21 Against
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21 Against |
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21 Against was in the US in early March, so naturally they took advantage of the opportunity to produce a recording of their new song "Inside Out" with Eric Vincent and the Curve Dominant team. Below, you see the band hanging out at my crib, practicing the new track.
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Managed by our friend and respected entertainment lawyer and artist manager Bernie Resnick, 21 Against is a really cool, hard-rocking band from Wales, UK. They were in the USA for a "whistlestop" tour for a few weeks, including a record release show for their new CD, "Nothing to Write Home About", in New York City at the Ace of Clubs. Knowing that I really liked this band, Bernie thought it would be cool to team us up to produce a track, and I was honored to take up the challenge.
The two photos above show the band in pre-production in the "lounge" area of Studio Curve Dominant. This is where we went over the basic arrangement of the song, and there, we recorded a rough Pro Tools version which would later serve as the basis of the subsequent recording session at Turtle Studios in the Old City district of Philly.
Above is a snapshot of the Pro Tools mix window of the rough version of "Inside Out" which we recorded in the Curve Lab. The channels from left to right are: the click track, Rich's guitar, Peek's bass, Paul's guitar, and Paul's vocal track. This session was recorded on Wednesday March 8th, and we were due to arrive at Turtle Studios for the tracking session the following morning, so it was imperative we get the song's tempo and arrangement down in this pre-production session. This is where the cross-platfom compatibility of Pro Tools really comes in handy: The session pictured above would open on the Turtle Studios Pro Tools HD3 rig exactly as you see there, so we could start working directly from this session as a reference.  Above you see the Curve Lab collection of analog mic preamplifiers and compressors I used to record the pre-production version of "Inside Out" into our Pro Tools 001 recording rig. The silver box at the top contains two channels of high-voltage tube mic preamps, which we do most of our recording with here in The Lab.
Above, you see where we moved the session over to Turtle Studios. This view looks out over the live cutting room (this photo was taken at about 11am that day, before the band arrived). The fellow crouching over the drum-micing setup is Jeff Hiatt, the chief engineer on the recording session at Turtle. To his right is Mark, my intern on the gig. I chose Turtle Studios for this session because it is, in my opinion, the most well-equipped, staffed and maintained studio in Philadelphia today. Its owner, Jay Levin, is also a very good friend and associate of mine.
Above you see Jason, Jeff's assistant and Turtle intern, setting up the drum kit. This is the house kit, but Wilf brought his own snare and cymbles, so the ones in this picture were not used.
The photo above is a view of the control room, and shows Jeff opening up the Pro Tools file of the Curve Lab pre-production session on Turtle Studio's Pro Control workstation. Turtle maintains a state-of-the-art HD3 Accel Pro Tools system with Apogee convertors, and top-shelf analog outboard recording gear by Millenia, API, Rupert Neve, Universal Audio, Drawmer, et al. They also have an exquisite collection of high-end microphones.
Above, you see Wilf laying down the drum tracks to the rough version of the song we recorded at the Curve Lab. Wilf is easily my favorite drummer since John Bonham (Led Zeppelin), and it was a real pleasure to record his playing on this session. Jeff did an exquisite job of micing his kit, but I won't bore you with all the details of which mics and recording paths that were used. You could record Wilf's drumming with tin cans and waxed string, and it would still rock the speakers.
Above, you see the enigmatic and charismatic Peek, laying down the bass line for the song the way rock & roll bass should be played: Big, phat, and groove for days. We actually went through some exotic recording configurations in order to faithfully capture his sound, but it was all worth it in the end, because his playing sits so well in the mix and really drives the song.
Above you see Paul Jones (holding the Fender Mustang), the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, principle songwriter and mastermind of this incredible band. Paul is in the control room with Jeff discussing a take, with Peek looking on from the back of the room. Paul played the rhythm guitar parts from the control room, with the Vox AC30 guitar amp in the cutting room set to a blisteringly loud volume.
Now it was time for Rich to lay down the lead guitar tracks, as the above photo shows him tweaking the settings on the Vox AC30 for maximum rock&roll.
Above you see the guitar amp recording configuration, which was my idea, and we used it throughout the session. The basic concept of this method was taught to me by Greg Platzer (BCR Music). It consists of placing a dynamic mic in front of the speaker cone, and hanging a large diaphragm condensor mic behind the amp (in this case I've got both mics positioned off-axis). Each mic is recorded to a discrete channel, and panned opposite in the mix, for a righteously huge sound. Also note how I lifted the amp up off the floor by placing it on a piano stool. This minimizes the low-frequency rumble a loud amp will emit which muddies up the sound (the vibration of the amp travels through the floor and the mic stands into the mics - lifting the amp off the floor eliminates this effect and thus makes for a cleaner signal).
Rich is now rockin' out y'all...
...here comes the guitar break in the song, and Rich cuts loose with it. His Gibson Les Paul has a great set of pickups for a really sweet tone. 90% of getting a great guitar sound in a recording, is great guitarists playing high quality guitars, and 21 Against had that part down easily. Both Rich and Paul nailed their guitar parts all the way through the song in just one or two takes, and I didn't have to do any copy-pasting in the edit stage.
Above: Peek singing harmony vocals on the pre-chorus "Better I am not..." section of the song. Peek has a rich baritone voice which blended well with Paul's tenor. The mic is a Soundelux U-195, the same one we used for Paul's lead vocals.
Tired but happy, that's your's truly at the end of the day, and from the look on my face you can tell I was not disappointed with the results. Even listening to the rough mix off the console, it sounded fantastic. In the course of an 8 hour session (including a 1 hour lunchbreak), we got the entire song recorded, overdubs and all. A very productive and enjoyable day.
Above: Right back where we started, at the Curve Lab. This is where I mix the tracks we recorded at Turtle, and it illustrates the cool thing about Pro Tools: How we can go back and forth between studios, working on the same sessions, without a hitch, no sweat.
Above you see the mix window of the final track, with the Bomb Factory Vintage 1176 Compressor plugin on the 2-bus. |
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All content ©2009 Studio Curve Dominant |
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