 |
|
|
|
|
|
“We used an old tube condenser for Irma Thomas’ vocal at Avatar Studios in New York City where we tracked the album,” recalls engineer/mixer Kevin Killen of his sessions for Our New Orleans, Nonesuch Records’ Hurricane Katrina survivors’ benefit album. “The mic preamp was a Neve 1073 A that we routed into a Manley compressor and then straight to tape. The mic was tilted about five degrees towards Irma with a pop filter positioned about five or six inches from the capsule. The rest was all Irma, and it was amazing.” Killen’s incredible resume includes Jewel’s Spirit, Peter Gabriel’s
So, U2’s The Unforgettable Fire, and landmark projects with Elvis Costello,
Shawn Colvin, Kate Bush, Bryan Ferry, and Tori Amos among many other notable
works. Kevin also recently tracked Allen Toussaint and The Dirty Dozen Brass
Band for Our New Orleans, and he has chaired several recent projects including
those for Duncan Sheik, Joe Perry, Shakira, Donna Lewis, and Rachel Sage. He’s
also recently tracked seven songs at Allaire Studios in upstate New York for
the new British artist Gary Go.
KEVIN: Initially it is the same, regardless of the project. I spend a few minutes listening to the instrument in the room, finding the sweet spot, and then trying to replicate that sound in the control room. Once I have achieved that, I quickly audition it in the track and then make adjustments. I find it is easier to demonstrate to the artist what that timbre is doing musically in order to see if it satisfies the song. It is then a lot easier to make adjustments based on the feedback I receive.
KEVIN: During rhythm dates I will often locate my own mic pre's in the room close to the source and run those at line level to the console. In some instances this eliminates the need for equalization, but I am not opposed to using EQ or compression. I compress elements if that is what it takes to get the artist excited, but generally I will do whatever is needed to get that buzz in the control room and in the musicians’ headphones. With vocals, I veer towards less compression on tracking but might apply some additional compression on the monitor path if it helps the singer. I'd rather add compression later when I have the full picture before me.
KEVIN: Experience, availability, and reliablity to reproduce what I am hearing are the most important factors. I don’t carry my own selection of mics from room to room, so I am often at the mercy of whatever microphones the studio has on hand. I want a mic to faithfully reproduce the sound I have gotten from the instrument or voice without too much coloration. It also must have a dimensional quality to it that I can place in the production.
KEVIN: I once produced a young English band called Subcircus. I really thought they would be huge, but it turned out to be just one of those stories we’ve all experiened. During tracking I wanted to try a toy drum kit on one song. The band thought I was crazy but indulged me, so we went to a local music shop and purchased one for $75. It was a tiny kit more suitable for a 5-year-old, but we got it back to the studio and configured a way for the drummer to play it. The footprint of the set was no more that a couple of feet, and as I listened I found a spot where it sounded great and placed an old tube valve mic there. When I opened it up in the control room it had this enormous sound that was diametrically opposed to its size! The band was stunned by the sound, so we ended up using it quite a bit. All in mono—and I loved it.
KEVIN: These days its poorly engineered tracks I deal with the most. With the advent of Pro Tools everybody thinks they’re engineers, and maybe they have some talent—but usually their sessions are dense, poorly constructed in terms of sonic design, and overly cluttered in terms of parts. We need to bring back 24-track sessions so that choices are made before the mix. It used to be that mixing was a four- or six-hour discipline, but these days it’s more like two or three days on some projects. A lot of people who have a $10,000 budget want it to sound like a $500,000 album, but you get what you pay for. In terms of engineering the premium you pay is not only for their talent, but also for their accumulated experience! At the end of the day, having quality people work on the project is more beneficial that spending all those resources on editing poorly played and sonically uninteresting parts. That’s just my opinion.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
© 2008 Vintage Microphones (a Galaris LLC company). All rights reserved. Compare Pro Audio Prices! |
||||||
