ROMESH DODANGODA: Why drums come first, mixing Bring Me The Horizon, and essential studio etiquette

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Churko, Billy Decker Fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected] and now your host. Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:00:32):

Levi Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi, and with me is someone who I have been trying to podcast with for I think almost literally a year now, something like that. If I go back into the emails, they go back pretty far, at least six months. So Mr. Romesh Dodangoda, thank you for being here.

Speaker 3 (00:00:56):

My pleasure. It's great to finally do it.

Speaker 2 (00:00:58):

Yeah, it's about time. For those of you who don't know who he is, you should know who he is and I'm sure that you know his work, even if you don't know that you know his work. He's the owner of Long Wave Recording Studio and Cardiff Wales where he's a producer mixer and he's worked with bands like Bring Me The Horizon Bullet for my Valentine attack attack. We've actually worked together on monuments. He's worked with kids in Glass Houses, has gotten to do great things like work at Abbey Road Mixing, bring me the horizon live at Wembley, and he's a cool person who believes in educating up and coming engineers. I see him doing this online, frequently inviting engineers to hang out at his studio for a day or going places and giving lectures. So I have a soft spot in my heart for modern engineers who do believe in educating people obviously. So thanks for being here.

Speaker 3 (00:02:03):

Oh, my pleasure. It's great. I'm glad we're finally doing it.

Speaker 2 (00:02:06):

And you're at my favorite studio in LA and possibly the us.

Speaker 3 (00:02:11):

I'm at Sphe Studios in LA and it's absolutely incredible here. It's kind of overkill for

Speaker 2 (00:02:17):

Recording a podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:02:19):

Yeah, I think Frank asked me if I wanted an 87 or something on my voice. I was like, bit overkill. But yeah, no, it's a beautiful studio.

Speaker 2 (00:02:31):

For those of you who have never seen it, just go to sphere studios.com. It's one of the most gorgeous studios ever, and their gear selection is,

Speaker 3 (00:02:40):

It's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (00:02:42):

Unbelievable. And they have a nice shower too with robes. Now the mixed subscribers will remember it from the am mure session, but let's talk about you, not the studio. No. So how's la? You've been traveling quite a bit. You just come from Australia. Also

Speaker 3 (00:03:02):

New Zealand. New Zealand. I got asked to do what's called a New Zealand producer series, which is they fly over a producer to basically come and do a session, but they have students who come in on the course and they basically get to watch how I do a track from start to finish, and I kind of break down everything I do. It was really fun. Everyone had a screen as well so they could see what I was doing, and I kind of got everyone involved in the session, so I would kind of talk about drum micing for me and stuff, and then I'd actually get them to do it. So yeah, it was really great and it was amazing to be able to ask to go over there. And then I did some one-on-ones with them. Then on the last day where they played me, they brought in sessions for me to have a look at and just kind of helping them as much as I can really.

Speaker 2 (00:04:01):

And this was in a university setting?

Speaker 3 (00:04:03):

No, this was in the studio. It was in Roundhead Studios. Oh, cool. Amazing. It's Neil Finn from Crowded House. It's his studio. They've got an amazing Neve there. And again, another beautiful studio with loads of great gear.

Speaker 2 (00:04:19):

So this is just something that they do. They just bring in producers to help educate people.

Speaker 3 (00:04:23):

So it's a producer friend of mine called Greg Aver, and he runs it and yeah, I think this is the second time they've run it, but they're already looking to do it again now. I think it was great. I think the students really got a lot out of it. And also it is kind of also for people who are already producers, it's kind of helping them level up again and there's a nice balance of people there. So some beginners, not beginners, but people who were trying to become a producer. Then there were also actual producers there as well.

Speaker 2 (00:05:02):

How do you find the recording scene in New Zealand? I know that sometimes place that are far off, I mean this with all due respect, but a little far off the beaten path. Sometimes there's not the same amount of opportunity or not the same level of facilities.

Speaker 3 (00:05:22):

It's an interesting question that I kind of spoke to a few people who really impressed me and I was like, are you busy? And they were saying that there's not a lot of work around because there's not that many rock bands. So I kind of talked to 'em about it and I said, well, you're a great mixer and maybe you can get some work from, it doesn't have to be from New Zealand. You can mix records from anywhere. But yeah, I don't know if there's a massive kind of recording thing going on there, but there's definitely some really great people out there.

Speaker 2 (00:06:04):

I've always wanted to go there.

Speaker 3 (00:06:06):

It's amazing. I went from Tokyo to New Zealand and the kind of difference was crazy because Tokyo is just absolutely hectic place and then New Zealand is just

Speaker 2 (00:06:17):

The future.

Speaker 3 (00:06:18):

Yeah, it is the future. Yeah, it blew my mind.

Speaker 2 (00:06:21):

Yeah, this Blade Runner.

Speaker 3 (00:06:23):

Yeah. Oh man. It's like I got out of the airport and I was just grinning. It was just like, this is amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:06:28):

Oh yeah, I love it there. I feel like I'm on another planet or stepped into a movie.

Speaker 3 (00:06:33):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:06:34):

It's unbelievable. So why did you go to Tokyo? Sorry if I'm butting into your personal business here.

Speaker 3 (00:06:41):

No, it's fine. Just a stop over. I thought if I hate flying for really long, long time. So I kind of split the journey up a little bit and I thought, well, if I'm going that far around the world, I might as well kind of stop and visit. So it was just a visit really.

Speaker 2 (00:07:02):

You're literally going all the way around the world though. So from England to Tokyo, Tokyo to New Zealand, New Zealand to LA and LA back to England.

Speaker 3 (00:07:10):

Yeah, I fly out tomorrow afternoon, I fly out.

Speaker 2 (00:07:14):

Man, that sounds like a cool trip.

Speaker 3 (00:07:16):

My jet lags going to be awful when I get back.

Speaker 2 (00:07:18):

Yeah, you're going to be hating life, man. I got to tell you too, jet lag never used to affect me, but these days I feel like it's an age thing for me because kind of like the whole thing with drinking when you're much younger, hangovers aren't so bad. But now I just don't drink because

Speaker 3 (00:07:38):

I need to clear a few days afterwards.

Speaker 2 (00:07:40):

Yeah, exactly. I'm not willing to have three days in my life just be erased from the calendar. I kind of feel like jet lag is kind of the same thing. I got back from Sweden recently and man, it was just like two days of hell

Speaker 3 (00:07:53):

Really

Speaker 2 (00:07:54):

Just trying to catch up just to feel normal again.

Speaker 3 (00:07:57):

Someone told me that melatonin's really good for helping you level out with the sleeping. I dunno if that works or not.

Speaker 2 (00:08:05):

There's one little problem with melatonin for me, and I know that this happens to a lot of people is that it causes vivid and I mean really, really vivid nightmares,

Speaker 3 (00:08:17):

Right?

Speaker 2 (00:08:18):

This is a known side effect. Some people just get the most vivid, primal, horrible, realistic nightmares and that

Speaker 3 (00:08:29):

I think I'll give that a mess.

Speaker 2 (00:08:31):

Yeah, it's like you fall asleep sooner, but your sleep, you're basically, you're in weird descend.

Speaker 3 (00:08:38):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:08:39):

In a torture chamber, mental torture chamber. So with that said, let's talk about you. So you've had the opportunity to work with some of the very greats in the metal genre. Can you talk a little bit about that journey and how you were able to build or reputation for excellence and basically ascend to the level of working with people bringing Horizon for instance?

Speaker 3 (00:09:03):

I mean, I used to work on, I still do, I work on a lot of pop rock stuff as well, but I guess the metal thing might have come from my drums maybe because I guess for me I like heavy records, but with real drum sounds and stuff like that. And I guess maybe it kind of started because I was using as much of that kind of stuff as possible. And yeah, I mean I remember when I did a record with a band called ssis, we did a record called Monolith. And even on that record, it's like I said to the band as well, I was really want the sound of the kit of the drums to come through rather than using piles and piles of samples and stuff like that. And I think for anyone who downloaded the monuments stems, you can probably hear on those that I spend a lot of getting the drum sounds right. And I think when you put it all together with all the guitars and stuff on a heavy record, I guess people kind of like that, I think.

Speaker 2 (00:10:20):

Do you think that's why monuments came to you? I know that John Brown is very big into real drums.

Speaker 3 (00:10:25):

Yeah, I think so. I guess in metal there's not too many because I think a lot of people go down by the programming route or the sample replacement route. So I guess that was the reason why I got called in to do it.

Speaker 2 (00:10:41):

Well, I think that I have a few theories on this. I think that most people deep down inside would rather have a great natural drum sound that's powerful and consistent, but let's face it, most drummers aren't that good. And I think that a lot of people just started develop, just didn't refine their natural drum production skills and started, it just became a thing that working with so many bad drummers over so many years, their skills became really sharp at working with super process samples, not so much with natural drums. And so even when they have the opportunity to work with a great natural drummer, a lot of these guys still tend to sample the hell out of them because they're not that confident in their natural drum production.

Speaker 3 (00:11:34):

I guess if you haven't had the opportunity to work with really great drummers then, I mean, I worked with Mike on the monuments thing and he is one of the best drums. Phenomenal. Oh, it's absolutely brilliant. And things with drummers is the better drummer they are, the more it allows you to do, if they control the symbols well then you're not having loads of problems with Bleed everywhere, the horrible kind of bleeds. So yeah, having great drummers just really, really helps.

Speaker 2 (00:12:08):

I feel like that's one of the, I mean not, I feel like that's the difference between a great heavy production and a not great heavy production is this all starts with the drums. If you don't have drums, you don't have

Speaker 3 (00:12:21):

Shit. I will not start doing any other part of the production until I'm sold on the drum sound because for me, if you get the drum sounding amazing, everything else just falls on top of it really easily. Like your guitars and your bass, it all just falls on top. But if you've got a bad drum sound going on or there's something not quite right, you end up trying to cover that sound with other instruments that you don't like the extra 20 guitars that you don't really need and just to cover it up a little bit. So I spend ages getting the drums and I don't even think about doing anything else until I'm super happy with that.

Speaker 2 (00:13:04):

What does ages mean in your world?

Speaker 3 (00:13:07):

I usually try and have a day set up time. I have a lot of drums and even if I'm traveling to another studio, I'll take a lot of my kits with me. So we do a day and then we might record a couple of songs at the end of the day, but I kind of spend the best part of a day trying different snares out. We'll see what heads we want to use in the kits. We'll try different Toms different kits. It's very common for me to not have a kit that's all from the same brand.

Speaker 2 (00:13:43):

Yeah, for sure. One thing that always used to when I was doing this full time always used to bum me out was when a drummer would have their sponsor company send us a kit

Speaker 3 (00:13:59):

Because

Speaker 2 (00:14:00):

Then we would be tied into using it and we would have to film separately from production instead of just capturing him recording because I wasn't going to let the scent drum set influence the best production decisions. If we want to use a different snare, we're going to use a better snare.

Speaker 3 (00:14:22):

I was having this exact conversation with someone yesterday and yeah, we were talking about it and it's like, I want to use whatever drums sound the best, and it doesn't really matter to me what deal the drum has got with the company. I want to use what the best sounding drums are.

Speaker 2 (00:14:45):

I feel the same about guitars too. And I mean, you can always shoot a play through afterwards.

Speaker 3 (00:14:51):

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:14:53):

I think that more times than not any drum set that I've ever been really happy with recording wise has been Frankenstein of four different kits or something.

Speaker 3 (00:15:04):

For me, I have a Grech 24 kick, which I love. I'm just such a huge fan of 24 kick drums. They have that real nice low end to them, and the shallower you go with those kits, the kind of more attack and punch you get out of them. And then I've got got quite a lot various options, but at the moment I'm really loving. I've got an old Yamaha recording custom from the eighties, and those Toms just, they sound amazing. They record really well. They tune really easily. So I might use an unmatched kit and then the snare will probably be different depending on what kind of sound we're going for.

Speaker 2 (00:15:50):

So speaking of tuning, do you hire a tech or do you do the tuning yourself?

Speaker 3 (00:15:55):

Sometimes if I've got the opportunity, I might bring someone in, but usually it's between me and the drummer. So I'll get the drummer to roughly get it where I feel it should be, and then I'll start, I'll do some of the listening to it in the room, but I'll kind of concentrate more when the mics are all up and then me and the drummer will kind of both do it together really. Do

Speaker 2 (00:16:21):

You ever find that sometimes drummers and bands are the worst tuners

Speaker 3 (00:16:24):

Of all? Yeah, then I have to try and step in. But yeah, if I can then, I mean, I'm kind of blessed. I work with quite a lot of good drummers, so most of the time they're pretty decent at tuning.

Speaker 2 (00:16:39):

Well, back to the monument session, one thing that was interesting about that session was it is kind of like a picture of how a lot of modern productions happened. The drums happened in one place, guitars happened at John's home, I believe I did the vocals in a whole other country, and then John mixed the music. So there's a lot of sending files around and lots of communication. How often do you get in situations like that and do you even enjoy it?

Speaker 3 (00:17:24):

It's not very often. Usually if I'm doing a record, I'm kind of doing all of it, but I think the album turned out amazing. Everyone did such a killer job on it. You have to make, when you're recording it, you have to remember that you are not going to be doing the rest of it. So the one thing I did with the drums is I used an NASA SL and I kind of got the balance as much as I can so that when my returns were at zero, you had a pretty good sound there. So I mean, I think the rooms maybe different there, but just a general kit, I wanted John to be able to take the files and have a fairly hassle-free way to take them and then start mixing with them.

Speaker 2 (00:18:18):

So it already sounds good. Levels up or faders is zero,

Speaker 3 (00:18:23):

Or it's at least kind of in a good ballpark.

(00:18:30):

I kind of do that all the time really with whatever I'm doing, because even if it's my own thing, I kind of like to have, if I'm tracking something, I'll have all my return fades at zero and then try and balance everything so that it sounds pretty good at zero, the rooms might be printed a little loud or quiet. It depends. But generally I kind of go for that because then I know that when I'm in the mix stage or something, if I'm at zero, that's kind of the sound that we had at the tracking stage. So

Speaker 2 (00:19:00):

Hey, one of the things that happens pretty commonly with now the mix sessions is that you just load them in and the songs already sound really good

Speaker 3 (00:19:09):

And

Speaker 2 (00:19:10):

It is just a testament to how good the people are who track the songs

Speaker 1 (00:19:16):

That

Speaker 2 (00:19:16):

We license for it. But that's really something that sets, kind of separates the men from the boys in a lot of ways is if you put the raw tracks in just faders up, does it already kind of sound all right?

Speaker 3 (00:19:31):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:19:31):

Not great, but alright.

Speaker 3 (00:19:33):

Yeah, I mean that was the whole, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for John. I mean, it's something I do anyway with myself. I like the idea of you push the failure to zero and it's in a good place. You're not having to gain stuff up and whatnot. The other thing that I do, which I think other people have started doing now, I'm sure I didn't come up with it first, but I have a numbering system on all the files because if you just send a bunch of files to someone, especially with drums and they just load them up and they're all in some crazy order, every time I put a 0 1, 0 2, 0 3 on every channel, then that way when you give the files to someone else, it imports in the exact order that you've been working on it. It makes it easy to communicate with when you're talking to 'em about certain file, exactly which one it is, and it just saves you the hassle as well of importing them into A DAW and having to rearrange them all and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (00:20:44):

I've started prepping files like that for our subscribers just because

Speaker 3 (00:20:49):

So easy

Speaker 2 (00:20:50):

It takes no time to do and it just makes life so much easier. I think that that's the big thing when you're working with other people. A messy person sometimes understands they get along on their own fine, they understand their own mess. So I think a lot of producers are like that when the project is going to stay with them at all times, but you just cannot. You can't be that way when you're working with other people.

Speaker 3 (00:21:22):

I think it's a bad habit to get into anyway.

Speaker 2 (00:21:25):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:21:25):

You never know. Someone might end up remixing the song and stuff, and if you've just got a load of files which don't make any sense, then it becomes a problem. So it's always good to do it from the start and then that way it's done. It's out of the way. And if you do ever need to give it to someone, it's an easy state.

Speaker 2 (00:21:46):

Absolutely. So there's another record though that you only did a part of that I want to talk about. You got to record the guitars for Motorheads Release, the World is Yours, which is one of those bucket list moments, I think.

Speaker 3 (00:22:05):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:22:06):

What was that like?

Speaker 3 (00:22:07):

It was amazing. It was really, really cool to be asked to do it. LaMi would send us files from the states and we did all the guitars basically on that record. Phil was in the UK at the time. It was incredible. Every day I turn up, I basically get to hear loads of amazing Motorhead stories, which I never get tired of hearing. Are any of them shareable? Or maybe not. Probably not. But yeah, it's just amazing. Phil's such an interesting guy and he's been in one of the biggest rock bands and he's just got so many great stories to share and he's been through a lot. And I guess doing the guitars, I was, I think a lot of what I do is there's some psychology and you're trying to read how the person wants to work, and obviously Phil's made so many records over the years, so you're kind of finding, trying to find somewhere that how he's comfortable working and stuff like that. You have to figure that stuff out. But we had a great time doing it. It was absolutely amazing. And then since then, actually just before I came here, I just finished, he asked me to make his new record with his new band. So we just finished doing that, which I did the whole record and mixed it as well. Oh,

Speaker 2 (00:23:38):

Nice.

Speaker 3 (00:23:39):

So the day before flying out, it was actually in Abbey Roads. We were just finishing the mastering. But yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:23:44):

I want to get to Abby Road in a second. I do have some questions about that.

Speaker 3 (00:23:48):

Cool. But

Speaker 2 (00:23:48):

Real quick, when working with guys that are some of the originals from that generation of the seventies and eighties

Speaker 3 (00:24:02):

Who

Speaker 2 (00:24:02):

Have been doing it for as long as some of us have been alive, do you find a different sort of mindset than you do with maybe musicians that are in their twenties and might be successful but haven't been as successful for five years or maybe 10 years? I

Speaker 3 (00:24:19):

Mean, I think my approach doesn't change too much. I was kind of always told by a really good friend who's a producer back when I was starting out, he said, never change what you do. The reason why you're being hired is because of what you do. So I mean, obviously with everyone I work with, there is a level of I'm trying to figure out how they want to work and stuff like that. But I mean, with Phil, I was just myself and I didn't really alter the way I worked. We just did what we did really.

Speaker 2 (00:24:56):

I was just wondering because I guess I've assisted on some records with bands that have been around for 30 years and stuff, and those guys tended to have their, I guess their requirements and their preferences down to an eighth of an inch elevation on a bass drum or things like that. They're just so set.

Speaker 3 (00:25:23):

They've been used to it for so long. I guess that if you've been doing it for so long, you kind of have things you like. I guess guess that might be a reason.

Speaker 2 (00:25:33):

Yeah. Makes sense. Well, without further ado, you've worked at Abbey Road a few times now, right?

Speaker 3 (00:25:39):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:25:40):

That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:25:41):

It is the most incredible studio in the world. I remember when I was younger, I had a photo outside, you're not allowed in there unless you're working there. And I've got this photo of me outside it as a kid because I was fascinated with the place. And then I remember the first day of actually going in and actually going into work and it's just an incredible feeling. You go in there and just all the history and you walk down the corridors and there's old tape machines and old EMI consoles around. It's just absolutely incredible.

Speaker 2 (00:26:20):

So your first time in there was your first time working in there?

Speaker 3 (00:26:24):

Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:26:26):

Did it seem real?

Speaker 3 (00:26:27):

It takes a little while to kind of settle in because it's just such an amazing place. I mean, you go downstairs and there's a big orchestra setting up to do a film score and Studio two is the Beatles room, and you just look at the live room. It's just such an iconic room. And then you've got Studio three, which is the kind of more modern room with, I think it's a 72 channel SSL in there. Yeah. It takes a while to kind of get your head around that you're actually in there working, but it's the most incredible place.

Speaker 2 (00:27:04):

I feel like it would be a place where I would only appreciate it after I left.

Speaker 3 (00:27:09):

Yeah, you get so busy. It's been multiple times I'm on the train home and you're just kind of reflecting on what you've done that day and when you're working there, you're usually really busy all day. But yeah, no, I agree. It's definitely one of those places where you look back and go, oh, that was amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:27:28):

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where whenever I've been around that level of history, it doesn't seem real when I'm around it. I guess when my band was on Oz Fest once and Ozzy would walk right by me, it just didn't seem real. It was just surreal and how awesome that was. Didn't sink in until,

Speaker 3 (00:27:56):

Yeah, it takes

Speaker 2 (00:27:58):

Six months later.

Speaker 3 (00:28:00):

The other great thing about that place is the in-house assistants are absolutely amazing. They're trained so well. I remember I was doing a vocal session there and we had two mics. We were running two mics because there were two singers in the band and just them reading the situation when we were about to change microphones for the first time, and I didn't even have to say anything. It was just done. Just gave, he just gave me a look and just nodded. Done. Yeah, they're absolutely really great stuff there as well, which is so important to any recording session.

Speaker 2 (00:28:42):

I agree. So you mixed bring me the horizon live at Wembley there.

Speaker 1 (00:28:47):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:28:48):

Why did, so, I mean, we all know that with mixing, you don't necessarily need the place with the best live rooms or orchestra pits. Why go through all that trouble to mix an album?

Speaker 3 (00:29:06):

Maybe I'll talk a little bit about the session. I actually mixed both live at Wembley and live at Royal Albert Hall in my studio. But what we did, I did the 5.1 Wembley mix at Abbey Road in the penthouse. Ah,

Speaker 2 (00:29:24):

I see.

Speaker 3 (00:29:24):

Okay. So it might be worth discussing how, why and all that.

Speaker 2 (00:29:31):

Yeah. I'm actually very curious as to why you would do that. Why not just do it at your place?

Speaker 3 (00:29:37):

Don't have, well, I did the stereo mix at my place, but I don't have a 5.1 system at my place. So we went there because they've got an amazing 5.1 mix room. But the one thing I wanted with both those things is I didn't want the 5.1 to sound so different to the stereo mix. I wanted there to be some kind of thing that connected them. I didn't want to put on the five at one mix and it'd be completely different. So what we actually did was once I finished the stereo mix, I stemmed it into about 25 different stems. So had kick snare the rest of the kits and then bass guitars and then split the keyboards. One of the important things was to make sure that all the low end stuff kind of had its own track so that we could kind of run those into the subs and 5.1 if we wanted to. So when it came to the keyboard stems, they were kind of split up a little bit. Okay, this keyboard track's got more low end in it, so maybe we'll separate that off. And then

Speaker 2 (00:30:44):

What about bass guitar? Did you separate the bass guitar into high and low?

Speaker 3 (00:30:49):

Not into high and low, just one track of that. It's because you can just kind of dial in how much of that you want to then send to the sub. You don't have to send the whole thing into it.

Speaker 2 (00:30:57):

Yep. Oh, okay. Got it.

Speaker 3 (00:30:58):

And then the whole point of doing this was then if you imported those files into a fresh session at zero, it plays the stereo mix. So we did that and then when I went to Abbey Road, then through the 5.1, when I loaded all my files, it played the stereo mix. So then all I really needed to do then is just actually create the surround space then. So I've still got all my EQs, my compression, the mix sounds the same. It's just now in a 5.1 environment where it's, the whole thing with both those releases was I wanted to make the listener feel like they were watching the band. I didn't want a comedy guitar solo to come from behind you or anything stupid like that.

Speaker 2 (00:31:46):

A guitar solo to come from behind you.

Speaker 3 (00:31:48):

Well just surround, panning. There's nothing weird like that going on. It's just

Speaker 2 (00:31:55):

Amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:31:56):

Yeah, just kind of made it so that it felt like you were in the gig. One thing I did with that, with something I do if I'm doing surround is we actually fed, I took the ambient mics from the show and ran them into a brissy reverb with a very dark, fairly long reverb on it, and we kind of fed some of the band as well into that same verb. And I kind of placed that towards the rears. So when you're actually listening to the gig, you are also getting this kind of dull reverbed sound behind you, which is kind of what you kind of get sometimes when you're at a show. So there's things like that going on in there as well.

Speaker 2 (00:32:43):

And how long did this take? Is this a significantly more involved process than the regular mix?

Speaker 3 (00:32:49):

5.1 just took a day to do because the mix was already, it was already done. You just kind of placing things really and then checking. It's all going to work in 5.1. I mean, the Royal Abbott Hall Show was one of the biggest and hardest mixes I've ever done.

Speaker 2 (00:33:07):

Let's talk about that. Did that involve an orchestra?

Speaker 3 (00:33:11):

Yeah, I think it's like a 52 piece orchestra choir. And you are also trying to make the band sound massive as well.

Speaker 2 (00:33:18):

Yeah. Talk about two things that don't want to work together, an orchestra and a band, and they sound incredible when they do work together, but it's such a technical challenge to make it work.

Speaker 3 (00:33:32):

The whole thing was just really hard. I mean, I went to the show as well, and the show was incredible, so I knew the show really well, but the difficult thing was making the band sound big and then fitting an entire orchestra on top of that and then fitting a choir on top of that as well. The one thing I did, there's a lot of automation in that session. I think a lot of people when they're mixing stuff like this sometimes have the ambient mics really high and then just blend everything around it, but you get a really washy sound that way. And it's also very echoy, and I wanted it to sound live, but still really nice and clear. And so all through the show, the ambient stuff has just got so much fader rides on it, and I mixed it to the picture. I think that was so important for me because your mix goes off what you're seeing as well. So during the show, there'll be certain points where there'll be a shot of the strings and the strings then on the mix just getting out, just a slight push, just so I wanted for the video and the audio to connect. So when you're watching a string play, you can hear what they're doing a little more clearer. It's only very subtle

Speaker 2 (00:34:59):

Or drum fills maybe.

Speaker 3 (00:35:01):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:35:02):

If it happened, happens to be

Speaker 3 (00:35:04):

A

Speaker 2 (00:35:04):

Shot of the drummer at that point in time.

Speaker 3 (00:35:07):

So I, I'd pick my moments. You don't want to do that all through the show and make it obvious. So basically I had 16 moving faders, which you can't do it. It's so hard to do a show like that with a mouse. You need real faders to do it. So I kind of locked the last bank to the main kind of group components. So the crowd mics, the two main vocal mics and a subm mix of the orchestra, a subm mix of the choir. So I had those faders on my hands all through the show, so it allowed me to watch the video and kind of do rides really easily. But yeah, it was such a difficult one. I actually mixed it twice. I mixed it the first time. Well, I mixed about six songs for it. I don't even know if the band knows this, but I mixed about six songs. I took it back to my house just to watch it and I was like, it sounds great, but there's this last five 10% that I think because such a massive, so much balancing to do on it. And I kind of gave myself two options. I was like, well, I can either edit this mix or I can just wipe it and start again. And I chose to just start again.

Speaker 2 (00:36:27):

Man, sometimes that's the only way to go.

Speaker 3 (00:36:29):

Sometimes it's the best way to do it. And I always get days where, I mean, usually I mix no problem, but you might get a day where it's just not happening or it could be better. And sometimes I find it's just better to start again. And then that one day you do it again, everything kind of aligns for you and everything starts happening. I'm so glad I did it because I'm really, really happy with how it turned out in the end.

Speaker 2 (00:36:58):

How long did it take to mix that whole thing

Speaker 3 (00:37:02):

On and off? It was about a month. It was.

Speaker 2 (00:37:05):

It's not so bad for a monster project like

Speaker 3 (00:37:09):

That. That's also bad. Yeah, it wasn't constantly every day. But yeah, I mean there was so much to look at and even the stem printing took so long because don't forget, if you're doing 20 stems for the surround thing, the show is almost an hour and a half at least. So you've got to do that times 20 stems. It's a long time. I actually did this thing where I set the set when I was coming to the STEM part, and this might be handy for some people when I was coming to do the STEM things, it's such a long show, you don't really want to be sat in the studio waiting for each of these things to finish. So I set the session up in a way that I could remotely access the computer so I could be anywhere

Speaker 2 (00:38:00):

Smart man.

Speaker 3 (00:38:00):

And I knew that in an hour and a half I just log in, I see my screen on my phone or on my computer at home, and I could just set up the next stem and that way I could kind of get on with life, but still have these stems running, still printing for me.

Speaker 2 (00:38:16):

Yeah, I mean, shit, dude. I would sometimes just do that from the other room with, well now, and I don't know if this is unique to the situation of mixing that, but now I have a template that's basically routes all stems out. So as soon as I'm printing

Speaker 3 (00:38:38):

The

Speaker 2 (00:38:39):

Final mix master of the song, I'm also printing all the stems at the same time.

Speaker 3 (00:38:43):

Oh, that's great. That's a good idea.

Speaker 2 (00:38:45):

It definitely made life a lot easier, but before I had that, I would just screen share from another room and be working on something else and then just hit record check in five minutes, hit record again, check in five minutes.

Speaker 3 (00:39:01):

I think one thing I did once I was mixing a record on an SSL, and the one thing we were able to do on that one was use all the bus outs. So I had the entire session on the desk and we were able to time code sync my rig to their pro tools rig and just print all the stems in one pass using the bus outs, which that was also an easy way to do it as well.

Speaker 2 (00:39:32):

That definitely works. So you worked with a band called Kids in Class Houses, which I know are successful Pop Rock in the uk, but they're not very well known here. But you were telling me that that was actually a really important record for you. Could you tell me a little bit about working with them?

Speaker 3 (00:39:54):

I mean, this is going back a long time ago, an EP release with them back in the day, and that record, that EP we did, got them signed to Roadrunner and it was an important record because when that record got released, it really helped my career develop. And then how

Speaker 2 (00:40:22):

Long had you been going for it before that?

Speaker 3 (00:40:27):

I mean, three, four years maybe. Can't quite remember. But I mean, I was already getting a lot of work in, but that kind of took it to the next level. And also you're dealing with Roadrunner, the label and

Speaker 2 (00:40:45):

Which is a whole world

Speaker 3 (00:40:47):

In

Speaker 2 (00:40:48):

Of itself.

Speaker 3 (00:40:49):

Yeah, of course. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:40:50):

That's an education.

Speaker 3 (00:40:52):

But yeah, it was a really important record for me. We spent quite a while making, and it did really well here, and they still influenced a lot of the kind of pop rock bands in the uk. I still get a lot of people coming up to me talking about the album. So yeah, I felt it was a pretty important one.

Speaker 2 (00:41:17):

How did it change after you made that record? How did your career change?

Speaker 3 (00:41:21):

Well, I think after that my next phone call was, the big record is probably Funeral for a Friend, so I was actually a huge fan of that band. So it was amazing to be asked to work with them. And they actually kept me on for multiple albums, which I wasn't expecting that. But we got along so great and we were all on the same page and I was not afraid to kind of tell them what I thought about the songs and stuff. So it was a good trust between us. And so I ended up doing three records with them and loads of other stuff in between. So yeah, it was definitely a moment, which I felt, okay, things are now kind of going well.

Speaker 2 (00:42:14):

So at what point did you find that you needed to get an assistant? Or do you use an assistant?

Speaker 3 (00:42:21):

I do. I have a really great assistant in my studio, which I actually actually have them set up on a retainer because it's quite unusual for that to happen. But for me,

Speaker 2 (00:42:35):

Yeah, it,

Speaker 3 (00:42:36):

My assistant is so important to me because I want to kind of walk in the studio and things are set up how I want and I don't really want to have to get involved with thinking about that stuff. I've got other things to kind of look at. So he's worked with me for 10 years now and he knows me really, really well. He'll know what I'm going to be looking to do. He'll set up the mic switch, he thinks I'm probably going to like, and then at least we've got a starting point. Then I can go, okay, I don't like this mic on the rack, let's change that or something. But I have him there permanently because it makes my life so much easier because I can then concentrate more on talking to the band and going through songs and stuff like that. They're not having to worry about is this patched in here or stuff like that. So it's super important for me. I think generally it is why I help a lot of people who are looking people in universities and stuff. I'll sometimes take them on to show them how important it is and how to behave in a session. And I think if you get a chance to do this with a producer, it could be a job for a very long time if you get it right.

Speaker 2 (00:44:00):

Well, let's talk a little bit about how to behave in the studio. That is so important.

Speaker 3 (00:44:05):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:44:07):

So what do you say to people who you meet at these classes that are super eager, which is exactly the way you shouldn't be

Speaker 3 (00:44:16):

When

Speaker 2 (00:44:17):

At a studio do you tell them, dude, you got to chill or how?

Speaker 3 (00:44:21):

Yeah, I mean most people are kind of clever enough to realize that you can't come into the studio and be talking all the time. I always tell them, just got to be really quiet. Observe everything, take in what's going on and be helpful at times when you think you're not going to get in the way. So whether that's kind of coiling up some cables that are a mess on the floor or whatever, just things that are really not going to get in the way of the session running. You don't want that. I never want someone who's just constantly talking to the band in the back of the control room because that just gets really distracting for me if I'm wanting to concentrate a little bit. And the assistant's just talking about something that's stuff you don't want. And then the main no go is never suggest anything for the song.

(00:45:24):

I've kicked a couple of people out, just coming up with the producer doesn't want you to be coming up with all these suggestions. For me, I might be, sometimes I'll be kind of trying to get an idea out of the guitarist, so sometimes I might, I've done it before where I've wanted a guitarist to play a part a certain way, but maybe they're a bit stubborn and they want to make sure everything is their idea. So I'll kind of have a guitar and I'll just be kind of quietly playing it another way until they kind of figure it out subconsciously. And then they'll be like, oh, Ramesh, you got this idea a better way to play it. And I'd be like, yeah, cool. Great, let's do it. So if you've got an assistant who kind of chips in and goes, oh, you should play it this way. You just ruin that whole thing that the producer was trying to do, which is extract the idea out of the guitarist. So stuff like that. And also, it sounds stupid, but whoever makes the coffee is the band's best friend. Things like that that

Speaker 2 (00:46:32):

It's so not stupid though because

Speaker 3 (00:46:34):

Yeah. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:46:35):

It's so important. You need to keep your clients feeling good.

Speaker 3 (00:46:37):

And everyone loves coffee, don't they?

Speaker 2 (00:46:40):

We hope. So.

Speaker 3 (00:46:42):

The main thing is just pick your moments as well, because as a producer I'm not inviting people just to have an extra pair of hands. I want 'em to get something out of it. So you pick your moments to talk to the producer then, and if you do have questions, just make sure you're asking 'em at the right time. If they're in the middle of going through guitar sounds, don't start asking them, well, what are you doing here? Why are you going for that? That's not the time to do it. You want to just not interrupt the session at all and just be as quiet as you can. And then when the time is right, then ask what questions you want.

Speaker 2 (00:47:20):

And I mean, I've seen people get dumped from sessions pretty unceremoniously for doing exactly the things you just said not to do.

Speaker 3 (00:47:30):

Yeah, I had one also fall asleep. Oh no. Which I think threw a roller. Gaffer tapered at him and he broke up,

Speaker 2 (00:47:42):

Man, how could, I don't understand how you can be an assistant on a session getting that opportunity

Speaker 3 (00:47:50):

And

Speaker 2 (00:47:50):

Fall asleep.

Speaker 3 (00:47:52):

Some people just don't cut out for it.

Speaker 2 (00:47:55):

It's true, it's true. Probably better that they learn it.

Speaker 3 (00:47:59):

But the one thing that everyone says, and obviously to people listening try and do this, they always say they've learned so much just by being on a real session. Then something, if you want to get some more skills behind you, it's definitely something to try and do because you get to see real life stuff. And for me, the things that are important with it, an assistant is also being able to troubleshoot things really fast and also troubleshooting without letting the client know. And you get to see all this stuff happen. If something's not working, the assistant then or the engineer, whoever, be like, right, let's troubleshoot this. And you start from the beginning, you work out what's not working. When we did the New Zealand thing last week, some of the Neve channels just died and we had to pull them out and try cleaning them, and you eventually swap the modules, but it's important you get to see all this stuff that you don't always get to learn if you're going to a university or something.

Speaker 2 (00:49:09):

I can echo this because for instance, when I first started recording and was not on professional sessions, it took me a while to get anywhere. And then suddenly my band worked with Colin Richardson five years in. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:49:24):

I know Colin.

Speaker 2 (00:49:24):

He mixed our record. I came to London to watch him mix and just from being with him for three weeks, I went back home better.

Speaker 3 (00:49:34):

And

Speaker 2 (00:49:34):

Then a few years later when I went to Audio Hammer and started working on sessions there, I just got better within a month. I was just way better than I had ever been in my life. Just because the pressure makes you learn.

Speaker 3 (00:49:52):

Yeah, of course it does. And I think it's just seeing other people's ways of doing things as well and just all helps you. It helps you with your own techniques. So it's definitely something which people keep telling me that they get a huge amount out of by sitting in on these sessions.

Speaker 2 (00:50:11):

There's some exceptions to that rule. Like my partner Joey Sturgis, he's kind of never worked under anybody and just developed his own way of mixing, but he's definitely a freak and an outlier in my opinion. Most people can't just teach themselves a method of mixing that's brand new that most people do need a mentor of some sort.

Speaker 3 (00:50:35):

Yeah, I think it at least helps if you want to kind of expand on where you are, then I think it definitely helps to have some extra

Speaker 2 (00:50:47):

Knowledge. Absolutely. And how does someone go about getting an internship or an opportunity with you or someone like you in your opinion?

Speaker 3 (00:50:58):

I usually get emails, but to be honest, I tend to only give them to people that I've met. And a lot of the time is I'm on a night out or something and someone comes up to me. But that way, you know, can kind of tell if someone's going to maybe be a problem or whether they're going to be all right in the studio. But usually I read all the males that come in to do anything like this, and as long as you present yourself in a good way and show that you understand the etiquette of being an assistant in the studio or sitting in, then I'm quite happy to take them in if I can.

Speaker 2 (00:51:41):

Well, I just think it's brilliant that you said that generally you have to meet them in real life because I mean, really you're not going to bring someone to your studio to be around your clients who are in

Speaker 3 (00:51:50):

Big

Speaker 2 (00:51:51):

Bands and legendary bands. You're not going to just bring

Speaker 3 (00:51:53):

Someone

Speaker 2 (00:51:54):

Off the street who you don't know.

Speaker 3 (00:51:56):

Especially depending on the client. I'll be very strict as to who I have. So I've got a few people who I've let them stay a bit longer, and so if they've been really great, I'll offer them back and there'll be people who I know will not cause me any problems in the session. But yeah, I definitely kind of pretty much go with the people I've met because then you can kind of gauge how they're going to be,

Speaker 2 (00:52:29):

Especially these days, it's kind of hard to force that just because the internet is such a part of our lives and get hit up from people from all over the world. But it really, we tell people all the time, if you want to work in this field, you need to go to where the jobs are because really your best opportunities are going to come from people that know you and who have decided that you're a cool person. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:52:56):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:52:56):

If they already have pre-qualified you as a cool person, it's almost like for instance, a, I know you work in Cubase

Speaker 3 (00:53:06):

New I Newand, sorry, same kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (00:53:09):

Close enough. I am sure that if you met somebody who was a good engineer, but they worked in Pro Tools and they said, look, I haven't used Nuendo, but I will learn it in two weeks

Speaker 3 (00:53:22):

If

Speaker 2 (00:53:23):

You give me the chance. But they were totally cool and you knew that they were responsible. You would probably give them the shot, right?

Speaker 3 (00:53:31):

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:53:32):

As opposed to someone who knew new Endo but smelled bad and was just made shitty coffee or something.

Speaker 3 (00:53:40):

Yeah, I mean for me, the level of your knowledge is not super important to me because that's the reason why you're coming to do that. But it's more how you are as a person and just showing me that you want to learn stuff and that's more important to me than what you can do at the moment.

Speaker 2 (00:53:58):

Yeah, completely agree. So I've got some questions here from our crowd for you. Some of these are questions that I had, but I'm just going to go ahead and attribute it to them because I want them to feel good. First one is some Rodney Alton Bow, which is your collection of amplifiers is something I greatly admire. If you had to pick one of Be Your Desert Island Amp, which one and why? And before you answer that, let me just add, could you tell us a little bit about your collection of amps? Because it's incredible.

Speaker 3 (00:54:30):

It's also a big problem of mine. I mean, it's just kind of grown over time, but for me, I have it, and it's the same with drums, but I have it because I really love the idea of searching for a sound and if one app doesn't work, we'll just try another one. And I think that you're not kind of bending one app to try and get this sound and using all these pedals then and all this stuff. I was just try another amp and just see if that works. And I think it is really creative as well for the guitarist to be able, they love it. They love walking in and seeing all the amps and it's like a playground for them, and a tone inspires you as well. It's like when you get a new guitar and you'd write a song in 10 minutes, the tone is exactly the same. One thing I don't really massively do is a lot of amping because for me, I feel that the guitarist and the amp, the guitarist will play to the sound that they're going for. So I tend to spend a lot of time with the Guitar Amp and making sure that sound is right, going down. So the collection's got loads of Marshall stuff there. There's an older PV 1 50, 1 50 message. I don't know how I would go about picking an amp. They're all suited for different things.

Speaker 2 (00:56:09):

I feel like I've been involved in studios that have pretty big amp collections and somehow 51 50 Block letter made it on 70% of the rhythm tracks.

Speaker 3 (00:56:21):

Yeah, I agree. That is one of my favorites. To be fair.

Speaker 2 (00:56:25):

Strange right though.

Speaker 3 (00:56:26):

Yeah, it just sits in the track really well.

Speaker 2 (00:56:28):

You're not the only person to say that. Yeah, I know lots of guys who have lots of expensive amps and somehow that AMP tends to just always be a mainstay for everybody. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:56:38):

Yeah, totally. It's the same for me. I think it's an amp that it's got loads of weight behind it in the lows.

Speaker 2 (00:56:46):

It's got teeth.

Speaker 3 (00:56:47):

Yeah, it just sits in the track really well. And as a rhythm part or even leads even on Phil from Motorheads New records, we use it for all the lead stuff it's got, it's great for that sustained sound. But yeah, I'm with you there. That's definitely one I use loads.

Speaker 2 (00:57:07):

So here's one from Scott Kelly, and I guess I'm actually curious based on what a good answer you just gave on your AMP collection. Scott Kelly's wondering, what are your thoughts on Amp Sims and profiling amplifiers? Do you use them at any point during pre or post-production or are you strictly going through your AMP collection?

Speaker 3 (00:57:30):

I think I actually had one of the first campers in the UK and I kind of got it because I was like, okay, if this works, then I can have all my amps and use them in my studio B. I'm not going to go down the debate of whether it sounds the same or not. It's a stupid debate. It's a big hole. I'm not going to fall into that. It's

Speaker 2 (00:57:54):

Like Mac versus pc.

Speaker 3 (00:57:55):

Yeah, but I've still got all my amps. I haven't sold them.

Speaker 2 (00:58:03):

I think that the big debate, which is stupid, is what's better because what's better is whatever you can get results with, but exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:58:11):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:58:12):

To say that digital amp sounds like my bogner ecstasy and feels like it. That's not true.

Speaker 3 (00:58:19):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:58:20):

The Bogner ecstasy feels like the Bogner ecstasy.

Speaker 3 (00:58:23):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:58:24):

No other two amp feels like it either.

Speaker 3 (00:58:26):

Yeah. But whether it sounds good or not is the main thing.

Speaker 2 (00:58:29):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:58:30):

I agree.

Speaker 2 (00:58:30):

That's what matters is what results you get out of it. That's what matters.

Speaker 3 (00:58:34):

The one thing I think the camper is absolutely amazing for is cleaner and slightly crunchy sounds. And I kind of use it for that. I've got my Vox AC 30 profiled in it, and it actually came up pretty good. It didn't sound exactly like the amp, but it sounds great. So I use it a lot for clean stuff and you can really go nuts on the delay options in that unit. So I use it for that. But for me, really anything like that, I'm generally just using at the guide stage when I'm starting the track and I'm tracking the drums, I might just use the camper and something else, but then I'll go through real amps and when I'm actually doing the record.

Speaker 2 (00:59:21):

Makes sense. So here's one from Connor Resing, which is Silos is' Monolith album is one of the best sounding metal albums ever. I've always thought that the drum sound is especially incredible and I was wondering if you could explain how you achieved it. It sounds huge and very natural, yet doesn't lack any clarity or punch.

Speaker 3 (00:59:41):

Cool. Thank you. I'm glad you like it. I mean, it was just going back to what I was talking about earlier, I wanted the drums to be as natural as possible. So I mean, it starts at the tracking session. If some of the hits are weaker, you have to replay it and you have to, while I was doing the drums, I'm kind of imagining that there's going to be a big guitar sound on top of it and you've got to make sure it cuts through. You're going to be able to make it cut through. So I use quite a lot of room mics on there to kind of give it a space, which I think you hear the rooms quite a bit in the record. The one thing that I did was I didn't use samples, but not other samples. But what I did was I think I took a couple of hits of the actual snare we used and then if when I got to the mix, if there was anything that I needed to tweak, then I had a stronger hit if it was. But nothing crazy really. It was just kind of got the recording right. And then, like I was saying earlier, when the drums sound good, everything just falls on top of it quite easily. So yeah, nothing, it's true. Yeah, nothing crazy on

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):

It. Well, isn't it funny though, and I hear this a lot from people, and I've seen this a lot, this concept on now the mix that lots of the best sounding mixes or productions or tones that I have personally gotten or seen other people get tend to be nothing crazy like you just said. But what I think the part that is crazy is what it took to learn how to get to that point where, because you have millions of options and what you could tone wise, right?

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):

But

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):

You're doing the four or five moves between the microphone placement and how you tune the drum, the drum that you chose, all that stuff. You're making five or six or seven or eight decisions that make all the difference out of the millions of possibilities.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):

So

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):

That's the crazy part is getting to the point where you understand which of the basic moves in combination with each other basically unlock the tone puzzle.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):

Yeah. To be fair, what I do, I mean, I had someone ask me not long ago, Hey man, do you remember what frequencies you eqd on this funeral for a friend's net? And I was like, no. And I probably didn't even know at the time either because when I'm doing things and I'm trying to get a sound, I'm listening to the speakers and I'm chasing a sound in my head. So I mean, obviously I know what the frequencies will sound like, but I kind of disconnect myself from any super technical things. I go for what feels good. So I think all those kind of, for me, it is chasing a sound that's in my head and I'll just keep going until I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):

Makes sense. So here's one from Mario Malik, which is, and I don't know how you can answer this in this succinct way, but how do you go about producing rhythm guitars and metal? Do you use the same amp box with the same settings for both hard left and hard right, or a slightly different setup? What's your go-to mic in this case and how many tracks do you record for each side?

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):

So I mean, it depends if it's a busy riff or not. Sometimes with guitars, last guitars makes it sound bigger, especially with riffs and stuff. Sometimes if you kind of go overboard with it, the sounds actually just start shrinking and gets less clear because everything's playing at slightly the riff at slightly different times and you lose that width a little bit. I tend to use the same guitar on both sides because here's the thing, sometimes when you use another guitar, you've got slightly different intonation and it can cause the tuning to just sound a little weird. So I tend to stick to the same guitar. I might change the amp. I rarely do, to be honest, with kind of heavier stuff. I kind of like the symmetry of the guitars being quite wide, and then I'll use the lead stuff to do any color moments that I want. But I have sometimes just change the amp, but mic wise, it varies. I usually have three mics set up on a cab, so I have a 57 A 1 2, 1 Royal, 1 21, and a Bayer M1 60, the M1 60. Oh, nice. It's a great guitar mic. It's not very expensive, but it's an amazing mic on guitars.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):

That's a good mic.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):

Yeah, it's brilliant. I think it gets kind of forgotten about quite a bit, but if anyone wants a really good ribbon mic, that is really good. The one thing I do with guitars is I'll sum the mics down to one channel. I'm not someone who wants to keep loads of guitar tracks in the DAW and then be deciding on the blend later. So what I do is all the mics come into my console on three faders, a fader for each, and then they're all summed to one channel, and that's the channel I record and it forces you to make a decision. And I think otherwise you never finish the guitar sounds. You're kind of constantly changing the blend.

(01:05:28):

A lot of how I work is I kind of make decisions and print them even down to my use of compression on the way in. If it's slammed a bit, but it sounds how I want it, then I'll just print it. But yeah, with the guitars, I'll kind of get the faders up. I love channel TG two preamps, which I use for those. And then I'll just kind of play around with the balance between the mics. The one thing I do is you've got to make sure these mics are completely in phase. Crucial, crucial. One mistake a lot of people make is it's the distance between the cab grill and the actual mic. You've got to make sure the capsules aligned. For instance, the SM seven, the capsule doesn't start until halfway down the mic, and if you've got that set up and then a mic really close up, there's going to be a time difference there. So we spend a lot of time doing that first, and then I summed the mics down, I find a blend. Everyone's happy, guitarist is happy, it sounds great in the track. Then I print it to one channel and there it goes. It just,

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):

And isn't that just a great mindset for recording in general? Find a tone that works and commit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):

Yeah, I'm such a, I try and tell this to so many people. It's like, just commit the ideas as long as you know what you're doing, then commit them. I think there was a couple of sessions and I got sent something to mix, and for every guitar part there were like five mics, and I ended up turning it down. I didn't do it because it was like, no one's made a decision here on anything. A couple of mics is fine, but when you're just printing all these different mics, you haven't really decided what you're going to use. It means that as a mixer then I don't really know what tone you were shooting for at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):

Man, I can't tell you how annoying it is when I've gotten stuff to mix or when I've prepped mixes for another mixer, and it was something that was not recorded in house, and there's two tracks of guitars. Each one of them have eight mics and they're not summed. It's like, well, what do you want me to do here?

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):

You

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):

Just end up amping it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:56):

It's not just that. It's when there's so many guitar parts in a song, so the league guitar, then that's got another

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):

Million

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):

Channels on it, and then this one's got another, and the session just becomes really hard to manage as well. If you wanted to give someone all the mics and at least also sub them with where you were feeling the guitar sounding good as well. All my guitar things I commit, I do take a di as well just in case we get it wrong, but I generally just commit and get on with it. And that approach applies to pretty much everything. I do the compression with drums on the monument stems, for example, I've printed compression off on the snare mics and stuff like that. Stuff like that I'm totally fine with, as long as I'm confident that that is the sound I'm after.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):

Great answer. Here's one from Johnny Marsh. I've heard the music scene in Cardiff where you are is pretty decent in terms of live music and also the quality of bands that are around. Was this always the case? Has it improved or declined over the years and do you think it has much to do with long wave? If I try to explain myself a little better, I'm coming from an area where the live scene is dead and the recording scene is geared more towards grime and similar styles. I'm trying to ascertain if the best attitude is to go to where the good music is or adopt a build it and they will come attitude. Sorry if I haven't explained myself very well. I think that when stuff is fine,

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):

Yeah, I think it makes sense. I mean, for a very long time, Cardiff Whales in general has had a very, very strong music scene. I think there was a time when it was amazing when you had funeral for a friend, you had bullets, kids in glass houses, the blackout. It was just a ton of bands constantly doing well. It's got a little bit quieter recently in my opinion, but there's still amazing music out there. I guess maybe it had something to do with it. I did work with a lot of the artists around, but I think everyone just kind of inspired each other.

(01:10:20):

In Cardiff, in general, bands, the industry very, everyone knows each other. All the bands are really friendly. They help each other. If one band's getting big, then they'll help the next band up, and it is quite a community there. Even if I go on a night out, it's very usual to bump into loads of bands in the street. Everyone kind of hangs out together. In answer to your other question, it's not a bad idea of going somewhere where there is a big scene because you can go out and I think it'll probably help you get work. But it's not to say that you still can't be involved from another place, but it could be something to think about. I think if you've got a lot of artists around that is kind of the genre you want to work in, then maybe it could be a good idea.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):

I'm a big proponent of going to where the opportunity is. I've done it in my life,

(01:11:22):

I would do it again. And I know that there's some outliers and individual examples, again, like my business partner Joey, who can make it work for themselves in an area where there's a questionable opportunity like the cornfields of Indiana. But by and large, and I think that it's not realistic for people to think that they're outliers. If you're an outlier, you just are. You know what I mean? And it's almost not for you to decide that. It's not for you to decide if you're a genius or not. If you are, the world will kind of bend itself to you. You shouldn't assume that that's you, and you should just assume that you're not going to get lucky and that you're going to have to struggle. And so you want to set the odds as in your favor as possible.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):

And

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):

So go to where the opportunity is, stack the odds in your favor,

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):

And it also allows you to integrate with a scene there, and I think it's a good idea.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):

Yeah, absolutely. Make it happen. The younger the better. Yeah. I mean just don't do it when you're 35 and have kids.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):

Do it when you're 21.

Speaker 3 (01:12:32):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):

When you can't. Yeah. So here's one from Caleb Spencer, and you've already answered half of this, so just saying we don't need to go over it again. So love the sound of your recordings and mixes. Could you mind talking about the process of how you record and edit guitars? We already talked about how you record guitars, but what about editing?

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):

Okay. It might be a good idea to explain my workflow. In general. What I do is we have a bunch of machines in the studio, and they're all connected via ethernet. They all talk to each other. What it means is say, I'll just talk about drums very briefly, if I'm doing drums, when I finish doing that drum track, the one thing that usually happens is you have to then just wait around for ages while it gets edited if you need to edit it. So we have a system, a workflow where my assistant will then see that session file, and then he can start editing it, and then I can actually start tracking another song.

(01:13:41):

So all my edits get done in the background of a session, which just means I can use so much more studio time. I can get a lot more done in the day than waiting around. So especially when you're on a tight schedule somewhere, just having all that editing stuff happening in the background, just a massive time saver with guitars. I don't want them super edited. I like quite a natural approach. I mean, a lot of it, again, will just go back to the tracking, really just making sure that the takes a good, sometimes I'll have the guitars lined up a little bit, especially if there's a stab section or something, but generally I'm not really doing too much. The less I can mess around with it the better.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):

Yeah, I think that's a good way to be with guitars.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):

Okay. Here's one from Miami Dolphin, and the first thing he said is, and is finally in all capital letters. He's been wanting you to come on for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):

Oh, cool.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):

So Trash Boat Strangers has been one of my favorite mixes since I've heard it. What was your mindset going to the mix and what did you do to get those guitars So lush?

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):

It's going back to what I said. I had a sound on my head and I just chased and chased it until I got it. It was recorded really well. I just made sure everything had a space really. I love how that record turned out. I think it was a JCM 800 on the guitars, and I just try not to do too much apart from kind of use EQ to get it to sit down a little bit. I very rarely compress guitars. I find I quite like guitars, having a bit of room to play with dynamically. So nothing crazy going on really. Again, it was just getting the drums to sound good to begin with, and then everything just falls on top pretty well. So yeah, nothing strange going on with 'em. Just good source tone and just knowing when to not mess around with it too much.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):

I feel like lush guitars is one of those things that's also kind of hard to describe what they mean by that.

Speaker 3 (01:16:13):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):

So I imagine, do you know how to even define that word? I know what I imagine it to be, but I imagine lush. I think of a peacock. I think of Lush and I think of a peacock and palm trees and stuff, but I don't know what that's got to do with distorted guitars.

Speaker 3 (01:16:34):

I don't know. In Wales, lush means good. So

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):

Yeah, fair enough.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):

Song.

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):

So Esh, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):

Oh, my pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):

A pleasure talking to you, and let's not wait so long next time.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):

Yeah, I love what you guys do, so it was awesome to come on. So yeah, we'll do it again sometime. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):

Yeah, maybe we'll do nail the mix or something too.

Speaker 3 (01:16:55):

Yeah, that sounds great.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):

Love to have you on, and I know that the students would love that too. So we'll talk. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):

Let's make it happen. We'll do it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):

Alright, man. Take it easy. Awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):

Thank you. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Churko, Billy Decker, fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas, and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected]. To get in touch with the URM podcast, visit urm.com/podcast and subscribe today.