10-04-2020, 11:44 AM
For this track I really wanted to keep the live feel of the recording, but also have some more control of the tracks to avoid too much room/reverb to have a touch more punch on the drums and clean up the inconstant volume on the vocals.
With the drums I created midi tracks to double the kick and snare to add some acoustic samples. The kick uses a 22" gretch round badge with velocity doubled to the recorded kick (Thanks Logic!). I mostly wanted a more low end thump for the kick because I thought a compressing the inner mic added enough attack. The recorded snare had an awful ring that EQ could only partially fix so I used I used a double compressed black beauty to get some more smack. First I compressed the midi velocity itself to have more consistent hits without being robot as the midi replace velocity was form 30 to 125. Second I used medium attack at 5db FET compression to add some more of that good ol' cut through snare sound. Because so much of the drums came through all the drum mics, as well as the vocals, I did not used the room or chamber mics and kept the overheads very low. The drum bus has light parrelel FET compression and a Magnetite for subtle warmth.
For the bass I split into 2 tracks, a hi cut/low cut at 200 so I could compress and clean up the low end while added mixing in some light saturation on the mids to color the sound.
The guitars and mandolin did not need too much. To control the highs on the mandolin I used a wide Q to lower around 5 k a few dbs, while adding a subtle boost at 800. The guitar track was fine, I added a small boost before and during the solo to lift it up a bit more, but not too much as the guitarist used an overdrive boost themselvse.
All 3 vocal tracks were processed through Melodyne for very light pitch correction, and more importantly, amplitude correction. The lead vocal has a few words drop too quiet while some other notes I felt were too high and I did not want to ride the compression too hard. A couple DB up or down on individual notes gave me a cleaner vocal track to work with.
My basic vocal chain is low cut, VLA-FET, VLA-2A, Decapitator, EQ, and Echoboy JR .. FET compression I am around 2-3 DB, with the loudest notes hitting up to 5 to tame the peaks. 2A compression was light both on gain push and peak reduction. I used light neve-style saturation to add some subtle color to the vocal tracks, and added some high shelf and EQ to the vocal tracks. The delay was short light and subtle. The vocal bus uses the logic stock studio FET compressor to lightly glue the vocals to the chorus. Over all I am happy with the result of controlling the vocal volume with light amplitude adjustment followed by several barely used compressors to make the vocals sound more even without sounding over processed. The last plug in the vocals bus is magneite to add some warmth and control the highs. All three vocal tracks were passed individually to little plate to add keep the feel of all vox being in the same room, but also have individual control over how wet to make each vocal. The reverb was high cut / low cut and kept short as there was so much bleed between the microphones.
Let me know what you think!
With the drums I created midi tracks to double the kick and snare to add some acoustic samples. The kick uses a 22" gretch round badge with velocity doubled to the recorded kick (Thanks Logic!). I mostly wanted a more low end thump for the kick because I thought a compressing the inner mic added enough attack. The recorded snare had an awful ring that EQ could only partially fix so I used I used a double compressed black beauty to get some more smack. First I compressed the midi velocity itself to have more consistent hits without being robot as the midi replace velocity was form 30 to 125. Second I used medium attack at 5db FET compression to add some more of that good ol' cut through snare sound. Because so much of the drums came through all the drum mics, as well as the vocals, I did not used the room or chamber mics and kept the overheads very low. The drum bus has light parrelel FET compression and a Magnetite for subtle warmth.
For the bass I split into 2 tracks, a hi cut/low cut at 200 so I could compress and clean up the low end while added mixing in some light saturation on the mids to color the sound.
The guitars and mandolin did not need too much. To control the highs on the mandolin I used a wide Q to lower around 5 k a few dbs, while adding a subtle boost at 800. The guitar track was fine, I added a small boost before and during the solo to lift it up a bit more, but not too much as the guitarist used an overdrive boost themselvse.
All 3 vocal tracks were processed through Melodyne for very light pitch correction, and more importantly, amplitude correction. The lead vocal has a few words drop too quiet while some other notes I felt were too high and I did not want to ride the compression too hard. A couple DB up or down on individual notes gave me a cleaner vocal track to work with.
My basic vocal chain is low cut, VLA-FET, VLA-2A, Decapitator, EQ, and Echoboy JR .. FET compression I am around 2-3 DB, with the loudest notes hitting up to 5 to tame the peaks. 2A compression was light both on gain push and peak reduction. I used light neve-style saturation to add some subtle color to the vocal tracks, and added some high shelf and EQ to the vocal tracks. The delay was short light and subtle. The vocal bus uses the logic stock studio FET compressor to lightly glue the vocals to the chorus. Over all I am happy with the result of controlling the vocal volume with light amplitude adjustment followed by several barely used compressors to make the vocals sound more even without sounding over processed. The last plug in the vocals bus is magneite to add some warmth and control the highs. All three vocal tracks were passed individually to little plate to add keep the feel of all vox being in the same room, but also have individual control over how wet to make each vocal. The reverb was high cut / low cut and kept short as there was so much bleed between the microphones.
Let me know what you think!