Drums? Check. Faux Bass & Synth Bass? Check. Guitar Solo? Don't mind if we do!
To fill out the middle jam section of the song, the entire crew gets involved in the creation of the guitar solo, with Jeff playing, and Vance and Jake tweaking on various pieces of gear to create a cathartic and bold solo that makes it impossible to ignore in the track.
Watch as Vance:
Record's Jeff Gorman's guitar solo
Creates an exciting comp from the takes
Creates percussive feedback with Jake playing the guitar pedals and Vance dialing in unique outboard effects
Bandwidth limits extra guitar parts to fit into the mix during tracking
Rides the faders of the delay returns on the solo live, to tape to adjust the wet/dry relationship
00:00:26 Our world is solo.. solo guy!
- Yeah, yep!
- Solo guy..
00:00:30 So I'm gonna dump these,
we'll definitely need
some serious gain..
00:00:36 that sound you had yesterday, man..
00:00:38 was really, really cool,
when we were doing the tracking.
00:00:42 - Of the solo when I was trying to do it live?
- Yeah, yeah, that was really cool.
00:00:47 - Yeah, it's gonna be in that ballpark. - Yeah, good.
00:00:49 - Do you wanna go one amp or two amps?
- Two. Just like we had. - Cool.
00:00:53 - Whatever our setting was let's try and get that..
00:00:55 I don't think the amps changed, right?
- I'm just gonna kill the reverb, on the Princeton.
00:01:00 - That'd be great, cool!
Did we actually talk about maybe doing this
with the sub on it, at some point?
- Oh, yeah, you want me..
00:01:36 - Let's see what that sounds like.
00:01:40 Lemme hear that, real quick.
00:02:02 Alright we're gonna make some noise, ready?
Here we go! - Let's do it!
I'm digging everything until it gets to where the sub bass
solo thing happens.
00:03:00 The sub guitar is really cool in that intro part.
00:03:05 - Oh, I see what you're saying.
00:03:07 - Yeah.
00:03:08 - But then the sub bass.. the subby, other sub guitar..
00:03:11 the thing with did with the OTO..
00:03:13 - Yeah it should be off that point.
00:03:14 - Yeah, it should go off there.
00:03:16 - Lemme..
00:03:17 can you send..
00:03:18 - We'll do it in pieces.. - Yeah.
00:03:20 - Yeah.
00:03:21 - A'ight let's just hit the first half real quick, then.
00:03:23 - You got it.
00:03:24 Here we go!
Man, the first half of the front is great. - Yeah.
00:04:07 - It's alright! Well, keep going!
Pretty good!
- Yeah, is that the one or we got one more?
- Yeah, we've got another one. - Yeah.
00:05:26 - Awesome, man.
00:05:27 Hey, so.. come in real quick - OK.
00:05:30 Let's comp this together real quick
it's really great. - OK, cool!
[sings]
[laughs]
So there's like maybe a little edit thing
here that might be really cool. - Alright.
00:06:10 It's a little manipulation of the file, so..
00:06:44 - Sweet.
00:06:45 - And maybe this one, if we sorta just do this
kind of right at the end of the thing, so..
00:06:57 Now, there's others.. I've just been using
this one take, set of things..
00:07:15 - I mean, maybe the part I'm hearing is more of like a,
it's like that sort of like [unintelligible] thing that we do
in some other places where it's like [sings]
Much of it'd be more how it enters the solo
that's not there yet. - Yeah.
00:07:37 - That's what I'm talking about, so..
00:07:38 - Oh yeah, it could be, actually..
00:07:49 One that I wanna listen is.. there is one take early
that was some kinda sick about the first one.
00:08:09 Something about that, does [sings].
00:08:20 You know what I'm talking about? There's a little weird..
00:08:25 [sings]
I'm gonna make that work.
00:08:38 I don't like this, at all.
00:08:50 I'm just gonna kinda add these two little blurps in here,
you know, they are like a madder part of the solo,
they're kinda cool, you just tipped off the E-string open
or something? - Yeah, yeah.
00:09:00 - Yeah, it's cool.
00:09:30 Maybe we should do a couple of these
where you're hitting like the.. like you're kinda hitting
back on the bridge or something, like the thing..
00:09:37 I know you are doing that thing but like..
00:09:39 maybe at the top of the neck or..
00:09:41 something where we get some different
sort of vibe, you know.. or something..
00:09:45 - Yeah.
00:09:45 - ..but it's cool, it's just this one sounds like that one
or sounds like this one.
00:09:58 Let's work on this part, right here, right now, alright?
- Cool. Feedback world?
- Feedback world. - Yeah.
00:10:04 - What about, uh.. - The world of feedback..
00:10:06 - ..like a delay, you change the speed of the delay
each time, so one time is like.. [sings]
- You can just let it feedback and you know..
00:10:14 use your switch to cut it in and out or..
00:10:20 plus I thought I'd put some flanger on it.
00:10:36 It might be.. just forget about that
and just do the pickup switch.
00:10:41 'cause that.. see that's more of a sharp attack.
00:10:47 That's cool, right there, man!
- You want a note [unintelligible] or just feedback?
- No it's just that.. it's just that kinda blast of sound
it's just cool!
Yeah!
- Yeah, let's just try a couple takes like this.
00:11:10 - I love it. - Alright, cool. - Let's do it!
I loved all that!
- Nice!
- Keep going.. - Hang on one sec..
00:11:33 Jake, where do you want that last one?
[sings]
3 and!
[sings]
and 4 and..
00:11:45 - 2, 3, and! OK!
- ..and yeah, cool!
- Let's do it!
- Here we go!
That was cool!
- Pretty cool!
- Let's come take a listen.
00:12:12 - Sweet!
- So I'm just gonna heal a little bit of this
massive amount of noise, back here.
00:12:40 So, this one, first one's great.
00:12:41 These two are great.
00:12:42 So the 9 is the last one..
00:12:50 I kinda like that!
- Yeah, changes its character half-way through
it's kinda cool.
00:12:56 - Let's see what happens when we get there..
00:12:58 and then here at the very end..
00:13:16 So this one [unintelligible]
let's not worry about this right now
because this might end up being part of our solo
- Yeah!
- Alright? But otherwise, we're in this headspace..
00:13:40 Yeah, I love it. So now, the solo..
00:13:43 so this tone..
00:13:44 we have this little sort of we're just..
00:13:46 I don't want to it to be too bright and shimmery shiny
because we have..
00:13:55 that thing actually is, you know,
it's not super bright or whatever but it's a big,
it's a pretty good amount of space..
00:14:01 Like sort of Wah-y sort of like..
00:14:03 - I got that Waffle. - ..like a filtery Wah thing, maybe? - Yeah.
00:14:08 - Did you hear the.. you probably didn't hear the flanger..
00:14:10 did you hear the flanger I had on all this? Pretty great.
00:14:18 [laughs] - Nice!
- I don't think you need delay.
00:14:21 - Yeah, no.
00:14:22 - So I'm gonna turn this..
00:14:25 down here..
00:14:26 so that's up there.
00:14:27 And if we just find a tone that sort of fits in the middle
and that other thing can fit around it..
00:14:32 - Why don't I mess around with the Waffle?
- Yeah, that'd be good. - Yeah.
00:14:35 - Especially if we get that EQ thing where it kinda
breaks the amps a bit, you know what I mean?
But not harsh..
00:14:42 - Yeah. It can be a little harsh.
00:14:44 - Oh yeah. - So I'll pull back on the volume..
00:14:48 on the Waffle, 'cause I think that's where..
00:15:24 - Yeah that's pretty cool!
So one of the things you saw me doing over on the console,
the console has high and low pass filters
and I use the hipass filters, I basically took everything over 3k out
and everything down the low side, here about 100, so..
00:15:39 I am gonna kinda bandwidth limit, these..
00:15:42 these guitars, real quick.
00:15:44 Alright, cool, play a little bit for me?
- Hey man, yeah, little bit?
That's pretty cool! That's a sound, for sure!
- Yeah. - Let's try it!
- Cool! - Here we go!
Too crazy!
- We're getting there!
- Yeah, it's alright.
00:16:45 - Cool, here we go!
Did you hear that little thing at the end? It was cool!
A little reverb tail at the end?
- On me?
- I did it, check this out.
00:17:31 - Yeah, let's do that and I'm gonna end with the
leading melody note that the chorus is
so that'd would be this really cool transition.
00:17:41 - Yeah and I can do that in here by..
00:17:44 I'm just turning on the echo blend on that
flanger thing, so. - Oh nice.
00:17:49 OK cool. - OK, here we go! - Yeah!
- Lemme do it again, I want to bridge the gap between..
00:18:31 I don't wanna step on any of that [sings]
but..
00:18:35 I wanna hold this note that the vocals are gonna
come in on a little bit early - OK!
- ..and I'm just trying to get there.
00:18:41 - Cool, here we go!
- Alright, well, the ending was kinda cool!
- Yeah, that's a little more where I'm going,
I wanna be up here
and have that ring out.. but..
00:19:30 let's give it another go..
00:19:32 - Lemme listen to the end, real quick, a'ight?
- See what I've got going on, on the end, there?
- Yeah, it sounds great.
00:19:47 - A'ight, Jake lemme show you how to do it, alright?
So I can concentrate on the take.
00:19:53 Yeah, it's this guy right here.
00:19:55 So right there when he goes to that [sings]
you just turn that all the way up.
00:20:00 - Sure, got it. - Pretty easy.
00:20:01 - Cool? Here we go!
- That was great!
- Yeah, can I do one more like that?
- That was pretty good, the one before was better!
- OK, if I do those hits..
00:21:19 [sings]
on that note..
00:21:22 is that gonna sound really..
00:21:23 - I wouldn't.. - OK.
00:21:25 - I wouldn't do that.
00:21:26 - Lemme just go .. - Hey, Jeff, your build into that one
felt pretty cool, like the way..
00:21:30 'cause you landed on the right note but
you kinda walked up into it and it's kind of
in-between keys, it's pretty weird but it was cool!
- OK! You want me to give one more like that?
- One more - Yeah!
- I think between all these, we got it.
00:22:12 - While we're here..
00:22:13 why don't I just..
00:22:15 I'm gonna be throwing this on the outro, as well..
00:22:19 so you want to just hit that.. it's gonna be real straight,
it's not gonna anything like.. riffin',
it's just gonna be that line..
00:22:24 - Yeah, here we go!
- Ahh..
00:22:45 - I think that was great!
- Yeah? I thought that was kinda corny!
- Oh, really? - [sings]
- Hey, Jeff! - Yeah?
- What if you do the kind of ending of the demo
where you just go insane,
just try one take where the last, like.. two..
00:22:58 seconds of it just go leave it all *blablabla*
and then it cuts. - OK, cool!
- Yeah!
- Too bleepy?
- Yeah, it was an idea.. - ..kinda bleepy!
- But, yeah..
00:23:28 - I'm trying to get this hook back in a way that makes sense
- Yeah.
00:23:32 - ..but I'm realizing that it's..
00:23:33 - What if in the last two bars of it
you just bend in the hell out of it,
you know what I mean? - Yeah.
00:23:38 - Really wanking that around.
00:23:41 - Lemme try.. I'll try something.
00:24:01 [laughs]
- I like how it's almost there.
00:24:05 - It was good. It was cool.
00:24:07 - Yeah, it's that it?
- I think between what we've got and..
00:24:11 all, that's it.
00:24:12 - Cool. - Come take a listen.
00:24:13 - Thanks. - Yeah.
00:24:15 I'm gonna try to explain sort of what's going on, here.
00:24:17 The amps are coming in to these microphones,
coming in to this desk.
00:24:20 I'm sending out to one of my EXTC modules, over here,
these Radial EXTCs.
00:24:28 That goes to a pedal..
00:24:29 it goes to a Klon clone pedal,
the red Klon, the red one up there..
00:24:50 It comes out of there and into the flanger doubler
and then back into a fader, right down here.
00:24:57 While this track was happening
I was having Jake
at the very end of that solo part,
have him turn up the..
00:25:07 ..the wet/dry. - Yeah.
00:25:08 - ..so he went all wet, - On the delay!
- And then I'll have the delay kind of long
and that's feeding the flanger,
so it kinda goes [sings]
and then I was just trying to concentrate on the take
and then at the end, when he adds the delay in
it adds some gain, so I'm using the sub master
fader here, for these four faders,
to turn it down.
00:25:30 So I'm sort of riding the gain of the wet and dry
a little bit to tape.
00:25:36 And even then,
if you look at our Pro Tools session,
you can see at the end
there's a little bit of gain so,
I'm gonna fix that.
00:25:41 We're gonna probably just do a fade..
00:25:43 and then at the end we didn't have it on at all
but that's what is happening at the end of this solo
and you can hear it, I'm gonna solo it here..
00:26:04 And because there's so much gain on the pedal,
there's a little bit of bleed from one of the other tracks
somewhere..
00:26:10 but you hear a little bit of that drum/echo/flange thing happening
- Dude, that's probably from my headphone mix in that room
blasting as loud as possible.. - And there you go!
- ..and hitting the guitar mic. - Don't do that!
- Yeah. - Don't do that.
00:26:23 - Yeah don't do that. - Don't do that.
00:26:24 - Alright, cool, so now we're going to comp this, together.
00:26:27 So here's that little end piece..
00:26:40 But yeah, it didn't quite get there.
00:26:41 Lemme show you the other one,
there was one where you kinda just went kinda crazy..
00:26:51 It's just kinda charming in its own way.
00:27:02 See, I don't mind that one,
you thought that was cheesy but I don't..
00:27:05 I don't mind that one..
00:27:14 I kinda like what this is doing.
00:27:16 - I just got off all the strings and let it feedback.
00:27:19 - Yeah, what we could do here is..
00:27:39 - Kinda cool, I mean..
00:27:40 - Kinda cool, kinda wrong..
00:27:41 Let's leave that for now,
let's go back to our solo section, here.
00:27:45 Back here, about 16,
there was one that was pretty great.
00:28:05 That one, for me.. this part is cool.
00:28:09 - Yeah, that's what I wanted the bridge to gap.
00:28:13 That's gonna have the vocals coming in on top of that
on the same lyric.
00:28:33 So that's the ending,
so now we just gotta get..
00:28:36 let's do this here,
let's go..
00:28:47 old playlist!
Let's listen here, through here,
'cause some of these are pretty good, man!
See, the cool thing is,
this would work,
like let's say that we flew this up in here..
00:29:37 You know what I mean? - Yeah.
00:29:38 That's a pretty well-played solo, you know..
00:29:41 Let's see if we get anything else, if there's
anything else that's any more interesting, a'ight?
Cool spot, right here.
00:29:57 That little..
00:30:00 You know what I mean?
Let's see if I put it in this..
00:30:15 Yeah, I figured we'd get the gross part,
we get the bulk of it..
00:30:20 make sure that we've got the best parts of that
and then we'll get them together.
00:30:23 - Is that cool? - Yeah, totally.
00:30:38 That was actually pretty good, man!
Yeah, that was pretty cool!
Like, to right here?
- Yeah.
00:30:43 - So now let's see if I fly that up into this what happens..
00:31:11 When it runs across this..
00:31:13 that's kinda like, there's kinda like something wrong there..
00:31:17 that's kind cool.. let's see, here.
00:31:31 [unintelligible]
- Yeah, in 16?
[unintelligible]
And then let's go here.
00:31:54 I kinda like that down here, though..
00:32:01 - Yeah that's cool. - Yeah that sounds cool!
- Yeah I'm putting the proverbial lipstick on the pig, here..
00:32:28 - Must be that whole piece, eh?
- Maybe you got the whole thing?
That's crazy talking.
00:32:58 One little note in there that's kinda like..
00:33:19 Let's try out this one little note, right here..
00:33:27 It's so weird that it might be great!
Pretty cool! - That's pretty cool, man!
Yeah, it's definitely wrong..
00:33:48 - That's the part!
- Ok, cool, now we need the feedback intro..
00:33:51 - Yeah we've gotta fill that.
00:33:55 - Pretty great.
00:33:58 Too long.
00:34:05 So, like.. that's pretty cool,
that can go in there and it's just a little thing..
00:34:43 Yes!
- Dude, that's great!
- Let's go eat some hot chicken!
- My ears are really..
00:34:49 - Yeah!
- Hot chicken, tonight!
Well, it's not tonight really..
00:34:54 - Right now.. - it's definitely.. it's 4 o'clock.
00:34:57 - Lunch! - Lunch!
- Jake and I have got a little idea
about a little snare treatment
that's involving this broken,
well it's not broken but it's inside-out splash cymbal,
I bought a splash at a yard sale for $5
and then I stomped on it because I was like:
'I hate splash cymbals, the stupidest cymbal ever'
the only thing stupider is a ping,
but whatever..
00:35:19 that's just my opinion..
00:35:21 this splash cymbal is on top of the snare
and he's gonna hit it, and that's it..
00:35:25 it doesn't make a lot of sound but it is kind of a cool sound
and then there's a couple of cymbal stacks,
like really bad cymbals stacked on top of each other,
he's gonna hit a couple those
and then I'm having him hit a long one..
00:35:37 and I'm gonna record every track
so I'm gonna record all the drum tracks
to get these samples.
00:35:43 I'm also recording, while we're doing this,
the 2-mix of it.
00:35:47 Because most likely,
that's what I'll use
on the samples.
00:35:52 Most likely.
00:35:53 I'll use the 2-mix.
00:35:54 So let's see what we get here.
00:35:56 Alright man, gimme a few
stray hits of the snare, ping cymbal thing..
00:36:01 - Alright.
00:36:03 - Cymbaly thing on the snare.
00:36:24 - Cool, now the really short, little pop snare thing..
00:36:38 Alright, it's cool, the first one was great.
00:36:39 - OK. - Alright now: smashed cymbal.
00:36:42 - Cool, I've got two cymbal stacks, just so you know.
00:36:44 Here's the first one.
00:36:57 Here's the other one. - Now the first one long..
00:37:00 let it ring.
00:37:14 Alright, now the second stack.
00:37:16 - Short!
Here's the long!
- Let it go longer.
00:37:37 - Yeah, sorry: here it comes!
- OK!
Gimme the hi-hat.
00:38:05 - Do you want..
00:38:06 - Just a couple single hits.
00:38:12 Way out on the edge.
00:38:16 Like, in other words, like..
00:38:19 you know, hit right out on the edge.
00:38:21 Really light.. more of a 'ts' than a 'thsunk'.
00:38:29 Perfect.
00:38:30 Alright, cool!
Yeah, just right now.. I'm just exporting
these samples out to a folder.
00:38:36 A couple of these for right now,
things I just want to hear now.
00:38:48 We took a little break, here.
00:38:50 A couple things happened, one: it got cold.
00:38:53 So I put on a sweatshirt.
00:38:54 Secondly, we had done some samples, earlier
of I'd say non-traditional sort of drum samples..
00:39:01 snare drum with a splash cymbal on it,
some stacked cymbals..
00:39:06 metallic sort of sounds
and I got this little idea of
what I kinda wanted to do, so..
00:39:14 I've put these samples in on all the snare hits
and one of the things that's just putting it under the snare hits
it didn't really do anything, but..
00:39:24 I have an Eventide 910, an original one, back here..
00:39:28 and it works and we kinda used this on Illiterate Light's
record, when we were mixing..
00:39:33 I sort of just used it as a kind of a weird snare drum effect
through the whole record and..
00:39:41 basically what I'm doing is
I'm pitching these samples down
and then adding some feedback and a little bit
of a delay so..
00:39:49 they kinda go 'plooow'
I wanna just play a little bit of the track here,
so you can kinda hear what is happening here
so you can pick it up then I'll show you the track
and then I'll show you what's going on.
00:40:13 Here's what's actually happening, there:
Sounds kinda dumb
but strangely when you put it with the snare drum..
00:40:30 or with just the snare drum..
00:40:36 so it's giving it an illusion of depth,
here a little bit..
00:40:40 Now lemme hear just the drums, again.
00:40:53 It's kinda got that little 'POW'
after the snare, just a little bit afterwards,
it's a super subtle little effect,
and this means I don't have to add any reverb
and I'm not going to.. I'm gonna..
00:41:03 when we mix this track I am seriously confident
I am not gonna input any more reverb on these drums.
00:41:09 I've added a little bit of the Distressor to the taste mic, here..
00:41:15 Maybe I'd say I added a lot of Distressor, so..
00:41:17 here's without it.
00:41:29 And I wanted it up in that drum mix a little bit.
00:41:33 I probably under-recorded it a little bit
because I just wasn't quite, completely sure
like how it was gonna fit..
00:41:39 a little bit of after the recording,
a little bit of compression,
kinda makes it sort of extended a little bit,
it kinda makes it kinda cool.
00:41:47 So what I'm gonna do is
I'm actually just gonna take this track
and I am gonna commit it.
00:41:52 I'll let this render up.
00:41:53 It was a good idea, it was Jake's idea..
00:41:56 kind of this little idea..
00:41:57 and I sorta could hear what he wanted
but maybe not and then we just
kinda nerded out a little bit, here,
a little off camera..
00:42:06 sorry about that,
and came up with this.
00:42:08 So..
00:42:09 It was lunch time.. we had hot chicken!
It was awesome.
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.
Those drums are bass ass! Great performance with great tracking/mixing!
Strumzilla
2020 Jun 12
I really enjoy watching the process and seeing a master at their craft. I also have learned that I probably will never want to collab on my own music. I'm too much of a control freak.
Edgardo
2020 May 03
"Vance's Stomp Cymbals", has kind of a ring to it". Vance is the man...
Michael4bass
2020 May 02
Did Y'all have lunch at Prince's Hot Chicken Shack?
Pearlpassionstudio
2020 May 02
Love what you're doing, coming together very well. Great job!
spur
2020 May 02
Jesus! The Solo with the Sub on is just CREAMY!!! WOW
dlapanja4
2020 May 01
Guys, these start to finish series are awsome. In my opinion, you can learn much more, just being a fly on the wall and watch people doing it in real time. This concept for me is much better, that just to see people showing us what they have done beforehand. In these series we can see the proccess of "how to get there". Thanks a lot for doing this.
