
Start to Finish: Vocal Production & Guitar Solos with Vance Powell
01h 30min
(32)
Learn Vance’s Unique Editing and Overdubbing Tricks
This video is part 2/3.
Here is part 1/3: Tracking Rock with Vance Powell
Here is part 3/3: Mixing Rock with Vance Powell
Between the tracking session and the mixing session is the often overlooked editing and production process that adds the finishing touches and details that can make a song stand out.
Every producer and engineer needs to help guide artists towards a cohesive vision for their records. Grammy winner Vance Powell works with the band Tyler Bryant and The Shakedown to add layers of vocals, guitar overdubs and create the final song arrangement together at his studio Sputnik Sound in Nashville, TN.
Vance demonstrates and explains his strategies for:
- Vocal comping, working line by line, take by take, to make a good performance great
- Recording background vocals to make the arrangement even more dynamic
- Using Vocalign on the vocal doubles for a wide and tight sound
- Special effects processing including reverse reverb, distortion, and delays
- Crafting the perfect guitar solo tone from the comfort of the control room
- Vance’s special “spin fader” trick using analog delay
Learn how to give a song both polish and attitude with clever production touches that take the record from sounding good to feeling incredible!
Once logged in, you will be able to click on those chapter titles and jump around in the video.
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:7 - Vocal Comping
- 03:17 - Comping Philosophy
- 08:10 - Subtle Vocal Tuning
- 11:06 - Limited Takes
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:0 - Background Vocals
- 12:24 - Using Vocalign
- 16:28 - Reverse Reverb
- 00:00 - Start
- 03:05 - Why 2 Guitar Amps
- 11:02 - Recording The Intro
- 13:57 - The Moog Echo
- 22:31 - Getting A Guitar Sound
- 27:20 - Recording The Solo
- 35:15 - Overdub Philosophy
- 43:33 - Prepare For Mixing
- 46:31 - Print The Rough
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
00:00:07
We're here, this morning
with young Tyler Bryant.
00:00:12
- Hello!
And..
00:00:13
we're going to comp some vocals
that we did last night.
00:00:17
Here we got 6 takes
so we're just gonna move
through this process
of listening, track per track,
line per line, basically,
build a comp,
and then listen to it, and..
00:00:28
kinda go down that path.
Tyler will
inject comments throughout
the process, as he tends to do..
00:00:35
- Sure.
What do you normally say?
- Hey, can we listen to that line,
again?
And then what do you say?
- Hey, there's one spot..
And then what's right after that?
'IT SUXX!'
- Yeah, yeah!
- SUXX!!
*laughs*
So, ok, here we go!
So this came from take 3
here's some of the other ones.
00:01:00
- Overshot!
Yeah.
00:01:20
Timing.
00:01:24
- 'When it comes' is cool
from that..
00:01:30
then it goes sharp!
Ok, let's build a little..
00:01:39
and let me make this a little
bit bigger..
00:01:55
So I'm gonna cut on the
's' there..
00:01:59
A great thing about comping vocals,
few things to know:
1)
's' have no pitch..
00:02:05
So they make really nice
things to do crossfades on.
00:02:10
Because they have no pitch.
00:02:12
Now we're gonna move on!
Ok, let's take that one.
00:03:10
- I like it.
Ok, cool.
00:03:12
I'll come back and kinda
clean all this up a little bit.
Tops and tails and things.
00:03:17
There's two different ways to
comp vocals, 1)
is..
00:03:21
the way we're kinda doing it now,
we're gonna do it line by line,
we're gonna listen line by line
to make sure each line, we like it.
00:03:26
Then, we're gonna listen to like
a whole verse and make sure
it sorta makes sense.
00:03:31
The other way to do it
is listening
take by take
and to do that
sometimes, what I'll do,
or most of the times when I do that,
is..
00:03:40
to put the lines, each line
on a grid.
00:03:44
So there'll be a line and then there'll
be a set of boxes
for each take.
00:03:48
And then I'll put different things
in those boxes
depending on
what I think of it. I'll put a little
checkmark if I like the line.
00:03:56
I'll put an 'X' if I don't like
the line.
00:03:58
I'll cut the checkbox
the box in half.. if I like the 1st part
of the line, but don't like
the second part of the line.
00:04:05
It's a weird little thing and
what happens that way is, often, when
you listen with the artist, they're not
maybe.. I mean:
Tyler is, quite a bit..
00:04:13
different than other people..
in more ways than one!
but..
00:04:19
a lot of times the artist doesn't have
the patience
to just hear a line at a time, whereas
I can kinda do that really easily.
00:04:25
They wanna just hear the take
and feel the flow, so..
00:04:28
That's one way to do it.
00:04:29
I do both of 'em, both ways,
it just depends on what
and how the best way to possibly
do it.
00:04:36
You know, this doesn't bother you,
right?
- I prefer to do it this way
and getting it line by line and then
going back and listening to it and go:
'does anything feel unnatural?'
like.. does the flow not feel
quite right, here..
00:04:47
It's just one of the things, you have
to just feel it out with the artist..
00:04:50
and I know that Tyler..
we like to do it this way, so..
00:04:53
Ok, let's keep going!
Pretty good, lemme back up,
here.
00:05:04
When I am comping, and I have
multiple
comp track lanes open
if I like something, I'll just take
and select it, and cut it.
00:05:12
I'll just cut it in Pro Tools so
I know
'ok, this is a possibility.'
This whole little section here,
I might like.
00:05:30
- I like that one!
Like that one?
I like how it's overdriving.
00:05:46
On 3, you really finished the word.
00:05:52
We like 3..
00:05:57
All right, let's take it!
- Yeah!
- A couple of different rhythmic options,
there..
00:06:36
'it seems' or just 'seems I don't',
kind of a preference thing..
00:06:48
Still kinda possible..
00:06:51
line split, here..
00:07:13
- Pretty cool!
What do you think, you like?
I'll do this where I'll just throw
these tracks up
you know, not worrying about the
edit or anything with them,
I'll just throw them up together and see
if they work.
00:07:26
And sometimes they do, sometimes
they don't.
00:07:28
The nice thing about
you know, kinda doing it this way,
once Pro Tools finally got
edit lanes
was that it's easy to see where
these came from.
00:07:44
So here's.. does that..
00:07:55
Let's do a 3 and 7 split, here.
00:08:09
I think that's good.
00:08:11
I am not a big fan of tuning
but I am not afraid to use tuning
to make
a good performance great.
00:08:17
I like it in very, very, very small
instances..
00:08:23
and I use something kinda weird,
I use Waves Tune.
00:08:27
I kinda like it.
00:08:28
I don't know why, but it seems to
make sense for me.
00:08:32
I know, everybody in the world
uses Autotune, but I don't.
00:08:34
I'm gonna just check this out
and see where we're at.
00:08:40
I thought maybe he might
have just slid
he's still in the note range,
here.
00:08:44
But it just slides a little bit sharp.
00:08:46
All I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna
loosen it up
a little bit..
00:08:50
the transition speed..
00:08:51
so that it's a little closer to what
he originally did.
00:08:57
Like this.
00:09:01
Not quite as sharp..
00:09:03
Pull up this little note, here.
00:09:07
Let me see what this sounds like..
00:09:13
You know, the great thing about that is:
that note wasn't sharp..
00:09:17
it was just
'sharp-ish'.
00:09:19
It was heading towards sharp.
00:09:21
So, for me, that's all I would ever
really
tune, one note, one little piece
of
a long stretch, something that pushes
up against the edge
and often I don't even care,
I don't mind that..
00:09:35
There's a lot of people around that will
tune every vocal to straight lines
and they'll make it perfect
that's not really my vibe, and
I don't think that's really, you know..
00:09:44
really what you want.
- We actually had an
experience where we made a record and
the producer tuned every single
thing.. but he would have Autotune
on..
00:09:55
while I was singing the vocal
and so I would be singing and I would
hear my..
00:09:59
I use vibrato when I sing and I would..
00:10:02
I would hear.. I would just hear it
jumping and jumping.
00:10:05
And so I finally got to a point
where I said
I am not gonna sing anymore..
I can't..
00:10:10
I can't do this.. we're not making
the right record, here.
00:10:13
And so, I called Vance
and I.. we had never worked
together and I go:
'do you use Autotune?'
and he goes:
'If you pay me A LOT extra.'
*laughs*
and I was like..
00:10:26
that's exactly what I wanted to hear.
We're coming over,
let's make an album!
*laughs*
Ah! I remember those days!
- Yeah!
That was fun!
Something's kinda cool about that!
That one's the most
in tune..
00:10:53
- I like the 'gives' on my first one.
00:10:54
Yeah, me too.
- The first instinct was cool.
00:11:01
I like this whole line.
- Cool.
00:11:03
Diplomacy!
Crazy, when that works.
00:11:07
I'm also not a fan of like,
a lot of takes.
00:11:11
I kinda think that
you know, if we can't take it
in 5 or 6 takes,
we should start again..
like..
00:11:19
do something else for a while!
- Yep!
And it's happened, we've done..
00:11:22
we've done takes and just,
thrown them away
because just the night wasn't right.
00:11:29
You know, or whatever!
And, you know, that's part of
making records, you just
have to kinda like make sure that
you know, the singer,
is in the right headspace,
most of the time, when
I work with an artist who's singing
I kick everybody out.
00:11:44
Kick everybody out.
00:11:46
Because, really, it comes down to,
whether it's a,
whether is a rock, hard rock
or metal song,
or a ballad or a country song,
or whatever,
the singer's singing something that
they wrote, it's something close
to them, so
so, you know, it's..
00:12:02
very personal, and a lot of singers
are really great about it, they can sing
in front of a whole bunch of people
and sing badly
and good and well and bad
and try different things.
00:12:12
But I find that most of the time
the real risks
are sort of taken between
the artist and I. We can just
talk about it and:
'Yeah, man! Try that note.'
And if you hit the wrong note,
if you
squeal or somebody does something weird,
there's not a bunch of band guys,
standing around,
watching and laughing..
00:12:54
Something about the timing of that
that's cool.
00:13:02
All but 'hits', here..
00:13:09
I kinda like
the way you did 'hits', here.
00:13:14
- Yeah!
And instead of this sort of..
00:13:19
Instead of this sort of harder one..
- Aggressive one, yeah!
It's a little more laidback.
00:13:29
Maybe it's this..
00:13:37
- I like it!
I got another one, here.
00:13:44
I like that one better.
00:13:50
Ok, this I'll be from here..
00:13:56
A guy from here..
00:14:00
..and then this guy from here..
we'll throw these together, badly.
00:14:10
- I like it!
Me too!
Once I get this comp together,
like this,
This is just my rough comp..
00:14:37
I'm gonna take these tracks,
I'm gonna solo them..
00:14:40
and listen to him in solo.
00:14:45
Make sure that I have all the
crossfades correct and there's no weird
consonants and stuff.
00:00:00
We're getting ready to do some
background vocals with
Noah
Denney, bass player
in the band,
I changed a couple things for Noah,
I changed the mic pre,
we have used a 512c
for the vocals, which is what
we used on Tyler.
00:00:12
We're gonna be using my
1073..
00:00:15
Two reasons: 1) we need
the 512
for the overdubs we're gonna do
here in a minute..
00:00:21
so we just swapped, trying to
just
you know, make things go
smoothly.
00:00:27
So we're gonna do some background
vocals here, we're gonna start with
the Noah's hard parts and then we're
gonna move to Noah's easy parts..
00:00:34
which, to me, they're all hard,
but..
00:00:36
here we go!
All right man, here we go, all right?
Man, that sounded great!
- Lemme grab that last one, again.
00:01:17
Just the very last 'aftershock'.
00:01:33
Let's check on that.
- Cool!
You like?
- Yeah, I am good at. T, you good?
- Yeah, sounds good, man!
- Cool!
Let me take a look real quick,
hold on!
Let's get the first one!
- I say I'd do a better second
one, too.
00:02:27
Ok let's do the first two.
- First 'stops', first two.
00:02:53
I think those were definitely better.
00:02:55
Yeah let's get 'still'.
00:02:57
All right?
- Do it to me again!
Yeah, man!
- Cool!
All right, cool, I like that!
- Alrighty!
All right, cool, do you want to
just go on and get all these choruses
of this guy?
And take them out of the way?
- Yeah let's do that.
00:04:18
Get that 'still', real quick.
- Yeah.
00:04:21
Yes?
- Yeah!
You gimme one second, all right?
- No prob!
So, on 'still',
'world goes still',
we're gonna look at this
as a possible
Vocalign thing.
00:04:45
I'll be a little bit weird 'cause
it's a stereo track, but we'll see.
00:05:04
Ok great!
That's awesome!
- Cool!
Cool, next!
- Yeah? This was a good..take..
That's fine.
00:05:14
Yeah, I know.
- He did it so animated!
You know..
- Love it!
*my heart stops!*
- It's pretty fast on that.
00:05:22
Like we do live.
00:05:23
We'll figure it out.
00:05:33
That was pretty cool, man.
00:05:35
- Play it one more time!
- Yeah, I'm alright with that 'stops',
I think..
00:05:46
did 'heart' sound a little wonky?
- Yeah.
Let's get it!
I'll take that.
- Cool!
- Uhm..
00:06:06
- Yeah let's get 'world goes still'..
00:06:08
- I guess Noah will do the
the book ends.
00:06:19
- One more!
- Close!
Yeah! Again!
'Still'.. get 'still'.
00:06:35
- Yeah!
Yeah, we're gonna look at it.
00:06:45
Gimme a second here. It's a little
wobbly in the pitch, you know.
00:07:01
Humili-o-tron!
- Humili-o-tron!
500!
All right and then.. next..
00:07:13
you have the other little line,
right?
- Let's get the big
'aftershock'
and Noah will do it then.
00:07:30
Yeah?
- Yeah, I remember that!
Ok, now the next line is the
the wiggly one, right?
- Yeah!
I'm gonna be singing probably
way softer.
00:07:43
So this is really kind of another
track, right?
- Yeah we could put it on the other
track, the
the middle lines.
00:07:52
If you own it, too.
00:07:55
Well let's get this one line, here.
00:08:09
I'm gonna check that,
that was creamy.
00:08:19
The other line,
- So, I go..
00:08:30
*sings*
that's the other line, I see.
00:08:33
- Right.
- Would you solo the lead vocal for me?
We're gonna listen to something,
real quick..
00:08:45
*mumbles*
Yeah, super cool.
00:08:57
I was just listening, Noah,
because you go up on
'-ter' and I go down,
but it's cool!
- Yeah, it's neat, though!
- You like that, or you want me
to match it, exactly..
00:09:06
- Try one where you match it
exactly, just to see.
00:09:09
- Yeah, so what do you add,
when?
- Cool, yeah, let's do it!
Better? - I like it better just because
it doesn't
seem to take you away
from the
lead vocal, as much.
00:09:37
All right, we're gonna keep this one.
00:09:46
Let's do the 'cause of you,
'cause of you'!
Pretty good singing there, Noah!
- Thank you, sir!
Yeah, let's listen!
- Yeah.
00:10:26
- Last 'you'.
Last 'you'!
Last line, very last note.
- The easy one!
Yeah.
00:10:43
- That's nice.
00:10:50
- Cool! All right, that worked.
00:10:52
Ok so now, let's get
let's get the other lines, right?
- Yeah.
00:11:22
One more time on the first one
but we like the second one.
00:11:34
Curious if these..
00:11:35
if we should double these?
So it may become a little
bigger?
You wanna double them,
real quick?
- Yeah!
Here it comes!
Let's just get this first one!
- Yeah.
00:12:12
Ok, second one!
- Cool!
Gimme a second, pitch is
great..
00:12:26
timing is a little wonky!
But I can fix that real quick.
00:12:32
A little Vocalign action, here.
00:12:54
I think that'll work!
- Thanks, yo!
Ok, come on in!
On this last track
we've done this background vocal
part
for this little piece
and then I was like.. it might be
kind of really cool if we
double these and split them
out wide so..
00:13:07
so the 'aftershock' part with the
Tyler and Noah are together in mono
and then
this background part, this
the part that comes after it,
spreads out wide.
00:13:18
And it's like kind of nice and
creamy and wide.
00:13:20
So I had him do a double.
00:13:23
And the great part about the
double is
that you know, you really want it
to be really tight, so
you know, time is a little bit
always of the essence, here
and so..
00:13:34
I had him sing it, the pitch was great..
00:13:36
but the timing wasn't exactly
perfect, so..
00:13:38
I use a program called
Vocalign Project.
00:13:41
It was originally made from,
best I understand it
for spotting dialogue
but it works really good for
vocals
and it allows you to
take a piece, make that
the map
and then line up vocals
off of that map.
00:13:55
It's kinda cheating, but
it always sounds good
and it sounds nice
in small doses, so..
00:14:01
I really like it.
00:14:01
The Sarge is still on, right?
It's on?
Ok, so let's swap the 7 with
the Sarge.
00:14:07
Just swap the cable out there.
00:14:11
We're gonna one little
thing, here.
00:14:14
*sings*
So let's try this, so
we'll just..
00:14:22
let's double the 'aftershock',
let's put it through the amp.
00:14:24
Ok.
00:14:26
- Ok!
Cool, let's hear what that's like.
00:14:29
- Still buzzing?
Yeah it's ok, it's just..
you know..
00:14:33
It is what it is.
- Just gain!
- Yep.
00:14:36
1/4" mic and some gain.
00:14:41
Cool! Let's try it, all right?
- Just the Ampex?
Just the Ampex, yeah!
This is a little up my range, Vance!
All right, here comes Graham
Whitford to the rescue!
Come Whitford!
The Grahamster!
You better warm up, Graham!
- Yeah.
00:15:29
Nice warm up, dude!
- That's it, I'm just gonna go for it
and see what happens.
00:15:33
Here we go!
*laughs*
Get the last one!
Ok, gimme a second here, all right?
Hang on one second, all right?
- I love it! So bon-headed.
00:17:24
D-Verb, dude!
I went into the track
and I did some editing
to edit the top and the bottom of
the track so that
it's just basically him just singing
the note and then
cutting off..
00:18:06
and then..
00:18:07
I opened a plug-in,
this was just
the lovely old D-Verb.
00:18:12
I went into the Hall patch,
it's about 60% mix,
and then I selected an area
that I wanted, and I hit 'Reverse'.
00:18:19
So that's gonna process,
that's an Audiosuite,
it's gonna process it in reverse.
00:18:24
And so..
00:18:25
basically what it came out sounding
like, was this:
So, I thought this might be cool
if there was some sort of
under layer, under this chorus,
'cause Tyler and I were talking like
maybe the 'aftershock' are not quite
big enough.
00:18:53
We could have Tyler do the double
but
it's just a little bit too high
and they're getting ready to go out
on the road so we don't want to really
blow his head off..
00:19:02
And we could have Noah do it but
you know..he's singing a whole bunch
in it, so..
00:19:07
we got Graham in there and
- This is what Graham does live, so..
00:19:11
Yeah, he's just blowing it out
singing it live.
00:19:14
So, you know..
*laughs*
we'll just kinda see if we can
make this bigger.
00:19:18
And the backwards thing just adds
a little bit of
of pre-tension to it..
00:19:23
it gives a little stutter-y sound and
I have an idea for something,
a little processing
here in a minute, after we get all
this, then I'm gonna do it.
00:19:31
That's kind of the deal.
00:21:47
Exponential Audio Nimbus.
00:00:00
We're gonna do some guitar
overdubs here..
00:00:02
Tyler and I both like to sort of be in
the room here when we're doing them..
00:00:07
We like to be in the room together.
00:00:08
That's how we actually like it.
00:00:10
And..
00:00:12
part of that reason is that
sometimes I will do things that
will sort of feed into what
he's doing and
we can talk about and it's
right here in front of our face.
00:00:23
That's the good part. The bad part is
that it gets pretty loud, in here.
00:00:26
Not as loud as it's gonna get
out there..
00:00:28
and that's the interesting part.
So what we're doing is
we're taking
a pair outputs out of Tyler's
pedalboard.
00:00:36
And then we're driving them
into the inputs
of a pair of API 512s.
00:00:42
And then those 512s
they patch into my
mic lines, I have a pair of mic
lines returns,
so they're flipped around,
they go the other direction.
00:00:52
They come out of my snakebox
out in the studio
and they go to a pair of reamp
boxes that are phantom powered.
00:00:59
And there's a phantom power box
out there that supplies phantom to them.
00:01:02
Those reamp boxes then go to two
amplifiers.
00:01:06
So, how we came up with this,
was..
00:01:10
I have a little thing..
00:01:14
So,
there's a pair of boxes that
are made by Neutrik,
one of them is called
the Minirator,
and it allows you to set a tone
and a level.
00:01:26
So I set a 1k tone
at -12.
00:01:29
So -12, that's about what a guitar
pedalboard comes out with.
00:01:34
We take that -12, we stuff
it into the 550
or rather 512, sorry!
And then we go down to the
other end of the line
and..
00:01:45
out of the line on the other
end
we plug in the companion piece
to it..
00:01:49
the Minilizer.
We put the Minilizer in
to the reamp box
so we make sure the reamp box
is putting out -12.
00:01:58
By either adjusting the level
at the reamp box,
or adjusting the level, here.
00:02:03
That means, whatever we put in,
is exactly what goes to the amp,
no gain,
but yet is all balanced,
and all line-driven
and everything's cool and
all our guitar cables are very short.
00:02:14
I'm driving two amps out there
right now, one is a..
00:02:17
little JMP 18W Marshall.
00:02:19
And the other one is Mike's '63
Fender VibroVerb
..probably my favorite amp in
the whole world.
00:02:26
Same patch as before on the
guitar..
00:02:29
The mics, they're
patched into the BA-11As
and they're the 48 and 57..
48 and 57..
00:02:37
And they're gonna come up here on
the desk
and what I'm gonna do is actually
I'm gonna combine
the two amps.
00:02:44
I'm gonna combine one amp
on to Bus 18 and
one amp on to Bus 17.
00:02:49
I'm gonna put a track up here
we're gonna do a little solo, here.
00:02:55
First, actually we're gonna do
this a little
entry guitar line, that's a
intro line.
00:03:05
Why 2 amps? Well,
because each one has a radically
different tonal character.
00:03:11
Therefore, when I put it up in the
mix
one side I can EQ slightly different
than the other side
and they can fit together
in mono like this, instead of
sort of hitting on each other
by being the same amp or
the same type of amp.
00:03:26
I want them to kinda tonally
fit together, like this.
00:03:30
So, a couple things I'll do is
I'll actually
boost and cut EQs in..
00:03:35
in the same areas, in other
words like, one amp may be
a little darker,
but might have a little 5k peak
and the other one might be brighter
but actually has a 3k dip.
00:03:46
or a 5k dip, that kinda vibe
where the 2 of them fit together.
00:03:51
So..
00:03:52
we're gonna show you, this
is the VibroVerb, hold on..
00:03:56
This is the VibroVerb..
00:04:00
Obviously you can hear the reverb..
00:04:03
and this is the Marshall.
00:04:18
All right, Mike, can you patch something
for me please?
On Bus 19-20.
00:04:26
Can you patch the 1176s
so, 19 out, 1176..
00:04:34
Pro Tools in 20.
00:04:36
So let's hear..
00:04:37
we're gonna listen to each
microphone, here,
across the spectrum..
00:04:41
and these are just the starting
sort of levels..
00:04:43
starting ideas, here.
00:04:45
Ok, this is the 48.
00:04:47
On the VibroVerb.
00:04:53
I'm gonna get a little more gain.
00:05:07
Pretty classic sound.
Ok, here's the 57.
00:05:17
When you combine them..
00:05:23
Ok..
00:05:24
Here's the 48 on the Marshall.
00:05:27
A little more gain..
00:05:31
About the same amount.
00:05:38
Pretty dry..
00:05:40
and then here's the 57, real classic..
00:05:48
combining them..
00:05:54
keep going..
00:06:09
All right, so, interestingly..
00:06:11
One of the 57s was out of phase..
00:06:15
in that arrangement,
so..
00:06:17
Cool! This will be a lot
better, now.
00:07:03
The thing I just asked Mike
to patch up
is a pair of
1176s
on a Bus.
00:07:10
So, what I am gonna do is
I'm gonna have a
uncompressed,
guitar bus.
00:07:15
And a compressed bus.
00:07:17
And basically the difference will be,
between them..
00:07:20
'cause I can change the input
here, in Pro Tools.
00:08:14
Ok? Cool!, So...
00:08:15
Now, lemme show the differences
between them.
00:08:17
All right?
So, this will be the uncompressed.
00:08:22
This is Bus 17-18 straight off
Pro Tools.
00:08:44
Obviously not as dynamic.
00:08:45
But a little bit more..
00:08:47
close, and in-your-face.
00:08:48
Let's do one thing, let me..
00:08:50
split these busses, so..
00:08:52
I'm gonna send the VibroVerb
to both channels
and the actual Marshall to both
channels.
00:08:57
Then I'll just try a little something
different, here.
00:09:01
And then..
00:09:05
Let's see, that'll be there..
00:09:10
Ok, maybe.. let's try this!
Try that, Tyler!
So we changed it so that
the VibroVerb
the bus routing, so that
instead of it just being on 17
and 19,
which is being the left side..
00:09:39
it's on 17 and 18
and 19 and 20
so that's on the left and right side
and then I did the Marshall
then moved each mic,
on left and right.
00:09:49
So, basically now it's 2 amps..
00:09:51
running..
00:09:52
not really in stereo but with
2 different mics
on each side
instead of 1 amp on 1 side,
1 amp on the other side.
00:09:59
So let's try that.
00:10:29
All right, so.. you're gonna see me
moving these faders around
a little bit, from time to time..
00:10:34
and basically what I'm doing is:
I'm just..
00:10:35
I'm just adjusting the balance
between the two amps.
00:10:38
Each one of them has a completely
different
sort of tonal characteristic
you know, the Marshall obviously
has
a very..
00:10:45
you know.. Marshall sound
and the Fender has
the reverb, so..
00:10:49
I'm just kinda manipulating
those around, a little bit.
00:10:51
Let's see..
00:10:52
Where we're at.
00:10:53
And I'm going to use
the compressed
pair..
00:10:59
for this intro solo part.
00:11:01
So do you want to give it
a try?
Cool! I was just getting a balance
and things, here..
00:11:44
you're gonna notice here,
in the Pro Tools world
that I'm..
00:11:48
probably gonna keep most of
these takes.
00:11:51
I'm not a big fan of having
tons and tons of playlists
but while we were just
figuring things out
I'll keep a lot of those playlists
because sometimes wrong things
happen and they're cool.
00:12:01
Once we kinda get the idea
I'll probably just
we'll probably just punch things
until we love it, so..
00:12:15
that's cool, what was that?
- It's a Dizzy Tone.
00:12:17
Ah! The Dizzy Tone pedal!
All right, here we go!
Again!
I love the whole..
00:13:00
I love the intro, I love the
middle section,
the end section needs to..
00:13:03
resolve it around a little bit
back to the vocal,
you know what I mean?
Cool! Let's keep going here..
00:13:09
- You like that tone?
Yeah, I do!
- Okay!
I love it!
- I just kicked in a little..
00:13:56
vibe, there at the end..
00:13:59
I'm gonna have Mike
patch some
something that might make
this really cool.
00:14:04
Mike, gimme..
00:14:07
we're not using Aux 4, right?
Cool!
Let's Aux 4
to that mult..
00:14:17
to a mult..
00:14:18
to the Moog Echoes..
00:14:20
We've patched a couple of
Moog Echoes
This is a 500-series Moog Echo..
00:14:26
I don't remember the number, but
Moog makes these 500 Echoes
and then the other thing that
we've done, is..
00:14:33
I've done a couple
routing patches
and I basically routed
these Moog Echoes
not only to
the guitar channels, in Pro Tools,
but also to another bus
of the desk.
00:14:46
And this is part of the thing that,
you know,
I'm not gonna be the guy
who says
'you should have a desk
to make records'.
00:14:53
Because you don't have to
have a desk..
00:14:55
but these are things that are all
really super-easy and super-fast
that you can do, if you have a desk.
00:15:01
So I came out, Bus 27
of my console,
I had Mike make a patch
and he actually Bus 27 out
into Line input 27 that actually
just worked out, strangely!
And this is gonna be the
'spin fader'.
00:15:16
And basically what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna take
the output of the Moog Echoes
to a bus
I'm also sending to the guitars,
and in parallel, sending that output
to another bus..
00:15:27
that bus is gonna come back
into the console
where I'm going to
feed that back into the
Moog Echoes.
00:15:37
And that makes a really cool sound.
It sounds a lot like this.
00:15:56
Much like turning up a..
00:15:58
a tape echo, just turning
the repeat up.
00:16:01
But this is actually a little
more complicated, because
I can manipulate the signal.
00:16:05
I can manipulate the signal because
I can add EQ to it..
00:16:08
take the low end out of the EQ
and the top out..
00:16:11
so I get a midrange sort of signal.
00:16:22
Lemme just get this low end
out, here.
00:16:25
One more time?
I was adjusting the feedback path.
00:16:43
All this midrange that I added,
in there..
00:16:46
is now in that feedback path.
00:16:48
The other great things about having
this console
is that
I can use the VCAs as
sends and return levels.
00:17:01
So, here's without the Moogs.
00:17:08
And here's with the Moogs.
00:17:20
So I'm in full control of it
and fully controlling the sound
as he's playing it.
00:17:26
And then, what happens is,
we go this back and forth a little bit..
00:17:30
And..
00:17:32
we usually come up with something
in-between that's pretty cool.
00:17:36
All right, ready?
- Yep!
Oh! Let me use the
Pro Tools Control App
on my iPad!
Cool! So I manipulated..
00:18:24
Tyler played this part,
great of course..
00:18:27
and then I manipulated the
Moog Echoes
So that the initial hit does not
have all the echoes
but then the whole thing
sort of swells.
00:18:35
Let's solo it!
..and listen to it!
How about that?
Humili-o-tron!
Meh, it's guitar though..dude.
00:18:41
You know..
00:19:16
I like that.
Are you part of that?
- Can I do it one more time,
just for good measure?
I'm just gonna watch my timing,
a little bit.
00:19:22
Ok!
Here we go!
I like the tone a lot!
- Did you like.. spin it in or
something?
Yeah, I can do that!
Gimme..
00:19:36
Gimme that!
- How can we get feedback?
So hit that..
00:20:21
Ok, hold on! This might be
really cool and wrong and awesome!
Cool!
It's so crazy out of control, that..
00:21:03
let's see what we've got
going on, here.
00:21:05
Maybe it's gonna get cool,
here.
00:21:45
Well, fun!
- It's kinda interesting, uh?
Yeah! I like it, let's get the
back half, right?
Just the solo part?
- Lemme hit it!
Uh, now, there's a..
00:22:35
We should be just going to
the solo, now..
00:22:38
get it out of the way? - Yeah!
And then we'll do these
other couple little fills.
Ok, cool!
- We'll figure out what the sound is
gonna be, for the solo..
00:22:58
I can try the same tone,
if you like!
You wanna try it?
See how does that sound?
You know..
00:23:17
Have you..
00:23:18
did you play my Ace Tone?
Your Ace Tone?
Hold on, lemme check this out.
See what you think.
00:23:25
It's a fuzz, probably..
00:23:27
like sort of a Dizzy Tone
- Let's try it!
The Ace Tone Fuzz Master?
- Does it have a battery in it?
No, it's got batteries in it.
00:23:39
It just sort of like..
00:23:40
Do you need a cable? You wanna
put it here?
- Yeah, I'll put it there.
We got a little shorty.
00:23:45
We got a shorty..
00:23:47
You got a little longer?
You can gimme that white one,
if you want it.
00:23:50
Oh yeah, that's cool..
that'll work.
00:23:58
- Such a shorty, Vance!
Yeah, I know!
It's how I'm made!
Says 'God made me!'
Play a little bit, I'm gonna change
the Moogs, here.
00:25:07
- To get the octave I have to play
above the 12th fret!
*laughs* - That's great!
Cool!
All right, here we go, are you
ready? - Yeah!
All right, you ready?
- I like the sound but I don't think
it's right
for the solo..
It's not!
- It's cool! - I was gonna say, the only
thing that might make it cooler
is the wah, is that midrange
tone.
00:27:22
Nice!
What did you say, Graham?
It's an Ace Fuzz, the Fuzzmaster?
- I think it's fun!
I just gotta get something
badass, that was not it!
So, I think I have to this make
shorter, dude. - I think so, too!
- It's too long, even for me to
solo over.
00:29:00
All right, we're gonna make it shorter.
00:29:02
- But, can I just do.. can we..
00:29:04
cut it completely out and then
I lead into it?
You know what I mean?
Like, can I..
00:29:10
that way I am not playing into
something and I can just
sort of free into it?
Sure, hold on!
- I think..
00:29:17
I was thinking about this, last time:
The best spot
to maybe cut in would be the
*sings*
'cause I can even do that
*sings*
sort of with the solo sound and then
it cuts in the
big band, *sings*
Ok, so..
00:29:32
what I was gonna do was sort of
do this
kind of a thing..
00:29:48
and then *sings*
right there..
00:29:52
you know what I mean?
- Ok!
Is that what you were saying?
- I was saying..
00:29:57
just..
00:29:58
move the back half of the song
into space..
00:30:01
Oh, into space!?
- Into space!
And let me lead into it and then
we just move it.
00:30:04
Oh! I get it! All right!
Oh yeah, sure!
I get it!
Now I get what you're saying!
- I mean, just an idea, I'm definitely
open..
00:30:19
for whatever..
I love everything about it!
All right, young Tyler?
- Yes?
Let's kill it!
That was pretty cool!
I definitely dug the end!
- Can I do a couple of endings?
Yeah, just the end of the solo?
- Yeah, just for..
00:31:59
maybe like 3..
00:32:01
You got 'em!
Ok! Pretty good!
- It should be shorter!
Yeah, I think so!
- Yeah?
I think so!
- You got it!
Even shorter?
Uh, you're getting there!
- Getting there?
I think you'll have to go the wah
go to the wah a little..
- Little sooner?
You can punch me on that!
Yeah, I'll punch you right there.
00:34:33
That was pretty cool, man!
- Lemme try one more, Vance!
There you go!
- Something like that!
There's a few things here I wanna
talk about in the track.
00:35:23
When we cut the track, yesterday,
and the way the..
00:35:27
Tyler and I, the band and
all of us
really enjoy working is,
cutting everything live.
00:35:32
Obviously,
you saw that we tracked everything
with guitars live..
00:35:37
those guitars are in this track,
they're
they're the root base point of
that track.
00:35:42
As we were playing yesterday,
as the band was playing,
I was definitely hearing: "ok, there's
some overdubs,
we're gonna go here,
Tyler had something he already planned,
that they were playing live..
00:35:52
but every time we go into
any sort of
overdub situation, every time we
go in, or I go in,
there's always that thing that
we're looking for, that..
00:36:02
that little thing that makes
records sound like records.
00:36:06
Sometimes it's percussion,
sometimes it's a guitar
line
playing a drone-string thing
to a track
or who knows? Sometimes it's a
keyboard part,
sometimes it's just
the vocal, you know,
some background vocals.
00:36:22
Or a really cool hook or some
sort of thing.
00:36:25
And I think we go
we go into like records like these,
we kinda like
we listen to the track
and we hear the little things
that we
wanna fill space
I like space, but this is a rock track,
this thing is big and loud
we don't want it to sound wimpy
anywhere.. so,
we were doing overdubs, we knew
we had this intro line..
00:36:49
which is this line, here.
00:36:57
We knew we had that..
00:36:59
so, we put this little piece
on the front of it,
to just bring in an intro,
I'm feeling that when I'll mix,
this is gonna be
I'm gonna have to tweak on this
a little bit,
to make this work..
00:37:12
I may make that really weird, but..
00:37:14
but - for now - it's totally cool.
00:37:17
Yesterday, when we were recording,
there was a track
I knew I wanted Graham to play another
track, another part..
00:37:24
so we did this chorus-guitar
just..
00:37:27
basically the same thing that Graham
was playing in the
chorus double..
00:37:34
Now, Graham ends up being
in this world that
sort of I like to live with,
with Tyler and Graham,
Graham lives on the right,
the funny thing about this is,
when the play live..
00:37:46
Graham plays on the left,
but Tyler plays in the middle, so..
00:37:51
I just sort of like Tyler on the left,
you know, to quote my friend Jack White
"in the driver's seat,"
and Graham on the other side
Tyler can sit in his car and
drive down
the road, hear his solo
come out of his knees,
and Graham over
on the other side of the car.
00:38:05
Or vice versa, it's kind of a..
00:38:07
funny way to put it, but..
00:38:10
I kinda like that, so..
00:38:11
Graham has a part that he's playing,
here.
00:38:18
And I thought: "you know what?
It would be cool if Graham just
doubled that."
So we did this double, Graham..
00:38:23
Chorus Double, here..
00:38:25
Overdub..
00:38:35
And that's pretty heavy
because it's a stereo track
of sorts, it's the same amp
but it's 2 mics, left and right
and then Graham's playing his part
and
Tyler.. - I do harmony coming in.
Yeah! It's harmony.
00:38:52
So with all 3 of those tracks in,
that makes the chorus
totally big enough, especially when
Tyler does the harmony.
00:38:59
There was a couple little things
that we did,
we didn't do these on camera,
because everybody
everybody took a little break,
and we realized: "oh! We forgot a couple
things!"
So, I wanna talk about those,
it's just a couple little guitar lines
in the turnaround.
00:39:15
First of all, let me play the
turnaround,
here.. turnaround guitar..
00:39:26
So it's just that little riff,
that's a little turnaround, there,
so what we did is, we did a little
overdub, here..
00:39:32
that, we had a kind of a
fuzz tone thing going on,
it sounds pretty cool.
00:39:43
I put the dbx sub synth on it.
00:39:46
The dbx 'disco boombox
subsynth'. So, when you take that,
you put it in the track,
comes out of the chorus, this
big huge chorus
and what was happening was, it was
getting kinda small in this turnaround,
well, not anymore, so check this!
So that turnaround guitar just sort of
fades out, in the verse.
00:40:26
So just to be a heavier little part,
just so we're gonna elevate that
turnaround.
00:40:30
Then when we come up the chorus,
again, the chorus..
00:40:33
again is doubled by Graham
and then there's a little solo
riff, before the solo, so..
00:40:39
that's that little part that we
took, played the fast part and
cut it into this, so that's this part.
00:40:51
So we thought: 'Well, we need to
make it a little big bigger'..
00:40:53
so, we took the same
turnaround
guitar track that
it's a little bit of a different sound,
and added it to this.
00:41:06
Ok? So, putting that together, now..
00:41:17
And, just on those hits, there's those
heavy chords
and then the solo we edited and chopped
and cut, and moved..
00:41:24
and got the breakdown part
just exactly what we wanted.
00:41:50
He could have played it, that way..
00:41:52
We could have mapped it out
and
put a tempo map in..
00:41:56
could have done all that, but..
man..
00:41:59
I gotta be honest with you,
it wouldn't feel
as cool and natural
even though it's all cut together
and spliced together and
moved around in
pieces and parts..
00:42:08
it still wouldn't feel as natural
if we would have been playing
to a click.
00:42:13
We did play the fast part to a click.
00:42:16
I say click,
Caleb had it in his rhythm watch
puts in his ear, puts his headphones
on, over them..
00:42:22
so, he was the only one
getting the click,
that's how I like to work, I don't
want the band hearing the click
'cause inevitably someone will be
playing with the click.
00:42:30
This, if we had done this on tape
this would have been easy
to cut together.
00:42:34
Not easy..but it would have been
an edit.. you could have cut these
butted this pieces together.
00:42:40
There's not much else going on here,
there is a little riff
that we did at the end,
you guys saw that,
now a lot of vocals or
background vocals
to speak up..
00:42:50
I'm gonna just put this in a
view..
00:42:53
here, a little bit of a smaller view..
00:42:56
you can see the whole session,
if you notice, it's not very
complicated.
00:43:01
It's not a lot of tracks, and that's
kind of how I like it.
If we go,
to the mix window..
00:43:06
You can see that basically
I trimmed
the tracks down a little bit
to just give me some headroom for
the vocals, before we mix..
00:43:13
but basically, they're all flat.
00:43:16
there's no plug-ins.
00:43:18
There was a couple plug-ins that
I fooled around with, yesterday..
00:43:20
when we had the placeholder solo..
00:43:23
so I'm just gonna get rid of those,
we don't need them, they're turned off
and there's a little reverb
plug-in on the backwards
'aftershock' thing, which is
pretty cool..
00:43:32
I'm gonna just leave it on because
that's an effect.
00:43:35
I don't expect this song to take
very long to mix.
00:43:38
I mean, if this takes more than
3 hours or so, I'm
you know.. I've missed the boat.
00:43:43
And I'll need to start over.
00:43:46
I'm gonna build a little
set of
tracks at the end of this session..
00:43:51
that are gonna be our mixdown tracks.
00:43:54
And so..
00:43:55
What these are gonna be,
there's gonna be one
stereo
aux input track,
and
two..
00:44:04
two.. stereo audio tracks.
00:44:07
These are on everything
that I do.
00:44:11
One of them, the Aux, is called
the 'Heater'.
00:44:14
Then, the next two tracks
are going to be
'Aftershock..
00:44:22
Rough Mix..
00:44:24
and then, this wacky geek thing
that
George Massenburg
turned me on to..
00:44:32
that's the year.. first.
00:44:34
The month and then the day.
00:44:37
Why do it this way, at the end
of the file?
Strangely enough, computers don't do
math quite the way that we do.
00:44:47
Unless you tell them to do the math.
00:44:49
This title is ASCII,
it's a code..
00:44:54
Zeroes have more weight
than other numbers..
00:44:59
so, if you put it in this mode
and you go to sort them by the title,
if the next day is the 28th,
they'll actually sort in order.
00:45:10
It's a little bit bizzarre but
it actually does work.
So 161027
and then the word 'Heated',
that's gonna be this first mix
I'm gonna explain, in a second.
00:45:21
Let me copy that.
00:45:23
And then the second track
will not be heated.
00:45:26
This first track,
is going to be bussed,
to a track called
the 'Heater'.
00:45:33
Its input is going to be my 2192
converter,
the next two tracks are gonna
route
to my Burl B2 output
here,
Burl.. B2..
00:45:45
the first track,
this one here, is gonna get routed
from the 'Heater' Bus,
the second one is gonna come
from the 2192
then on the 'Heater' we're gonna
instantiate
Tyler's favorite plug-in,
the L2.
00:46:02
This is my setting for delivering
heated mixes to the band.
00:46:06
I add 7dB of gain
and I set the out ceiling at -0.1
I never change this, it's never
ever, ever any louder.
00:46:13
What I'm gonna do here is mute
these two tracks, put them in input
and you're gonna see, when I
play back the track,
what level comes in..
00:46:34
I'm gonna go to the top of track
to the end of the track,
I'm gonna scroll down to the 'Heater',
I'm gonna make a marker
then I'm gonna call it 'Rough
Mix..
00:46:46
then hit Selection and Zoom,
I'm gonna hit 'OK',
I'm gonna put these in record,
this..
00:46:53
I'm gonna hit play..
00:46:54
and I'm gonna walk away for the night!
So this would be the rough mix,
the reason why I am doing this
rough mix, now..
00:47:02
is that, when I get mixing,
at some point,
I may wanna hear what I was
thinking,
and what it was the night before..
00:47:10
normally it wouldn't be the night
before, it would be maybe..
00:47:12
weeks back!
And sometimes you..
00:47:16
you put things into your mix patch
and it doesn't..
00:47:19
you don't beat the rough.
00:47:21
So then it's like: 'ok, hold it!
I have to
stop and be smart, 'cause
I am not beating the rough mix.'
And that happens! So..
00:47:30
I'm gonna print this, it's gonna
just print
and then tomorrow, we're gonna mix this!
You guys wanna listen to this?
All right, cool!
- Nice!
- Killer, man!
- Oh, I love that! That's cool!
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Vance studied eletrical engineering in Misouri and started his carreer 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.
Jack White
Chris Stapleton
The Deadweather
The Raconteurs
Arctic Monkeys
Wolfmother

Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown is a rock and roll band born of Nashville, TN. Their sound is a soulful patchwork of roots-infused melodies and muscular riffs, all woven tightly with the thread of their alternative psychedelic mystique. It’s as rambunctious, raw and real as rock & roll gets these days.
Aftershock
CLICK_HEREMusic CreditsAftershock
By Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown is a rock and roll band born of Nashville, TN. Their sound is a soulful patchwork of roots-infused melodies and muscular riffs, all woven tightly with the thread of their alternative psychedelic mystique. It’s as rambunctious, raw and real as rock & roll gets these days.- Artist
- Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown
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