Background vocals, left and right.
00:20:41
Both lead vocals
straight up the middle.
00:20:45
Easy.
00:20:46
Effects, left and right.
00:20:49
Nobody is in the rear bus yet,
because we're gonna add
everything as we go.
00:20:54
So the last thing I need to do
at the console
is set up the center section.
00:20:58
The center section of my console
has two master faders.
00:21:01
One for the Front Bus,
one for the Rear Bus.
00:21:02
I don't need to label those,
I know what they are, always there.
00:21:05
That's a very convenient place that
normally while I'm working
I'd write the name of the song
and I could keep track of some notes
later on like what pass
of the flying faders automation
goes with which
version of the mix.
00:21:16
That sort of thing. I'm not
gonna bother, I'll just write
Fly
Rasta.
00:21:24
Then, I'm gonna setup
some group faders.
00:21:27
I know I want to have one
fader that is the drums.
00:21:31
This is very much like how I use
a VCA fader inside of Pro Tools.
00:21:34
And this is essentially the same
thing, this is a moving fader
but it doesn't have any audio
associated with it.
00:21:40
So, what I'm going to do is,
using flying faders
there's a group button,
light up group,
hit the select,
now that selected the
master for my group,
and now I'm gonna go through
and select all the members of the group
I'm just hitting the select button
on every drum fader.
00:22:00
Now I hit select on the master again
to turn off that mode.
00:22:03
And I now have control
over all of my drum faders
with my master fader.
00:22:08
We'll be moving this keyboard
out of the way later.
00:22:10
That will make more sense.
00:22:12
Then using the exact
same color scheme...
00:22:16
Drums.
00:22:19
And then, because I like
to have the whole mix
right in front of me
I'm gonna make a group
for the bass.
00:22:24
It's only two faders but I still
wanna have a group for the bass.
00:22:28
So, I hit select.
00:22:30
Hit select...
00:22:32
Hit select...
00:22:33
Done.
00:22:34
That's bass.
00:22:39
Normally I would have
more groups going on,
like I might have groups
for rhythm guitars,
groups for solo guitars,
groups for lots of keyboards.
That kind of thing.
00:22:48
Because this song is so
simply tracked
and I'm actually doing quite a bit
of combining inside of Pro Tools
with the percussion and the horns,
I'm gonna reserve the
groups for later.
00:22:59
Because I'm probably gonna wanna
hang on to some group faders
to control faders on the other
console which will be the returns
but I'll set those up after
we actually patch.
00:23:08
Which is I believe,
what we're ready to do.
00:23:11
So we're gonna move over
to the patch bay and hook up
all this old stuff and see
if it still works.
00:23:16
Hello again children,
welcome to the floor of
Punkerpad West.
00:23:20
What we're gonna do now is
patch up a ton of gear
all at once rather than sort of
pretend we're discovering it
one piece of gear at a time.
00:23:28
The reason for this is because over
the years I've been mixing in the studio,
on this gear, with these consoles,
I've built a template exactly the same
way you would inside of Pro Tools.
00:23:38
So what we're gonna do right now
is import my template.
00:23:41
We're gonna patch it all
one piece at a time
here at the patchbay
and then we're gonna
go through the rack,
I'll show you what it
is that I've patched
and how it's set up.
00:23:50
Most likely, we're not gonna touch
the settings on any of these.
00:23:53
Most of what we're setting up
is for parallel processing
so I can affect the way it's working by
changing how much signal I send to it
and how much of the
return I blend in.
00:24:03
There's really no difference between
doing it that way
and standing up and going to the gear.
So, I'm very lazy,
I don't like to stand up.
00:24:12
So now we're gonna do a bunch
of patching then I'm gonna stand up.
00:24:15
The first thing I'm gonna do is deal
with the sends on the console.
00:24:18
I mentioned that there were
eight sends.
00:24:21
The Send 1 is a mono send.
00:24:25
Which comes out of the console...
00:24:27
Here.
00:24:28
And I'm gonna patch
that into a delay,
to use as some slap.
00:24:33
And what I'm gonna use for this
is the Moog Analog Delay
which is an API 500 series
and it's over here on
API number 11.
00:24:41
Because it's a Brent Averill
rack that has 11 slots.
00:24:44
Take the output of that
I'm gonna refer to
my cheat sheet
just because I like to
know where things are.
00:24:50
And that's gonna go into line
input 43 on the console.
00:24:54
Send 2
is gonna be used for something
I call 'Spread'.
00:24:59
It's basically just a
micro-pitch slap.
00:25:01
It's a modified program on
an H 3000.
00:25:04
It's pretty standard to use
by tons of people.
00:25:07
So I'm gonna take send 2...
00:25:09
And what I'm gonna do
is run it into a mult.
00:25:11
All of the Eventide processors
are actually discrete stereo inputs
but I just want this to be
a mono in stereo out FX.
00:25:19
If I only plugged in the left side
we'd only get delay on the left.
00:25:22
So I want to mult,
and I've got mults in different spots,
I'll use this guy up here.
00:25:27
And then I'm gonna come
out of the mult
with 2 patch cords...
00:25:33
Come out of my mult
into both sides of the H 3000.
00:25:39
I'm out of...
00:25:42
H 3000.
00:25:43
And we're gonna go
into 35 and 36.
00:25:48
The reason I'm going into these
particular channels
is because this is where these
always come up on the console.
00:25:54
The console is set for
stereo or mono for them
and there's a piece of tape on
the console that's already labeled.
00:25:59
So, it's just much easier to recreate
than to start from scratch.
00:26:03
OK. The next thing I'm gonna do
is a stereo FX
using one of the stereo sends,
sends 3 & 4 and 7 & 8
are the stereo sends on this console.
00:26:13
I'm gonna come out
left and right.
00:26:15
Send 3 and 4.
00:26:17
I'm going to go into my
Stereo Aphex Studio II,
it's just one of the older Aphexes.
00:26:24
It sounds great. Nice
and grainy top end.
00:26:27
And we'll probably use that on
some vocals and some percussion.
00:26:30
So we're going in stereo there.
00:26:33
Coming out.
00:26:34
Stereo here.
00:26:36
And this goes to lines 33 and 34.
00:26:42
Next thing on the list is something which
I don't actually do in Pro Tools very often.
00:26:47
But it's something that I always do
on a console and I call it 'Fat'.
00:26:50
It's Send 6...
00:26:53
Maybe you've noticed
that I'm skipping Send 5
because at the moment I'm not
positive what we're gonna do on it,
I may change my mind in a second.
00:27:01
But Send 6 is gonna go off
to my BA6A,
which in the patchbay
is actually labeled 'Fat'.
00:27:08
Because it sounds really fat.
00:27:11
So I'm gonna go in...
00:27:12
There.
00:27:14
Out here.
00:27:16
And that's going to return
on line 45.
00:27:19
Usually, this is something that
I just use on the vocal.
00:27:23
There were a couple of different
parallel compressors for the vocal.
00:27:26
One that was very aggressive and speedy
and one that was very warm and big
and I would blend these in.
00:27:31
And then, as that was always
patched up and available,
I started to use it on
kick and snares,
sometimes kick, snare,
bass and vocal
so I've no idea how we're gonna
use it on this mix
but I wanna have it available.
00:27:42
The next thing we're gonna do
is we're going to take a stereo
send off the console
with 7 and 8.
00:27:50
And I'm actually gonna patch
it into Pro Tools inputs.
00:27:53
So that way,
let's say I wanna do a special FX
inside of Pro Tools,
which is much more easily done
with plug-ins than with gear,
I'll actually have a send on the console
available that just hits Pro Tools,
and if I decide to use it then I'll bring
that out somewhere on the console.
00:28:07
But I don't even have to decide
where that is now.
00:28:09
I'm going to randomly decide to
use inputs 23 and 24.
00:28:15
Why not?
OK, so those are the 8 sends,
I've only patched up 7 so far,
and by the time I'm done
patching
I may have decided what I wanna
do with send number 5.
00:28:25
I'm gonna grab a bunch
more patch cords.
00:28:30
And let's start with the busses.
00:28:32
The difference between the Aux Sends
and the Busses is, on every channel,
for the send you
turn it on and off
and then you have a
knob to set the level.
00:28:41
For the busses
it always takes the
post fader signal
and routes at unity gain
on to the bus.
00:28:47
So these are standard
multi-track busses
as they're found on any
analog console.
00:28:52
So, these are things that I
do not have direct control
over how much level is sent
from individual channels.
00:29:00
But by using the input gain on the device
I can change how much level
actually hits it overall.
00:29:04
Or I can even use a bus
trim on the console itself
to turn it down if
I'm really lazy
and don't wanna stand up.
00:29:10
These are just standard things
that I have set up for every mix
so I'm gonna go ahead and
patch them in.
00:29:16
So patching out of bus 1
off the console
I'm going to patch in to
an 1176.
00:29:23
Which is setup, sort of in a...
00:29:25
not special way but it has
all of the buttons in.
00:29:27
We're gonna go through the
gear later and you'll see what it is.
00:29:30
Bus 2 is generally used for
the bass crush.
00:29:34
It's a very odd signal chain
in that, I take bus 2
I go into a transient designer,
where the attack is turned
all the way down
and the release is up a little bit.
00:29:46
And that is my bass crush.
00:29:48
It's something I came up
with a long time ago
and it worked the first time
and it's worked for the last 10 years
so I use it. There are probably
things that would work better
but I haven't felt the need
to look for them yet.
00:29:58
OK, so for no particular reason
I'm gonna skip bus 3 and
move on to bus 4.
00:30:03
Just because that's, looking at my
sheet from an old recall
that's what I do.
00:30:08
Bus 4 is going to go to
a DBX 160 VU.
00:30:12
And this is almost exclusively used as a
parallel processor for the kick and snare.
00:30:18
Then, we're gonna move on to Bus 5,
which is one of my favorite busses,
no matter what's plugged in,
but in this particular case, this also
one of my favorite signal chains.
00:30:26
This is a secondary snare crush.
00:30:28
We may not need it on this track
because this is usually used
on a more aggressive rock stuff.
00:30:32
But it first goes into a
transient designer
to increase the release
of the sound,
then we come out of the
transient designer
into the Spectra Sonics 610
and out of the Spectra Sonics 610
into line 39.
00:30:51
So next is bus 6,
which goes to another 1176
with all the buttons in.
00:30:57
And the reason for this
is this one,
is for vocal.
00:31:02
Exclusively. The only
difference between this 1176
and the one I patched in earlier
for drums is the release time.
00:31:08
So when I show you those 1176s
they're gonna look almost the same.
00:31:12
Which is why I sometimes
get confused.
00:31:14
And this comes back
into line 41.
00:31:17
And there you go. That's one of my
2 parallel processors for the vocal.
00:31:21
Along with the BA6A,
if we use it.
00:31:25
OK. Next, we have bus 7 a 8.
00:31:27
I use it as a stereo bus.
00:31:29
We will probably need it
on this particular track.
00:31:32
This is a stereo drum compressor.
00:31:35
So, come out of...
00:31:36
Bus 7 and 8.
00:31:37
And this is the TG compressor.
00:31:41
The Chandler TG Limiter.
00:31:44
Pretty straight ahead, I usually
use it on overheads,
sometimes on the toms as well.
It just helps things breath
and things like that.
00:31:52
So we go into the TG 1...
00:31:55
Out of the TG 1.
00:31:57
And into line 47 and 48.
00:32:04
Let me grab some
more patch cords.
00:32:10
And we've got one more bus
to patch in
and then we're gonna move on
to the stereo bus.
00:32:16
But rather than using some
of the numbered busses
I'm gonna use that Rear Bus
that I talked about before.
00:32:21
If you remember, I have
quad assignments for
stereo busses or quad busses to
stereo busses, a front bus
and a rear bus.
00:32:29
The front bus actually does
feed the speakers, it is the mix.
00:32:32
The Rear bus is just another stereo
bus sitting around on the console
that's fed exactly the same way
the speakers are fed
with its own set of buttons.
00:32:40
So it's the quickest
way to get a copy
of what's going into the mix bus
on any instrument I choose.
00:32:46
So that's up top here
with the Rear Bus,
and I've actually
it was already patched in because
this was just setup from before.
00:32:54
So this is patched into a pair
of Blackface 1176s
that are from the original
Motown Studio, as it turns out.
00:33:02
They just sound
great, they're old
they're crusty, they're
probably broken.
00:33:06
But that's OK.
00:33:07
And those are returning to
the console on line 49 and 50.
00:33:12
Last but not least, we're gonna
do our stereo bus.
00:33:15
We're gonna start off with some
analog equipment on the stereo bus.
00:33:19
We're gonna listen to it.
00:33:20
We're gonna make some
decisions later on.
00:33:22
We may actually switch
to some plug-ins.
00:33:24
Because I've gotten to the point
where even mixing on the console,
I've got a great chain that
I really love on the mix
but we'll just see what happens.
00:33:32
So right now,
the front bus here is patched
straight into
a monitor input for Pro Tools.
00:33:41
And what I'm gonna do,
is pull this
and I'm gonna go into the 2264
compressors which are actually
built into the console.
00:33:51
And this is the Neve out
over in wiring.
00:33:54
Which is always crazy to me but...
00:33:56
Get it wrong once
then you figure it out.
00:33:59
Then we come out of the limiter.
00:34:01
I'm gonna go into a pair
of Langs which are
Pultec style EQs but they
have solid state amplifiers
instead of tube amplifiers.
00:34:09
I actually like them better, they're
just more controlled.
00:34:12
The Pultecs are beautiful EQs
but stuff tends to get a little bit
out of control to me.
00:34:17
So, we're gonna go into
a pair of Langs.
00:34:23
And come out of those Langs
and then into Pro Tools and that's
how we're gonna be monitoring
through Pro Tools.
00:34:30
The only piece of gear that
always has patch cords hanging out
because I almost always use it
is the Aphex 204
that I use on the toms.
00:34:37
It's a magic piece of kit.
00:34:39
There's no plug-in that
does what it does.
00:34:42
There's really no other piece
of gear that does what it does.
00:34:44
It turns cardboard into
good sounding toms.
00:34:47
I'm gonna go ahead and put
them on the insert of 3 and 4.
00:34:56
And that's it for that.
00:34:59
Now I've made the executive decision,
because this is a reggae track
and I've got one Send open, I'm actually
gonna hook up my dbx 120 Sub box.
00:35:08
So... Send 5...
00:35:11
Down to the Sub box...
00:35:16
And what I'm gonna do is I've got an
open fader in the middle of the console
so I'm gonna bring that back in
on line input 14,
because it's open and I don't have
another mono thing
that's gonna fill that up.
So there we go!
Let's have a quick look at
all that outboard gear I patched up,
and I'll kind of go in the same order
so it'll make some sense to you.
00:35:35
For Send 1...
00:35:37
we're using this Moog Analog Delay,
and I'm actually gonna sort of preset it,
it's gonna be a vocal slap.
00:35:43
I'm gonna say it's gonna be
somewhere around 200 ms.
00:35:47
I like the way
the drive sounds on this guy.
00:35:50
A little bit of feedback,
and all the way wet, because
we're gonna send from the dry vocal
and then bring up some of this delay.
So pretty straight ahead over there.
00:36:01
Alright?
Aux 2 is over here on the H 3000.
00:36:04
That's that micro-pitch slap,
and it is actually built from
a micro-pitch slap program.
00:36:10
+9 cents on one side,
-9 cents on the other.
00:36:14
Ten milliseconds
and twenty milliseconds.
00:36:17
Pretty standard.
00:36:20
Ok, the next was
that Stereo Aux to the Aphex.
00:36:23
Aux 3 and 4.
00:36:25
This is an Aphex II Studio.
00:36:27
It's fluorescent meters,
kind of an older unit,
maybe third generation
of the Aphex processors.
00:36:33
Just to point out how little
I move the controls,
if you come in on this here,
you'll notice there are
literally cobwebs on the knobs.
00:36:42
I could go through the controls on this,
but basically,
it's sort of midway up
on the amount of drive,
and it's totally wet, so that
all you hear is the Aphex process.
00:36:54
You could come
and tweak this for every song,
but generally, this is gonna work on
everything, there's really no point.
00:37:00
For Aux 6, we're gonna go down
to the bottom of the rack
on the guy I call 'Fat Boy',
which is the BA6A from RCA.
Very old limiter.
00:37:09
There are 4 knobs on the front.
00:37:10
One of them doesn't
even affect the sound of the audio
and the other 3
I'm not gonna touch at all.
00:37:15
They've been set that way since
I started using the device on a send.
00:37:19
Really briefly, let me talk about why
I'm able to have cobwebs on the knobs
and not touch any of the controls
on most of this gear.
00:37:27
I'm using almost all of these
compressors as parallel compressors.
00:37:31
I don't care what that compression
sounds like on its own,
I only care about what it sounds like
when blended in
with the original uncompressed signal.
00:37:40
That gives me quite a bit of leeway.
00:37:43
First of all, I can change how much
level is going into the compressor,
which is essentially the same thing
as changing the threshold,
but I can do it from the console if
it's on a send, and not have to get up.
00:37:53
And I'm lazy,
so that works out really well for me.
00:37:56
The other thing is that I'm changing
how much of the return of the compressor
I'm blending in
with the original signal.
00:38:03
So let's say the parallel compressor
is really working hard on something.
00:38:07
What that usually means is
I just use a little bit less of it
blended in with the original.
00:38:11
It doesn't change the character
so much that it matters.
00:38:14
If I was directly compressing a signal
on an insert, then obviously
that's all the sound I have left,
and it's critical what that sounds like
and I would be over here
tweaking knobs all day.
00:38:24
Using it in parallel,
it really doesn't come up
and you'll see as we mix
that I really take advantage of that,
and it works out great for me,
and I really love it that way.
00:38:33
You might remember Aux 7 and 8
are going straight into Pro Tools,
so we don't have to worry about that
at all for right now.
00:38:39
So let's move on to the busses.
00:38:42
Bus 1 is to this 1176 LN.
00:38:46
It's all buttons in.
00:38:47
If you don't know this about 1176s,
this is important.
00:38:51
To get multiple ratios in
at the same time,
which basically
makes it work in crazy mode,
it's not like you put in 20 and 4
and you have 24:1,
that's not the way it works.
00:39:00
It just makes the time constants crazy
and gives you added distortion.
00:39:04
Having the outside buttons in
is exactly the same
as having all four buttons in.
00:39:09
If I wanted the equivalent
of just these 3 buttons,
I can just do that.
Electrically, it's exactly the same.
00:39:16
So, it's much easier to get
2 of the buttons to stick in than all 4,
as any of you who have tried
to match all four buttons know.
00:39:22
So anyway, all four buttons in.
00:39:25
Attack all the way down,
release about halfway.
00:39:28
Input cranked all the way up,
so as soon as I start sending to this,
if I do,
this is gonna be a super crushed
version of whatever goes in.
00:39:36
The only other setting
that's slightly odd, maybe,
because I don't even look
at the gain reduction,
when you have more than one button in,
the meter goes into crazy land
and you're no longer
really showing gain reduction.
00:39:47
It's hyper sensitive,
and you'll physically hear the needle
banging against the end of the housing.
00:39:53
That's really distracting.
00:39:55
So I put it in +8 mode, and now,
I'd have to run
so much level into there
to have it start knocking against
the top that it never really happens.
00:40:04
Now I'm gonna skip to Bus 3,
because it's a very similar setup.
00:40:08
Bus 3 is another 1176, all buttons in,
slowest attack, fastest release,
again on +8, just to keep
the meter from making noise.
00:40:18
Pretty good amount of input gain.
00:40:20
This is my 'I need my vocal
to be more aggressive' compressor.
00:40:24
I'm actually gonna use
a group fader to control
how much of that is getting blended in,
because that is
a huge part of the vocal sound.
00:40:32
Sometimes it will be as loud
as the uncompressed vocal,
sometimes it's just a tiny bit.
00:40:37
On this song,
the energy level of the song
stays pretty much the same
all the way through,
but on anything where I have
a quiet verse and a big chorus,
there will be a lot of volume rides
on the return of this compressor.
00:40:49
Going back to Bus 2,
which was my crazy bass crush,
it's one channel of Transient Designer,
and it's just Attack all the way off,
Release up a little bit.
00:40:59
Blend that in,
it just helps even out the bass.
00:41:01
Generally,
you won't use too much of that,
but it really does help make
all the notes be the same volume.
00:41:06
But again, because it's parallel,
you keep all of what was great
about the uncompressed bass,
all of the little tiny bits of dynamics
within the performance.
00:41:17
Bus 4, dbx 160VU, really simple
compressor, sounds super squishy.
00:41:24
Nothing else sounds like it
-- that I've ever heard.
00:41:26
Compression ratio, somewhere around 6:1,
a little bit of make-up gain.
00:41:30
And my threshold,
it's basically set so that,
with the levels that I usually run
the kick and snare through the console,
when I drop those onto the bus,
it will go above the threshold
on every transient,
and then walk back down.
00:41:44
We'll have a look at it
once I start mixing,
but I don't think
I've touched this in 10 years.
00:41:50
Bus 5 is two pieces of gear.
00:41:52
We start with the transient designer.
00:41:54
I've never used it
on anything except snare.
00:41:57
So the first thing I'm doing
is I'm lengthening the snare,
because this is all about
trying to get some excitement
and some length to the snare
without using reverb.
00:42:05
So I lengthen the snare.
00:42:07
Then I come down here,
to my Spectra Sonics 610,
which doesn't even have a meter,
so this shows how much I care
about how much it's compressing.
00:42:15
I'm not killing the input.
00:42:17
But basically, every snare hit will
actually turn on the overload,
because I'm looking to get
some of the dirt and distortion
that comes out of this compressor. Add
a little bit of that into the snare,
all of a sudden, the snare sounds
a little more exciting
and a little longer.
00:42:33
By the way, this piece of tape here,
on Bus 3,
this is actually Bus 6.
00:42:37
Bus 3 stopped working
once on my console.
00:42:39
I changed it to Bus 6,
but I'm too lazy to change the tape.
00:42:42
So... Hold on, I'll be right back.
00:42:50
Bus 6.
00:42:53
Bus 7 and 8.
00:42:55
The Chandler TG1 Limiter.
00:42:57
I'm in dual mono mode.
00:42:59
I do not like stereo compressors,
I don't like having
the detector circuit linked.
00:43:04
It's just a personal preference.
00:43:06
I like it where something is loud
on the left it will compress the left
but not affect the right. I'm fine
with the left and right balance
changing slightly over the course
of time, more than I am
with having everything pump
when there's really only
something going on on the left.
00:43:20
So, they're in Limit mode.
00:43:22
So they're working pretty hard actually.
00:43:26
Maybe we'll have a look at the meters
once I start running the mix.
00:43:29
Cranking up the input
to get up above the threshold.
00:43:32
A little bit of output.
00:43:34
Make-up gain -- I'm in Compressor mode,
not Limit mode --
and a recovery of 2.
00:43:39
You can look at the manual
and see what those times are,
but it's a pretty fast recovery,
but not super fast.
00:43:45
The next very important
piece of the puzzle is this Rear Bus
that I have spoken so much about.
00:43:51
Again, it's a secondary stereo bus
coming of the console,
and it's going into this pair of 1176s.
00:43:58
This pair of compressors originally
came from Signet Sound,
which was the original
Motown studios in LA.
00:44:07
Some of the later recordings
by the Jackson 5,
and then a ton of really cool
Motown stuff done in the studio
then turned into more of a post-house,
etc., etc.
00:44:16
They closed, as many studios have,
and as you can tell from this rack,
I am the home for old gear with no home.
00:44:24
And this is just a pair...
00:44:26
At some point along the way,
they got a red button for one of them.
00:44:30
They have Bakelite knobs, maybe taken
off of a Fairchild that broke. Who knows?
Missing a button up here,
but, basically,
this is for everything except
the drums and bass, usually.
00:44:42
It's all the keyboards,
all the guitars, all the vocals,
and it makes them all interact.
00:44:47
And also it helps sort of bring up
the level to match the drums,
but it's unlinked compressors again,
it's only at 4:1,
so it's pretty gentle compression.
00:44:57
This is not like
a super crushed up version.
00:44:59
It's almost the same
as the uncompressed,
but when you hear the difference
blending that in,
you really hear what goes on.
00:45:05
Very slow attack
so it lets the transients through,
and sort of a middle release time.
00:45:11
Now that we're done with the rack,
let me show you those 2264 compressors
that are on the stereo bus,
before the Langs
that I was just talking about.
00:45:20
First on the stereo bus chain
are these 2264 compressors.
00:45:25
They have a compressor circuit
and a limiter circuit.
00:45:28
99% of the time you'll see the Limit
switched out, and the Compressor
switched in.
00:45:33
The limiter sounds terrible,
the compressor sounds amazing.
00:45:35
I don't know anybody
who uses the limiter.
00:45:38
These top 2 knobs are for the limiter,
so we can ignore them.
00:45:41
Then these 2 concentric knobs control
the 4 parameters of the compressor.
00:45:46
This outside knob here is release time.
00:45:49
There are two very cool sounding
automatic release times.
00:45:52
I -- at the moment --
love the very fast release time.
00:45:56
I like to get a lot of sort of energy
out of these compressors,
so I leave this set at 100 ms.
00:46:02
I have my threshold
all the way up, at +10,
because my mixes are crazy loud,
and this is a post fader insert.
00:46:10
So, I can adjust
the amount of compression
by taking down my stereo bus.
00:46:15
Then, over here, the outside
of this knob controls the ratio.
00:46:19
I'm actually at 1.5:1.
00:46:21
So, very low ratio, but you'll see
we'll get up to about 4 dB
of gain reduction
once the mix is really blasting.
00:46:29
And then just because
of the gain reduction,
and how much I've had
to bring my stereo bus down,
I've got about 4 dB of make-up gain,
sometimes it might be 2, but we'll
start with 4 and see how that works,
and then that feeds into the Langs.
00:46:43
Second in the chain,
while we're over here,
are two Lang EQs.
00:46:47
Again, these are Pultec-style EQs,
but with solid state amplifiers,
I'm gonna set them
the way they almost always get set.
00:46:56
So, 80... about +3.
00:47:00
I don't dip anything.
00:47:02
And then, either 10 or 12k
-- we'll go 10k for today --
and +6, a lot of top end here
that keeps me from having to add
any top end on individual things
to get air.
00:47:14
I'm just working on mid-range
and tone and note,
I don't have to really
worry about air on the console.
00:47:19
And again, no dip.
00:47:20
So that's it for the rack!
00:00:00
So the first thing I'm gonna do,
because I'm on the console
and I've got lots of faders
and it's easy to grab is,
I'm just gonna start throwing up
faders with everything,
get a very rough balance
and then I'm probably gonna
pull everything down
and start with the drums again.
00:00:13
But before I do this, because I
want to be able to jump around
and keep kind of a flow,
I want to take you through the
console physically.
00:00:20
So when I start to reach for something
you'll know what's going on.
00:00:23
So, every channel here,
is exactly the same.
00:00:26
There are no stereo channels,
mono channels, anything like that.
00:00:29
We've already seen the
stereo bus assign switches
and remember that my Rear Bus
are the bottom switches in that group.
00:00:37
Right above that we have
our Aux Sends.
00:00:40
And the way these work is the
light blue ones are the mono sends,
so 1, 2, 5 and 6
you hit the button, it pops up.
00:00:47
Now the send is on
and I have level.
00:00:50
Put it down to turn it off.
00:00:51
What's cool about that is you
can actually turn it on and off
leaving the level
were you had it
to see if you like it better
with or without
instead of turning up and down.
00:00:58
The dark blue, sends
3 and 4, and 7 and 8
work exactly the same way
but they're setup as
stereo sends.
00:01:05
So the left knob
is exactly like the knobs
for the mono sends,
you turn Aux 3 and 4 on here,
and you do the volume here.
00:01:15
Then this knob is the pan that spans
between Aux 3 and 4 or Aux 7 and 8.
00:01:22
If I wanted to set this up
as mono sends
I could just pan to 3
or pan to 4.
00:01:28
And that's essentially two mono
sends with the volume control here.
00:01:31
I am actually using both of them
for stereo things.
00:01:34
If you remember, 3 and 4
is the stereo Aphex.
00:01:37
And 7 and 8 is some yet to
be determined
stereo thing inside of
Pro Tools.
00:01:42
If you pop this knob up,
the pan knob, for either
the stereo sends
what that does is it make
that send pre.
00:01:51
The mono sends are only post.
00:01:52
The stereo sends can
be pre or post.
00:01:54
I'll be using them on post
all day.
00:01:57
Just above that is the line
trim for the input to the module.
00:02:01
A couple of these are not
at the unity position
because the amplifiers inside
the channels are drifted a little bit.
00:02:07
So I sort of kind of
aligned the console.
00:02:09
I won't really be touching those
unless something is horribly wrong.
00:02:13
Just above that is the EQ.
00:02:16
These are basically Neve 1084 EQs.
00:02:20
It's exactly the same EQ circuit
and topology as the 1084,
the difference is, and what makes
it a 31102,
is that there's no line input.
00:02:30
The mike pre is here and
is full range
but if you know the 1084
or the 1073, 1066,
any of the sort of standalone
3 band EQs,
this mic pre knob will actually
go past a certain point
and then turn into
a line gain knob.
00:02:45
These EQs do not
have a line input.
00:02:48
Which is what I was talking
about before about the channel
not having two line inputs.
00:02:51
The line input actually
happens down in the Aux module.
00:02:54
Anyway.
00:02:56
The way the EQ is arranged
is there's a high pass filter
on the outside of this
concentric pot,
a low pass filter, which almost
never gets used, on the top.
00:03:04
Then we get our low shelf,
frequency select here,
boost/cut here.
00:03:09
Then the mid-range band.
You have a frequency select here,
boost/cut here.
00:03:14
And then you have high Q switch.
00:03:17
It's sort of a fully
parametric EQ
except it's not fully parametric
in that you have fixed frequencies
and you only have two possibilities
for the bandwidth of that filter.
00:03:27
99% of the time I'm not
in high Q mode.
00:03:30
To me it's too tight and
it's a little bit resonant.
00:03:34
And if I'm gonna try and do
something specific with and EQ
it's not gonna be with
a Neve style EQ.
00:03:39
Then we move up to the
high shelf,
which has three
frequencies to it.
00:03:44
One is 10k, one is 12k
and one is 16k
and this is awesome because...
00:03:49
10 and 12 are like
1073 and 1066,
and then 16 is above the
shelf that either those EQs have.
00:03:57
So you actually have
some choices.
00:03:58
I tend to use
the 10k shelf the most
but that's just because
it's easier to hear.
00:04:04
So, what I'm going to do
is I will say now I'm going
to EQ the kick drum
and I'm just gonna
mess around with it.
00:04:10
You'll hear the difference and
than I can A/B
with the EQ in EQ out
but I'm not really gonna
stop and go over
every single band of EQ as we go
because otherwise we're
gonna be here for a week.
00:04:19
Alright? I'm gonna hit play,
throw up faders,
get a quick balance and then
we'll start working on the drums.
00:05:12
OK, get some idea of
what’s going on,
most of the channels on the
desk are working,
which is a huge plus.
00:05:18
And we'll hunt down any problems
we get along the way.
00:05:21
I'm just gonna start
with the drums.
00:05:23
I could start with something
else but why would I?
What I'm really trying to do
at this point is take these
twenty something tracks
of drums that are coming out of
10 outputs on faders
and make them act
like one fader.
00:05:36
So that after I go through the
drum kit and get it sounding good
I'd have one fader in the middle
of the board for my drums and that's it.
00:05:43
Let's start where it
makes sense, the kick drum.
00:05:45
What I'm gonna do first is
listen to the 3 kick drum tracks,
kind of decide
which ones I wanna use,
get some sort of balance
and then I'm gonna start EQing
and adding some of the
parallel compression stuff to it.
00:07:00
OK, so basically what I've decided
is that I don't need the kick sub.
00:07:05
So I'll go ahead and
make that guy inactive.
00:07:07
And I'm balancing between
the Kick Reso,
which I'm assuming is
some sort of resonator
and the inside mike.
00:07:14
At the moment I'm gonna try
and do all of my sonic stuff out here.
00:07:17
I may have to go back into
Pro Tools and do some extra EQ.
00:07:21
I feel like I'm really missing
some low end,
some sub there.
00:07:25
But I'm gonna try to get it out
of my Sub Box that I've patched up
and also I'm gonna get some
of the parallel compression going.
00:07:32
The first thing I'm gonna do
is check out Bus 4,
which is our dbx 160 VU.
00:07:50
That's helping and I like it.
00:07:55
We could talk about the setting
and where it's coming back
and things like that
but I'm actually
finding it sort of irrelevant.
00:08:02
This is what I was talking about
before and I talked about
having a template out
here in the real world
the same way you
would in Pro Tools.
00:08:08
That compressor has been set
the same way for years
and the return is basically
at nominal level.
00:08:13
And because the song doesn't
have a huge amount of dynamics,
it starts, gets going, keeps
going until the bridge,
then picks right back again
and goes to the out,
I'm probably not gonna have
to have any control over that,
I adjust my kick and
snare to sound great
and they'll sound great
all the way through the track.
00:08:30
Now I'm gonna go through
the same process with the snare.
00:08:33
Add it to the same sort
of compression
and then see if that
sub helps out with the kick.
00:08:39
So here we go with the snare.
00:09:38
So really quickly,
here's kick and snare
without the parallel compression
and without the EQ.
00:09:50
Here's just the parallel compression.
00:09:57
Here's just the EQ.
00:10:06
And here's both.
00:10:15
OK, and as promised I'm
gonna start playing with the sub
and see if that works well.
That's on Send 5.
00:10:20
Which is down here.
00:10:28
And return...
00:10:30
The return for the sub
is over here
and I've got that
going just to the front bus.
00:10:42
It's interesting, I'm gonna
keep it around
and then once we have the bass
and the rest of the kit going
then we'll see how
it all works out.
00:10:50
A lot of times while I'm working
on the EQ on instruments
I'm really just playing and trying
to find things
but there is always something
in my head.
00:10:58
Kick drum I'm always looking
for enough point
that it's gonna cut through,
even with a loud track.
00:11:03
And enough thump.
00:11:05
As it turns out we're adding
some 35 Hz on the low shelf
and later on that may
change to 60,
I go back and forth as to
which frequency works better.
00:11:14
And then for the point,
we're adding some 4.8
and a 10K shelf.
00:11:19
And the amount of those will change
as we keep re-balancing the drums.
00:11:23
Snare is almost exactly the same thing.
00:11:25
I'm looking for some high frequency
to really bring out the crack
as well as the sound of the
snares themselves.
00:11:31
And to go along with that
I need some thump
because that's gonna be the weight
and the size of the snare.
00:11:37
If it's too thin it really just
takes your head off,
it doesn't help with the groove.
00:11:41
There needs to be some relationship
between the kick and the snare
so that the groove itself
comes from those two drums.
00:11:47
And in this case it's a shelf
at around 220.
00:11:50
I'm also high passing the snare a little
bit, it looks like 45.
00:11:55
The high-pass filters will go in
on almost every single EQ that I use
and that's just to
keep everything else
that doesn't need
to be down in the bottom
out of the bottom.
00:12:05
So the kick drum and the bass
should probably be the only things
that live down there at the moment.
00:12:10
As we EQ that high-pass filter
is gonna come in.
00:12:13
So just to finish up on
the kick and snare...
00:12:16
we're using the EQ on the console,
I'm using Bus 4,
which is a post fader send,
so whatever balance I make of
my kick and snare here
that's the same balance that gets
sent over to the gear on bus 4,
which in this case,
is a DBX 160 VU.
00:12:31
And just because we can,
let me turn off the
send going to the sub,
and I can take the kick and
snare out of
the stereo bus and you can
hear just the DBX.
00:12:47
And here is just the direct.
00:12:54
And here is the
combination with both.
00:13:01
Punchy, awesome.
00:13:04
So moving left to right on the console,
the next thing to look at is the toms,
and you may remember from
our time at the patchbay,
this is the only thing on the console
with an actual insert on it.
00:13:14
So, I'm gonna go over to the Aphex 204,
which we have on the toms
and see what it's up to.
00:13:19
So I'm just gonna loop that
one section where the toms hit.
00:13:22
And let's start listening just
to the left side.
00:13:42
Now we're gonna go
to the right side.
00:13:56
And all I'm really doing over here
is just tweaking the frequency
that's driving
and how much drive.
00:14:01
So here's both sides.
00:14:22
I think that sort of
speaks for itself.
00:14:24
That is a magic box on toms.
00:14:26
I don't know that I'd ever used
it on anything else.
00:14:30
And I bought a second one just
as a spare, just in case.
00:14:33
Because, it's pretty magic.
00:14:35
Alright.
00:14:36
On the agenda are overheads,
let's see what we've got here.
00:14:39
There are two main sort of schools
of overhead miking,
one is cymbal mikes, one
is drum kit mikes.
00:14:45
Let's see which one we've got.
00:14:52
Sounds like we're dealing with
basic drum kit miking
but there also aren't very
many cymbals at all in the track,
which is good.
00:14:59
So I can use this just
as part of the kit.
00:15:02
And those drum overdub
tracks that we saw earlier,
those are actually accent crashes
all the way through the big chorus section.
00:15:11
I don't have a whole lot to deal with
in terms of cymbals here,
I'm just gonna crank this up, see if some
of the parallel compression works,
maybe EQ a little bit
and we'll move on.
00:15:19
First thing I'm gonna do
is use some clip gain
just to bring up the level,
because they are a little low.
00:15:32
The next thing I'm gonna do is
see if our TG compressor,
which was that stereo compressor
we hooked up before, see if that helps.
00:15:40
I believe that was Bus 7 and 8.
00:15:56
The return is really loud, I'm just
gonna go turn that down.
00:15:59
I'll be right back.
00:16:08
Did you miss me?
I doubt it.
00:16:10
Now I'm gonna EQ a little bit,
I just wanna get it a
little bit brighter,
bring out a little
bit of the room.
00:16:15
There isn't really any good
low end down there that I'm hearing
but I'm gonna crank
that up just to see and
probably end up high-passing
this a little bit.
00:16:49
OK I lied, there's actually some
good low end down there.
00:16:52
What I've ended up doing is a
tiny bit of high-pass filter
and then the shelf at 229,
boosting that up
kind of a lot, no mid band EQ,
and then a 10K shelf
to brighten it up.
00:17:05
Here's with and without the EQ.
00:17:07
Here's with.
00:17:12
And here's without.
00:17:15
I like it better with so
we're gonna go with it.
00:17:17
And here's without EQ and compression
just to remember what we started with.
00:17:26
Here's just the compressor.
00:17:29
And here's EQ as well.
00:17:34
And now I'm just gonna make sure it
all works with the kick and snare.
00:17:37
And then we're gonna move on.
00:17:53
Next, I'm just gonna mute those guys
and leave them up.
00:17:56
Next we've got this mono room,
which came with a compressor
and it's pretty crushed.
00:18:01
I'm gonna make sure we like
how crushed it is,
see how it blends in
with the rest of the kit,
maybe EQ it, maybe not.
00:18:12
I wanna control some
of the low end
and hearing it I kind
of wish that they'd
controlled the low end
before the compressor.
00:18:18
And then it occurs to me,
the compressor is a plug-in in Pro Tools
so I can actually do that.
00:18:23
I'm gonna move in to Pro Tools
and EQ before the compressor
and then we may come back
out in the console to EQ afterwards.
00:18:50
So I've gotten rid of
some of the crazy low end
that was really making
that compressor pump
but the next thing I wanna do
is take out the harsh frequency
that happened when that
crash cymbal happened.
00:19:00
I'm gonna find that
spot in the track.
00:19:09
And now I'm gonna use the
EQ3 seek and destroy option.
00:19:12
I'm gonna turn the high shelf
into a parametric band
and then tighten up the Q...
00:19:18
And then, holding down
Shift and Control,
as I move the frequency
it will turn the EQ into a
band pass filter
and allow me to find the really
horrendous frequency here.
00:19:38
Alright. I think this
is pretty usable,
let's see how it works with
everything else.
00:19:59
As it turns out,
it' a little bit thick,
I don't love it, I'm gonna just
leave it alone but turn it off for now.
00:20:05
Let's check out the other room.
00:20:07
This is a combination of
two room tracks.
00:20:10
We've got a far room
and then a room
so I'm assuming 'Room'
is a little bit closer.
00:20:22
Both of them sound pretty good,
they seem a little left heavy.
00:20:26
I'm actually gonna use my
line trims on the console
just to balance it up
real quick.
00:20:38
Alright, let's see how it
sounds with everything else.
00:21:05
OK, in isolation that
seems fine,
I have no idea how it's gonna
work in the track.
00:21:09
So let's mute that with
our one handy group fader
and now I'm gonna
move on to the bass.
00:21:14
Again, there is some problem
solving that happened
in the 'in the box' mix
where I had
the DI and an amped track.
00:21:24
And I'll play those for you
again here.
00:21:27
So the DI sounds like this.
00:21:34
Which is cool but very
clean and direct.
00:21:37
And then the amped track
sounds like this.
00:21:44
Very subby and flabby, I'm not sure
how useful that's gonna be.
00:21:47
What I'm gonna do
is mute that amped track,
take my copy of the DI,
route it out of the amp output,
and actually turn these guys
back up to zero
there's no reason to be
attenuating in the box here.
00:22:01
And now I'm gonna add
a Sansamp plug-in.
00:22:07
Which is one of the very first
modeling plug-ins,
it was part of the first
Bomb Factory collection.
00:22:12
And basically,
I've explained this before
but I'll go through it quickly again.
00:22:17
It is an amp simulator,
so there's a preamp,
which is basically input gain,
there are 4 different types
of distortion circuit,
Buzz, Punch, Crunch and Drive,
and they all have different
frequency characteristics
and different dynamic
characteristics,
and we're just gonna crank them
around and kind of see what sounds good.
00:22:34
There is an overall EQ,
more of a tone control
that happens after
the distortion
and then level is output level.
00:22:41
So, we're gonna listen
to just our copy
of our DI track out of
the amp output
and turn this into an amp track.
00:23:21
OK, so now let's see how this
blends in with the clean DI
and make some decisions
about that relative balance.
00:23:39
I feel like they're still
sounding a little too similar
I'm gonna kind of mess with
the copy of the DI even more
and make it maybe a little too dirty
and then we'll see how it blends in.
00:24:09
Alright, now we're gonna see
how it works with the drums.
00:24:30
Now I'm gonna mute the drums again
and let's check out our bass crush
which, if you remember,
is the very strangely set up transient
designer where we basically take away
all of the attack,
crank the sustain up
a little bit,
and I'm gonna put that on here
which again, is just a switch.
00:24:47
It's a post fader send, so we'll get
exactly the same balance I've got here.
00:24:50
Then we're gonna run
over to the other console,
and start blending it in and we'll
see if it's helping or hurting.
00:24:55
I'm gonna hit the button here,
I'm gonna go over here
and turn it all the way off,
and actually, here's
something we can do,
I'm gonna make a group
so that I can control it remotely
just while I get the balance
then I'm gonna unmake the group.
00:25:11
But I'd like to sit between the
speakers while I make this decision.
00:25:14
I'm gonna turn on my group mode,
I'm gonna hit select
on my empty group fader,
I'm not using it for
anything yet,
run over here,
select the bass crush,
exit group mode.
00:25:28
So now that I have them grouped,
it's basically like turning this console
into a control surface
so I can move this fader here
while I'm sitting right between
the speakers,
and like magic,
that fader over there follows
my every move.
00:25:39
As soon as I've got
a level I like,
I can go ahead and ungroup the fader
and it will just stay right there.
00:26:02
OK, I think I like that.
00:26:04
I'm still in group mode here.
00:26:06
All I need to to is
reselect the master.
00:26:10
That selects the faders over here,
hit select to take it
out of the group.
00:26:14
And now that fader will just
stay right there
and I free this fader up
for something later.
00:26:19
So now, if you wanna get an idea
of what that transient designer
sounds like, I'm gonna take the
bass out of the stereo bus
and now we're just listening
to the return of the transient designer.
00:26:37
I think that it's kind of hard
to argue that sounds good
but it's all about what it
does when you blend it in.
00:26:43
What it seems to do is you
hear that little bit of pumping
is it keeps the sustain of
the notes a little bit longer,
it's a very unnatural weird
sound on it's own,
but in with the bass,
00:00:00
So now, I think that what we really
need to to do is address this back-beat,
which is the other
part of the groove.
00:00:06
So you've got your 4 on the floor
kick, you've got your moving bass
and then you've got your back-beat,
which is made up from some guitar,
and also from 3
different keyboards,
which take turns playing.
The piano goes all the way through
then we've got a B3 and a Rhodes
that are taking turns.
00:00:20
And if you remember I made the
decision just the put the keys
together in a stereo pair and
we'll see how well that's gonna work out.
00:00:27
Plus there's one thing that we
actually did to this rhythm guitar
that I'm gonna go ahead
and import.
00:00:33
In the choruses we added the
spring reverb to it.
00:00:36
I'm gonna bring that
into the session
and then you can check out
what it sounds like.
00:00:41
So really quickly, to recap from
the other version of this mix,
what we did is we created
a spring reverb
to sound very much like it's
part of the amplifier.
00:00:51
And only have it on in the choruses
so the guitar will dry up in the verses,
which also helps point out the difference
between the B3 and the Rhodes.
00:00:58
The Rhodes is a little
tighter than the B3.
00:01:00
So all I need to do now
that I've imported this
is route the output to the same
output as the guitar itself
because I want this to live
with the guitar.
00:01:08
Now...
00:01:10
If I solo up the guitar,
in the choruses...
00:01:17
A nice spring amp reverb
and in the verses...
00:01:23
Super dry,
which is gonna give us
a really good contrast
because he also drops
down the voicing.
00:01:29
Without changing the rhythm
and without really changing the part
all of a sudden we've got
two very different versions of this
and that's gonna go well
with the keyboards.
00:01:37
Let's have a listen to the keyboards
and see what's going on here.
00:01:41
And I'll try not to make
a tiny selection. Here we go.
00:01:46
The first thing is that
there's an upright piano
which is panned right.
00:01:50
That goes with the guitar so we'll
deal with that in a second.
00:01:53
I'm gonna treat this almost
like to mono faders.
00:01:56
Let's listen to the
B3 and the Rhodes
on the left and see
what they're up to.
00:02:10
They sound pretty similar you can
hear there's still a little piano bleed
because the piano isn't
panned hard right.
00:02:16
So now I'm gonna check out the guitar
and the keyboards together,
I don't know if there's a whole
lot to do with this,
let's just see what happens.
00:02:29
I'm gonna leave this
completely alone,
there's no point EQing something
that doesn't necessarily need EQ.
00:02:34
Now it's time to get this balanced
so that our groove works
with the bass, drums
and keyboards and guitars.
00:02:42
I'm gonna do something which is
easy to do on a console,
hard to do 'in the box'.
00:02:47
And that's why it's so much fun.
00:02:48
I'm gonna just yank all the faders
down, and let's build up a balance
knowing what we already know.
00:03:28
OK, two quick things I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna add a little
bit of sub to the bass,
because I can, and let's
see if that works.
00:03:34
He's not always playing low
so this might just get messy
and it might not be the kind
of thing I wanna do
but since he plays lower
in the chorus than in the verse
it might actually help us
build the chorus.
00:03:45
The other thing I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna bring in our Rear Bus.
00:03:48
I'm gonna take the guitar
and the keyboards
and assign them to the Rear Bus
exactly the same way they're
assigned to the Front Bus.
00:03:57
So the guitar is in the Front Right
so I put it in the Rear Right.
00:04:01
Keyboards are split left right
so I put that left right.
00:04:05
Then...
00:04:06
Follow me over here.
00:04:08
There's a master fader
for the Rear Bus.
00:04:10
This is the master
for my send...
00:04:12
into the two 1176.
00:04:14
And then there's a pair of faders
over here that's the return.
00:04:17
I'm gonna make a group
just because I'll probably
want one
that's going to let
this last fader here
control the Rear Bus.
00:04:26
I'm gonna leave it set up
that's why I'm using the last fader.
00:04:29
So I've selected my master here...
00:04:32
I'm gonna do the very simple thing
of hitting the select buttons over here,
on my 1176.
00:04:38
All these faders are at zero
so I'm at zero here, those
faders are at zero.
00:04:43
And now once again, we have
remote control of those 2 faders.
00:04:47
And I'm gonna start bringing in the
Rear Bus and let's see what happens.
00:04:50
Just from experience,
I know if my Rear Bus sits
around -10 that's probably good.
00:04:55
I'm gonna really just
play with the return.
00:05:20
OK, also at this point, I'm gonna
do something on the console
just because I know
I have to do it.
00:05:25
This console will put out +28.
00:05:28
The Pro Tools inputs are
aligned to -18.
00:05:32
That means I've got 10 dB more
headroom coming out of the console
than I do going into Pro Tools.
00:05:37
So I'm basically gonna move my master
fader from my front bus, which is the mix,
down to about -10.
00:05:44
That is going to affect the amount
of compression I get out my 2264
so I'll still be pushing
that a little bit
but I can't really go too
much further than that
because I will start to clip
the input of the Pro Tools rig.
00:05:56
I'm gonna start at -10.
00:05:58
So all of a sudden,
what you've been listening to
is gonna get a little quieter
but at the same time,
I'm gonna have a look
at my stereo bus
and decide if we wanna use
any of the plug-ins
that I normally use in the stereo bus
alongside the hardware
or indeed, instead of the hardware.
00:06:13
I've brought the stereo mix down,
it's not gonna sound quite as exciting
for a second but we'll get
used to that drop in level.
00:06:20
I really wanna go through what's
going in the stereo bus out here
and then decide if we're gonna
use any plug-ins along with it.
00:06:27
What we're going through is the
Neve 2264s that live inside the console
than the Lang EQs which are just
Pultec style EQs
with solid state amplifiers
instead of tube amps.
00:06:37
And then we're going into a pair
of Pro Tools inputs
and I've got a Massey Limiter
on the back-end of that
just keeping the red lights off
because it makes me look good.
00:06:46
And also note I do have
soft clip on
on the interfaces. I'm a big
fan of soft clip again
because it keeps the lights off
but it sounds good to me.
00:06:55
It's pretty transparent and there are
times where we really push the inputs.
00:06:58
Later on we may decide
to really push
the input of Pro Tools
with this mix
just to get a little
more bite out of it
and that's why I'm so good
at putting square waves in my mix.
00:07:07
Really quickly, my normal
2-mix chain at the moment
is a model of a Farichild 670
with very little compression.
00:07:20
In fact, let's just turn that threshold
all the way down
so there's no compression
possible there.
00:07:25
Then the next thing
is a 33609 plug-in
which I use because
I'm trying to recreate
what I do with the 2264.
00:07:35
We're definitely not
gonna use that,
we're gonna use the compressors
on the board.
00:07:39
Next is this...
00:07:41
Brainworx EQ which
works in M/S mode
and I'm gonna zero it out for
now and we'll come back to this
once we've got the vocals in
and decide if we wanna do it.
00:07:51
The other thing it's gotta on
is a stereo width control.
00:07:53
I'm gonna actually leave
this EQ in for now
and leave the width up and just
see if that's cool or not.
00:07:59
What's great about it is it moves
stuff outside the speakers
what's bad about it
is it actually makes it impossible
to pan something hard left
because the way it works is
with some weird phase tricks
and by adding out of phase bits
of the signal into the opposite speaker
you actually, if you solo something
that's supposed to be hard left,
it isn't, it's on both
sides a little bit.
00:08:20
It can widen your stereo field
but it can also
really blur your stereo separation
and your stereo placement.
00:08:29
Considering I'm doing just
left center right panning
it might turn out to be a bad thing.
But we'll listen
once we've got some
more material in there.
00:08:36
Next in the chain
is something doing the job
of the Lang.
00:08:40
Once again I'm gonna blow this off,
it's just a Pultec set
almost the same way that
the Langs were set.
00:08:47
Next is a Fabfilter Limiter and
we'll just stick with the Massey for now.
00:08:53
So really it looks as though
we've got two possibilities.
00:08:55
One is this Fairchild 670
just for some color.
00:08:59
And the other is this stereo M/S EQ
which we get into later on
once the mix is done.
00:09:05
So I think I'm gonna make
sure the groove is cool.
00:09:07
And then gonna
check out the Horns,
they were sounding a little wet
to me when I did the rough balance.
00:09:13
We may have to re-balance
the Horn reverb.
00:09:17
Maybe eq them a little bit and
probably check out the Aphex.
00:09:20
Let me double check my balance
and then we'll check out the Horns.
00:09:46
I feel like I want some more
low end out of the bass,
I'm gonna jump back
and re-eq the bass.
00:09:50
What I'm really trying to do here
is get a big picture
and if I weren't speaking to you,
I would just have the mix running
and running, and the faders
might come down a couple of times.
00:09:59
I'm breaking out of my own thought
process every time we do this
but the thing that's
bugging me right now is
I don't feel like the
bass has enough weight.
00:10:07
So that's what we're gonna
take care with the EQ on the desk
and I'm gonna focus
on the amp track.
00:10:11
Because I feel like the DI
is really just for definition,
I don't wanna use it for tone.
00:10:16
I'm gonna start Eqing.
00:10:32
I'm also bringing up the
send for the sub on the bass
as well as the kick so the
kick and bass are going there.
00:10:54
I'm still not in love with this,
there's something about the
kick/bass area that I'm not loving
so I'm gonna start messing
with what we call 'Fat'
which is that BA6A.
00:11:04
And that is on Send 6
which happens to be
right next to the Sub Send.
00:11:09
I'm just gonna start messing
with the kick
the bass and then
possibly the snare
depending on what happens to the
kick and the bass.
00:11:16
And it's all just gonna be
on my little blue knobs for Send 6.
00:11:44
Alright, this is a first but I'm actually
gonna back off the input to the BA6A
because these Sends
are super sensitive.
00:11:50
So all I'm gonna do is
turn it down a few clicks.
00:12:12
OK, I'm gonna turn
those sends off.
00:12:15
Here's without.
00:12:24
And here's with.
00:12:42
I think it's a lot better with.
00:12:44
I'm also noticing, again I'm
gonna be jumping around a lot,
and I do this a lot more on a console
because everything is right in front of me
as opposed to having to really
focus in on something.
00:12:53
The keyboards, I'm just gonna
pop a L2...
00:12:59
on their Aux which
is feeding the output.
00:13:02
Just to get some more
level out of them.
00:13:04
It's a little low overall
but I like the balance,
I don't wanna mess
with the balance.
00:13:19
And now I'm just gonna
solo up the keyboards
and I'm probably gonna use a
high-pass filter
to get rid of a little of the messy
low end and then we're gonna move on.
00:13:46
So what I've done is I've high-passed
them at around 160
and then I'm using the shelf
to take out even a little more.
00:13:53
I ended up on different
frequencies
so I'm gonna even that up just
so it looks better
because it's not really critical.
00:13:58
And then I'm actually adding
a little 3K
because I think that's gonna help
bring out some tone and that should be
well below where I'm really
gonna want start pushing the vocal.
00:14:07
I'm gonna leave the top end alone.
00:14:09
This is without the EQ.
00:14:17
And with.
00:14:23
It's subtle but in the
track I think it's gonna help.
00:14:44
Alright, next is percussion.
00:14:47
Because that's another crucial
element to the groove
and in a way maybe it should have
been in before the keyboards.
00:14:53
I've got all the
percussion grouped again
because it's only a
couple elements at a time
and I can't believe I'm really gonna
get myself into trouble
so I've got a stereo pair
of percussion,
I'm almost definitely gonna
wanna brighten it up
which I'm gonna do with
a combination of EQ
but I'm also gonna use the Aphex
because it's a really special
grainy top end
with lots of sort of compressed
top end along with it
which is gonna really help
it poke out
and hopefully lift it above where
the hi-hat and the cymbals are
to differentiate itself.
00:15:23
So, we'll listen to just the
percussion and go from there.
00:15:32
I'm noticing immediately that there's a
low-mid frequency in that conga pattern
that I'm gonna wanna get rid of.
00:15:47
OK, that's much better to me
and let's listen to all the
percussion together.
00:15:51
I'll actually move a little further down
where we've got more going on.
00:16:21
I'm just using my line trims to help
even these guys up.
00:16:24
I'm using a bit of the Aphex
and some EQ.
00:16:27
So, really quickly here is
with no Aphex and no EQ.
00:16:33
Here's with adding the Aphex.
00:16:38
And here's Aphex and EQ.
00:16:41
And remember, all of these Sends
are post fader and post EQ
so that extra top end from the EQ
is gonna move over into the Aphex as well.
00:16:50
And while this is running
I'm gonna use the high-pass
just to get rid of any
crap down the bottom end.
00:17:03
Alright, let's drop them into the
track and see what happens.
00:17:05
I think what I'm gonna do,
because I can,
is I'm gonna mute the bass
using my group,
mute the guitar and keyboards,
because that's all that's in
and then I'm gonna blend
the percussion until we like it,
bring the rest of the instruments in
and then we're moving on.
00:18:13
Now that we've got more of the
mix in but before we get the vocals
I wanna give you an idea of
what those Langs are doing
because it's actually a big part
of the sound of the mix.
00:18:32
I think you can hear with the Langs
that it's a very broad EQ, super bright,
I'm adding a ton of top end
and this again is so
that I don't have to go through
and do on lots
of individual tracks.
00:18:43
And actually I'm realizing I did
it a little bit late
because I think I've overdone it
with the EQ on the bass and
maybe even the kick drum.
00:18:50
So I'm gonna pop the EQ back out
on the bass and see how this feels.
00:19:02
Yeah, so now the bass actually
feels good to me without the EQ.
00:19:05
I was compensating for something
that I knew wasn't there
but it was coming.
So now it's here.
00:19:11
I think we're on to the Horns.
00:19:14
Solo them up first just to
make sure everything is working.
00:19:18
Part of the joys of working
on analog gear,
you can't assume, just because
you unmuted, it's going to play.
00:19:34
So it's playing but it sounds
very reverby to me.
00:19:36
I'm gonna turn down all
of the room tracks.
00:19:47
So, they're in the Rear Bus as well
because they should live there
along with the percussion and
the guitars in the back-beats.
00:19:54
And let's find a level for them.
00:20:22
So, I think I've got
the balance going pretty well
but I don't have my vocals in
and I'm realizing that a lot
of my faders are near the top.
00:20:30
Which isn't ideal.
00:20:32
I don't necessarily need
headroom level wise
because I can always bring
my mixbus up and down.
00:20:36
But I definitely need headroom
physically on the faders.
00:20:40
Flying faders has an amazingly
complex and powerful trim window
which even works before
you start automating.
00:20:48
I'm not automating anything
on the console yet,
these faders are all static,
the only way I'm using
the motors is with groups or links
or something like that.
00:20:55
But if I open up the trim window
by hitting the other
key over here
it opens up a dialog on the
flying faders screen
where I can select a certain
number of faders.
00:21:06
I've already selected
just my source faders.
00:21:09
That's faders 1 through 26. That's the
tracks coming out of Pro Tools.
00:21:14
And I'm not selecting any of the
returns of the parallel compressors
or anything like that because what
I'm gonna be able to do
is now turn those
faders up and down
keeping the balance
that I've got.
00:21:26
And as I bring them down,
the send to all of the
parallel compression, FX
and things like that
will come down with them.
00:21:32
It's a great way for me to
give myself fader headroom
and also change how I'm hitting
the stereo bus compressor
without changing
my balance at all.
00:21:40
I'm just gonna hit play
then using the plus
and minus keys
I can go up and down
a tenth of a dB
or with shift plus and minus
come up and down a dB.
00:21:48
And I'm looking for a pretty
coarse adjustment here
so I'm gonna use the Shift key
and probably come down
3 or 4 dB.
00:22:12
Alright, that's better, I've got
some room physically but also
I'm listening as I do it
because as I bring those
faders down
obviously it changes
how it hits the stereo bus
but also changes how all of
those individual tracks
are hitting their
parallel processing.
00:22:27
I'm really just using my
ears to see
when I gaining the headroom
without loosing the fun.
00:22:33
And the fun is all the impact
of the kick and snare
hitting that dbx 160,
is the Rear Bus making
the bubble,
which is the guitar and the keyboards
pump along with the Horns.
00:22:42
And I think I just sort
of found a sweet spot.
00:22:45
And the good thing is that
sweet spot is a couple of dB wide.
00:22:48
It's not really super precise and
it's all about just listening.
00:22:52
I wish I could tell you what happened
on the meters but I have no idea
because it doesn't really matter.
00:22:56
So at this point, I think we're out
to check out our background vocals.
00:23:01
Right now the background vocals are
going straight to output pair 21 and 22.
00:23:06
Just in case I wanna
do anything overall to them
inside of Pro Tools, instead of
using an Aux to go through
I'm actually just gonna use a master
fader for that output.
00:23:17
And it's just an easy way
for me to be able to grab the level
of what's coming out of
a stereo pair
without actually changing
the Pro Tools mixer.
00:23:26
I've assigned a master to
outputs 21 and 22.
00:23:30
Then I can put...
00:23:32
either just adjust the level
up and down
or actually put plug-ins on
if there's something I wanna do
overall to these tracks
that isn't something I would
do in the console.
00:23:40
The first thing we're gonna do
is solo these up and listen.
00:23:43
And hear the exquisite sound of the
Marley sisters
plus some other folks.
00:23:55
So, those sound pretty
great right away.
00:23:58
All I'm really gonna do is sort
of standard vocal processing.
00:24:00
They're gonna get a little
bit of reverb,
they're gonna get a little
bit of Aphex,
maybe a little bit of EQ,
some high-pass.
00:24:08
They're definitely gonna go
in the Rear Bus.
00:24:10
And now I'm gonna set up
a reverb that I imported
that was the vocal reverb
on another mix,
it's the UAD Plate with a little
filter on the way in.
00:24:19
And I'm gonna set that up
to get the input
that I had from Sends 7 and 8.
00:24:23
I'm actually gonna use a
physical send from the console
to hit a Pro Tools reverb
and then that reverb is gonna
come up on two channels
on the desk over there.
00:24:32
So, inputs 25 and 26,
outputs 27 and 28.
00:24:36
That should do it.
00:24:43
Let me solo these guys up,
see what this reverb is like.
00:25:01
OK, so now I'm gonna go ahead
and EQ, do a little bit with the Aphex
and that's probably
all these need.
00:25:32
OK, here is without Aphex and
without EQ.
00:25:39
Who wouldn't want that?
I'm gonna pop them in the track,
get a quick level
and then it's time to move on
to some lead vocals.
00:26:11
Alright, it is time
for some lead vocal.
00:26:14
I'm gonna go to a verse here
where Ziggy is singing,
I'm gonna solo them up.
00:26:18
Basically, what I'm gonna be
working with here is the EQ,
the Aphex, the Reverb,
maybe the BA6A, so these are all
things that are on Sends.
00:26:29
Then, if you remember we
have our special 1176 set up.
00:26:34
And that's another where I'm gonna
wanna play with the level of the return.
00:26:37
I know I'm gonna wanna hammer it
just with whatever the
post fader level is.
00:26:41
I'm not really worried about the
send level, which why it's on a bus,
but I am worried about
the return level
so the first thing I'm gonna do
is set up a group on my fourth
my third group fader,
which we'll be using as a spare.
00:26:52
So again, engage group mode,
hit select,
run over here...
00:27:02
Hit select...
00:27:04
And now...
00:27:06
I have my group from
my vocal crush.
00:27:08
I'm gonna go ahead and engage it
and then bring it up here
is sort of the same motion
as bringing up the send
when you're checking
out a reverb.
00:27:15
Or checking out a parallel
compressor on a send.
00:27:19
I think it's best if I just now
work on the vocal
and I'll tell you what
we ended up doing.
00:28:06
Let's forget about the
slap for a second and
give you a quick recap
about what I did.
00:28:09
And this is one of the things that's
awesome about working on the console.
00:28:13
I just adjusted 5 FXs and
an EQ in about 5 seconds.
00:28:18
With the EQ, doing exactly
what you'd expect,
I'm high-passing around 70,
adding a little 220 for some body,
and then the 7.2 mid band and
the 10K shelf
are adding together
to give me some top.
00:28:31
That's going into the Aphex.
00:28:33
Exactly like what we did with
the background vocals, basically.
00:28:38
So let's check out our
lead vocal in the track
and see if we're even close.
00:29:21
OK, all I've done is take the slap
off of Ziggy's voice.
00:29:25
I probably need it on U-Roy, I might
even need it to be set differently.
00:29:29
I've added a little bit of the reverb,
because I like that.
00:29:33
And that's it so it's time for
the big man, U-Roy.
00:29:36
I'm gonna go to the end.
00:29:39
He is representing
something fierce.
00:29:42
And let's see what's
going on here.
00:30:21
Alright, let's here it
in context.
00:30:23
Again, almost exactly the
same treatment as Ziggy's vocal.
00:30:26
I've used bus 6 which is that
1176 set on stun blending that in.
00:30:32
It's the same blend as Ziggy because
he's actually sharing it with Ziggy.
00:30:36
The EQs have ended up
almost identical, high-pass at 70,
little boost with the shelf at 220.
00:30:43
Little boost at 7.2
which on...
00:30:47
interesting, on Ziggy it's actually
cut at 7.2
that may or may not be
a good thing.
00:30:52
And a little bit of the 10K shelf.
00:30:55
And some Aphex.
00:30:57
A little bit of the slap,
which we set up with Ziggy's voice
but now we're using on U-Roy's voice.
00:31:02
A little bit of spread which is
that micro-pitch slap.
00:31:06
Basically, a little bit
of everything.
00:31:08
Because it's on the manual,
why not use it?
The only thing we have left that
we haven't listened to is the FX.
00:31:14
I'm gonna very quickly
go to where they happen
in the song,
have a quick listen
to what they are.
00:31:21
I'm gonna assume they
should go in the Rear Bus.
00:31:28
Thunder and lighting.
00:31:29
I think that's gonna be absolutely
fine. I'm gonna set a rough level.
00:31:33
You know what, I'm not gonna
set a rough level, I'm gonna do something
which is awesome about
mixing on a console,
is I'm gonna do this.
00:31:43
And I'm just gonna re-balance
the track quickly.
00:31:45
I feel like the balance was good,
but it wasn't magic.
00:31:48
So, why not?
I can do this from scratch.
00:31:50
I'm just gonna run from the top
now that I've got tones in
everything including the vocal
and then we'll see if there's anything
that doesn't fit once we put it together.
00:33:35
One thing that I wanna make clear about
all of these parallel compression chains
that I'm just slamming into, using
a button, not even a send,
then I'm bringing up
the returns,
is that years and years spent in
the studio have been spent
refining these chains,
and basically what happens is,
let's say with the Rear Bus chain,
I said, 'Well I've got an extra
stereo bus, let's use it'.
00:33:56
So I started by deciding I'm gonna try
and find something that will work
on everything except
bass and drums.
00:34:02
So I tried lots of
different compressors.
00:34:05
Once I decided I really liked my
one pair of old crusty blackface 1176s
then I spent a lot of time
on the attack and release time.
00:34:13
Attack time for me, on the 1176,
almost always slow as possible,
but the release time can totally
change the character of the compressor.
00:34:22
I spent a long time, on different
mixes, messing with the release time.
00:34:26
And eventually, over the
course of 5 or 6 mixes,
that release time didn't have
to be touched anymore,
it just worked. And that's the
same with the input and output gains.
00:34:35
The input, because it's a fixed
threshold compressor,
really just decides how much level
I've got to slam into it
before it really starts compressing.
00:34:43
The output gain is where do I
have to leave the return faders
so that it works.
00:34:48
Now, because I've got a Rear Bus
master over here,
that's my input control.
00:34:53
And for my output, usually I can
just leave those faders up at zero.
00:34:57
But every once in a while I wanna
control the return
and that's why I have my
group faders over here.
00:35:02
The same goes for the vocal crush.
00:35:04
It's such a massively, distorted,
crazy sounding compression.
00:35:10
There's tons of input gain,
the slowest attack, fastest release.
00:35:14
The 4 and the 20 buttons are in
so it's all buttons in.
00:35:18
It's in distortion land
crazy world.
00:35:20
I don't really care about
the subtleties of that.
00:35:23
I've got the input set so there's
a lot of compression,
I'm sending off a bus.
00:35:27
And it's all about how
much of it I blend in.
00:35:29
So really the thing I need
to control is the return.
00:35:33
And there's no meter
that's relevant.
00:35:35
If I look at the gain reduction meter
or the output meter,
in all buttons in mode,
the gain reduction meter doesn't
mean anything anymore.
00:35:42
And the output meter doesn't
mean anything to me
because I'm gonna blend
it in using a fader
not the output control
on the compressor.
00:35:49
Again, it's all about how it feels
and how it sounds.
00:35:53
And then in terms of the
overall mix
I can set my master fader
just looking at the meters on my 2264
because I'm always getting about
4 dB of compression.
00:36:04
But, probably five years ago
I stopped looking at those meters
because I know how it feels.
There's this trade off between
pumping the mix and distorting the mix,
and I just live in that world.
00:36:16
So, basically,
I'm so comfortable in my own space
and I've used the gear for so long
that you could take all the
meters off of everything.
00:36:25
I worked with Bruce Swedien for years
and there was a joke that we could build
him a rack that just had inputs and outputs
and no knobs and no meters and
it's because he knew the gear so well
that it was all set and he would
affect how it worked around him.
00:36:38
It's not that I think that I found the
perfect setting for this compressor.
00:36:43
It's just I found a setting that works
and it's easier for me to
affectively change the settings
by changing what I send to it
and how much of it I listen to
than it is to get up.
00:36:54
It's a combination of me
being brilliant and me being lazy.
00:36:58
And it's somewhere
right in between.
00:37:00
So all of that said, I think it's
time to turn on the automation.
00:37:03
Which with flying faders is as
simple as hitting the run button.
00:37:08
OK, before we start automating let me
just talk about the system.
00:37:12
This is the Martinsound flying
faders system.
00:37:16
It started off as Neve flying
faders and then some time around
the VR2 I think, they split ways
and it became it's own company.
00:37:24
It's based on a 486 running
windows 2.1,
with the serial track ball.
00:37:29
It's the most stable
system in the world.
00:37:32
There are probably flying faders systems
that have been on for 20 years
and not rebooted. And they
just work.
00:37:37
It's kind of scary.
00:37:39
In terms of automation it's one of the
most flexible systems around,
there's a lot of Pro
Tools automation
that is based on functions
from flying faders.
00:37:48
Some of which because I kept
calling them until they did it.
00:37:50
Some of which because
it's just obvious.
00:37:52
I wanna talk really
briefly about fader modes.
00:37:55
And then we're gonna talk about
the trim window again.
00:37:57
Because remember I was using
that to move all my faders up and down.
00:38:01
But the trim mode on
this is scary.
00:38:04
And they finally implemented
it in Pro Tools. And it's really cool.
00:38:08
So first of all, on every fader,
down here we've got an Auto
Match light and a Record light.
00:38:14
And then on top you've
got a Record light.
00:38:16
Down here are the buttons
for the fader,
and up here this Record
is for the Mute.
00:38:20
And then in between you've
got Select and Solo.
00:38:22
And Select and Solo don't have
anything to do with automation,
they're there for doing
groups and things like that.
00:38:27
I'm not gonna deal with mute
automation because that's one thing,
with Pro Tools, other than cleaning up
noise at the beginning and end of mixes,
you don't really need to mute
on a console anymore.
00:38:36
You're kind of wasting
your time if you do.
00:38:39
There are three modes
you can be in.
00:38:41
One is with all lights off
and what this does is,
as soon as you turn on the
automation for the first time
you get a snapshot
of all of the faders
and that is the static level the
fader will sit at unless you touch it.
00:38:54
So, with all lights off,
when time-code is running,
if I touch a fader,
it will write as I hold down
the fader and when I let go,
it will just leave everything
at that spot.
00:39:06
And then if there were
moves I'd already recorded
those moves will playback
but they'll playback
trimmed by however much
the differences between
where the fader was
and where I left it.
00:39:17
So let's say I've got a bunch
of rides on a vocal
and then I wanna ride
the beginning of the vocal
and I wanna it to be a little
quieter afterwards.
00:39:26
I do my ride and then I leave
the fader down
and when time-code is running you
actually see some Auto Match triangles
and I'll do an example of this
in a second
so you can see what I'm
talking about.
00:39:35
And you'll see once you let go
that the moves will still happen
but they'll actually all be happening
a little bit quieter than they used to be.
00:39:42
So, it's like a trim mode but
when touching the fader
you're sort of in this absolute
write mode
and then an offset trim
when you let go.
00:39:51
If you hold down
Auto Match and hit record
and turn on your
Auto Match light,
the difference here is this
is truly like touch mode.
00:39:59
So, when you touch the fader
you're writing absolute levels
as soon as you let go
it's gonna snap back
to wherever the fader used to be
and all of your automation will
happen as it used to.
00:40:10
Then the last mode is
Full On record mode.
00:40:13
And what happens here is
as soon as you touch the fader
you're on hard write mode
so you're writing absolute moves
and when you let go, the
fader will stay in Write
all the way until you stop
the time-code
and it will write a level
so all of the writes you have
done before go away.
00:40:31
99% of the time I have the
console in Auto Match mode,
which is like Touch mode
in Pro Tools,
and I'll show you,
every once in a while,
if we get to, that this automation
is gonna be pretty simple.
00:40:42
I might use the All Lights off mode
to just trim a fader
from a certain point in
the song to the end.
00:40:51
Because wherever I grab it
it goes all the way to the end
once I hit stop.
00:40:55
Alright, all that said,
with the Run button on,
the first time I give it a time-code,
it takes a snapshot and we're
off and running.
00:41:03
So I'm gonna go ahead and
ride the drums.
00:44:06
And that's gonna work
till the end of the track.
00:44:08
One thing I noticed really
quickly is the FXs are too loud.
00:44:11
So I'm gonna use that trim window
trick, even though there's no automation,
rather than add automation
to the middle of the song
on a fader that's not
playing anything
in my mind it's cleaner
if it just sits still
so I'm gonna use the Trim Window,
pull it down,
close the Trim window
and that's where it will stay.
00:44:37
And now, even though I was moving
the fader while the time-code was running
you notice it just sticks to that level.
00:44:43
It will never move again.
00:44:45
Alright, so now I'm gonna do
a quick pass with both vocals.
00:44:48
And what we're probably
gonna find out
is that I'm really only
writing one vocal at a time.
00:44:52
But I feel like I can handle it.
So we'll see.
00:44:55
Because they don't do a whole
lot at the same time.
00:44:57
And while this is rolling I
may just be backing up.
00:45:02
And if I make a mistake I'm just gonna
rewind a little bit and let it play again.
00:45:05
I'm not gonna bother pointing
it out, you'll hear it.
00:45:08
So here we go.
00:48:47
Alright, so that works
a lot better for me.
00:48:50
There might be a couple of rides
that aren't exactly right now
because I may have pushed
them a little too far.
00:48:55
But I'll find those as
we go along,
I don't think you need to watch
me do that much
detailed work.
00:49:00
So basically that's it.
00:49:03
I have to say this has been
a fascinating experience,
to mix the same song two days in a row
in two totally different ways.
00:49:10
I think the 'in the box'
mix ended up
very much in the same world
as the record mix,
even though there's quite a bit
of difference between them.
00:49:19
But it's a really interesting way
to reinforce the concept
that the process informs the product.
00:49:28
And I think what it is, is that
from the very first thing you hear
as you start to build the mix,
that sets you on your path.
00:49:36
And as you go down that path
it's almost whatever is easiest is
where you start working.
00:49:42
So for me, on a console,
what's super easy
is to be popping things
in and out and grabbing EQs.
00:49:48
Whereas in the box, what's
super easy,
is to work with parallel
compression chains
a little bit slower than doing
it on the console
because I can't just push a button,
I actually have to make the send.
00:49:59
It's much more about balance and panning
than it is about EQ
because you really have to think about
what you want to EQ in the box
beside what kind of EQ
you' gonna use.
00:50:08
Whereas here with a much
more limited power of EQ,
I feel like I'm doing more EQ
and utilizing the parallel chains
a little bit more to shape the sound.
00:50:18
And I'm also relying on the
interaction of things within the Rear Bus
a lot more than I was in the other mix.
00:50:23
I'm sure these mixes
sound totally different,
more importantly, I'm sure
they feel totally different,
but I'm pretty happy with both of them.
00:50:30
So, there you go.
00:50:33
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Hardware used:
- Console: Neve 8068 (x2) with Flying Faders
- EQ: Neve 33102, Langevin EQ
- Dynamics: Urei 1176LN (Rev.D and Rev.A), dbx 160VU, Neve 2264, RCA BA6A, Spectrasonics 610, Chandler TG1
- FX: Eventide H3000, Aphex II Studio Exciter, Aphex 204, SPL Transient Designer
 | Buy Fly Rasta on iTunes: Click Here |
 | Visit Ziggy Marley's website: Click Here |
 | Visit Tuff Gong's website: Click Here |
"Fly Rasta Featuring U-Roy"
Written and Performed by Ziggy Marley
Licensed courtesy of Tuff Gong Worldwide
Andrew Scheps is a music producer, mixing engineer and record label owner based in the United Kingdom. He has received Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album for his work on Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium, Album Of The Year for Adele's 21, and also Best Reggae Album for Ziggy Marley's Fly Rasta.
Andrew started as a musician, but found that what he enjoyed most was working behind the scenes. This led him to study recording at the University of Miami. After graduating, he spent some time working for Synclavier, and then on the road with Stevie Wonder (as a keyboard tech) and Michael Jackson (mixing live sound). But he found his home in the studio, and he honed his craft working for producers such as Rob Cavallo, Don Was and Rick Rubin.
Andrew collaborated with Waves in order to create his own line of plug-ins which include the Scheps 73 EQ and the Scheps Parallel Particles.
Andrew is one of the best known mixing engineers in the world, well-known for his Rear Bus mixing techniques that he developed working on his 64 input Neve 8068 console and his love for distortion of any kind. If you are watching pureMix videos you will see that he managed to carry his analog sound signature over to a fully portable digital rig. These days, Andrew mixes completely In The Box as it allows him much greater flexibility and the ability to work on several project simultaneously.
Andrew has collaborated with Waves in creating his own line of plug-ins which include the Scheps Omni Channel, Scheps 73 EQ and Scheps Parallel Particles.
Beyonce
Lana Del Rey
Red Hot Chili Peppers
U2
Michael Jackson
Green Day
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