Recording A Full Rock Band with Warren Huart & Mike Arango at Cellar Door Studios

[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thanks [Music] [Music] get the footage of me forgetting what I was patching laughs seriously where's the damn digging there it is the real stuff there it is this is the real stuff man you make one bad patch and then you have to start over and Trace everything we're doing okay right now for now okay Ryan listen to the room mics just hit something [Music] so these are not detented right yeah okay thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'm just listening to the bass whenever [Music] so it sounded better now not as not distorted out there [Music] all right so the other thing I would think about is that we're still going to mess with the tones a tiny bit but you just you want to still do it and get the the form down now yeah okay all right you guys play a tiny bit and let me see what I'm getting here all right here I'll give you a click and we'll see if this crashes and burns or not tonight we ride arrival wrong tonight we sail on a radio song okay we get that structure right all right I'm turning myself off then a break then we're gonna go through and do all the here's the kick drum and all that kind of stuff all right so we'll take a look at the mics on the kit so we'll start on the kick so inside kick and actually the the kick is so my house kit is a DW performance series kit really great sounding Kick Drum the whole kit is really great especially for the price for the kick we use this all the time people bring in drum sets and we'll use maybe some of the other Toms we'll use this kick a ton it just works I really really love it so inside the drum all right the D12 VR from AKG I I love this thing as well it doesn't sound like a D12 like one of The Originals so I kind of wish they would have called it something different but um but honestly it's got this you can feed it phantom power and there's these EQ curves on it which I have tested out and I mean honestly I probably could use them in some stuff but I usually don't use it I just use it as the the plain old dynamic microphone and then EQ it to taste great sounding mic I get a ton of low end out of it honestly um so I have a sub kick I'll use sometimes but sometimes I oftentimes when I'm using the sub kick I'll be using it for actually some low mid Distortion kind of stuff and pushing that it's it's kind of a different way to approach that because there's so much low end that you get out of this thing then you have the United Studio Technologies ut47 fat which I love um the it's a 900 microphone and does what you want a 47 fat to do on the outside of a kick it gives this this this poof just this realism and also this length to the kick drum generally and then um especially for the type of music we're doing right now for this Tom Petty tune um I'm pulled off of the batter off the batter head off the beater um about as far as this is from this head gives me a little space lets things develop and then also phase lines on so I'm not having to use any kind of trick there or phase alignment tool so moving over to the snare got the buyer m201 great microphone you know 57 obviously great on a snare and we all know what uh what 57 is going to sound like on a snare but this thing just works I really like it pulled a little further off the snare than we sometimes will be um we talked a little bit about the the bleed and kind of the sacrifice we're making there bleed versus just getting a little bit more air around the snare we're trying to open up the snare a little bit and this is where we where we ended up but good sounding snare this is a this is a supraphonic I mean Ludwig's super phonic I have this whole rack of fun snares behind me and a huge percentage of the time we're recording super phonics it's the most recorded snare drum in history um gun sounding drum you can usually get what you want out of it so on the hat we have the 451 we did move it around a small little movements on this can can really change quite a bit on a set of hats like this we wanted a little bit more crispness out of what Ryan was playing there so we adjusted a little bit moved it a little bit towards where he was actually sticking where he's actually hitting the uh the symbols and that I think gave us what we were looking for and a little bit of a chunk just to bring the focus on that hat in the picture that the overheads were already painting this was a pretty straightforward kit so kick snare had a couple of crashes just keeping things simple for this session and also for the number of input channels we had on the board just try to keep things simple overheads these ma1000s so David Royer's version of a 251-esque microphone I just love those things great sounding tube microphone it has the top end the brightness of that style of microphone but still some body it's still balanced I just absolutely great placement ended up a little different you know normally I'm making I'm really careful to split this axis down the middle and I really do like to have my kick and snare as much down the middle of the overheads as possible in this case a little that went away we didn't have the floor tom there I was trying to split the difference between the snare and the and the Crash over here and then pick up the snare the um hat and the Crash over here so I ended up with a little bit slightly wonky placement there but it sounded good and everything was face coherent and supporting the snare and it was all constructive so like that so I'll do this microphone this heart microphone you know we move it around a bit sometimes it really really works sometimes it's just fine you know but it's just picking up the kick and the snare and this is it just gives a little bit more lens a little more realism to the to the kick especially but then it can sound really cool with the uh with with the snares or was it picking up From The Snare as well and everything the the rule is to make everything or the name of the game is to make everything as face coherent as possible so it's all supporting the other drums when you pull them up and um it was doing that enough for us in this case the we can get a close-up shot or I think we did already of the of one of these that I have in the control room but this little little niant microphone it was one of these little like 20 microphones that somebody builds into these Canon connectors really cool fun little microphone and I stick it in there it's you know this is all treatment this is all soft so it's sucking up all the high end um and down kind of near a corner and just trying to get some crunchiness out of the the room out of the drum kit without it being overly bright because of course when you go and start compressing stuff you end up with all the symbols coming right up so that right there just works really well generally with the kit and really supports things this mess right here I don't have the biggest room here and it's definitely a uh it's definitely on the dead or more controlled side of things so my trick in here is try to make things sound a little bit bigger and to get some more length out of the drums um I have a u47 in here a signal art e47 that Chad built me and great sounding microphone this is just capturing the Reflections in this little diamond and off the floor to try to lengthen the room a little bit it does an okay job you know this room's never going to sound huge but that does give me a little bit more personality so between one two or three of those kind of color microphones you can kind of get what you're after for rooms I had to approach this a little bit differently just because we had the whole band in here we I do that occasionally but a lot of times I'm tracking instrument by instrument and I kind of place the mics wherever I want to in this case we had keys set up over here we had guitars strumming away over here so I had to figure out how to place things definitely didn't have the guitarist as off access from a ribbon microphone as I would like to but he was far enough it was down at this level so I don't think we picked up a whole lot in the rooms this worked you know the challenge was the uh what was the the kick drum and just the quick slap back kind of delay that you get on on that I think I would wager that when we or when anybody mixes that track they'll end up taking some of that kick out of it but you know the top end sounded pretty good and these ribbons great microphones r84s by uh aea we had keys over here that were going directly into a lunchbox that Dave from API lent us with the 512 vs on it so those have a high impedance input so we could just feed right into that with the keys and then take them line level control room and it sounded good then we had inside that same lunch box we had the 505 dis and we're feeding the base into that from the through of the sansamp base driver so we get a little bit of grit on it so it would cut through that track all right so we're gonna listen to the kick in let's hear that please that kick in is the D12 the new version the AKG mix awesome sounding microphone 40 Hertz really sounds great on that just a little just a boost on that I'm going to take out some of the mid-range here like we always will I actually have it on 200 I wonder if that would sound better if we bring it up a little bit into the 400 range let's take a look take a listen foreign peek at 5K so going for kind of more of a punch rather than a slap on this just for this genre of music then listen to the outside kick [Music] this is the ut-47 fat amazing sounding microphone and it does that that that thing that kind of pillowy kind of out outside kick thing that the u47 fit has always done so [Music] yeah this one I have actually so it fits at 50 hertz Little Boots actually 4 DB of boost and then we're doing I did end up taking out some [Music] 200 Hertz for that I wonder [Music] surprisingly that does sound better to me and then we're doing the uh this one actually put some air into it that's that's 10K and we're getting a little bit of bleed from all these drum microphones we're gonna bleed into the into the the kick and everything like that but it's all constructive Bleed It All does sound pretty good and then we'll honestly we'll layer the samples back in that we're taking here at the end of the session layer those in and distance that a little bit [Music] yeah it sounds good [Music] and the two together sounds like a kick all right let me hear that snare top please I kind of like more of a boost around 200-ish 220 or so on the The Snare but I think we're getting a little too aggressive with it yesterday it was kind of masking the top of the snare so we're going to leave it like this for now taking out some 400 Hertz it takes on the boxiness out of the snare this stuff [Music] further carve that up and mixing it's been some 10K ended up with a 4 DB boost at 10. you bring it down too much on this one so it's not doing what we wanted to do sounds good Ryan to mess a little bit with the snare and [Music] got it to pop a little bit more it's not a little more open and then we're feeding it through the mc77 down here just tapping it a little bit about the fastest release and then I I had the attack real slow but like that a little bit better a little more pop with whatever he did to the snare he's messing with it snare bottom [Music] sometimes I can get some usable low end out of that it's not really what we're after but sometimes you can get it [Music] foreign take out some of the boxiness it's usually around 400 so on on the API the 550 EQ which I love we have the option of 200 400 600 Hertz so on the bottom snare it's not necessary to get any kind of low end out of that but I think a lot of us are usually getting some of the punch in the snare out of 200-ish 220. um depending on the snare of course and the fundamental of it but yeah 400 is usually not for not the prettiest frequency so it's that kind of stuff [Music] the 600 isn't real pretty there either but the uh I'm taking that out makes sense I don't know that I even boost anything on the bottom snare here you can always do that in the plug-in in the box when we're mixing but probably make it too brittle sounding well listen to overheads Let me hear the whole kick the whole kit please [Music] so these are the ma1000s that those Mojave microphones just amazing sound and basically David Royer's version of a of a 251-esque kind of microphone just amazing sounding bright on the top end without being harsh tiny bit of EQ on them again taking out some of the boxiness of the taking us on the boxiness of the drums overall I think I'm cutting I ended up taking out a little 240 actually a little boost on the top end at 5K and a little bit on the bottom at 50 actually I don't normally necessarily get low end out of the uh overheads and we can always chop that off later but right now it sounds good and then no compression Ryan really balances himself quite nicely so I'm not using any kind of compression on it right now [Music] thank you [Music] he was playing a little harder than he was earlier so I'm just [Music] it's playing a little harder than he was earlier since monitoring the input level to make sure we're not going to clip there [Music] [Music] and this might be from working with Warren for so long you know he'll he'll sometimes use a 57 or maybe a 57 with a in combination with a condenser to get some more of the the chicks that kind of meet out of the out of the hi-hat that's kind of what I'm going for here there's more top end because it's a 451 so it's pretty bright but it's given us I think what I'm looking for out of that we had messed with the mic placement a little bit earlier just to make sure that um we're getting a little bit more of that attack and that chick as opposed to the Washi kind of qualities of where you can sometimes get out of the Hat depending on where it's placed that seems to be working [Music] all right so now we get into some of the the fun microphones so I'll end up showing you I have a mic that I placed in the middle of the kit I call it the the heart of the kit you know people call it crotch mic and that kind of stuff but we're trying to get um it works really well there's no Toms on the kit right now but it works really well when you are trying to glue all that stuff together and have the Tom hit we'll push the kick or the snare down that kind of thing um it'll work in this case with the kick in the snare Etc and that's this one [Music] thank you think of like um kind of like the some of the John lucky records like the the Benz we did with Radiohead some of this you can just picture the the front head of the and this is actually making it from the from the back from the resonant side of the head but you can just you can picture the drum right in front of you you know the kick drum gives it some of that personality um I have a pretty small uh room it's not it's not tiny by any means but but it's not huge so I try to make it sound bigger any way I can so in this case this if my mono room what I have here is um I have gobos out there and I've built a little little Diamond basically and I put a u47 from from signal Arts Chad over at signal Arts makes really great u47 Recreations so I have one of those in there and it's just catching all the stuff that's bouncing around off of the wood floor and the wood reflective side of the gobos and makes the room sound a little bit bigger and these are the you know these are the fun mics to play with so over in the corner I have oh where is that thing this little thing and I I want to say it's not yeah niant n-a-i-a-n-t it's just this person or a company I guess that builds these little mics into you know into the Canon connectors for uh for for microphones and they're fun they're fun they're in you know my body it was 15 or 20 bucks got a pair of those and it's another one of those texture kind of microphones [Music] so that's over in the in the corner right in front of treatment so it's it's extremely absorbative down in the corner so it kind of exaggerates the low frequencies as opposed to sounding two top heavy and harsh and that thing and the thing is that I mean not all these mics will get used on a mix or maybe they will I mean you know you take two of them and they can sound like a lot of fun together [Music] but it just gives us options at mixed time and we go through and make sure everything's face coherent as face coherent as rooms room mics can be and that they're kind of constructively adding to the kick and snare and not taking away from you blend them into taste moving on to the stereo room microphones so a lot of times in this room I'm tracking drums without the rest of the band so I have a little more freedom as to where they're placed we have these uh these ribbons on the back side of the gobos just to try again to make the room sound a little bit bigger we're never going to escape the the sound of the small room and the more the immediacy of a of a kick in a small room especially but some of that can be chopped off and then I think with a little bit of compression these rooms could be decent sounding I mean it sounds sounds like a like a like a room [Music] [Music] so data from API is here and he brought over these uh the the eqs the sv-14 so we're using those for this and then I'm actually going to try to patch in the sv12 compressors that you brought over as well and we'll hear how that sounds and if it's benefiting us to I don't know that we'll crush the room but maybe control it a little bit with that okay take a break I'm going to patch in these compressors that Dave brought and then we'll see if they're useful all right let's hear it I'm gonna figure out if I got the patch right on the compressors how about that see what these things sound like [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] they have a fixed attack and release so I think I might just use them to control the rooms a little bit and I'm not going to get creative cruising kind of compression or what have you I think that when we go to mix that we'll probably have a little bit more control over that a little bit more choice of just how it gets used they're kind of cool though all right [Music] frankly maybe some compression after we decided to take out some of the low end on it I've already got it cut here but I think I just need a filter to give her some of that possibly and then mess with compression that's cool you can hear what the thrust circuit it's the same thing they have on there on their bus compressor and everything where the thrust the circuit is doing it just changes the uh the um uh side chain effectively how it's reacting to the mid frequencies that's what the thrust is [Music] foreign [Music] level match and see what they're what it's really actually doing to the signal I can see this controlling the kick on this side but I kind of just want some of that energy out of it anyway [Music] all right [Music] foreign [Music] but I mean it sounds like it's a little more open for room mics in the flat position I'm not going to hit them real hard on the way in but it's connecting it's controlling things a little bit that's where the Peaks are concerned you'll hear how that sounds with the rest of the kit here [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] there's actually a good amount of bleed on the on the on the hat from the crash it all seems to be constructive it's not creating any kind of real phase issues that I'm hearing so I think this will all work out [Music] as Ryan would say it sounds like drums so I think we'll move on to base [Music] all right so we're gonna listen to the base a little bit here [Music] all right so everything's coming through the console for this whole session that was kind of the point so we're tracking and monitoring everything on the on the console so Andy's playing base his J base it's coming into the API 505 pre we have a lunchbox out there with the 505 pre and then some other 505 di in this mother pres that we're using for the keys so we're feeding in the uh direct from the DI [Music] so that's the API di 505 then we decided to give it a little 2db Goose at 100 I love the 800 on these 550s I mean that that's just that's like the frequency so that's I actually got six DB on that [Music] and then a little 2.5 okay couldn't even push a little bit more [Music] bring a little finger out the sound of the finger and we have a base driver as well do a little Distortion that helps cut through the mix when it comes down to it um a little bit more this doesn't sound like an SVT but a little bit more of that kind of uh and that kind of grind to it that I find kind of cool I think I'll run about 50 hertz on that sounded good more of the 800 in my opinion sounds good and it's more 2.5 so yeah that sounds with the drum tracks and everything and then running that through the the Retro the 176 which this thing is just awesome um using primarily API stuff was for some of the compression we have some other stuff in here so with this thing you have the this inner stage Transformer you can switch in or out we had it out but I might be liking it in [Music] [Music] actually almost controlling some of that fartiness that we're getting out of the thing earlier so that's the interstage Transformer you have this asymmetry which makes a big difference on some sources [Music] we settled on earlier and I think that's still probably the right choice so the goal is to make this the base sound great and kind of cut on smaller speakers and sound good without the sub but yeah I like how that sounds [Music] all right let's move on to guitar [Music] so our goal here we're not necessarily trying to duplicate that that track we're trying to get some of the vibe and he was going for a more there's there's some Drive in there but it's pretty pretty clean and you can hear the notes in those chords on the originals that's what we're going for here um I have a 57 and a 121 on the amp and it sounds like we got them back to where they about where they were [Music] it's good have you'll need a tune before we play but you'll hear what you can hear what you expect from a 57 there and I think I did give it a little uh EQ yeah boost at 200 actually and uh we'll cut it 600 I ended up with [Music] definitely not a break sounding speaker there and actually a lot at 2.5 coming through there again [Music] yeah I might go check the mic placement again and make sure it hasn't drooped because it sounds like real dark but I mean it sounds good and sounds like it's in Phase with the with the 121. [Music] 121 is a darker mic to begin with but it sounds like it's reasonably dark in there um boost at 100 cut at 600 again so yeah that must be what we're liking on that amp boosted 5K on this one though [Music] then we're taking that out so we're like we discussed we're going to use the as much of this board as as possible I didn't even mention earlier on the on the drums that the hat and the rooms they're coming directly out of the insert output what I have here everything in red is what we're tracking this way I can use the I can drive into the priest if I want to and then attenuate them into Pro Tools or whatever compressor they're going into or what have you but we need the monitor right so we got the a click if we want to hear it that's being fed just to the drummer out there just to Ryan kick snare drums bass guitar and keys so I need that real estate there I need to be able to monitor these so for hat and rooms those are going directly out of the insert and then I'm still using the fader return this is so it's not an inline console you can kind of use it that way or you can use it as totally separate pieces like this I'm using the pre separate from the fader and not using it to attenuate the input at all so in this case with both the base and the guitar I'm feeding those [Music] through the the bus outputs and then taking those into in this case the the serpent cool sounding La 3A style compressor and you know the meter's not moving a whole lot it's it's probably doing a reasonable amount to the uh the signal actually [Music] let's hear those those open chords again please [Music] all right all right so tricky thing there is that the different the the levels a little bit different so the bypass is actually louder which we might think sounds better maybe it does um in this case though I like that it's it's controlling it just a little bit it's not doing a ton to it um somebody could really mess with these things after the fact that they want to and compress them quite a bit more and then honestly what I'll do on some of this stuff because this is nowhere near as bright as the uh the the guitar currently that's on the actual Tom Petty track um but I'll take an EQ like this this is a DSP based one so we can use it while we're tracking I'll do something like this to say hey if I really did want to [Music] thank you we gotta ignore the tuning of the guitar but the um but that just you know if somebody really wants to get it brighter and kind of put it in its compartment in that track then that's that's why I'm doing that and just making sure I haven't made it sound funny when people go and boost those for those frequencies that everything's there for people to mess with so it's thicker sounding that it'll end up on the mix but I think it sounds good foreign 's also cutting out a tiny bit of low end it sounds like which is not a bad thing on this I mean we're everything I'm doing over here is trying to brighten the amp up but yeah it seems to be working so I think we'll move on to keys and make sure we're getting the signal there all right Ben we're gonna move on to keys thanks so we're getting a lot of noise off of the the base input just you know the combination of the base driver and the DI and some compression and all that kind of stuff um but I mean it sounds great and this track's not going to be an issue but that's uh that's where I'm getting that noise from I think as far as keys go this is just a line check he's just feeding in with an RD rd88 from Roland it's going into the 512vs from API so you have both a preamp input and then a variable output so you can adjust the the output level kind of like what we're doing with the faders here that was huge for them to add that to their 500 series stuff and then just feeding directly into into Pro Tools from there all right go ahead and play Josh please [Music] and then what what's it sound like when you play the uh the part for the song simple there you go we got signal on that we're not eq'ing compressing any of that kind of stuff that can always be messed with afterwards and then of course making that on the original track I mean that that that that that texture is there surrounding the base and the guitar and it's really subtle in parts of the mix but it [Music] makes parts of that song in my opinion so we're mixing it can mess with that and make it hopefully hug the guitar on the bass in that same way or a similar way foreign sounds good we got signal from everybody so we can start whenever all right say when [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] so sometimes the meters on the board it's so fun to push the input of this thing can you really get them going you start hearing things like what is that and it's sometimes the the meter is just going nuts and smacking against the so I think that's what I was here in [Music] laughs [Music] foreign [Music] kind of thing on the keys before it goes into that verse foreign [Music] I'll run you back there so you know where you're at and then try to punch you okay [Music] you can always you can take a pass of the whole the whole thing if you want to all right maybe toss a tambourine down sir [Music] excellent that pretty much does it I guess we move on to second guitar [Music] all right you ready foreign [Music] yeah I like it are you happy with it yeah I think it's good you want to get another tone then for the second guitar with the Jazz master you switching amps or no okay good so this amp was not as noisy as it is right now when we put mics on it earlier today but it sounded okay so we're just using the good old r121 you know Aurora 121 and a 57 on this um very important is getting the the the the elements lined up to keep everything as in Phase as possible not that them being slightly out of phase I mean that'll just effectively filter the signal and if it sounds good it sounds good but the element in the in the 121 is set slightly back and that's what makes the front and back of the mic sound slightly different you know one the back side is actually brighter and then the 57 the element is further back it's near the band so it's further back than people think it is um when it comes down to it if it sounds good and it's not phasey um then that's that's what you want uh definitely wasn't getting the the bite and everything out of it that I thought I was going to get out of the 57 so we added a good amount of mids and top end um but I think we got there to a pretty good tone that'll work in a mix when somebody carves it up a bit so [Music] I think it sounds I think it sounds great [Music] [Music] [Music] all right so I'm going to try to sing this vocal do we have another engineer in the house oh Mike how are you you so we're gonna have Mike sing a little bit here and uh just acapella before we go into the track and the way he's way he's got it set up here as it's going fader two which is interesting fader to the tube Tech which I don't normally do normally that's just failure to tape but I like the idea of that because then I could just use it if I want to push the compression a little bit harder tonight we ride right or wrong tonight we sail on a radio song Rescue Me should I go down if I stayed too long trouble town oh [Music] acne baby yeah you break me into but you move me honey yes you do now and again I get the feeling well if I don't win llama gonna break even rescue me should I go wrong if I dig too deep if I stay too long oh yeah you wrecked me baby yeah you break me into but you move me honey oh yes you do nice one more for the kids and I think we'll have enough to for a decent company but no double um yeah no I'm not worried about the vocal at all a double would make it just easy you could just confidence together as a pair and Bob's your uncle you know what I mean I think it'll sound really really good Bob's your uncle takes me back I know we don't have no stuffing I can't Pat doing Pat doing Pat doing Debbie Boone is yeah was it what it was it was uh no stopping um no stopping no mistakes no pressure [Laughter] [Music] two three four will I be the boy in the corduroy pants you'll be the girl at the high school dance run with me Wherever I Go and just play it down whatever you know oh [Music] yeah you wrecked me baby yeah you break me into me honey oh yes you do you wreck me baby yeah you break me into me honey oh yes it do [Music] great fantastic uh we have plenty of Tanks all right yeah now I think building a double on that is going to be really quite straightforward um yeah great work yay come here girl go Mike Durango [Music]

Channel: Produce Like A Pro

Views: 27,520

Keywords: Warren Huart, Produce Like A Pro, Home studio, Home recording, Recording Audio, Music Production, Record Producer, Recording Studio

Id: vv14aATtoQ4

Length: 59min 24sec (3564 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 10 2023