The Audio Nerd Log
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In truth I’m just a tumescent hobbyist playing make-believe in the spare bedroom I call my studio rather than through video games like normal middle-aged men. This page reveals my niggling level of geek-a-tude but hopefully also provides some technical insight on how we made this project in the off chance you’d like to learn from my mistakes.
Guitar is to rock what the 808 is to Hip Hop, center of the plate and often the side dish as well, crowding out any chance of instrumentation subtlety. It is the nature of the genre so we just went with it. Describing guitar tone can sound every bit as pretentious as a sommelier internet troll debate "with notes of nutmeg and gym socks" and as divisive as a Dome of the Rock souvenir stand. I worked in a guitar shop back in the day, so I wasn’t coming into this completely agnostic. However early in the writing process I again consulted the YouTube guitar rabbis and shaman to figure out what path I should take. With each as contradictory as instagram diet advise I had to cobble together what I could make work for me in my dabbler's environment and skills. Ready to judge me like a bonafide YouTube oracle of audio? |
Taking a page from the Foo Fighters, fair to say enough for a novel, stacking guitars for that wall-O’-guitars sound has more nuance than one might think at first blush. Like a layer cake or exposed rock formations in the desert the varying densities of tones provide texture and dimension. That sound is more than just the old school same part same amp just doubled left and right. I have no idea how they did it but I chose different guitar and amp combinations to highlight different frequencies. Some of which didn’t sound all that amazing by themselves but in context provided the depth I was looking for, something hollow opposite something woofy, something a bit brittle with something darker. This album has a bit of every conceivable option I could think of in pursuit of a meaty (or alt-meat substitute) stew of guitars.
When in doubt add more Guitar?
The basic road map tracks were recorded using my actual physical amps and pedals. While not the prototypical amps used in this style many of those tracks survived to the final mix. With the benefit of hindsight I probably would have started with virtual amps for writing and then gone back and re-amped for tone later. My process is to continuously iterate on everything even though sometimes I arrive where I started. However that also means for most parts I can no longer tell you exactly what gear was use on any individual part.
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Conventional tube amps:
59 Reissue Fender 4x10 Bassman, and a Champ X2 with a 12” vintage 30 cab with these mics.
Main pedals:
Feeling I just wasn’t getting a modern enough sound coupled with the need to record direct for volume reasons I went down the new age religion rabbit hole of virtual amps. I bought and recorded several tracks with each of the following before eventually selling them all again for one reason or another.
Hardware modeling
With mixed results I went back to my amps before truly giving software amps a fair shake. For what it’s worth, I found them to be as credible as any of the hardware units at fraction of the price. Software modeling
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Top mixing takeaways from this project
- An accurate environment:
Do you see anything wrong with the picture of my room on the right? Elitist interface √ pretentiously cool mic pres √ absurdly priced optical compressors √ dual screens √ monitors, maybe too close to the wall, but √ acoustic treatments ... cue the sad trombones. For the gear sluts among us accumulating stuff or even plug-ins always feels more fulfilling. However establishing a proper listening environment is something I wish I understood better a long time ago. When folks say "it isn't about the gear" they are also saying it doesn't matter what you have or frankly what skills you possess if you can't hear it accurately. Please learn from my shortsightedness and figure out how to have an environment where you can hear correctly as priority #1. Largely because the sound of my room was so bad I started mixing this on my Sony MDR-7506 headphones but as practical as they are still maybe not the best choice for mixing. I tried several different virtual studio plug-ins that supposedly emulate famous mixing rooms but that rendered inconstant results and a less than enjoyable experience. - Reference tracks:
You must have heard this 100 times as well but I never bothered before and I really should have. Just pull a similar genre song you admire into your session and refer back to it for over all dynamics and frequency center. Be sure to not let it go through your same master bus processing. Your ears will adjust quickly and deceive you. This can serve as a simple truth teller. - Re-amping: As I eluded to above, especially if you are recording yourself going direct with a software amp makes a lot of sense. That way you can focus on just coming up with the parts and not have to split your thoughts on the technical of tone and waist valuable "in the zone" time on mic placement etc. Then come back once more the song is fleshed out and dial in a re-amped tone that best fits the song that has developed.
- Compression ducking the reverbs and delays on voice: This is a trick I used to do years ago but forgot about. Then a random you tuber reminded me about it. The denser your mix the more you might want to consider techniques like this where a side chain compressor with a fast attack time pushes down the FX so the articulation of vocal can be heard before the FX fade back in as desired controlled by the release time of the compressor. I feel a little silly for not thinking of this sooner.
The top new and notable plugins for me on this project
Brainworkx bx_ rockrack V3.
Virtual guitar amp. |
Purple Audio MC 77
FET style compressor |
Waves BB Tubes
Tube style saturation |
Slate Digital Fresh Air
Vintage exciter with saturation |
Black Salt Audio Clipper
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Jake Thorne's recording details
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Will Thorne's recording details
All of Will's lead and backing vocals were recorded at his Arizona home studio with the following signal chain.
- Shure SM-7B, with a Cloudlifter, Shadow Hills Mono GAMA 500 Series Mic Preamp, IGS Audio ONE LA 500 Tube Optical Compressor Module
into an Audient iD14. in to Pro Tools.
Trey Sabatelli's recording details
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All of Trey's tracks were recorded at his California home studio using the following.
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