Recording - August 2017 - 28

Af t er a Whi le -

Right Away!

Blues Deluxe amps. (According to the
folks at Eminence, the speaker in the
Eminence line that's most similar is the
Legend 1258.)
I've A/B tested this speaker/cabinet
with dozens of guitar players, and everyone always ends up choosing it. I
put the Eminence/Music Man cabinet
in an iso and sure enough, Anthony
liked it just fine. That was a relief for me,
since a high-quality long speaker cable
certainly introduces fewer variables to
timbre than a lengthy instrument cable.
I own and use a Radial Engineering
SGI guitar send/receive system, and I
think it's a marvelous product for when
a player wants to utilize their combo
amp as is, but in this case the remote
cabinet did the job most neatly.

THE MICS

I hadn't worked at Fantasy in a few
years, and their mic collection had
changed quite a bit in the ensuing time.
In fact, the chief technical engineer at

Figure 1

I'll let the "assignments" spreadsheet
(Figure 2) and photos speak mostly for
themselves, but it's important to note that
when I was figuring out which mics to
use on which instruments, many years of
experience came into play. Condenser,
ribbon, and dynamic technologies, large
and small capsule, tube versus solid state,
polar response patterns and ultimately
the sound of each mic-something I am
100% convinced has to be experienced to
be fully understood-I factored all of these
attributes into my thought process. And at
this point, where all tracking and editing
are complete and mixing has begun, I
don't know if I could possibly be happier
with the choices I made. Everything
sounds exactly as I hoped it would.

Fantasy is one of the best microphone
technicians alive today-quite a few of
the mics in Fantasy's locker are James
Gangwer originals, or maybe more appropriately, hybrid mics James has created
from various components. He's even figured
out a way to keep a couple of their U47s
alive in a post-VF14 tube world!
I needed some advice as to practical
applications of the mic locker, so I reached
out to one of the staff engineers who years
earlier had assisted me on sessions there,
Alberto Hernandez. Alberto was generous
with information, helping me to start
formulating which mics I'd use on
which instruments.
As plans for the session began solidifying, I was fortunate to be teamed up
with Robert Kirby, another of the engineers
at Fantasy, whose current job includes
interfacing with clients during the planning stages of their projects. Robert was
also instrumental in helping me formulate a thoughtful utilization of Fantasy's
mic locker. I also chose to bring in a
fair number of my own mics-ones that
have proven themselves reliable over
the years.

6/
GE
LAR

1 2

THE CHAINS

Matching preamps with mics is another
enormously important decision. I brought
in most of my own preamps, especially
for the signal chains on Willie's vocal and
Anthony's guitar. I know my preamps like
the back of my hand, and there were a
few Fantasy preamps I had less experience
with. I prefer Neve preamps for any

LAR
GE 1
6 /2
' GO
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GO ND
BO OW

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N
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33
34

LE
SL
IE

13
14

1-12

B3
37
38

OW
IND

/ W BO
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X

OW
IND
/ W BO
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XL 8' G

BA
SS

MP
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2
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T
TP
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32

RI
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36

R
ITA Y
GU ONL
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D1- IC 19
IM
MIN

G
8'

41
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20
-2
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W
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X
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F VO 8
M 5-4
4

43

44

GUITAR SPEAKER CAB
IN HALLWAY
MICS 16-18

28

RECORDING August 2017
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - August 2017
