Recording - September 2017 - 19

been digging around in there, and
wow, suddenly it doesn't sound like an
acoustic guitar any more! It sits in the
mix in a very particular way, where an
actual acoustic guitar might not. I can
see why people would do it, but...
If I have a sound that's kind of bright,
I'll put a darker compressor on it, and
something dark gets a brighter compressor; I use compression to take care of
some EQ problems. This doesn't
apply to Aimee's record, but when I'm
recording, I'll put a lot of compression
on instruments as I track, especially for
bands playing live in the studio. When
you don't have the tape thing, it's a nice
backup when Song 1 was pretty quiet
but then Song 2 is really loud, and the
compressors save the take while I'm dialing
in the sound. I guess what I'm saying is,
I really like compressors. [laughs]
I don't like to overuse them by making
stuff sound squished; I use a lot of them,
but I use them very softly. I'll put a couple of
them in a row. My 2-bus has a Maselec
MLA-3 multiband compressor, a Smart
Research C1 solid-state compressor, and
a Tube-Tech LCA-2B tube compressor...
but I'm hitting them all very lightly,
and they're each imparting a different
compressor feel. That's part of what I like,
how they interact. I've messed around
for years, trying different tone colors;
I have an API 5500 EQ-basically a
stereo 550 with an indispensable range
adjusment-in front of the multiband
compressor, so I can brighten it up and
give the multiband something to grab in
the super-high frequencies. Then there's
a Retro 2A3 Tube EQ which I can blend
in the MTC-1's insert 4.
I use all that stuff in conjunction. That
chain runs to tape, but my Maselec
Mastering Transfer Console lets me blend
them, change the order, put some of them
in M/S mode, it's extremely versatile.

So you're using a mastering console,
but in a mixing way?

It's part of my "everything at once"
idea. You talk about mixing while you're
tracking? I'm not precisely mastering while
I'm mixing, but I am thinking about it as I
work. I want things to be as finalized as
possible, so that the mastering engineer
can take it just that little bit further, but I'm
not trying to replace her. In my mind, it's all

one thing-capturing sound. You should
be thinking about the whole process.

I'd like to return to your reverbs
for a second. Do you typically
use all of them on each track, or
use one box on one source and
another on another?

It's a little different for every song.
The Furman spring reverb is typically
the drum thing, because it has a built-in
limiter on the front of it. If you hit it
really hard, it'll limit the signal and give
it this really weird "shlangy" thing on
the spring... it works especially well on
Jay Bellerose.
On vocals, I'll use the plate, but one
thing I do a lot, on Aimee's record and
others, is that on sections of the song I'll
switch things around-the spring comes
in on the chorus and goes away for
the next verse, so it subtly puts things in
another space. This feeling of shifting
spaces can give a different emotional
feel, but you have to have a listener who
cares... listening on a Bluetooth speaker
at a backyard party, that subtlety doesn't
come through in that context. [laughs]

On the song "Rollercoasters," the
acoustic guitars have a beautiful
effect that's more noticeable than
on the other tracks. Is that the
slapback delay?

That's the plate. Her vocal has the
slapback delay, and it sort of gets into
the other tracks a bit. Practically the
whole record is just those three effects,
used in the way I've described. I run the
plate at a pretty tight decay time, but
the spring's pretty long. Anything long
that's a little more obvious is the spring,
like on the backgrounds on the chorus
in that song.

Do you print it that way, or do you
automate the sends, or capture
one at a time?

I automate my sends coming off my
Pro Tools channels to my summing system. Then, the returns for all those effects
are coming back into Pro Tools on record
inputs. Every once in a while, if I really
think I should, I'll print the spring on the
drums so I just have that, but most of the
time I just run it live, and when I print the
mix, I print the effects, too. Anything I do
RECORDING September 2017

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