Multitrack Blog

When I began mixing my track I wanted to try and keep parity with the style of the original by Paolo Nutini, which meant maintaining a balance between drums and bass, whilst allowing guitar and vocals to shine through, as they are the focus of the song. The biggest change in my mix is the absence of any electric guitar. I listened back to the song several times, and just couldn’t see where I could fit the guitar in. It was too screechy and rough sounding, and cut through the bass and acoustic guitar. I tried listening with the electric guitar muted, and preferred the simple, calm quality the acoustic gave. I began with the drums, compressing and equalising the kick, equalising the overheads and the snare, and also gating both parts of the snare to remove some unwanted noise, which manifested as an unpleasant “bong” I also boosted some low frequencies in the room mic. My intention here was to produce a bit more energy from the kit, so I boosted lows in the kick and room, creating a nice impactful kick, and added highs to the overheads and snares to balance out the added bass, and also strengthen the cymbals, which we hadn’t miced.

When mixing the bass I chose to use the 414, as I preferred the range it had over the uniformly low tones of the D112. I compressed and EQed this to thicken the sound up, and was pleased with the result. I also EQed the DI, as it sounded tinny. I also reversed the phase on the DIs EQ plugin, as it produced a far warmer sound that mingled the two bass channels together.

For the vocals I compressed with a Vocal Compressor default, which I then modified, and then added some subtle reverb through an auxiliary, using D-Verb and a modified vocal plate setting. This was in an attempt to bring the vocals into the song more, as they sounded further off and disconnected.

I used this reverb for the solo as well, but I sent far more of the tracks to the reverb bus, and this produced a suitably rocky, mellow tone. I also experimented with automating the panning of the solo, and was inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s songs “If 6 Was 9” and “Bold As Love” to do so. I tweaked this to pan in time with one of the bends of each repetition.

During this time I automated the volume on the acoustic to lower, as I wanted the solo to become the focus. This also meant increasing the levels of the solo to -2.5dB. I added reverb to the acoustic track too, but as with the vocals I kept it subtle, only boosting the levels of the reverb for the final few strums of the song, after the vocals have stopped. I also compressed each track and EQed them all differently (see below), as well as panning left and right parts to 45 L and R respectively

I then bounced down the track and listened to it on my phone, both through its speakers and through headphones, and the bass and drums didn’t feel quite right. I brought the levels of the bass and kick up, along with the vocals, and also tweaked the panning of the solo to make it pan to less extreme levels. Reverb was made slightly more noticeable on the vocals and on the solo, and the levels of the solo were brought up again to -4.0dB. I also boosted the level of the Master Fader, as I felt the song sounded too quiet, when played on phones and other devices.

I would have provided exact EQ values, but my report has become quite lengthy, so if you would like these values, I would be more than happy to provide you with the .ptx file.

 

Level Balance Changes:

Bass 414B                -13.5dB

Bass D.I.                    -14.1dB

Overhead Left           -4.6dB

Overhead Right        -4.9dB

Kick                            -13.2dB

Snare Top                 -9.8dB

Snare Bottom            -8.9dB

Rack Tom                  -0.3dB

Floor Tom                  -0.3dB

Main Vocal                -4.9dB

Solo Center               -3.8dB

Solo Edge                 -4.0dB

Solo Room                -4.0dB

Acoustic Left             -3.6dB

Acoustic Right          -3.6dB

Acoustic Room         -3.6dB

Master Fader             +2.1dB

 

Automation:

Solo panning L to R and R to L, approx. 75 to 75

Acoustic volume lowered during solo by -8.5dB

Reverb volume boosted in final acoustic section by +8.7dB

In the final week of recording we added the guitar solo and acoustic guitar. Callum set up the Pro Tools session, and Clem worked on the desk. James W, Ross and I set up Alex for his recording first, and the mics are listed below:

• An AKG 414, used as a room mic. We set the polar pattern to omni-directional, and had a bass roll off of 40Hz.
• 2 Shure SM57s placed in the same set up as with the guitar tracking, one placed at the centre of the speaker, and one at its edge. When the phase was reversed, they cancelled each other out nicely, and so produced a good full sound.

The actual recording went very well. Alex messed his solo up a few times, as the jack input on his guitar was a bit iffy, and this caused a crackle to appear on the recording. He stood up a bit, but then began to miss the first note after the first bend, and so sat back down again. The final take was a good one, so we then moved on the acoustic section.

I was providing this, so got myself set up while Ross and James W set up the mics for me. We used the same mics as we had done with the solo, but moved the 414 back against the wall and gave it a bass roll off 160Hz. We moved the 57s as well, one to record the fretboard movement and mid tone, and one to record the more bassy notes of the sound box. Setting levels took a while, but I managed to do the part in one take, so we finished up with plenty of time.

James Woodliffe had his turn in front of the mic this week, as we were recording the vocal track for the mix. Ross was in charge of Pro Tools, Adam was on the desk, and Alex and James Glenister acted as the engineers, setting up the mics we would be using this session. All of these had pop filters, to reduce the pop produced from any plosives. The mics were as follows:

• A Shure SM57. Another versatile mic. Its frequency response is quite similar to that of the SM58, a very affordable mic, which has a boost in the high mids where vocals tend to lie. There are no other settings to list.
• An Electro-Voice RE-20. This is a large diaphragm dynamic mic, and interestingly enough has no proximity effect, so is very popular for vocalists and broadcasters as a result. Alex and James G set this up with the Low Shelf setting switched on.
• An AKG 414. A staple mic, very versatile and good for vocals. We had previously used this mic for James’ guide vocals, which sounded very good, if a little rough, though that could be excused somewhat. This was set up in cardioid, with a bass roll off enabled at 160Hz.

With the desk zeroed and the Pro Tools session set up, we prepared to test the mics. Luke told us that finding the best mic for a singer’s voice was of the utmost importance for both the outcome of the track, and for the performance of the singer. Taking the time to find the best mic for a singer’s voice lets them know that you care about their performance, which can help to set them at ease.

The SM57 was the first mic we tested. On its own, the mic sounded very good. The sibilance in James’ voice was strong, and it sounded full and well rounded. The next mic was the RE-20, which has a very flat frequency response. This was very uniform and clear, but I felt like it lacked some of the strength that the SM57 had. We then tested the 414, which sounded alright, but I felt it was rather airy, and the appearance of a proximity effect was noticeable. This mic did possess more strength and punch than the RE–20 though. After these tests, I thought that the SM57 was the better mic, however, we then had James sing over the rest of the track, and there were a few points where the SM57 produced some overly high tones, which cut through the rest of the song. We eventually came to the conclusion that the flat, clear response of the RE-20 was the best fit, and so chose this mic to record with.

The first take was very good, though there were some slip ups, namely with the second chorus and the final vocal section at the end of the song. These were both fixed easily with the use of a pre-roll of 8 seconds. We re-recorded the second chorus twice and then finished off the session by redoing the final vocals.

I thought that the final line before the solo was a little quiet, and so may consider boosting that section in my individual mix. The guitar was also at odds with the vocals sometimes, so I think I’ll tone those down too. Overall though, the session was a great success, and the vocals sounded excellent.

We successfully recorded the guitar tracks this week, which Adam provided. He went into the live room to set up his guitar and sort out the amp to get the sound he wanted. Callum was on the desk and James Glenister was in charge of Pro Tools. I had had roles in the last two recording sessions, so for this I let others have a go. Alex and Clem were the engineers, and they helped mic up Adam in the live lounge. The mics we used are listed below:

• An sE2200aii Room Mic. We set this up far away from Adam and his amp, and set its polar pattern to Omni-directional, in order to better capture the sound of the room. We also turned on the Low Shelf EQ on the mic, helping to eliminate some of the unwanted lower frequencies.

• Two Shure SM57s, both positioned facing the amp. Alex and Clem positioned one right in the centre of the speaker, and the other on the edge. This makes for a different pickup. Playback mic at the edge sounded fuzzier, while the centre mic sounded crisp and clearer. As the mics are so close together they are in phase, so we reversed the phase on one of the mics and got a good balance of the two sounds.

Callum and James zeroed the desk and set up the necessary tracks in Pro Tools, and then we went into the live room to look at and photograph the mic set up. We disagreed somewhat with Adam’s choice of amp sound, but after some tweaking we arrived at something we all felt sounded decent. The room mic sounded nice when levelled, but the SM57s picked up quite a bit of unwanted low frequencies, so we used the Shelving EQ found on the desk to remove the frequencies below 50Hz.

The actual takes were done rather quickly. I was placed in charge of Talkback, and so relayed what Luke, and those on the desk and PC wanted done back to Adam.

We had some issues with a section of the song where a guitar fill is done, which we felt was putting Adam off his next chord slightly, so James Woodliffe went and talked to him and we agreed to drop it when recording the double-track. We had decided to double-track the guitar and vocals before, in order to give us more freedom when mixing the song individually. We also needed to re-record a couple of sections where Adam messed up slightly, but re-recording went smoothly, and we gave him plenty of time to get back into the song with 8 seconds of pre-roll.