The first thing you’ll notice here is the range of musical styles and genres present in my portfolio. Although these are each quite far from each other, I feel I’ve successfully applied my personal production methodology and ideology to each one and in that sense, they are all linked very closely.
Portfolio
Inspiration
I am heavily influenced by the recording, mixing and production methods of the 1960s and 70s, where studios cost a lot of money and had limited time and artists viewed studio time as a luxury. In 1970, the average price of a professional studio was between $50-200 in major cities like London, Los Angeles, New York and Nashville. On top of this, some studios charged for tape reels as well as engineering and equipment. Due to all these reasons, artists often recorded their music live and in minimal takes This was a very popular decision in Motown music, with studio bands learning paying-artist’s songs to record them in quick succession. The recordings went through an analog desk (Neve, API, Harrison, Trident, etc.) to be lightly EQ’d, then printed onto 16-track tape. Artists recording this way would be able to record a number of completed tracks by the end of their session, probably the most famous example being the Beatles’ “Please Please Me” which was fully recorded and mixed in a single three-hour session. When you pick up on “mistakes” they made, you are instantly reminded that the people playing these instruments or singing the song are flawed humans, just like yourself, which allows me to connect more with what I’m hearing.
My production method chases these choices, but combines them with the luxuries of digital ease we have today; I love to record an artist’s song from start to finish, often playing together if it’s possible, and keep cuts and edits to a minimum. To me, this allows the recorded music to breathe in it’s own space, and when inevitable mistakes or nuances arrive, I invite them into the music rather than trying my best to get rid of them. Recording artists this way also puts a small amount of pressure on them to not “mess up”, which in itself makes the performance better. In the modern “standard” way of producing, artists feel they can amend mistakes in instrument/vocal takes as many times as they want, which subconsciously restricts them from performing at their very best. With that small amount of pressure, the amount of humanisation that is added to the recording increases tenfold, opening the recording up from partly robotic and lifeless to a unique and characterful entity.
In my opinion, modern over-produced music (such as today’s pop, rap or metal) has so many cuts and takes and post-recording corrections it sounds disconnected to the human, whereas music from the 60s and 70s feel like they are playing in the room you’re sat in, due to how naturally processed everything was. I am fascinated by this way of working, and is something I strive for, something I want to keep improving and experimenting with. Not only recording this way, but also mixing. I’m a strong advocate for getting the source material sounding good before you commit to a DAW, otherwise it’s difficult to shape the sound how you like. In my presented portfolio, you will hear great and not-so-great recordings, that have all been mixed using analog-style EQ plugins. Over time, I have realised that I have barely needed to EQ things due to the quality of the initial recording, which has saved me a bunch of time and energy into making these tracks sound the way they sound. I’ve also heavily utilised tape machine plugins, and done lots of research into traditional recording chains, and I have done my best to replicate these chains in a digital field to try place myself in that timeframe.
The reason I decided to go down this route was because of an article I read featuring John Frusciante and his engineer Ryan Hewitt, who explained he recorded all his 2004 solo efforts this way. I am a huge fan of Frusciante and these records. After I read how Hewitt and Frusciante recorded those albums, I wanted to attempt to recreate the magic I feel each time I listen to them. Limitations are what made all those records work the way they did, so I vowed to set limitations in my own productions to be able to yield a result far greater than I would’ve achieved without limitations.
Material Analysis
The most obvious application of my production methods are used in the jazz piece. Here, I best replicated the scenario of a live four-piece jazz band if they were in a 60s studio. They all played live with classic mic setups. The bass player sat in the control room and played through an amp in the hallway. The guitarist played an old Gibson guitar through a Fender Twin Reverb in the same room as the drummer. I used a wall to block some of the bleed from the drums and used the Glyn John’s technique. The sax player was located in the vocal booth with the door slightly ajar to allow some of the drums to bleed into their tube mic. Finally, I placed a ribbon mic sideways facing the walls to pick up the reflections of the sound as well as rejecting a lot of the main sound from the drums and amp. This setup created the perfect amount of bleed and quality that significantly helped before any processing. Across all seven tracks, I used a Neve 1073 plugin, no compression and a Studer tape machine plugin. The result: an open, natural and easy-listening sound that allows each instrument to thrive in it’s own space. This is a very strong example of how I want all my recordings to sound like. The only thing I would want to have done differently is the microphone choices; to use era-accurate ones, however none were available to me.
The two acoustic guitar and vocal examples are yet another experiment of utilising bleed, however this time they both feature a solo artist singing and playing acoustic guitar simultaneously, with overdubbed tracks recorded separately but in era-accurate ways similarly to the jazz recording. This technique involves two figure-of-eight microphones facing the vocalist and the guitar, while moving them around to allow the polar pattern’s side rejection to reduce the volume of each opposing instrument. This results in the guitar bleeding nicely into the vocal mic and vice versa, which is a perfect method of capturing an artist who feels most comfortable singing while playing their guitar. It was used on artists such as Cat Stevens, Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and many others. In these two examples, I recorded them the exact same way and used a Neve 1073 plugin with a tape machine plugin across all the channels, just processed them differently. In Maisie’s track, I used compressors like the 1176, LA-2A and Fairchild 670 to tame her dynamic singing and playing, which helped balance the consistency a lot. I also used these on the drums and piano. With the extra instrumentation and the use of subtle compression, the overall sound here is polished yet retains it’s vintage character which really fits the song’s vibe but most importantly, fits the vision of the artist. The thing I would do differently is record the bass through an amp rather than DI and use compression on less instruments and the vocal, automating their volume instead to get a more natural and human sound. These improvements are what I thought about and applied when producing the next example from my own song. Because the arrangement is so sparse in comparison and I made a peculiar panning decision to put the vocals on the hard right and guitar on the hard left, when you solo each side you can hear the bleed. I chose to pan this way as I wanted a more intimate feel, and having vocals by themselves gives me that sense of closeness. Furthermore, I used absolutely no compression yet didn’t automate the vocals. I did this because, although the levels were balanced enough already, when I hit a more powerful note, the bleed in the acoustic guitar picks up my voice more, moving it from hard right to closer to the middle and back. Also, human voices are not consistent, giving another reason why the lack of compression creates the sense of intimacy. Instead of using a DI for bass, I recorded an acoustic bass which captures the sound of the player’s fingers and the room.
Recording drums with the Glyn John’s technique is a big important factor to achieve the sound I want. For this reason, I did a few tests to identify problems with my setups to be able to get as close as possible to my sound for the future. In try one, I identified two problems: the kick wasn’t hard enough and the cymbals were “wobbling” due to the placement of the side microphone. I also used a bit of compression as the overall sound felt a bit flat. I did enjoy how the snare sounded with the room and the bleed of my guitar going into the mics. On try two, I opted to fix some of these issues. I altered the position of the side microphone and moved the kick mic around to get a punchier attack. I also placed a wall next to the amp to reduce the guitar bleed a little bit. The result: far greater than before. The snare seems even more lively with more natural room reverberation, the kick is tighter and there are no phasing issues. The hi-hat also had more presence and felt closer than before without being too harsh and I used no compression this time, which gave the overall sound a very open natural vibe. I used moon gel on the snare to tighten it up, but not enough on the toms, making them sound loose. In try three, I mic’d it specifically to be accompanied by other driving instruments. I took what I learned from the past two tries and worked backwards, taking away the kick mic because of an electronic kick being used in the final song and using more moon gel on the toms to sharpen them. It sounds a bit dark by itself, but in the context of the song it fits in very well. Instead of using compression here, I pushed the signals into the red on a tape machine plugin, saturating the sound a little and giving it natural compression to fit in with the rougher sound of the track. Finally, in the Ribbon Room example, I tried a new method entirely. I used a single ribbon mic on the kit, placed under the ride and above the kick pointing at the snare, then used stereo SDC mics facing the walls to capture reflections. I panned them hard to the sides, then blended in the ribbon mic. This result was extremely roomy, as if it’d been recorded from across the room. I love this sound as it feels extremely natural to how you would hear the drums if you were in the room listening at the time of recording. I do think the cymbals are a bit bright here, so next time I will dampen them with an EQ.
The most out-there example here is the hip-hop track, which largely used samples as well as a drum machine and a synth. Although none of this could be recorded with a microphone and I had to heavily rely and utilise modern DAW capabilities, I still did my best to keep true to my sound by using a Tascam 388 tape machine plugin on every channel, limiting myself to eight channels and only using the onboard EQ. My goal was to create a lo-fi sound by being minimalistic with my processing. I think this worked well for the most part, as the bass and drums blend well with the vintage samples, however I still find the overall mix a bit dark and muddy which is something I can improve upon. Although vocals haven’t been recorded, I wanted to use an SM57/58 with light compression from a blue stripe 1176. Using a budget dynamic stage microphone with the gritty characteristics of the 1176, I believe it would create a raw tone, fitting nicely in the song’s overall aesthetic.
Conclusion
Overall, I’m very proud of these directions I’m taking in my production. I strongly believe that each style of music here is represented well using my production values, even if some examples were practically impossible to reproduce precisely. For the next module, I would very much like to focus on two things: “tone-matching” elements of my favourite 60s and 70s records to be able to dissect and understand how a specific sound was achieved, and applying era-accurate processing to more modern and contrasting genres, such as electronic music, to hear the result of a combination between old and new.
Bibliography
Baccigaluppi, J. (2007) ‘42 / Mr. Frusciante’, in Tape Op 61. Los Angeles, California: Tape Op, pp. 42–48.
Lewisohn, M. (1989) The Beatles: Recording sessions ; the Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes ; 1962-1070. New York: Harmony Books.
Scott, K. and Owsinski, B. (2012) Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust: Off the record with the Beatles, bowie, elton & so much more. Los Angeles, California: Alfred Music Pub.
