EQ Magazine - June 2008 - (Page 23)

Brendon Urie (foreground) plays keyboards while the rest of the band turns out their basic tracks. TG1, and that would be my ‘exciting drum sound.’ In that sense, the close mics I used were really just for extra attack on individual parts of the kit.” The main kick-drum mic was a Soundelux ifet7, which Mittendorfer switched off with an AKG D12 if the sound needed a bit more of a modern edge. Mittendorfer got a “vibe-y” alternate kick sound using a Brauner Phantom C that, due to the proximity effect, added some sub lowend sounds, and a bit of natural distortion. As for mic placement on the kick, Mittendorfer says, “I placed the two mics directly next to one another, about two inches back from the front head—which had a hole that wasn’t directly in the middle. I would generally keep the mics centered, looking at the beater. If that didn’t give me enough attack, I would move the ‘clean’ mic to the side of the hole, angled in and aimed directly at the beater.” Mittendorfer miked Smith’s snare with a Josephson e22. “I don’t really mic the top and bottom of the snare, but, sometimes, I’ll hang a Crown PZM mic below the snare to pick up a little of the kick, and a little bit of the snares,” he explains. “Because the PZM is not set on a surface, it sounds really weird, and, actually, it can be quite a useful sound. On one song, I put the PZM on the side of the snare and heavily effected it with reverb. On another, we put a PZM inside a big metal trash can right next to Spencer, and that sounded really good. Basically, as every song was a clean slate, and, as we were tracking live, I was changing and tailoring the setups for the edgier sounds on each song.” Mittendorfer says that he, in part, applied the Glyn Johns technique to mic the drums on the last three songs of the album, using two Coles 4038s— one set up above the kit, and one off to the side, next to the floor tom. “I would add in two mics to capture the cymbals better—two DPA 4011s as overheads—measured out to be the same distance from the snare as these two 4038s,” he explains. “It’s pretty simple. That ended up being the overall setup on the kit and cymbals.” RECORDING THE BASS Mittendorfer usually had three signal paths going for Jon Walker’s bass—one capturing a clean direct sound (courtesy of the Radial JV DI), one for Walker’s main Ampeg SVT amp (miked by a Neumann FET47 placed about a foot away), and the last from the back of the SVT head (which he would later effect for Walker’s “weird” bass sounds). “Jon brought this Gibson SG bass guitar that had literally no top end— which, at first, concerned me, because that modern rock bass sound is all about that fret-buzzing, heavy attack sound,” says Mittendorfer. “But, ultimately, the bass he used was a welcome change, because it was totally out of the way of the guitar and piano. It just sat really low, and never got lost.” Walker’s creative use of bass effects added a whole new dimension to the album. “On a few songs, he used this tiny little combo with reverb on it—which was kind of interesting,” says Mittendorfer. “I don’t think I’ve ever put reverb on a bass track, but this made for a springy, bright bass flavor that didn’t really sound like reverb at all. We’d run this effect, or I’d add a little distortion to the top end on the third channel, to get a livelier sound. But, of course, we always had the clean DI to fall back on in case we wanted to re-amp him www.eqmag.com JUNE 2008 EQ 23 http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - June 2008

EQ Magazine - June 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board 3 Doors Down, Hard-Fi, Paul Manousos Tool Box Panic at the Disco Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Projects Apple Loops Utility SSL Duende Mini JBL LSR4326/PAK & LSR4312SP Holophone H3-D Creation Audio Labs MW1 Studio Tool Amp Modeler Roundup Eventide Timefactor, Electro-Harmonix Stereo Pedals, Korg Pandora PX5D Room with a Vu: Blues Tunes Studios, Silverlake, CA

EQ Magazine - June 2008

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