The studio is set up, and it is time to head to the control room with Vance Powell and The Weird Sisters to work on "Live And I Learn".
In this episode, Vance dials in the pre production setup he has put together with the band.
Watch as Vance:
Gives the plan for pre production in the control room of Studio A
Patches the mics and outboard gear for the control room preproduction setup
Sets up his "Beard verb pedal" and explains its origin with Lowell Reynolds
Breaks down the control room setup
Checks the polarity of the equipment using a Galaxy Audio Cricket
Dials in the tones for the control room setup
This is your chance to join Nashville legend Vance Powell and The Weird Sisters at the world-famous Blackbird Studio and watch them craft "Live And I Learn" from Start To Finish.
00:00:23 Here's my idea for the day,
I wanna work on the song in here,
just us
and kind of get the vibe,
feel out where the song is going
and then we can move out into the room.
00:00:36 Are you cool with that?
And then we'll just kind
of sit here and talk about it.
00:00:40 And kind of go from there.
00:00:41 We're gonna set some stuff up
so if you guys want to
get some coffee or whatever.
00:00:49 I'm gonna set up a
little guitar amp in here.
00:00:52 We'll maybe put it up here,
we got a stand,
let's kind of make a little
circle over here, if that's cool.
00:00:58 Play kind of quiet.
00:00:59 You know?
How quiet?
Well, just for in here.
00:01:05 You know what I mean?
I know you guys have got
a framework, a little idea of a tune,
and we'll just work on it.
00:01:13 Does that sound cool?
Awesome.
00:01:16 I don't know if you wanna
bring your pedalboard in.
00:01:19 I just wanna use...a pedal.
00:01:21 OK, cool, I got that little Princeton.
00:01:23 OK, cool. I got a power-supply too...
00:01:25 Cool, awesome.
00:01:27 I'm just gonna put you kind
of where the percussion box is.
00:01:30 Something like that.
00:01:31 If that's cool.
00:01:32 And we'll go from there.
Sound good? Alright, let's do it.
00:01:36 -Are you good with that?
-Yeah.
00:01:38 If the light goes asleep,
it's not on me.
00:01:40 But the cool thing is you
can just input it on your lap.
00:01:43 Honestly, I could, I might even do that.
00:01:48 On the side there, yeah.
00:01:49 Oh, let's just see here.
00:01:52 Audio out. That sounds like a good one.
00:01:54 That's my bet as well.
00:01:56 I would have bet in that...
00:01:57 It seems like the right thing, audio out.
00:01:59 And then we just need
a long IEC.
00:02:04 Alright.
00:02:04 You know what I mean?
If we have one somewhere.
00:02:09 Or and IEC and an extension.
00:02:10 OK,
if not I've got some extensions in here.
00:02:12 OK, cool.
00:02:18 I wanna say,
one of the most important things to have
in making a great recording
is having great
assistant engineers.
00:02:27 They know where everything is.
00:02:29 And they know way more than I do,
about everything.
00:02:33 But... It's key to it,
I've said it before I'll say it again,
having somebody who's your assistant
who really knows what's going on.
00:02:44 OK.
00:02:48 And of course we're
gonna have to tune it
once it warms up a little bit.
00:02:58 I don't hear any ground hum.
00:03:02 Yeah.
00:03:04 It sounds good.
00:03:05 What microphone would you like
to place upon this thing?
Oh, how about that...
00:03:09 How about that FET?
This FET 47?
Look at this FET 47 just
hanging out over here.
00:03:14 It's like...
00:03:15 It's like we thought about it
ahead of time.
00:03:18 Gosh!
Blackbird,
they just have FET 47s hanging around.
00:03:23 Hanging on the wall.
00:03:24 They're just hanging around.
And hooked up to an actual panel.
00:03:28 It's shocking.
00:03:29 Do they grow on trees here?
They kind of do actually.
00:03:32 You want the pads on these?
Nah!
Both pads off?
Yeah.
00:03:39 It's not gonna be that loud.
00:03:45 And park that thing on
that grill cloth there.
00:03:47 Put that on that corner
of the speaker cone.
00:03:53 If you wanna...
00:03:55 Yeah, alright. I'll do it.
00:03:56 Let me find my flashlight.
00:03:58 Oh, are you serious?
Oh, guess what, can't see through it.
00:04:02 Nevermind.
00:04:03 We're just gonna guess.
00:04:05 I think it's about right there.
00:04:08 Yeah, that will work.
00:04:11 Something like that. Cool.
00:04:12 -I love it.
-Love it.
00:04:14 -So Lo...
-Yes sir.
00:04:15 We're gonna use these...
00:04:19 this little mic setup.
00:04:20 We're just gonna use, patch this, 1073s.
00:04:23 What order do you want them in there?
Well, let's just do...
00:04:28 We'll just start from the drums, cool?
And we'll just do kick, snare, overhead
and those can go 5, 6 7. OK?
Great.
00:04:37 Eight will be the bass,
it's kind of weird and backwards.
00:04:41 Guitar can be number 1
and the vocal can be number 2.
00:04:46 Great.
00:04:47 Let's get me an Aux on the desk send
and then bring back the 242s.
00:04:54 Left,
left to right in
you know,
30 and 40 or something.
00:04:59 Alright?
Good.
00:05:02 What I'm doing is I'm asking
Lowell to patch a couple things
that I'm pretty confident
I'm gonna wanna use
in this little recording thing in here.
00:05:09 Just a couple of compressors,
a couple of things to sort of
capture a vibe for the room here.
00:05:15 Distressor on the kick and snare,
these are just a little
bit for that kind of thing.
00:05:21 There's an LA-2A,
a little bit on the overhead.
00:05:23 We're just gonna
compress that a little bit.
00:05:25 And then
bass LA-2A to compress
that just a little bit.
00:05:29 Blue-stripe, for the vocal
to compress that a little bit.
00:05:33 Also I've asked him to patch up a pair
of PCM 42s we have over here.
00:05:36 That's gonna be just
for a little slap echo.
00:05:38 I've given him all these things,
I've written them down
and he's going to do it.
00:05:44 Normally I'd be barking
all these orders at Mike.
00:05:48 But
since this is Lowell's room
we're gonna make him do all the work.
00:05:52 Mike is to hang out and look good.
00:05:56 And I mean,
ladies
he's taken.
00:06:02 So the other thing we're gonna do is,
if you look up here
there's a couple little
pedals.
00:06:07 Mike is gonna wire those up.
00:06:10 They are patched in down here
to this Radial XTC,
in this 500 rack, down here.
00:06:18 And then we're gonna use those here
in a little bit on an insert.
00:06:22 And I should say
that this piece of gear
was given to me on my birthday
by Lowell Reynolds.
00:06:31 And if you look on the side,
he put my name on it
and then on the back
even though asshole me
put some Velcro over it,
it says: 'Happy Birthday Vance'.
00:06:41 Uncle Vance, by the way.
00:06:43 It's on so many records I've done now.
00:06:45 And I need a spare but
can't seem to get the
guy to answer me that,
to build another one.
00:06:53 So, hopefully in doesn't break.
00:06:56 Knock on wood.
00:06:58 And this is a little Pigtronix Polysat.
They don't make them anymore.
00:07:02 But they're not hard to find,
they're all over the internet
for about 40 or 50 bucks.
00:07:07 A really nice even, harmonic distortion.
00:07:10 I don't if it's actually even or odd
it's just very even in the harmonics,
level wise.
00:07:16 It's really nice.
00:07:18 Mike, if you wanna build the session
and we're just gonna go
straight out these mic pres
or what he's got patched,
he will give you the inputs.
00:07:29 And then we can just bring those back,
maybe right now.
00:07:34 Actually you can just put them 33 to 38.
00:07:37 And we'll have the delay right here.
00:07:39 You know, this little inside here,
tracking the songwriting part.
00:07:42 Use 33 to 38.
00:07:44 These will 42s.
00:07:46 I'm just telling him where the
inputs where and we'll go from there.
00:07:50 -39 and 40 are still for the...
-39 and 40, yeah.
00:07:52 And that could just be off an Aux.
00:07:54 No reverb at this point.
00:07:56 It's not that I hate reverb, I like it.
00:07:58 I just kind of like the real thing.
00:08:09 Hey Lowell, if I can have,
when we get patched up,
maybe have you and Mike click this out.
00:08:15 We click them out to make
sure they're in the proper phase.
00:08:20 Not that we can't change it later but...
00:08:23 I'm gonna add things together later,
like two kick drums mics in one.
00:08:27 Two snare mics in one,
so we need to make sure they're all in phase.
00:08:30 It's gonna get crazy.
00:08:32 It's crazy,
dogs and cats living together.
00:08:37 Mike is setting the session up.
00:08:38 And he's building it
so that we have
a Print track.
00:08:43 Now I like to always track and record
the rough mix, the mix on the desk.
00:08:50 And I like to do that because
every now and then magic can happen
and sometimes you get cool stuff.
00:08:57 He's setting that up
and we actually do a regular track,
like a high-resolution, a 96 kHz track,
and then we do a track
that we're gonna export out,
44,1 kHz, that we elevate the level,
real simple, nothing crazy.
00:09:12 We'll add 7 dB of gain
and then just put a limiter at .01.
00:09:17 Basically that just allows us to make
a reference that I can play and
comes back at a relatively OK level.
00:09:24 Like I said, from time to time you
get really cool stuff that happens there
and we'll use it.
00:09:30 Here's why I picked
this mics for the drums.
00:09:32 One, because I really
love the sound of the U47.
00:09:35 And if you're gonna pick one of the
most expensive microphones in the building
you might as well put it on the kick drum.
00:09:41 Actually, the reality is that the U47
is a really fantastic
sounding microphone.
00:09:46 He's not gonna play very hard.
00:09:48 And we really want the sound of the
cool roundness of the drum.
00:09:53 57 on the snare for
this is gonna be great.
00:09:56 This snare is pretty ringy, a lot of the
sound is coming off the top of the snare.
00:10:00 Let me talk about the
overhead a little bit.
00:10:02 So, a U67, it's in cardioid,
I tilted it back just a little bit
because for some reason I feel
like that's the right thing to do.
00:10:14 There's no pad on the mic right now.
00:10:17 And there's no roll-off, it's just flat,
straight up.
00:10:21 That means I won't need a lot of
gain for the mic pre, which is fine.
00:10:24 Actually,
on the kick drum I doubt
I'll need any gain on the mic pre.
00:10:29 So, often I end up just
switching the kick drum to line
on the 1073s.
00:10:35 I'm not sure,
I don't know how hard he's gonna play.
00:10:37 And normally,
rock and roll kick drum with a 47,
you don't even really need a mic pre, just
go in the line input, that's all you need.
00:10:44 You can actually get a
really great kick drum sound
by coming out of the 47 and
going straight into Pro Tools.
00:10:51 It will just sound great.
00:10:54 Without a mic pre.
And there's no pad on a 47.
00:10:59 So, that will be fun.
00:11:01 On the guitar we're just using a SM57,
we don't need anything more than that.
00:11:06 On the Moog part,
which will be like a synth bass,
we'll use an Ampeg B15, great sounding amp
with a Neumann FET 47
right on the grill
and that should be really great.
00:11:16 SM7, here in the room, it's gonna
be awesome for what we need it for.
00:11:21 And that's basically the whole
micing for this little section here.
00:11:25 I'm kind of hoping that we
get something really cool
out of this section that
makes its way into the actual track.
00:11:32 So, that's what's going on here.
00:11:34 We're gonna click out some mics here
and check our polarity.
00:11:40 This is Galaxy Audio's Cricket.
00:11:45 These are really awesome to have
and what they're made for
is they're made to test polarity.
00:11:53 Hold on a second here.
00:11:58 And notice I didn't say the word phase
because phase is a
completely different idea.
00:12:02 This is polarity.
00:12:04 So, this sound, this is a triangle wave,
this triangle wave
goes into the microphone
and it comes out the
speaker and is seen by this guy,
because it's got a microphone,
and what happens,
this green light says
that it's in polarity.
00:12:21 The correct phase.
00:12:23 So, now we're gonna put
this on the microphone.
00:12:27 We're gonna put this through the speakers
and we're gonna test to make sure
that we are in the correct polarity.
00:12:37 Cool, so first things first,
we're gonna go to the kick drum.
00:12:40 I'm gonna put some gain on it.
00:12:49 That's good. Awesome.
00:12:51 We'll go to the snare.
00:12:54 Snare drum.
00:12:59 Yeah, good.
00:13:02 I love how the clicker
makes the snare drum ring.
00:13:08 Great, awesome.
00:13:10 Bass.
00:13:13 You can move that mic.
00:13:25 Cool, back to off.
00:13:27 Alright. Electric guitar.
00:13:33 Yeah.
00:13:36 Cool, great.
00:13:37 SM7.
00:13:47 Hold on a second here.
00:13:48 Let me bypass this.
00:14:02 It says it's backwards.
00:14:11 Now it says it's correct, so...
00:14:14 It's weird, it comes out backwards.
00:14:16 It's alright,
we'll leave it where it is, it's good.
00:14:19 Now we can get band guys in here
and we can start
to get some levels,
make sure everything is working.
00:14:28 Lowell, if you wanna patch up those 42s
we can check that real quick.
00:14:32 Done, cool. Then,
hop on that vocal mic real quick.
00:14:36 Just talk to me a little bit.
00:14:39 Awesome. Alright.
00:15:06 OK.
00:15:09 Perfect. Great. Thanks.
00:15:13 Yeah, just play a little bit.
00:15:28 OK. Hold on one second.
00:15:30 Hey Lowell,
can you put me in the Line input?
In the 47.
00:15:33 -What number is that?
-That's gonna be 5.
00:15:35 -Are we clear?
-Yeah, we're good.
00:15:37 OK, what I'm doing here,
I'm gonna take the 47,
as I spoke earlier
and put it in the
line input because,
you know,
OK, play a little for me.
00:16:23 Awesome. Keep going.
00:17:13 We patched the 1073s
out into the Distressor and the
Distressor into Pro Tools.
00:17:17 So the kick, the snare and the overhead
are the Distressor, Distressor and the LA-2A.
00:17:22 The LA-2A is over here,
just a hair of compression.
00:17:26 I'm not listening to any of these,
I'm gonna guess that it sounds great.
00:17:30 We're just gonna find
out here in a minute.
00:17:33 So,
I'll have him play a little bit for me.
00:18:05 Alright, cool.
00:18:06 Alright, so now, what we're gonna do is,
I'm just gonna have Mike play it back
so I can listen to it.
00:18:12 Play back from about there.
00:18:18 Stop.
00:18:22 Cool.
00:18:34 OK, cool.
00:18:35 Great. So go back to the end there.
00:18:37 Alright. The U67 is a little too loud,
a little too much compression.
00:18:42 So play it for me.
00:19:07 Alright, cool.
00:19:09 Great,
let me just hear the last minute there.
00:19:19 Alright, cool, great.
00:19:21 Cool.
00:19:22 So now let me hear
a little bit of the bass,
just hang out there for a second.
00:19:27 We'll hear a little key bass.
00:19:53 Can I get you guys to just
play something together?
Yeah.
00:20:44 Let me hear the last minute of that.
00:21:00 Part of this is just a great way
of playing together
but I'm not worried that a little
bit of bass is in the drums because
they're being played together,
it's part of the groove of the whole thing.
00:21:09 We're gonna do electric guitar here
in a minute, it's gonna be in the drums.
00:21:13 I just don't care about that
because it's more important
to me to catch the whole vibe.
00:21:17 And we we'll use what we use
and won't use what we won't use.
00:21:20 So, it will be great.
00:21:21 Awesome.
00:21:22 Let me hear a little electric guitar.
00:21:50 Is that killing anybody?
That should be fine.
00:21:53 Find the balance between the two.
00:21:57 Make sure that one is not...
00:22:13 We're gonna have this for now.
00:22:15 Yeah, cool.
00:22:17 -Watch that wire...
-I'm not gonna do much singing.
00:22:21 We only really got like a Hook.
00:22:24 Alright cool. Let me just
hear a little guitar there.
00:22:44 Cool.
00:22:45 And then with the pedal.
00:22:53 Alright cool. Now you're
gonna play together a little bit.
00:22:57 Then we can listen to it.
00:22:58 If you guys just jam that little groove.
00:23:51 Alright, cool.
00:23:51 Let me get in tune.
00:23:52 Let me just listen
to a little bit of that.
00:23:54 And then we'll talk about tunning
because that's the fun thing.
00:24:28 I was listening to this,
if the snare and the overhead
were in phase,
not polarity but in phase
and to honest with you the
overhead needs to invert.
00:24:38 So we're going to invert the overhead.
00:24:41 Because that sounds
like it's a little richer.
00:24:44 Cool. And then the guitar sounds good.
00:24:47 And then play it at where
it goes to the "chorus".
00:25:00 So, one of the things that you noticed is
that the two instruments are out of tune.
00:25:06 That's because the Moog is analog
and we actually have to tune it.
00:25:09 So, does anybody have a tuner?
You've got a tuner pedal around?
I got one in there.
00:25:14 Let's grab a tuner real quick
and we can tune up.
00:25:19 Is that cool?
So Mike, can you throw a 1073
on the insert?
On the...
00:25:26 hopefully we have the UADs in here.
00:25:33 Just the legacy one.
00:25:39 I'm gonna have Mike in
Pro Tools put a 1073 up
on the kick drum here.
00:25:46 I'm just gonna solo it here,
he's gonna do that.
00:26:00 And take some
360 out.
00:26:10 A cool little 60 in.
00:27:13 So now this 1073 plug-in,
I'm just gonna match the
EQ over here on my pre-amp,
to take the exact same EQ,
here
and down here.
00:27:26 A little bit of 60,
right there.
00:27:31 I'll turn the EQ on.
00:27:33 A little bit of top end.
00:27:34 And then we're just gonna bypass that.
00:27:36 Leave it there, bypassed.
00:27:38 Cool.
00:27:40 Man I wish we had a tuner pedal right now.
00:27:45 Hey,
it's Blackbird.
00:27:48 I just spoke it out into the world
and it just showed up.
00:27:51 There we go. Look, tuner pedal.
00:27:52 Alright. So, let's tune these
two instruments.
00:27:58 I never used that with
one of those before.
00:28:01 I'm gonna put in 'stand-by' here.
00:28:07 It's not gonna make any sound.
00:28:10 Hit me a letter.
00:28:12 Well, look at that. A little flat?
A little sharp.
00:28:15 I can't see what it says. Sharp?
-Is it a C?
-Yes.
00:28:17 Bring it down a bit.
00:28:21 Boom.
00:28:22 -Right in?
-Right in.
00:28:23 Interesting,
it's slightly below the center.
00:28:26 Are you sure?
It looks good.
00:28:32 Are you guys in tune?
Yeah.
00:28:45 That's sounding way better.
00:28:47 Yes, weird.
00:28:49 Let me just make sure this vocal mic
is good when you're all playing together.
00:28:52 You won't hear it,
that's fine, doesn't matter.
00:28:56 There you go.
00:28:58 You can play a little bit. Go ahead.
00:30:04 Let me see if I got that.
00:30:23 I think I got it.
One more time. Go ahead.
00:30:25 Do I have to sing?
You don't have to.
I just wanna make sure I got it.
00:30:29 So, yes, you don't have to.
00:30:31 Cool.
00:31:40 Awesome. Cool.
00:31:42 I love with the big speakers on.
It feels cool in here.
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Vance studied electrical engineering in Missouri and started his career in live sound as a front-of-house engineer. In 2002, he moved to Nashville in order to become studio manager and chief engineer at the legendary Black Bird studios in Nashville. In 2006, he co-founded Sputnik studios along with Grammy-winning engineer Mitch Dane, still in Nashville.
Vance Powell has won 6 Grammy awards working with rock artists such as The Raconteurs, Kings of Leon, Jack White, Pearl Jam, The White Stripes, The Dead Weather and more.
Powell's domain of expertise is definitely mixing and producing rock music. As shown in his pureMix videos, Vance likes to experiment and create new fuller and exciting sounds using all kinds of pedals, echos, analog outboards and plug-ins. Vance was used to recording to tape and definitely has an analog approach that makes him commit to fewer good sounding tracks rather than piling up takes in Pro Tools.
His goal is to make something new and warm that fits the band's vision with upfront snare drums and powerful guitars. Rocking.
