Recording - October 2016 - 56

the third breaks the new line, and the fourth
returns the line back to where it began.
Even at a tenth of a dB in adjustment, I can
hear abrupt adjustments to the volume
automation line as unnatural distractions
either in the noise floor or in the program,
so I never allow sharp (vertical) changes in
volume automation unless they occur in
dead space between clips. Unfortunately,
the default operation of highlighting a segment of volume automation to move it will
create vertical jumps between breakpoints
1 & 2 and between 3 & 4. My workaround
is to create two breakpoints that are slightly
within the edges of my highlight (these will
become breakpoints 2 & 3 by default).
Then when I move the line, the third and
fourth breakpoints are created by default at
the edges of my highlighted region, and
with an angled slope rather than a vertical
jump at either end.
I still prefer to manually de-ess a vocal
track. Yeah, call me crazy, but unless the
sound of compression is the sound the client
wants to hear, I prefer to have control over
levels myself, because I hear a difference
and know that I prefer the sound of the
manual method. So usually, in the case of a
vocal track, one of the first things I tend to
level is sibilance. From there I usually knock
down the loudest bits, then I go after boosting the quiet bits, which might include the
valleys between particularly loud bits, or the
ends of lines where the singer might be
either running out of breath or trailing off,
where I know this kind of stylized information will just end up getting buried in the
tracks unless I pull it out.
Once I get my looped phrase
feeling/sounding robust, where nothing is
jumping out of the track in a distracting
way, and I can hear all the detail and
nuance even in the quietest bits of the performance, I leave that phrase and loop the
next phrase, and so on and so forth until
I've made my way through the whole track.
I judge my work solely with my ears-whenever I watch the faders moving, either in the
Pro Tools mixer, or the Avid Artist Control, I
start second-guessing myself... it just doesn't
look right at all. But I trust my ears!
56

RECORDING OCTOBER 2016

While leveling, I think I'm actually
"sensing" sound pressure with my body
as much as I'm hearing with my ears-
this is where having your control room
level set appropriately is key. And this is
why leveling in headphones leaves a little bit to be desired, though in a pinch,
with good phones and good judgment,
it's not impossible.
Ultimately, if my client wants the best
work I can do, I'll go through each and
every track/group of tracks in the session doing this hand leveling.
Depending on the length of the song
and quantity of lyrics, a lead vocal can
take me up to an hour and a half; the
average is probably somewhere around
45 minutes. Instrument tracks are usually
quicker, but to bring out all the tasty bits,
though tedious and time consuming, it's
great to focus on each instrument track
one at a time (still in the context of a
semblance of some reasonable facsimile
of a mix, even if the track I'm focusing
on might be set a bit hotter overall than
it will be in the final mix, or even if I
choose to mute some other tracks just to
be able to better focus on the one I'm
leveling).
It's very likely that based on an evertightening mix, the amount of the
adjustments I make at this point will
have to be adjusted later, but by scouring all the tracks and at least learning
where all the tasty bits are, and inserting breakpoints and raising them by
some amount now, once I'm actually
into mixing, all the tedious and distracting work of discovering where the
tasty bits are (and/or where not-sotasty bits may be), and creating the
breakpoints will be done, leaving me
much better able to focus on the bigger picture.
When leveling a lead vocal, once
I'm done hand leveling, more often
than not I'll want to use some compression to shape the overall timbre of
the vocal. I don't want the compressor
to work on the vocal pre-fader, or I
lose the benefit of all those breakpoint
edits. I'll want to either reset the channel's output to a bus to a new aux
return in the mixer where I've instantiated a new plug-in compressor, or
send the channel through a hardware
output to an outboard compressor,
then back to a new audio channel in
the mixer.
The last type of gain riding I'd like to
discuss is software-controlled; various
software companies are now offering
software gain riding plug-ins. I've been
using Quiet Arts Ltd.'s WaveRider for a
couple of years and find that in those
circumstances where a client isn't willing to pay for the time involved in
hand leveling, this is the next best
approach.
http://www.adkmic.com
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