Recording - May 2021 - 36

Inside the sonic trip oF
Leon III's Antlers in Velvet

They only made like 15 or 20 of them, and I got two of them
put together. It's just 20 channels, but it's pretty sweet. It's full of
transformers, and I was able to update the chips and the power
supply. It's kinda cool when you have a console where you can
make it sound twice as good as it did back in its heyday.

I see some yellow-coned
speakers behind you?

Mark: Yeah, they are the older generation KRK Rokits.

I also see some Yamaha NS10 speakers...

Mark: For years, that's the only thing I ever used. Back when
I first started in the 80s, people were using those, and Fostex
RM 765 speakers that had the tweeter inside the woofer, and
then usually a single Auratone 5C Sound Cube in the middle of
the consoles, which I kind of miss.

Do you have other analog
outboard gear, or are you just
mixing through the console?

Mark: I'm in the process of building a 500 Series sidecar. It's
got all Aurora Audio preamps, and it's going to have CAPI EQs
and then DBX 160 compressors. And then, I use the Stam Audio
Engineering SA4000 MK2. It's an SSL-style analog VCA stereo
bus compressor which is pretty awesome. I think I got it for like
$600, and it sounds close to an SSL one.

How about the reverb on the
album? Is it mostly plugins?
Andy: Kai Welch plays the Juno 60 a lot, and there are some
Moog lead lines and an old analog Yamaha SK-20 Symphonic
Ensemble that was kind of bizarre. Panoramic has an incredible collection of synths-ARPs and Jupiters and a bunch of
modular that I had no idea about what it was.

I notice a few drum loops on the
album, are those programmed
or a drum machine?

Mark: We had a friend of mine in Nashville, John Kelton,
make drum loops to every song-really basic loops, just for
a tempo reference. We kept them in the mix on a few songs,
and on 'Fly Migrator,' we brought it back in at the end.

That's way cooler than using
a DAW click track.
Mark: Definitely not as annoying. [laughs]

Mark, the album was mixed
at your studio?

Mark: It was mixed in Pro Tools at my new studio in Pawleys Island.

Are you mixing back through
outboard gear, or do you stay in
the computer at that point?

Mark: I've tried to mix in the box, but I'm too used to mixing
analog. I've got a Quantum Audio Labs Gamma console, a
chip-based console designed in the 70s for smaller studios.
36 RECORDING May 2021

Mark: It's mostly Altiverb. I created a bunch of the impulses
myself through the years, but I also really like the Bill Putnam
reverbs that are out there, the old Frank Sinatra spaces, the
Cello rooms. Those are awesome.

Did the guys come to your
place for mixing?

Mark: I started the mixes and got them close, and then they
both came down, and we spent some old-school mixing time
together, and then I mixed it again after that. [everyone laughs]
Mason: Revert, revert, revert...
Andy: We tried to be there for more of the mixing process on
the first album, and I just remember watching a lot of Animal
Planet while Mason slept on the couch, and we were just listening to Mark make 40,000 mouse clicks. So, this time we were
a little bit more practical.

With all of these sounds and
layers, where do you begin?

Mark: I guess it's the old-school in me, but I still always start
with the drums. Since we're using Pro Tools, when we're tracking
the record, I'm kind of mixing at the same time, so I can hear
if it's sounding good while we're working on it. I'll mute stuff to
get things out of the way, but I'm constantly starting to mix from
day one. Then later on, if something's not sounding good, that's
when I usually tear it all down and build it back up again.

Recording - May 2021

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