How To Create A More Professional Mix - Part 2

So here we are, part 2 of How To Create A More Professional Mix. I hope you liked and got some useful information from the first part, EQ and Compression. Today we are going to get into the world of simulations and grids, so let’s get to it!

AMP SIMULATIONS

The first thing we need to talk about is amplifier simulators, or amp sims, for short. There are MANY amp sims on the market and your DAW probably even comes with one. There are companies that not only make sims, but make them tailored to different genres. You can get the Nashville expansion, the Funk expansion, the Metal expansion, the Blues expansion, and so on. The ones I use the most are Amplitude 3 by IK Multimedia and S-Gear by Slate Digital. Occasionally I will also use the Waves GTR bundle. If you aren’t using Pro Tools 12, I recommend Line 6 Amp Farm or a free sim from the company Studio Devil as well. You don’t always have to pay to get good sounds. There are plenty of websites out there offering free, legal plug-ins.

A few of my workhorses

Here at LIRCo, I actually have several different sims, but those are the ones I find myself reaching for most often. To use a sim is easy, just record a DI version of your guitar or bass signal and slap on your favorite amp sim. DONE! Well, not really. The whole trick is sifting thru all the presets and amps in the plug-in until find the sound that fits the song. Even then, the process isn’t finished. To me, an amp sim just gives me a better starting point. I still EQ and compress the track just as if it was recorded with that sound. I have found that a quick and easy way to make almost any bass sound better is to add the SVT preset from Sans Amp (a free plug-in with Pro Tools). Instantly better sounding starting point! And I stress to my students at LSRA that it is just that - a starting point. All the compression needs that were there before the sim are still there and need to be dealt with, the only real difference is that you won’t have to work as hard to get a good EQ on the track now.

Skipping back to DI tracks for a moment. It has become a common practice these days for an engineer to “split the signal” with a DI Box before an amplifier as well. See my very cheap diagram below…

I told you it was cheap!

In my recording class at LSRA, I teach this way of tracking guitars and basses as this serves a few different possible purposes. One, if you decide later in the mix process that the recorded amplifier sound just isn’t right for the song, you can switch to the DI and use a sim that has a more suitable sound.

Two, you can blend the two together for a bigger sound. I remember during a session a few years ago, I was using an awesome sounding Marshall 4x12 but the client wanted more natural low end. Now, any of you that have used a Marshall know that they are mainly midrange amps, not known for their huge low end tones. So what did I do? I split the signal and added a Mesa Boogie sim to the DI channel! Blended the two to taste, and we had an awesome rock tone with a big low end. Just what the client wanted!

Third, you can use the DI track to simulate another guitar playing the same part by adding a different sounding amp sim and panning the two off each other. You will need to be careful and be sure to check for phase alignment problems though, since the two signals are hitting the board/DAW at slightly different points in the waveform flow. Often when I do this, I will also add a very short delay to one of the guitars (usually @ 20-25ms with 100% mix on the effected track) to give the guitars more space in the mix, since technically it is really just one guitar and will not sound “stereo” like it would if you actually tracked the guitarist twice.

The forth thing you can do with a DI split is to use the DI track as an editing tool. When you are tracking distorted guitars, it is very hard to see where individual chord hits are because of the nature of the distorted waveform. If you also have the DI sitting underneath on the next track, you can easily see where to go if you need to punch in and fix a problem or where to highlight if you plan on copying and pasting sections into other places in the song.

Which track would be easier for YOU to edit?

RECAB

A tiny, but powerful, saviour of mixes!

So what if you have a recorded guitar amp that isn’t quite up to the task and there’s no DI? Well, depending on the sound, there are plug-ins to help call re-cab plug-ins. Basically, re-cabs will allow you to simulate another speaker cabinet/microphone setup onto your already recorded track. It doesn’t replace your real sound (Once it’s recorded, it’s there forever!), but it can augment the sound in a very pleasing way if you can match up the right re-cab to your existing sound. You can also change the cabinet entirely (not just add another on top) by using the pre amp output of the amp to bypass the speakers and record just the pre amp sound. You then mic up the cabinet as well, and you will have the actual sound of the amp + cabinet and the ability to use the sound of the amp head with numerous other cabinet options that you have in you re-cab plug-ins. I have used the re-cab plug-in Boogex (by Voxengo) on several mixes when the recorded sounds just weren’t what I wanted, and the change was remarkable! It’s not a tool that can or even should be used every time, but knowing what they do and having access to one or more (for different flavors!) can sometimes be the difference in a decent mix and a great one.

FAKE DRUMS vs REAL DRUMS

A necessary evil...

Is drum replacement cheating or just a fact of modern studio life? This debate has been raging since the plug-ins Drumagog and Steven Slate Drums were set loose on the audio world in the early 2000’s. Even though drum replacement had been going on for years before (using triggers on actual drums), it was a well kept industry secret. Basically, you can record your drums and then, with a plug-in, replace the “not so professional” sound with perfectly recorded drum samples. It’s still the player playing, just much better quality. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, yes and no. It’s great if you don’t have the ability or space to track drums correctly, but on the other hand, you will never learn how to mic up a drum kit to get great sounds NATURALLY if you rely solely on a plug-in to give you the sounds! It’s really a catch-22 situation. I can’t say that replacing is horrible and wrong because I have done it on more than one occasion. The majority of the time I have it has been because the sounds I was given to mix were so bad that no amount of EQ in the world could polish them up to the level they needed to be. When I do replace, I always keep the real hi-hat and cymbal tracks, though. That way, I can still have some semblance of the actual recorded take.

The biggest problem sonically I have found with replacement is that many times it just doesn’t sound REAL. Sometimes you can hear that the snare rolls sound “fake” or that the hits are EXACTLY the same thoughout the song. Not just the same volume, but THE SAME. What makes a drum take sound "real" is the drummer and how he or she hits the drums. Sometimes sounding perfect is not what is needed.

What I have been doing lately, is using drum samples as SUPPORT for my live drums. If I have a snare that was recorded kind of thin (lack of bottom end) but still a good sounding snare, I will add a sample replacement hit in to fill out the sound. How you do it is easy. Just duplicate the track and add the replacement plug-in to the duplicate track. Add your sample in and blend the two tracks until you get the sound you are looking for! A vast majority of engineers are using samples in this same way. It allows you the “reality” of the real snare but the steadiness of tone from the sampled hit.

Now, even if you use samples, you still will need to add some compression and possibly some EQ. The triggered sound is still playing off of the dynamics of your “real” sound in most cases, and the discrepancies will still be there, just with a “better” sound. For me, when I use samples, either as support or as straight up replacements, I ALWAYS EQ the sound. A great sounding snare still needs to fit into my mix and blend with the song. I will also compress if it is the snare or toms. For the kick drum, I usually don’t need to compress because I take away all the dynamic tracking of the sample, so I get one consistent level for the entire song, but I always EQ it to fit my needs.

TO GRID OR NOT TO GRID…THAT IS THE QUESTION

So you have a great sounding drum take, but the tempo is a little “loose”. What do yo do? Well, depending on the style, maybe nothing! “Jam Band” type bands are notorious for changing tempos, and at times, a certain amount of looseness is almost necessary. Rock ,metal, and even modern country bands, however, are much different beasts. A metronome is almost REQUIRED and an emphasis is placed on being locked into a certain tempo. The majority of this “problem” can be addressed by requiring the band to play to a click. A click is basically a steady pulse fed into the headphones at a certain tempo to keep the band from playing faster or slower than the decided tempo of the song. So what happens if you have the drummer on a click and they are still drifting slightly back and forth. The answer may be to quantize the drums, or in engineering speak, “lock them to the grid”.

Every mix, every time.

To say that I do this some would be an understatement. I do this ALMOST EVERY TIME. Nothing makes a rock or metal band sound more amateur than to have the tempo pushing and pulling throughout the song. Beat Detective in Pro Tools is the most used way to make the drums line up the grid. It is actually very easy to use, but in the beginning, pretty time consuming until you learn your way around and get your flow going (as with everything). I usually set up the detector to 16th notes to make sure that i capture all the audio I need to and then it’s just a matter of separating at the transients and snapping the parts to the grid. You can even set it up to not lock perfectly to the grid so you can decided for yourself what degree of “perfection” you want in the song. Usually, I am going to want the lock the drummer in, so I go for full on perfection! And the best part is that you can have the drummer perfectly on the beat and still sound like themselves and not a drum machine. Part of the trick (for me, anyway)is that you ONLY grid the drums. The guitars and bass are left un-quantized (is that a word?), and the band still sounds natural. If you try and grid everything, you wind up with a very robotic sounding track. Probably not what the band is looking for!

Locked in and ready to rock!

Well, we have come to the end of part two of How To Create A More Professional Mix. Next time, I will delve into the world of space and effects- using reverbs and delays to make your song have atmosphere, width and character that will help your mix stand out in the crowd.

Don't forget that you are welcome to stop by and tour our facilities here at LIRCo and LSRA anytime. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set it up, so we can give you the ultimate LIRCo experience. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall
Head Engineer, LIRS

How To Create A More Professional Mix - Part 1

Hello everyone! It’s been a pretty long time since I have posted anything here on the Nall In The Mix blog, and I apologize for that. Between home, my band, and the studio, I got pretty sidetracked and let NITM slip. And just recently, I had the honor of winning the 2018 Lexington Music Award for Best Engineer/Producer! Having said all that, I will try my best to do better by you from here on out, and to this end, I am starting a multipart series where I am going to give you tips on how I get my mixes to sound as professional and radio ready as possible. Some things will seem basic, while others are more involved. We are not going to take very in-depth looks into these techniques, however, as we have several things to go over and each installment in the series would be VERY long! Ready? Ok, let’s get started!

SETTING LISTENING LEVELS

So you have gotten a song ready to mix. The first thing you need to do is pull up the faders and get a good balance between the tracks so you can hear it in its most raw form and really hear what you are dealing with. Don’t worry about volume adjustments at this point, compression and automation will fix this later on down the line. Right now you just want to hear how things sit together and how their natural EQ affects each other. Does the guitar sound muffled in the mix? Is the bass guitar low end overpowering the kick drum? Are the vocals harsh and painful in the high mids? These are the type of things you should be listening for at this early stage of the mix so you can get your game plan together.

KNOW YOUR EQ FREQUENCIES!

The first real key to getting a professional sounding mix is the ability to use EQ and compression correctly and effectively. I know this sounds like a “duh” moment, but hear me out. Boosting or cutting the wrong frequencies can severely harm the sound of your mix. If you cut all your guitars (bass included) at 400hz because they INDIVIDUALLY sound better that way, there’s going to be a big, hollow hole in your sound. There has to be something in that area. If you add 8Khz to all your vocals, it’s probably going to be pretty harsh when combined in the mix. If your kick, snare, bass, and guitar all have 100hz boosted, your low end is going to be muddy and confused. You get the idea. Knowing your frequencies and their ranges will help you immensely! Just knowing that the kick low end is in the 60-80hz area, the bass in the 100hz, the snare in the 125-250hz range, and the guitars in the 200hz range will help you distribute the low end across the low frequency spectrum so that every instrument has its own low end but nothing seems muddy or stepping on each other in the mix. The same idea goes for your mids and highs. LEARN YOUR FREQUENCIES!

Some examples of separating the low end

SOLO MODE - FRIEND OR FOE?

I want to stop here and talk a bit about the SOLO button. It is, of course, the way that you can single out a track from the rest to hear it individually. To do all your EQ work in solo is going to really slow you down and hamper your workflow considerably. You don’t need to constantly be going in and out of solo on a track to make it sound good. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Here’s my technique and my suggestion to you when it comes to soloing. Only solo ONCE. Also, I only have the tracks that I have completed EQ and compression-wise in the mix, everything else is muted. I bring in the next track to be worked on and listen to it IN CONTEXT with the tracks I have already worked on. That gives me an idea about what to do to make it sit well in the mix. Once I have my game plan, I solo the track and look for the offending frequencies. I then put it BACK into the mix and give it a listen. If it needs more adjustment (and it almost always does!), I will make the changes with the rest of the completed tracks still being heard. This way you really hear what your tweaks to your track are doing IN CONTEXT with the rest of your mix. If you keep going back into solo mode, you have no reference as to how your changes are affecting the rest of the mix. There are some engineers that NEVER use the solo button and do everything in full song mode! Of course, you should always revisit your finished tracks EQ’s as you progress and make tweaks as the mix develops. One example I give students is that if you think you can’t hear your kick, mute it out. If something goes away, you CAN hear the kick, just not the frequencies you are looking for! If you just turn up the fader, now you have boosted what you need, but you have also boosted what you could still hear without the volume boost. Brightening up your high mid attack will bring out the “smack” of the kick without making the low end crazy loud and suddenly you can hear the kick again! It’s magic!

USE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED

And while we’re on the subject, remember that you don’t have to use all the frequency bands in your EQ! A crazy idea, I know, but it’s true. You only need to make the track sound good with the mix. If it only needs a little bit of a high boost, then do it! You don’t have to go crazy with a bunch of mid cuts or low boosting if the track only needs a little adjustment to sit right in the song. There are times that I only pull up a ONE band EQ instead of a 4 or 6 band, because I only have to do ONE THING. It’s also good to note here that sometimes you don’t need to EQ at all! Usually DI keyboard sounds don’t need any extra help. The company that created the keyboard has spent countless hours perfecting the sounds and they will almost always sound great just by turning them up. Don’t make your job more difficult than it has to be and MIX SMART!

THE DIGITAL EQ TRAP

Now a word on digital EQ. Most DAW EQs come with a graph window that shows you where your frequency lies on the spectrum, the Q curve of the frequency cut or boost, and the amount of cut or boost. In my mind, the first two things are great, the last, not so much. In my experience at LSRA, some people become “slaves” to the graph. By this I mean that they will be boosting the kick, for example, at 80hz with a 8db boost. It will sound great, but they will turn it down to a 3db boost because it “looks” wrong in comparison to the other boosts on the EQ. I keep trying to tell people that if it sounds good, then it is good. Don’t worry about what the graph shows you. I use mostly “after market” plug-ins. Most are simulations of analog gear that are only knobs. I have no graph to get in my way and I turn the knobs til it sounds like the sound I have in my head. Sometimes the boosts or cuts are HUGE. Sometimes they aren’t. But I just keep turning them until it SOUNDS right, not LOOKS right. I have been known to add a SECOND EQ to keep boosting because if I did it all on one plug-in, I would overload the plug-in! But in the end it’s how it sounds that matters, not how it looks. Don’t get caught up in that trap.

My kick drum EQ on a recent song, for example.

USING YOUR COMPRESSOR

The second most important element to a professional mix (in my opinion) is compression. If you don’t know how to set your attack and release times correctly, your mix will suffer and not come out like you hear it in your head. If you set fast attack times, your transient will be blunted and the instrument will become “rounded” and sit a little back into the mix. A slower attack time will give you a more aggressive front end and make your instrument stand out more in the mix. Vocals will sound more “mean” and the consonants will almost come spitting out of the track in a more urgent manner. A longer release time will give a more even signal and sustain the notes more, while a shorter release will keep the instrument or vocal more upfront and focused for the listener.

For rock songs, I find that my compression setting for drums and vocals are set with a relatively slow attack and a fairly fast release. This guarantees that those elements will be focal points in my mix.

A screenshot of my snare plug-in chain for a recent mix.

Many times, my bass guitar has a faster attack, but also a fast release. This is because I want to grab the transient immediately, but I also want to let it go almost as fast to keep it even but up front in the mix. The biggest problem with bass guitar is the volume and tone differences between the lower, thicker strings and the higher, thinner ones. By compressing with a 4:1 ratio and hitting the loudest sections with around 10db of reduction, I basically give myself an extremely even bass track. Sometimes I will either add some saturation directly to the track to “clip” the transient some more, or duplicate the track, add the saturation to the duplicate, and then buss them both to a group bass track and blend them to get the sound I need.

A screenshot of my bass plug-in chain from a recent mix.

Well, we have come to the end of part one of How To Create A More Professional Mix. Next time, I will delve into the world of DI guitars, Re-cab plug-ins, using samples to either replace or to support your drum sounds, and the use of quantizing, or griding, on your drum kit.

Don't forget that you are welcome to stop by and tour our facilities here at LIRCo and LSRA anytime. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set it up, so we can give you the ultimate LIRCo experience. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall
Head Engineer, LIRS

LIRS Update - NEW GEAR MONTH!

Happy late New Year my audio friends! I hope 2017 is good for you so far. As for us, some big things are happening here at LIRS! First, it’s new gear month! We are doing some serious upgrades to our main control room to move into an even more world class phase of the business. The main addition to our arsenal is the Audient 8024HE console. If you haven’t heard of Audient before, go on YouTube and check ‘em out. In my career I’ve worked on SSL, Trident, API, and Sony boards, and I can truly say that the 8024 is a beast! Like most majors in the industry, we have decided to go back to analog for the mix even though we are still tracking in Pro Tools. With a 144 point patchbay, we can route anything to anywhere on the board. Which comes in handy with the other new additions - TWO UA1176’s, TWO Emperical Labs Distressors, and the mighty LA-2A! Combined with the two 500 series DBX 560A compressors, we have some seriously pro quality compression going on. This will definitely keep us “out of the box” and allow us to get some nice compression as we record the tracks instead of just relying on plug-ins to compress after the fact. No more nasty spikes in the audio to trick our mix compressors into hitting too hard!

On the digital side of things, we have upgraded our HD rig to Pro Tools 12 and are now using Aurora Lynx A/D converters to get our signal in and out of the Audient console. The Sony DMX-R100 that used to be in Control A has been moved to the soundstage building and we now can offer 24 track Pro Tools HD live recording services as well! If your band or vocal group wants to do a live video recording, give us a call and we can definitely fulfill your needs!

On the personnel front, we have added Grammy nominated producer Keith Caudill to our team. He has been working to bring the school (LSRA) up to the next level in audio education as well as lending his well trained ear to sessions with local and national artists that have been coming thru our doors.

Over the Christmas break we tracked 6 songs for the debut release of country artist Ryne Brashear. Ryne’s “band” for the session was brought in straight from the studios of Nashville and included Keith’s son, Kory Caudill, on keys (also a Grammy nominee and member of Justin Moore’s backup band). The band was smokin’, and we tracked all the music in one marathon session. Needless to say, there was a lot of great country music happening that day! Ryne sang all the final vocals over a couple of days and we are getting ready to enter the mix stage of the project. I have no doubt you’ll be hearing more about Ryne Brashear in the near future.

The Recording School is starting back next week and I have several students advancing to my area of the course, Studio Recording. They will be the first students to get to use the new console, and I have heard from a few students that have already completed this phase saying that they want to retake just to get some time on the Audient!

That’s all I’ve got for ya right now. Stay tuned for more updates and musings from me and my adventures at LIRS! Don't forget that you are welcome to stop by and tour our facilities anytime. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set it up, so we can give you the ultimate LIRCo experience. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall
Main Engineer, LIRS

Climbing the audio ladder

This time around I’d like to talk to you about climbing the ladder in the audio world. When I got out of recording school, I moved to Memphis, TN to work at a studio there and get some experience in a major market. Now, Memphis is mostly known as a blues town and that really wants my thing, so I came back home to KY after a few months and got a job at LIRCo. After being here a few years, I decided to enter the major market again and made the move to L.A. The only problem was that local experience doesn’t really count for much when you are going to the bigs. It’s pretty much just something else to put on your audio resume.

STARTING YOUR CLIMB

If you are going to pursue this as a career (and not start your own local studio), you need to understand one thing. In the world of major league pro studios, everyone starts out at the bottom as a runner. A runner is just that - you run and get things. Food, packages, clean the kitchen, answer the phones - whatever is needed. Sometimes you are the studio taxi. Whatever the band/business needs done outside of the recording rooms, you are the one doing it. On the plus side, you get to just hang out with the bands in a more more relaxed capacity. When they are in the room tracking, it can be a very stressful environment, but when they are eating dinner, they are much more relaxed and easy going.

I was a runner years ago at a studio where the band RATT was recording, and a few days a week when things were slow, I just hung out and shot pool with their guitarist, Warren DeMartini. At the time I was a guitarist (I use the term loosely), and to be around a player of his calibre and just talk to him like a regular guy was amazing. Being in the studio, they drop their guard and the whole “rockstar” trip and you get to see them as real people.

Just working in a major studio can be awesome. Imagine watching the Beach Boys practice singing harmonies only a few feet from you, watching John Sykes from Whitesnake/Blue Murder lay down guitar tracks, or hanging out on the couch with some of the guys from Guns N Roses just watching TV. Well I don’t have to, because for a while, that was my life. And eventually, I moved my way up the ladder and became an assistant engineer on some sessions.

RIDING THE COATTAILS

This whole business on the major level revolves around “who you know”. You could be the best engineer in town, and if you have no reputation, no one cares. You basically ride the coattails of others as you rise in the ranks. When you are a runner, one of your main goals is to make friends with the assistant engineers. If you make their studio lives easier, they remember that. Most major studios don’t like it when the rooms aren’t being used and will sometimes allow the assistants to bring in local bands for a discount to get more experience in the engineer “seat”. They will in turn, bring you in to be the assistant (at least you hope so!) on these sessions. Being an assistant engineer requires lots of long hours in the studio. Sometimes you’ll sleep on the couch between sessions because it’s just easier than driving all the way home and back again. It can be grueling at times, but when you are doing a job you love, it never really seems that bad, at least to me!

When an assistant moves on (more on that later), everyone moves up one in the ranks. So now YOU are one of the assistants. Now your job is to place microphones in basically the right spot, keep logs of everything, and run the recorder. The engineer will come in and make the final mic placements. If you keep the sessions running smoothly, people will notice. When the band is talking about food, you slip off to the side and call the runner in to take orders. If the artist and producer are talking about trying a different mic setup, you go ahead and get the mic on the stand before they even ask you to do it. Basically, you are trying to stay one step ahead of everyone and keep the session running smoothly so the artist, engineer and producer can do their jobs better. Your ultimate goal is to be so good, that the producer wants to bring future sessions to your studio and use YOU as the assistant engineer.

If you work hard enough and get noticed by the right people (coattails!), you may be asked to become part of a team outside the studio. Many times, an engineer will be asked to produce a band because they like how he worked on some other band’s project. So now he is becoming a producer and needs an engineer that he can count on. That engineer is YOU! So you will travel with him to different studios (sometimes around the world!) tracking bands until you have such a reputation in the business, that you start getting offers from OTHER producers and then you will become a truly freelance audio engineer. One of the top assistants at the L.A. studio I worked at left just as I was coming back to KY and became the go-to engineer for most of the early 2000’s rock and metal acts, so it can happen! It just takes lots of long hours and perseverance to get to that level. After I came back to KY, I was able to come back to LIRCo and moved up to the position of Head Engineer that I have had for a while now. Even though I had a lot of fun in those early days, I love where I am and I’m glad I came back to KY where I can help others starting their journey.

So if you are down for that kind of life, The Lexington School for Recording Arts can give you a great education to put you on your way. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set up a tour or get some info sent to you. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall
Head Engineer, LIRS

Vocal Compression

Over all the years and mixes that I’ve done here at Long Island Studios and The Lexington School for Recording Arts, I have found that vocal compression is one of the hardest parts of your mix. It seems that many times it’s a chore to get vocal to sit on top of the mix all the time without getting covered up by the instruments. Today I'm going to tell you the way I like to set up vocal compression, as well as a few other ways that you may want to try.

Normally in rock music, you want the vocal to stay on top and out in front at all times, but a vocalist is a very dynamic part of your mix. So how do you do this?  The answer is compression. I like to use either the Waves Renaissance compressor or the CLA 1176 simulation, but any decent compressor can get you the results that you need.

I set my compressor up so that when the vocalist gets loud they are getting around 10 to 15 dB gain reduction. I know that this may seem like a lot to some of you, but it will guarantee that the vocal is even as it can possibly be. Now, the attack and release of the compressor play a big role in getting this done correctly. I generally set my attack times to 1 or 2 ms. On the 1176 compressor, the attack times run from "1" to "7" with "1" being the slowest. With some research, I found out that the "1" setting is around 1 ms, so that works out well doesn't?  On the Renaissance compressor, as well as other compressors, you generally have a sliding scale to tell you how many milliseconds your attack time is so that could be an easier path for you to go.

When it comes to release times, that part of compression is constantly changing from song to song.  The two main options are to either have the release time set very quickly and be releasing for every single word, or holding for a longer period of time (say 600 ms or so) to capture the entire line of vocal before releasing in time to catch the next line. The problem sometimes with fast release times is that if it is too fast, then you can get some audible distortions on the track. The problem with longer release times is that you may get some kind of a "pumping" effect because the compressor is slowly releasing as the line gets quieter. What I like to do, is have a fairly fast release time, usually in the 150 to 300 ms range. On the CLA 1176, the release time is also a range of "1" to "7", just like the attack time. The "1" is 1 second and the "7" is 50 ms, so I tend to have mine set to around the "5" area.  Then I just set the threshold to allow me around 10 dB of reduction, and use the output to gain to get the vocal back up to the volume that I need. Most of the time, this will get my vocal on top and "in your face" how I want it to be, so that every word is heard correctly and nothing is covered by the band.

For a more dynamic vocal, the same settings can be used, but just set the threshold so that instead of getting 10 dB of reduction on the loud parts, you're only getting around 3 to 6 dB of reduction. Then,set your output volume so that the loud parts are as loud as you want them to be, and the quieter parts will remain how they were recorded - without added compression.

Another way of getting somewhat "in your face" style compression (without the possible audibility of squashing the track), is to set up multiple compressors that are only compressing a few db each. Many times, this way of compressing a track allows you to compress in order to just control the peaks and then if anything breaks through, the second compressor will clamp down and keep everything even.  

Well, that's it for now. Don't forget that you are welcome to stop by and tour our facilities anytime. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set it up, so we can give you the ultimate LIRCo experience. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall
Head Engineer, LIRS

4 Steps To Setting Input Gain

Here at LSRA and LIRS, I teach several classes, including Studio Recording. An important part of learning how to track a band is the proper way of getting your input levels. I try to make things easy for the students to remember, so I have broken it down into four steps: GAIN, RE-GAIN, FADERS, and FADERS. Following these four easy steps will ensure that you always get a good level going to your recorder (thereby lowering your noise floor, i.e. the amount of natural room noise in relation to your recording source) and that the mix engineer has a good starting point every time. In this example, the drummer is used, but the steps are the same no matter what instrument you are recording.

1. GAIN – The first thing you must do is set the initial gain for the track. This is done using the standard “soundcheck” system where the engineer instructs the drummer to hit each drum and cymbal individually. The engineer then adjusts the input gain knob (also known as the pre-amp) for the microphone that is placed on the drum he told the drummer to hit. The goal is to get the gain set as loud as it can go before overloading. The gain knob is turned up until an overload is reached and then backed down slowly until the hardest hit will not make the pre-amp overload. This is then repeated for every drum and cymbal on the kit that is individually miked.

2. Re-GAIN – After the initial gain stage is set, the engineer should ask the drummer to play the full kit for a few minutes to gauge what kind of hitter the drummer is and whether or not some microphones need repositioning. At the same time, the engineer needs to see if any gain knobs set during the first stage are overloading. Most drummers hit slightly harder when actually playing, so some gain changes being made here is natural. Just watch the overload lights on each channel and adjust the gains needing reduction.

3. FADERS - After all the gains that need readjusting are corrected, allow the drummer to keep playing for a minute or two; not only make sure your new gain settings are correct, but to get your levels in Pro Tools, or whatever recorder you may be using, correct as well. By this time you should already have your tracks routed to your recorder and the tracks should be armed for recording. When you plug a microphone in a mixer to use its pre-amp, you have to go through that channels’ fader section to get to the recorder. If the fader is turned down, you will get a lower signal to your recorder, or no signal at all. If the fader is too high, you may overload your track to the recorder, even though the pre- amp gain you set previously isn’t distorting. Therefore, the fader of the microphone input track has some control over the volume of the track going to be recorded. It is recommended that you start all the input faders at 0 db. This allows some headroom, and if a volume reduction is needed, there is a good amount to be had. If the level of each track you have armed on the recorder is not at least half-way to the top of it’s meters, go back to your board input track and increase the corresponding fader level to +5 db. This small boost will usually do the trick. Going all the way to +10 is not recommended because of the fact that a mix always needs some headroom and at +10 there’s no where to go.

4. FADERS – This is the last step in setting the gain pre amp and getting ready to record. By now, the input gains should be set as loud as possible before overloading and the recorders’ input levels should be jumping at least halfway up it’s meters. Now the engineers’ attention should turn to the board faders used for control room listening. Once these are set satisfactorily, stop the drummer from playing and ask if any volume adjustments are needed in the headphone mix. Make the necessary adjustments and you’re done!

Well, that's it for now. Don't forget that you are welcome to stop by and tour our facilities anytime. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set it up, so we can give you the ultimate LIRCo experience. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall
Head Engineer, LIRS

Drum Miking - Part 2

Hi everybody and welcome back to part 2 of my drum miking series. Last time we discussed miking kick and snare drums so this week I want to delve more into miking rack toms and floor toms.

When you're miking toms, there's a couple of different things that you need to take into account. Do you want to mike just the top, or do you want to mike top and bottom? Do you want to use a dynamic mic or maybe a condenser? What kind of heads should you use? All of these are very good questions, and hopefully I will provide you the answers that you need.

Normally, I just mike at the top of head of the rack tom. I find that miking the bottom head of the tom, while providing some additional resonance, really doesn't do very much for the overall sound of my drum kit, and is a waste of a track to be honest. So let's stick with the top head. As far as what type of drumhead you should use, it really depends on if you're in the studio or if you're doing live work. In my experience, I have always found in the studio, that batter heads tend to give me the best results, while when I am doing a live sound gig, I find the clear heads are the best. Also, it's a good idea if your drummer knows how to tune his drums! I use a tool called Drum Dial. It is a tempanic pressure tuner that works off of the tension of the head, not the sound, to achieve the correct tone of the drum. And lastly, you need to decide if you want to use dynamic microphones or condenser microphones to record your toms. I would say that the studio standard is the dynamic microphone known as the Sennheiser 421. It's a very good mic I'll admit, and I use it sometimes to make musicians feel at home in the studio since it's something that they are probably used to seeing in other studios. Personally, the microphone I like to use for rack toms is the Audio Technica 4050. It is a large diaphragm condenser that just seems to have more attack and brightness then the 421 while still having about the same amount of body as the 421. I like to have a little more natural stick attack coming through the microphone than the 421 offers me most of the time.

So let's talk distance. If you using a dynamic microphone such as the 421 a Shure 57 or an Audix D2, then you want to be approximately 1 to 2 inches off of the drumhead. For me, with my "finger measuring system" that we talked about in my previous blog, it would be about a knuckle up off of the head. When you use a condenser microphone, such as the 4050, the AKG 414, or even the Neumann U87, you want to be approximately 3 to 6 inches off of the drumhead. In my finger measurement, that would end up being a whole index finger to about half of your hand. Remember, the further away your microphone is from your drum, the more bleed you will get from the surrounding the pieces of the drum kit, so it is very important to find that optimum distance that provide you with enough body and attack, but still gives you the necessary isolation from the rest of the drum kit so that your compression (and possibly gating) will work correctly and not against you. You can also mike both of your up rack toms with one microphone if you need to. I have done this on several occasions when I did not have enough inputs on my console to allow me to record both toms separately. What I did in the situation is, I used a large diaphragm condenser (which happened to be the 4050), and I put it about 6 to 8 inches up directly between both toms, facing straight down. Then in the mixing stage, I added a new audio track to my session and separated the second tom hits from the track and moved them to their own track.

For miking floor toms, my go to microphone is the Shure PG 52. I find this microphone (which is actually a lower level mic made primarily for kick drum miking) gives the floor tom a nice round "boom" while still maintaining some of the attack that is needed. I mic it up generally being about 2 to 3 inches up off the drumhead and 2 to 3 inches into the drum itself (over the ring).  I'm not pointing at the middle of the drum like you would a snare mic, but pointing more towards the outside edge about 3 inches into the drumhead.

So that's it. Not nothing too difficult, just your basic mic set up. I do EQ the tracks coming into my system and as well as a EQing them after recording. I find that this gives me the best possible sound I can get going down to my recorder and gives me a good base to start the mix with.

Well, that's it for now. Don't forget that you are welcome to stop by and tour our facilities anytime. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set it up, so we can give you the ultimate LIRCo and Lexington School for Recording Arts experience. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall

Head Engineer, LIRS