With the basic tones setup and sounding massive from episode 3, and a new song structure ready to go from episode 1, it's time to get some takes recorded.
Watch as Vance:
Uses a unique technique to eliminate guitar hum during tracking. You'll just have to see... we cannot in good conscious type it out here. Trust us.
Dials in vocal effects using analog tape delay and an analog outfitters scanner vibrato effect
Continues tweaking the structure of the song and works out individual drum fills and guitar parts with the band
Captures the foundational tracks that the rest of the production will be built around.
00:00:23 So, let me hear your scratch vocal there.
00:00:28 And I've got a little bit of a slap.
00:00:30 OK. What's on, D?
Yeah, cool.
00:00:34 So, cool. Let's get jaked.
00:00:36 Let's do it.
00:00:37 While we're talking about,
that will be on 'D',
that will be on whatever...
00:00:40 That's a cue system.
00:00:41 I have a 16 channel Furman Cue system.
00:00:44 It's a really good system.
00:00:45 They stop making it.
00:00:46 So I bought a bunch of spares.
00:00:49 It's actually really nice,
16 channels,
8 mono channels,
each channel you can pan
and it has an Aux Send
that's like an effect send
and you can actually
plug a pedal into it
and have a little echo loop
for each station,
which is pretty awesome.
00:01:03 And it has 4 stereos.
00:01:05 So, I've got a couple of
the Fulltone Echos here
that I use all the time.
00:01:10 I have those and we're just
coming out of the insert sends
going to the cue system so
my fader doesn't matter.
00:01:18 It's pre-fader.
00:01:19 Let me get Mike up here,
in the slot.
00:01:22 We had
tapped out the tempo,
we figured out a tempo earlier
of I believe,
158.
00:01:30 That's from your demo.
00:01:33 Yeah, cool.
00:01:34 Let's see if in fact,
let me turn his guitars on,
let's see if in fact that holds true.
00:01:41 We're gonna generate a
click here out of Pro Tools,
it goes out in the,
and in to
the cue system on channel 8.
00:01:49 Alright man.
00:01:51 Now let's see what we've got.
00:01:52 Hey Vance.
00:01:53 Yes sir.
00:01:54 Do I need to plug?
Oh,
the Butt plug.
00:01:58 Sound's like it.
00:02:00 Let me get Mike get
the Butt plug for you.
00:02:03 I can handle it myself.
00:02:04 You sure?
Sure you don't need somebody?
Mike is positioned to
go get it right now.
00:02:10 Let me explain this to the kids.
00:02:14 Sometimes electric guitars will
kind of make noise when people
take their hands out of it.
00:02:20 So Mike actually invented this
really brilliant little cable.
00:02:24 This cable is just a 1/4 inch
round spade lug
soldered to a wire
that goes to a washer.
00:02:32 We put the 1/4 inch
cable through the guitar,
that touches de ground,
and then the cable goes up and
we put it in their belt loop,
like, against their skin.
00:02:41 And that basically holds their
body to the guitar at all times.
00:02:44 And it makes all that noise go away.
00:02:46 I mean, that's old but
if you take your hands off the guitar
and it starts buzzing
this will definitely make it go away.
00:02:53 So, it's quite cool.
00:02:55 Here in the middle of my desk
you'll see these faders here.
00:02:58 These are my VCAs.
00:02:59 I like to have this adjustment
so I can kind of get a band mix
while the band is playing.
00:03:06 We're gonna throw the click at you
and you guys know,
we'll just work on it.
00:03:10 Alright?
Great.
00:03:13 Cool, here we go.
00:06:32 That kind of sounded like the whole song.
00:06:34 Yeah.
00:06:35 Got pretty close.
00:06:36 Yeah.
00:06:37 What I've been doing here
is I'm just listening to
how the kick drum fits in the
mix here and how the snare drum...
00:06:44 Just trying to
get a little more definition.
00:06:47 In the course of the track
I turned the guitars down a little bit,
the guitar level,
in the track,
and I turned the bass up a little bit.
00:06:53 I'm just kind of working
on sounds right now.
00:06:55 We'll see.
00:06:56 Alright guys, let's try it.
00:10:10 Alright, cool.
00:10:11 I really dug your demo vocal thing.
00:10:14 Yeah.
00:10:14 Fooling around with that little...
the same vocal sound there.
00:10:17 Awesome.
00:10:18 I don't know if
you hear it there.
00:10:21 Hold on, I've got more.
00:10:23 Give me one second.
00:10:24 Can you grab me a 1/4 inch?
I'm sending a
'Send' out of my desk
and it's coming up and
going to a couple of...
00:10:33 it might need to be longer.
00:10:35 It's got go to
the vibrating thing in here.
00:10:48 Basically, I've got a Leslie effect
coming in,
from my console,
it comes out of the Little Labs,
it goes to the Leslie effect
and comes back into the Fulltone.
00:10:59 We're delaying the Leslie effect.
00:11:01 And this is actually a vibrato scanner
out of the B3.
00:11:05 It's actually and actual vibrato scanner.
00:11:07 And I'm gonna use the other side for that.
00:11:09 We're gonna make a bunch of vibrato.
00:11:11 None of this is being recorded by the way.
00:11:14 None of it has anything
to do with anything.
00:11:18 It's all for his effect.
00:11:23 And then we've got the instrumental
and we hit the second verse...
00:11:37 On what?
The change that we made
in the beginning of the song.
00:11:43 You know, we've got Verse 1
and then we've got that
little instrumental
connector piece and now we've
thrown that second Verse in.
00:11:51 I'm saying
that connector piece isn't
like hitting for me right now.
00:11:54 I liked the way...
00:11:56 I hear you saying
that we wanna build up this
Verse feel a little bit more.
00:12:00 We don't have to have it.
00:12:02 I mean...
00:12:02 We can just keep doing the Verse.
00:12:05 Right. What if the Verse is
just twice as long as it is?
Yeah. So what?
Alright, let's just try that.
00:12:10 You got that little
modulation going on now?
Let me turn this back up.
00:12:25 That's cool.
00:12:26 That's cool man!
Purely for effect,
I'm not even recording it.
00:12:30 Just for you to nerd on.
00:12:34 Structurally I dig this.
00:12:36 I think it's cool.
00:12:38 Are there anything,
Vance?
Not yet.
00:12:40 Yeah.
00:12:41 We'll still work on sounds a little more.
00:12:43 Alright.
00:12:45 You know.
00:12:45 Do you want to hit it?
Put it all back together.
Yeah.
00:12:48 There's a couple of cool
production ideas I've got.
00:12:51 I think it will be really cool.
00:12:53 We'll work on this.
00:12:54 Let's get a take
and get a framework.
00:12:56 Alright, cool.
00:12:58 Worry not.
00:16:10 I think that's the structure.
00:16:13 Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, I feel good about that structure.
00:16:17 I know that I can tighten up,
I'm still just being
sloppy on some stuff.
00:16:21 We might need to make
a few adjustments
tone-wise on my guitar.
00:16:25 Let's make this a little template
and then I'll have you
to sing a scratch to it.
00:16:30 That will clean that up.
00:16:31 Cool.
00:16:33 You know,
as you do.
00:16:36 Getting back into the final Chorus
I'm hearing the sort of...
00:16:39 it feels like we're kind
of rushing into it,
it's not building up enough or something.
00:16:44 I wonder if there's maybe like a space
that we can give it or something.
00:16:47 Well, the thing was for me
is I felt like it was sort of...
00:16:50 It felt like it needed
a little bit of space.
00:16:52 But yeah, I'm kind of wondering if even
leading up to that point like...
00:16:56 that solo, the way we played it,
used to
go right into the song,
just into it and fell apart.
00:17:01 And that was kind of cool, like
just building this chaos, chaos
and it fell apart.
00:17:05 Maybe like, we get chaos, chaos, chaos
and then it breaks like a measure early
and then
it comes back together on that Chorus.
00:17:13 So there's just like
a little gap or something.
00:17:16 I would be down to explore it.
00:17:18 Yeah, yeah.
00:17:19 Did you wanna hit that scratch Vance?
I'll just have you sing
the scratch here, OK?
We're gonna jump ahead.
00:19:24 Yeah.
00:20:05 Cool.
00:20:06 Yeah, got it.
00:20:06 Cool, come on in.
00:20:07 Alright.
00:20:09 So, we've got the structure of the song.
00:20:11 We know now where all the Choruses
and all the Verses are gonna be.
00:20:15 The band is playing
to the click.
00:20:16 We took a couple of the tracks
and duplicated them
and then did a couple of edits
and just basically threw
a count-off track,
just the overhead,
just one side of the overhead.
00:20:27 That is gonna be just Jake counting off.
00:20:29 Once Jake counts off
it sounds like this.
00:20:37 So the click will start
to them at the exact same time.
00:20:40 Jake will count off and then, from here on,
the structure is all the same.
00:20:44 So, what we wanna do is,
I wanna get a scratch vocal
that we can work around,
that we can just put in the mix
and he doesn't have to
keep singing it every time
but then everybody kind of knows
where we're at in the track.
00:20:55 And then from now we'll just do some
takes of this take
and playlist underneath it.
00:21:02 This is not exactly
how I normally work,
I normally work kind of linear.
00:21:06 But this works out really well
if we're just tweaking a few things
here and there and we are on the click.
00:21:13 So that's kind of what's going on.
00:21:15 The original demo has this really great
Leslie rotary sort of
vibe going on the vocal.
00:21:23 I actually kind of have that
and this is a really
cool plug-in made by PSP.
00:21:34 We take that and we pull a little
bit of the Fulltone echo in.
00:21:41 It makes a bunch of cool,
you know, stuff going on there.
00:21:46 And I think for this I'm just gonna
commit this track real quick.
00:21:51 That way it's just done
and I don't have to worry
about latency or anything
because that creates a little latency.
00:21:57 Let's kill this thing.
00:21:59 Let's do it.
00:21:59 Let's do it!
Yeah.
00:22:12 Alright, cool.
Anything you need to hear any different?
Everything cool?
Everything is cool, I'm gonna treat my take
more like it's just like
a rhythm guitar thing.
00:22:23 Yeah.
00:22:23 It's gonna be better
in the long haul.
00:22:25 Yeah, that's cool.
00:22:27 Here we go.
00:25:28 Cool.
00:25:29 Alright, two little things,
after the fills,
that solo,
I think that solo should be
like a single string thing.
00:25:39 Or like a single note feel.
00:25:41 For you Jeff.
00:25:45 More like a...
00:25:50 At what I'm doing, right?
Just now, at that point,
that's where the solo
is gonna go over, right?
Right.
00:25:55 So at that point it's actually...
00:26:00 That's what I mean.
Yeah, exactly.
00:26:02 Right.
00:26:03 So, it's not the...
00:26:05 I don't know that you even play chords.
00:26:07 Yeah.
00:26:08 Maybe it's just the two
bottom strings or something.
00:26:10 Yeah, just like.
00:26:12 Yes.
00:26:14 Just real big.
00:26:15 Yes, yes, yes!
That's what I've been doing earlier
and I'm gonna do that now.
00:26:19 You do that with the guitar
and the foot bass, right?
Exactly.
00:26:22 Yeah, it's really cool.
00:26:23 Cool, it's just simple and nice.
00:26:25 Yeah, cool.
00:26:26 Great.
00:26:26 Alright, good.
00:26:27 I'm starting to get there.
00:26:28 OK, cool. Yeah, it feels like it.
00:26:31 And I love
the snare fills with the
tcha-tcha-tcha thing.
00:26:37 The guitar, yes.
00:28:03 It's a really good take.
00:29:38 Really great.
00:29:39 Is there a couple little
mistakes in the Outro?
Yeah, I think it's a little bit sloppy.
00:29:45 But we can punch that.
00:29:46 But the drums are great.
00:29:48 I think the drums are
great in the whole take.
00:29:50 There's a couple things that
were super cool in the solo,
I know you were playing and overdoing that
but that first little note
at the top of the solo
where you kind of go...
00:30:00 That was pretty awesome.
00:30:01 Yeah, yeah, totally.
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
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.
Does anybody have any details on how to make the Butt Plug mentioned in this video! I think its genius and I have a baritone guitar which has the noisiest lipstick pickups in the world and could benefit from this device!
They mention is a Spark plug connected to a metal ring with a cable. I'd tried to build this yesterday and it didn't work. Thank you in advance!
fangjin
2020 May 26
Great！
Drums and guitar lines infect me, thank you.
mazzandre
2020 May 25
Beautiful tutorial, I hope the Italian subtitles will arrive soon ...
latrellemusic
2020 May 02
This band played to twelve people at my house in Johnson City, TN in 2017. Now, they're doing this, on a big label and playing big venues. They deserve it. So glad to see their magic in the making with Vance!
billium99
2020 Apr 18
This is a great series for a great song!
Melodic Dreamer
2020 Apr 13
Love, Love that snare sound. Really enjoyed watching this.
What is the slapback setting for the vocal?
Danbouch
2020 Apr 11
I want to know more about the butt plug
Pearlpassionstudio
2020 Apr 11
Another excellent tutorial...Great song too.
studiosix
2020 Apr 11
Being a fly on the wall is great for observing the interaction between Vance and the musicians. Killer drum sound!
rickguitar89
2020 Apr 10
Awesome stuff! Really dig that drummer, good feel and does a lot with his setup!
