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| | ho trovato questa intervista sulla registrazione di DITC: | CITAZIONE | Could you tell me about the monitoring in your control room?
Rick really loves ProAc monitors powered by Yamaha 2002 amps. Sounds great. It seems that with the ProAcs, the more wattage you send to each side the better; I think we're sending 250 watts per side. We also have a pair of Yamaha NS-10s, because I just know them so well and feel comfortable with them. I'm running a pair of BGW amps on those, 150 watts a side.
What do you have in the way of consoles?
The main console is a beautiful old Neve 8058 alongside a small Neve BCM-10 with 1066 mic pre's. I put all of the drums, guitars and keyboards through the 8058 faders, and the bass and vocals through the rack of outboard mic pre's. We have a big Pro Tools rig, running 96k straight to two FireWire drives simultaneously; close to a Terabyte of space. On the front end, we use Benchmark Media Systems AD2408-96 converters, running at 96k, 24-bit, 24 channels.
How did you record Omar's guitars?
We tracked using an old Marshall cabinet with Celestion drivers, with a Neumann U67. Then we got into some serious guitar science. We were on a quest for clarity. Omar's vision was of a very dense soundscape with a lot of complex parts. The challenge was to make it all come out clearly and still maintain the excitement and power. The first thing we did was address the amp issue. Omar had been playing live through an old SVT bass head into an old Marshall cabinet. For live playing, this setup works really well, but under the microscope, the tone was not punching through enough: not enough focus. We turned to combo amps.
A major portion of the guitar sounds came from an amazing Supro amp, a Fender Princeton and a very small Fender Tweed. We also used a Fender Super Reverb and a Vox AC30 for some songs, as well. The beauty of these small amps is that they cut through the track but don't overpower it. Also, because they don't push as much air as a cabinet, I can use tube mics and not be afraid that they will blow up. I used Neumann U67s with the -14dB pads in on all of the combos and stuck to a single mic per amp. Sometimes, I would put an SM57 in the back, but found the sound to be clearer and punchier usually without the back mic.
Because we were recording 96k/24-bit, I ran through a bunch of tube gear: a Fairchild 670, Pultec EQP-1 and sometimes a Distressor or 1176, or an LA-2A. With the higher sampling rate, the tube equipment sounded even better to me, because nothing gets lost in the murk of low-level analog tape or lower sampling rates. It was an awesome feeling to get a sound exactly how you liked it and have it sound identical on playback time after time. 96k, I am sold!
Omar's guitar pedal collection is massive, and we dove into it wholeheartedly. I own a couple of Roland Space Echos that worked great as tape delay and reverb for special effects, as well as slap. In keeping with our clarity mission, a lot of times we would record a part drier, less effected, and then double it with a heavily effected track playing the same or slightly simpler part, sometimes editing the part to work with the effect. A really nice result from this was being able to pan to two guitars hard left and right, and we would get this really lush, but clear, sound. Of course, Omar's arrangements really created the dynamic, but I think we outdid ourselves in creating some of these tones. The guitar soundscape of this record is very dense and complex, but I think we got everything to fit, and in listening back, it all makes sense. I learned so much about creating unique guitar tones; it was truly a gratifying experience.
For Cedric's vocals, I see you have a vocal booth made with goboes and blankets set up in the sunroom, with sightlines into the main hall. What mics did you use for vocals?
I used a Shure SM-7 for the main vocal track with a 57 taped to it, which sent a feed to Jeremy, the vocal voodoo dude, which went into his mixer, through his toys and then back to me. Once we got into overdubbing vocals, we used a Neumann U67 for quieter sections and the SM-7 for louder parts. Also, I used a Neve 1073 for preamp and EQ, and an 1176 for compression. For Jeremy's effects tracks, we ran the comped vocal back to his pedals through a Little Labs distribution box, so he got the vocal at -10 and it came back to me at +4.
How did you record drums?
For the kick drum, I had a Sennheiser 421 inside and a Neumann FET 47 in front; for the snare, a Shure 57 on top, a Sennheiser 441 under; hi-hat was AKG 451; overheads were a pair of AKG C 12s; for the toms, a pair of AKG C 12As; the close mic is a Neumann P-47, a cool old omni mic that sounds great; and we had a pair of Neumann M-49s for the room. All the mics came from Ocean Way's mic locker.
Can you give me the details on recording Flea for this album?
For the bass, we had Flea play a beautiful '64 Fender Precision P bass through an SVT bass head and 8×10 cabinet. I used a Neumann FET 47 on the cabinet and a Demeter DI. I compressed with LA-2As on both channels. It was a slightly different sound for Flea, but he is such a talented musician that he fit in perfectly. The bass needed to be full and present, because, essentially, the bass was the foundation of every track. |
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