Recording - October 2012 - 26

Celeste Lear

favorite soft-synths for bass. I like the rhythm to really lock in with the bass line, and create a really nice bounce. I also might start with a melody, which I’ll record and capture early on. The song “Undercurrent” has some really nice string sounds. Could you share something about how you achieved them? Another aspect I’ve been getting into is remixing other people’s music; I love to hear their original version and give it my own unique spin. I find a lot of possibilities; I look at it as an audio collage. This particular track came about by remixing cellist Rena Jones’ tracks (www.renamusic.com). She is very prolific and has her own studio in Portland. I’ve been a longtime fan of hers, and in this particular case she sent me some individual stems via Dropbox. I set everything up in Ableton Live, making sure they locked up to the grid using the Warp function. I added delays, chopped up her synth lines and also used Beat Repeat. It has been a feast or famine situation. I either have a licensing spot, and get a five-figure check, but yes, my bread and butter, what’s dependable is the DJing. Corporate gigs pay well, and I also do fashion shows. Have you produced other people’s music? In addition to the remixes I do, when someone comes to my studio I’ll help them with the concept and the arrangement, as well as with vocal coaching; being a producer is definitely a goal.

Would you say that you basically work in Live for the creative side and Pro Tools for mixing? I usually do the writing and arranging and some of the recording in Live, with everything coming through my Digi 002. On occasion I use the ReWire function to use synths from Propellerhead Reason, like Mälstrom, Subtractor, and ReDrum. But I also use the Simpler instrument and Drum Racks in Ableton for my samples. I actually now have so many samples that it’s nuts, so I spend hours or days to find the right kick. There’s so much room for creativity when remixing. I like layering the kicks in MIDI to make sure I have a nice round deep bottom end, with a nice snap at the top for definition. I know you’ve done quite a bit of mixing yourself, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. Who else has participated? Greg Bartheld mixed my first album. He was a dear and let me sit in to learn, and he talked to me as he was mixing. I’ve always been like a sponge. When I was an audio engineering student, the only thing I wanted to do was sit in on the more advanced classes. For Cloud 9.1, I took some of the priority songs to a pro, the songs I really wanted to do justice to. I am humble enough that for certain things I count on professionals to help out. I do have a slight handicap, since I am completely deaf in my right ear. I only hear 100 Hz, and under. Was this from birth? No, I was in a car accident at 16. How did you adjust at the beginning? The challenging part has been overcoming doubts or lack of confidence. When I was an engineering student, I was only one of two girls out of a class of 25. And then, I’d have to tell my teacher I was deaf in one ear... But I was always told I could to it, I just needed to focus...

On Mixing
How do you organize your tracks for a mix? For mixing, I always organize my tracks the same way, and this is how I learned it in some of my sound engineering classes. From my understanding, this is one standard method used amongst producers and engineers. In Pro Tools, I have my stereo master channel first in line with a limiter (the limiter is always turned off when mixing, though). I always start from the left and work my way right, arranging my kicks first, then snares, hi-hats, toms, drum loops, percussion—followed by whichever aux channels I will use for group drum busing to necessary reverb/delay/compression. Next in line is bass. Then my synths (usually bounced to a stereo track from their MIDI source for mixing), and then guitars and their following aux channels.

How do you compensate for this? I interpret panning as a volume change, I also know the rules for what frequencies should be panned to which side to stay out of each other’s way, and I use the PAZ Analyzer so I see this with beautiful graphic patterns. It takes me maybe twice as long as another engineer. I did a lot of mixes myself, including the cello track we were discussing. What can you share about the licensing of your music? It helps if you are a social person, since it’s such a competitive side of the business. I love meeting people and talking music. I always somehow manage to make contacts. Do you find value in trade events? I recently attended the NARIP convention (National Association of Record Industry Professionals, www.narip.com). And had a chance to meet Leslie Ann Jones, she’s always been a hero of mine, as one of the top female engineers in the country. Do you mostly fund your CD releases through your work as a DJ?
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RECORDING October 2012

http://www.renamusic.com http://www.narip.com

Recording - October 2012

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