This is a real-time shoot of a prototypical tracking session, with no smoke or mirrors. Going from scratch to a rough mix in an hour or so with mic choices and placements, preamp choices and mic swapping for tone shaping. All steps are explained and commented.
Tracked with Avid ProTools HD|Native, full line of Royer Ribbon mics and Mojave Condenser mics, UA 4-710, UA610, Great River MP2NV, Great River EQ1-NV preamps and eqs as well as Dangerous Music Monitor ST, Dangerous Music Summing and Focal speakers.
00:00:00 Is there any violin player
from Indiana
with a dry sense of humor
in the room?
Yes, come on over.
00:00:16 The incredible Clayton Mathews.
00:00:21 Step into your office.
00:00:23 OK. So the violin is a very
difficult instrument.
00:00:27 Because it was designed
a few hundred years ago before
all the technology gave us things like
Pro Tools and stuff.
00:00:34 It's an instrument that's
very hard to record.
00:00:38 And fortunately, ribbon microphones
are just perfect for that.
00:00:41 Would you be kind enough to play us
something interesting?
Potentially something
from the song. Thank you.
00:01:04 So, if you look at the mike
placement, the idea here is
to be close enough to get the presence
because we like to be inside the recording.
00:01:12 But far away enough that you don't
get that "ba da Ba da eee" thing
that happens when you record
violins, most of the time.
00:01:19 The beauty of having a Ribbon
microphone like this is that
the ribbon smoothes it out.
00:01:24 All those peaks, very well.
00:01:27 Say you're gonna record these
parts again. Play these parts again.
00:01:30 - Did you record this?
- Just the end.
00:01:32 You're so swift.
00:01:33 Let's do it again. I wanna hear
the verse part.
00:01:36 Here we go.
00:01:47 Isn't that fantastic?
There's no recording, right?
And that is, let me show you,
It's a 121 through the
2-610 preamp.
00:01:57 You've heard that ribbons,
especially the 121, which is
not phantom powered,
need a lot of gain. Ribbons need
more gain to be able to get to it.
00:02:06 Probably your instinct will be
to not use a tube pre-amp
because you may get more noise
if you put a lot of gain.
00:02:14 Can you play that again?
The answer is:
do not make assumptions.
00:02:27 Right? So listen to the stuff.
00:02:30 A ribbon through a 2-610
on the violin is heaven.
00:02:33 It just sounds good, you don't
have to fight it. It's great.
00:02:36 This 121 sounds particular
good on this. Great.
00:02:39 I would like to bring to the stage,
potentially an upright player
with any kind of sense of
humor. It's OK.
00:02:48 Alright.
00:02:50 Jeremy.
00:02:55 Upright is a very difficult
instrument to record.
00:02:57 Really difficult instrument to record
because
it was designed at about the same time
as they designed that thing over there.
00:03:03 The violin. It's actually one
hell of a big violin.
00:03:07 And so.
00:03:10 So big that they just don't use the
bow anymore. They just go 'plunk, plunk'.
00:03:15 What we're gonna is, the
common sense,
is to put the microphone in front
of the F holes and make sure that
it sounds OK.
Let's try...
00:03:27 Wherever you want Meredith,
it's your show.
00:03:31 That looks like it will be good.
00:03:33 And what we're going through
right now is...
00:03:37 The other side because,
remember the beginning, we know
from experience from
our studio that
the 610 sounds really
great on bass.
00:03:46 We're gonna put that on the bass
right now and listen to how it sounds.
00:03:49 Could you play the part from the verse
as soon as Meredith is ready for you?
- I'm done.
- She's ready, go ahead.
00:04:13 Right? It's not that hard.
00:04:15 If you put the microphone
this far away from the bass,
what's gonna happen?
It's gonna go like this.
00:04:19 'Boom, boom, BRGHOOm, boom'.
00:04:28 Pick your note, one of the notes is gonna
stick out because your microphone
would be exactly at the resonance
level of the bass.
00:04:34 Let's try something else
but mark this one down because
it sounded pretty rad.
00:04:40 It's a technical term.
00:04:43 - You want further or closer?
- Yeah, further. I wanna how it sounds.
00:04:48 OK, did you see that?
Can you do a replay on that?
The microphone was...
00:04:55 here.
00:04:57 Could you please try a
different placement?
Yes, that makes a difference.
00:05:04 OK?
We are talking about
subtle things.
00:05:07 It's not a black magic when
you think. It's just like...
00:05:10 Put the microphone there.
00:05:12 Assess.
00:05:14 Try something else.
00:05:15 And most of the time put it
back where it was.
00:05:19 Go ahead, same thing please.
00:05:37 Let's listen and then
compare the two of them.
00:05:39 We moved the microphone
this much.
00:05:41 Not gonna change the
course of modern music.
00:05:44 Let's see what it does.
00:05:55 OK, the first one.
00:05:57 Hear the resonance on that note.
00:06:11 Uhh! That's fat.
Can I hear the new one again?
Worst resonance.
00:06:21 That top note is unpleasant.
Alright.
00:06:25 Let's just switch it back
to where it was.
00:06:27 But you might find
something different.
00:06:31 We did some experiment where you
you have a drumset. I did some
experiment, I'm shooting some videos.
00:06:37 If you like what you're learning
here, I have a website
where you can learn that kind of stuff.
00:06:42 I'll tell you at the end.
00:06:43 We did a video where we put a drumset,
we mike the drumset with one microphone.
00:06:48 Then we took a gobo,
one big, just a big piece of wood,
and moved it two feet to
the right of the drumset.
00:06:57 We didn't put it in between the
microphone and the drumset,
we just took the gobo,
put it in the room 2 feet to the
right of the drumset.
00:07:03 It changed the snare sound.
00:07:05 It makes you want plant potatoes in Idaho
for a living. You know what I mean?
I picked Idaho out of nowhere.
00:07:13 OK, we have all that stuff.
So, oh my god, we have a band.
00:07:17 So what I'd like to do now
is record everything together,
but just the first verse.
00:07:24 We'll record a pass of the
song in a minute.
00:07:27 I wanna play everybody the bleed
from microphone to microphone
because you're told that we
must isolate everything,
everything must be
perfectly isolated,
in little boxes,
otherwise you cannot
make a record.
00:07:42 That is not true.
00:07:44 So, go ahead.
00:08:42 Cool. Isn't it nice to hear
the song come together?
You were wondering, right?
So, let's just play that and
listen to the room mike.
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Fab Dupont is a award-winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has received many accolades around the world, including wins at the Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards, US independent music awards. He also has received Latin Grammy nominations and has worked on many Latin Grammy and Grammy-nominated albums.
(Cont from below)...
Golden Age makes the pre73 which is a nod to the Neve 1073 and a great all around preamp. Black lion makes both API and Neve clones (quite well also). Lindell has some great Pultec inspired 500 series EQ's. I also absolutley love my Warm Audio WA76's (1176 clone), bearing in mind I also own two original UREI Rev. E 1176's, the difference is negligible. I guess I've said all this to illustrate the gap between affordability and great sound is narrowing. But as fab says, the equip you have will get decent mileage as is.
MicahTHartsock
2014 Sep 25
@purecountry
In 2011 when this was tracked, a revolution had only just been set in motion, but now 3 years later is reaching maturity. I'm speaking about some of the companies who have brought excellent gear to market at budget or near budget prices. Companies like Warm Audio, Golden Age, Lindell, Black Lion, etc.
My warm audio wa12's (based on the API 312) live comfortably beside my API4312 (4ch 312 preamp) and the gap between the two is subjective at best. Actually, I find my self preferring the WA12 on certain sources, such as bass DI. They've got Cinemag transformers and are lovely.
fab
2011 Oct 07
I would not worry too much about your preamps, they are just fine. Lower cost preamps might have a little less headroom than a more expensive piece so it's always a good idea to be conservative on gain structure when you are tracking transient heavy stuff. The cheaper equipement sometimes tends to be brighter and not as solid sounding int he low mids as the more expensive stuff because the better parts used to build the better equipment cost more. (trickle up economics I guess) true and I really think you can get perfectly fine sounds from the units you own.
Fab
purecountry70
2011 Sep 22
if I could ask one question, that is so important to me and I'am sure others with home studios, how to Compensate for us that can't afford, high end PreAmps as for myself, I have a Art Pro Channel preamp and a PreSonus TubePre.
purecountry70
2011 Sep 22
this seminar was great, thanks so much for putting it on video, I was at GearFest 2011 and seen the recording the band, and was hopping one day it would be on video for learning, thanks again
