Recording - September 2016 - 64

Neither George nor Whitney comes across as a
"screamer", and the other sounds seemed to have
escaped the compressor's wrath. We know Randy's
ADAM F5 monitors to be quality units, so it would
appear that the "smear" was intentional...?
We suggest that Randy revisit his mix and
explore other methods to "seat" his vocals, leaving the remaining instruments intact. This is one
case where you absolutely can have too much of
a good thing.
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Summary: Easy to fix, so fix it!
Contact: Randy Martin/PopSentry,
crmartin151@yahoo.com; watch a video for the song
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwAA3NqZ51E

All submissions for Readers' Tracks are done online. On our website at www.recordingmag.com, click
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Randy Martin/PopSentry (featuring Whitney Kelly & the Quayzars)
Equipment: Windows 7 PC (64-bit) with Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 interface running Steinberg Cubase 7.5 and plug-ins by Waves, Slate Digital,
Eiosis, Focusrite, Lexicon, IK Multimedia, and brainworx. Mics: M-Audio
Pulsars (overheads), Shure SM57 (snare), GLS (bottom snare and rear kick),
homemade speaker-in-reverse (front kick head), CAD mics (toms), micro
phoneparts.com modded MXL 990 (lead vocal), Avantone CV-12 (backing
vocals). PreSonus Studio Channel (bass DI) and Eureka (guitar DI and
vocals), ART Pro MPA II (toms), Focusrite Octopre (snare/kick/overheads).
ADAM Audio F5 monitors, PreSonus Temblor T10 sub, beyerdynamic
DT770 headphones. Carvin bass, Tama Rockstar Custom drums, Roland JV1080 and Yamaha Motif Rack, E-Mu and M-Audio controllers.

Music: "Clean Slate" is a male vocal rock song. George Robson IV provided the drums, bass, keyboards, handclaps, and lead vocals. Whitney
Kelly sang the backing vocals and added additional handclaps. David
Robson handled the electric guitar and added handclaps. The track was
recorded/engineered by Randy Martin with engineering assistance from
George Robson.
Recording: "Clean Slate" is unfortunately a perfect example of a quality
effort being torpedoed by the dreaded overcompression monster. While the
music bed features a plethora of well-played and recorded sounds, the
vocals are completely smeared over with compression. From the production
notes it's obvious that a lot of time, effort, and detail went into the creation
of this track. Given that, the compression faux pas is even more baffling.
Suggestions: One look at the gear list supplied here would seem to indicate that Randy is no stranger to the recording world. There's lots of quality firepower, on both the instrument list and the recording end of things.
So what the heck happened to cause such drastic vocal compression?
Traditionally compression was used as a volume-averaging tool in both
studio and live settings. Back in the day, even the most tricked-out studios
would ration their limited number of pricey hardware boxes, saving them
for "essential" sounds sources like drums, loud/inconsistent vocals, and to
a lesser degree bass and guitars. In other words, they were used on a
strictly as-needed basis. In today's DAW environment, limits are purely
CPU-based. Over the years this has led to a "let's put one on everything"
mentality, quite often to the detriment of many projects!
Part two of this equation centers around our seemingly endless quest
for more volume. In many minds "louder" means "better and more exciting", essential for the competitive edge. Whatever the reasoning, we
are hard pressed to understand the need for such obvious processing on
the vocals here.
64

RECORDING SEPTEMBER 2016

Marco Gauthier
Equipment: PC (3.2 Mhz Pentium IV) with Yamaha
01X controller/interface/mixer running Cakewalk
SONAR, FXpansion BFD drum module, Sonitus:fx
reverb and compressor, and Steinberg HALion
(cello), Mics: Audio-Technica AT3035 (vocal),
Shure SM57 (electric guitar). M-Audio monitors,
Sennheiser HD280 headphones. ESP MII-Custom
electric guitar, Peavey Rockmaster amp, Ovation
acoustic guitar, Fender bass.

Music: "For All I Know" is a male vocal rock
song, Marco composed, programmed, performed
and recorded the track.
Recording: From his production notes, it is clear
that Marco had a plan in mind for the sonics and
arrangement of his submission. Let's take a closer
look and see if things worked out as planned.
The track intros with a heavily-reverbed acoustic
guitar and vocal that speak to Marco's desire for
a "smooth atmospheric" sound for the track.
Sadly, to our ears the amount of processing (particularly on the vocal) undermines another one of
his goals, which was for the track to "sound upclose and personal".
As for the remaining sources, we found both the
acoustic guitar and bass to be well recorded. We
also felt that Marco did a solid job with his drum
programming, although ironically this is where we
would've liked to hear more reverb!
Suggestions: In our experience, ambience in a
recording, whether achieved by actual distance miking or digital processing, is designed to create a
spatial effect. This could be as small as a slap backdelay or as large as a hall reverb, but either way its
role is to create the sense of space or distance. With
that in mind, we would encourage Marco revisit
both his arrangement concept and his mix.
Stripping back a good deal of the reverb on the
vocal track would actually bring the sonics much
more in line with his stated goal of an intimate
sound. Conversely, adding some ambience to his
drums, especially the sidestick and snare sounds,
would serve to enhance the atmospheric nature of
the overall music bed. A little switcheroo and it's a
win-win all around!
Summary: A few adjustments will bring it
together.
Contact: Marco Gauthier, mgotier@cgocable.ca

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