Recording - June 2019 - 51

Photos Courtesy of GPS Management

They posted a video about that
process on YouTube.
The thing with a car is that it's not a
perfect listening environment, and the
transmitter is not the perfect transmission
medium, but what it does do is give you
an idea of what the song will sound like
in a real-world radio situation.

I guess the "car mix" is pretty
universal, as most of my clients always check their mixes
in the car.
Exactly. The important thing is that
Jack knows "the sound of his car," and
he trusts it.

Let's dig into the mix, starting
with the drums.
I have a chain that I normally use for
kick and snare, and I used the same
chain here on the left and right stereo.
It was an Empirical Labs Distressor for
compression, and for EQ I have a pair
of vintage API 550As. I would link the
Distressors as a stereo pair, set it so
about one or two lights would light up at
about 4:1 compression, and just touch
it. I would then add a little bit of EQ,
and that was it.

How about Jack Lawrence's
bass tracks?

and I also have a dbx 510 Subharmonic
Synthesizer, called the the "Disco Boom
box." I would put the bass through that;
some of Jack's guitar solos went through
that, too, as a parallel process.

For guitars, the sound of Jack
White guitars is pretty specific...
It does not matter who records it, it
does not matter the guitar he plays, or
what amp he plays. It's all in his hands.

How much leeway did you have
when it came time to mix the
guitars?
I kind of know from working with him
that there are certain things he likes and
certain things that he's just not going to
fly with. For instance, he always likes
his guitar to be on the left and he likes
Brendan's to be on the right. He likes
his vocal to be a little bit to the left and
Brendan's to be a little bit to the right. So
we continued that working method from
the last record, that's how it was mixed.
Back to guitars, he likes to hear any
added effects in the right channel. So if
there is anything on the guitar-like echo
that wasn't something he played and I
added-it will be in the right.
Overall on the guitars we did not
do a lot and really just left them as is.
Maybe a little plate reverb from time

to time, and some 1176 on his main
guitar channel, and 1176 on Brendan's
main guitar channel.

Did you EQ the guitars much?
I really tried to keep them as they were
recorded, as much as possible.

Moving to vocals: what is the
Jack White mixdown vocal chain?
That's kind of an interesting deal; what
we did was to set up two channels on
the desk for Jack, and two channels for
Brendan. Now you are asking, "Why
two channels?"

Why two channels?
Because I don't really use any EQ on
the vocals. Instead I'll use one fader with a
compressor on it and another fader without
it. So one is exactly as recorded, and the
other is a little compressed-or even a lot
compressed, depending on what it needs.
I will then blend the faders, both panned
exactly the same-again, Jack slightly on
the left and Brendan on the right. I used a
Retro Instruments 176 Limiting Amplifier on
Jack and a Chandler RS124 for Brendan.

What about keyboards? I'm
guessing it is safe to assume
these are all real, with no virtual
instruments.

The bass tracks came in sounding really nice-a combination of DI and miked
cabinet. I would mix those through a
Retro Instruments reissue of the STA-Level

Photos Courtesy of GPS Management

RECORDING June 2019

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Recording - June 2019

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