EQ Magazine - October 2008 - (Page 13)

pedal—‘Purple Rain’-style, through a flanger, or some cheesy effects pedal,” says Larson. “‘China Town,’ for example, is really pretty, but there’s something slightly Kraut-rock about it. It has this Can-like bass line that sort of loops on and on, and Kevin had done this beautiful brush drum part. We took the click track and ran it through two MoogerFooger pedals—a ringmodulator and a delay—and it became this really wet, obscene-sounding thing. Now, this is the first part you hear, and it runs throughout the song.” Recording sessions with engineer Geoff Sanoff at Stratosphere, Loho, and Magic Shop in Manhattan—as well as Mission Sound and Larson’s studio in Brooklyn—were about capturing performances, and even technical missteps would provide unique character. Sonic influences included the David Bowie/Brian Eno Berlin trilogy, as well as recordings by the Pretenders and Adam & The Ants—the latter two of which were reference points for live drum sounds. According to Sanoff: “Nathan and I would talk about what drum sound they were after, like before recording ‘Here Are Many Wild Animals,’ we listened to this early Adam & The Ants song with rumbling floor toms, so I had an idea what they were after.” Sanoff tracked March on drums in a few different studios, with one major miking consistency. “I always used a speaker mic on the kick drum,” he notes. “Either a Yamaha Subkick or an NS-10 mounted on a mic stand. Inside the kick drum, I’d use either a Shure Beta 52 or an AKG D112, and, on the outside, the Subkick or NS10 woofer and a Neumann FET 47.” Sanoff set up his overheads—either Coles 4038s or Neumann U67s—over the cymbals, equidistant from the snare. “Some people want to keep the snare out of the overheads,” he says, “but I figure if it’s a rock recording, the Nathan Larson channels Lee “Scratch” Perry on the Space Echo RE-201. cymbals will get picked up more than enough no matter what, so I don’t worry about that so much. I try to keep the snare in the center, and everything in its right spatial place.” In the days following EQ’s visit, A Camp brought in their string “section”— notably Joan Wasser of Joanaspolicewoman, and session cellist Jane Scarpantoni. Both are longtime collaborators who write their own parts. Similarly, multi-instrumentalists John Natchez and Kelly Pratt, both members of Beirut (and the latter also a touring member of Arcade Fire), make up the horn section on the A Camp record. Sanoff, who has worked quite a bit with smaller ensembles, reveals a technique for getting big-sounding strings. “When you can only afford to hire two or three string players, and you double- or triple-track them in the same room on the same mics, you end up getting this chorusing thing that doesn’t work the way it would on guitar or piano,” he explains. “It doesn’t sound as thick as you want it to sound, so what I do is have the players change seats for the different tracks. With Joan and Jane, I set up four chairs, and each time we’d double or triple something, we’d have them swap chairs. I would also move the mics, so that the sonic build up never quite happens in the same way.” Sanoff used a U47 on cello and an AKG 414 on violin, as well as a pair of close room mics—B&K 4011s during sessions at Stratosphere, and U67s at Magic Shop. “You’ve got your four mics for each pass, so on any given pass you can mute two mics or keep them,” says Sanoff. “By blending the different mics, and subtly panning, you can make the string sound much bigger than it actually is.” A few weeks later, A Camp went up to Firehouse 12 Studios in New Haven, CT, to mix the album with Alan Weatherhead. Here, they continued to experiment by sending tracks—drums, vocals, guitar, whatever—into effects pedals. The recordings were done in Pro Tools HD, and Weatherhead is mixing the record to 1/2-inch tape—a medium Larson compares to Magic Shell. “The same way that magical chocolate shell covers your ice cream, analog tape somehow just encloses everything, and brings everything together.” Weatherhead also mixed the first record, and was given free reign to come up with creative ideas at this stage. Larson describes some of the results: “On this really pretty, very stark acoustic guitar and Wurlitzerbased song, he took the acoustic guitar, and ran it through an [ElectroHarmonix] Memory Man to create this whole sonic space which totally adds something harmonically and texturally to the song. On another song, we wanted to bring a Laurie Andersonstyle vocal in during this ornate string break. We wound up running vocals through a low-pass filter, re-recording them, mixing them in with the original vocals, and heavily Auto-Tuning them so the result sounds very computerized in this really interesting way—not at all like Cher!” This Month on EQTV Join us at EQtv—EQ’s own video channel chock full of tips, tricks, tutorials, behind the scenes footage of some of the hottest sessions, and tons more. To check it out, visit www.eqmag.com and click the pretty little link, or go direct to www.eqmag.tv. You’ll be glad you did. This month you’ll see: • In the Studio with Del tha Funkee Homosapien • More Tricks for Getting Big Drum Sounds in Small Rooms • ACC Guitar Recording with Classical Guitar Master Anthony Glise AND TONS MORE!!! www.eqmag.com OCTOBER 2008 EQ 13 http://www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.tv http://www.eqmag.com

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

EQ Magazine - October 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Smashing Pumpkins Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 Steinberg Cubase 4 Studio Meets Stage Gear for the Studio and Stage Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - October 2008

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