Mixing 50+ Tracks....

[themdla]

so i was reading about production of siamese dream by the smashing pumpkins
and i saw this...

"The album boasts relatively high production values and ornate arrangements compared to other early-1990s alternative albums. Vig said, "Billy wanted to make a record that people would put on and say, 'What the fuck was that?'... We wanted to have things going on in the left ear and right ear all the time". One of Corgan's main goals was to create a sense of sonic depth, but, as Corgan said, "without necessarily using delays or reverbs — to use tonalities instead." For the album, the guitars were layered multiple times. Corgan has stated that "Soma" alone contains up to 40 overdubbed guitar parts. Vig stated that as many as 100 guitar parts were compressed into a single song."

WTF???

i have trouble getting double GTR layers on either side to sound right... what gives?

i've always heard that "big productions" involved a lot of tracks but damn!

is this the only way to get that "big" sound?

most of my recording are at maximum 8-10 tracks (if you call the "drums" 2 tracks).

how do you....

A) mix somthing with so many tracks??
B) deal with phase??
C) get it to sound tight??
D) choose the layers??

thx

 

[bunt]

well now I can't wait to see the answers to this one... However, not being able to resist:
A- Use a blender
B- 60 cycle sine, like a roller coaster
C- Reverse gate
D- Think 'pyramid'

... and I apologize

 

[Chibi Nappa]

i have trouble getting double GTR layers on either side to sound right... what gives?

Corgan was so obsessive about the performance that he didn't even let the Iha or D'arcy play on the album. You need to be super OCD about that many guitars...and he was.

i've always heard that "big productions" involved a lot of tracks but damn!

is this the only way to get that "big" sound?

There really is no other album quite like this one. So...no. Most "big" sounds are 2 to 4 guitars. You can do it with one guitar.

how do you....

A) mix somthing with so many tracks??

You pay with your sanity. Everybody involved was ready for the loony bin by the time it wrapped up (or so the legend goes).

B) deal with phase??

Not an issue. That is 100 mono guitar overdubs, not 100 mics on a single guitar performance. Phase doesn't enter into it.

C) get it to sound tight??

Only let the best guitar player near the guitars. That gets you a tight album and a pissed off band.

D) choose the layers??

Hire Butch Vig

thx

'K

 

[DrewPeterson7]

how do you....

A) mix somthing with so many tracks??
B) deal with phase??
C) get it to sound tight??
D) choose the layers??

thx

Someone posted that around here before. I'm a big fan of Siamese Dream and definitely agree that the production was very different from what a lot of the other 90s bands were after. Much more layered, much less "live in the studio" and much more about a wall of sound.

That said... I really suspect it wasn't AS daunting as it sounds like, taken like that. At most, a few tracks of Siamese Dream may have had 100 tracks of guitar going, yes. However, that's not the same as 100 tracks at the same time.

Taking "Cherub Rock" as an example, it sounds like it opens with two tracks of clean guitar, initially panned to the center and then widening is the song goes on. Then the distorted guitars come in, again at least double tracked. It sounds like one set of doubled guitars holds down the E octave thing, while another set of guitars does the ascending octave pattern - there's probably four tracks there. When you hit the "Who wants honey?" section, a whole bunch of additional guitars come in, just for the chorus - sounds like sort of a midgainy sort of thing, at least two tracks, probably more - I'd guess two tracks pretty clean, two with sort of a midrange-y crunch going, and I may be wrong, but it SOUNDS like there's an acoustic way in the background. They all drop out when the verse riff comes back in, but a new guitar enters - around 1:49, echoing Corgan when he's singing what sounds like "murder," sounding rather like a slightly more distorted guitar playing the single not at the top of the octave.

We're not even to the solo section, and that's probably 9-10 tracks of guitar right there. 20-30 tracks of guitar wouldn't be a stretch at all for the entire arrangement, and this isn't even one of the more densely layered pieces on the album, IMO.

So, long story short, it's about arrangement. You're not playing a riff 100 times, you're building an orchestra of guitar out of 100 little pieces. Double or quad-track your main riff, sure, but also add in little atmospheric pieces and complimentary parts here and there to selectively make sections sound bigger or add another dimension.

After arrangement, your next concerns, in order, are keeping your performances tight, and then not letting anything get too big on its own. Keep an eye on the bigger picture and assemble a huge sound out of a bunch of smaller sounds. It's worth mentioning in passing that 1.) the drum sound on Siamese Dream isn't exactly massive, and that Billy Corgan has a very distinctive voice - it falls above the guitars, and not really in the same frequency range which gives him some more room to work with.

That said, if you want to talk about dense mixes, Billy Corgan's got nothing on Devin Townsend.
[video=youtube;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppfYwzz7nyY]video[/video]
[video=youtube;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kNaJ3WN1DE]video[/video]
[video=youtube;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeG-6bpeUkA]video[/video]

 

[Chibi Nappa]

That said... I really suspect it wasn't AS daunting as it sounds like, taken like that. At most, a few tracks of Siamese Dream may have had 100 tracks of guitar going, yes. However, that's not the same as 100 tracks at the same time.

No, I'm almost positive that album is 40 or so guitars at once and I wouldn't be surprised if it did hit 100 simultaneous.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

most of my recording are at maximum 8-10 tracks (if you call the "drums" 2 tracks).

On a personal note, I'm not half as crazy as either of these guys, and I usually go through more than that. A typical mix of mine would have

Bass DI track
Sansamp bass track (same performance)
2x acoustic guitars, mic'd stereo L+R
2 clean guitars, usually playing complimentary but not identical parts
2 distorted rhythm guitars, doubling each other
melody lead guitar
guitar solo
anywhere from 0-10 or so tracks of "guitar noise," either Ebow harmonies or feedback or muted string turntable-sounding stuff or little pick chirps or whatever.

It's pretty rare for me to finish a mix without using as many tracks of guitar as you use for an entire arrangement.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

No, I'm almost positive that album is 40 or so guitars at once and I wouldn't be surprised if it did hit 100 simultaneous.

In that case, he's far sicker and more twisted than I'm giving him credit for. The only time I've heard of anyone doing that was Paul Gilbert, who recorded a simple rock song with something like 100 guitars for some Japanese magazine. Honestly, the resulting tone wasn't really all that good - it got pretty mushy and indistinct, and Gilbert is a monster player. Corgan isn't half as tight as he is.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Eh, looks like I was wrong. 8-12 guitars simultaneous seems. That's still insane.

From Butch Vig himself:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-butch-vig/398145-1993-smashing-pumpkins-siamese-dream.html

edit: They did the whole thing on tape. Holy shit.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I was JUST coming here to post the same link.

It's a pretty damned interesting read, though. I'm kind of blown away by the amount of work that went into that album...

 

[themdla]

Corgan was so obsessive about the performance that he didn't even let the Iha or D'arcy play on the album. You need to be super OCD about that many guitars...and he was.

ok that makes sense.

There really is no other album quite like this one. So...no. Most "big" sounds are 2 to 4 guitars. You can do it with one guitar.

thank you sweet baby jesus!!

You pay with your sanity. Everybody involved was ready for the loony bin by the time it wrapped up (or so the legend goes).

yeah thats what i heard, they went way over budget also.

Not an issue. That is 100 mono guitar overdubs, not 100 mics on a single guitar performance. Phase doesn't enter into it.

see i figured it had to do with this technique where you split the GTR signal into four different amps with different sounds, stick 4 mics on each amp = 16 mics = 16 tracks, one take. of course with this technique mic placement is crucial to prevent phase. also you have to submix on an analog board before you go in.

Only let the best guitar player near the guitars. That gets you a tight album and a pissed off band.

No problem there i'm the only member of the band...

Hire Butch Vig

or eat his heart and gain his powers!!!

 

[themdla]

from the horses mouth...

ah ha!

"We would usually record the guitars with their full sound, then filter them through and eq, sometimes the Neve, sometimes the API...ahhhhh, I think thwy had some pultecs there...and even some of the guitars went through my Akai sampler.

i think we had 4 mics on the guitars...Jeff might remember...we'd make sure the phase was good, and then pick the best one or sometime 2 blended.
I had this trick I would do when setting up mics...I'd turn the amp on full blast so there is a lot of static noise coming from the speaker, then I'd put headphones on and turn up the mic level to the headphone mix really loud. Then I'd get down in front of the speaker and listen to how the hiss sounded. You can hear the top, mids, bottom in the headphones depending on where you move the mic, and I would place it where I thought I found the sweet spot."

 

[DrewPeterson7]

see i figured it had to do with this technique where you split the GTR signal into four different amps with different sounds, stick 4 mics on each amp = 16 mics = 16 tracks, one take. of course with this technique mic placement is crucial to prevent phase. also you have to submix on an analog board before you go in.

You could do that, but 1.) if you want to go down that road, reamping would be a hell of a lot easier, and then it'd be a simple matter of phase-aligning your performances in the mix (man, reading that Gearslutz thread on the making of Siamese Dream really makes me appreciate how good we have it in the digital age), and 2.) a lot of that really "big" sound isn't from the mix of different amps as much as it's the mix of different performances that give it the sense of space and depth.

EDIT - yeah, but as you can see he's only using one or at most two of those four mics, whichever worked best for that part. Trust me, you'll save yourself a LOT of heartache, and grow quite a bit faster as a musician, if you focus on learning how to precicely double your guitar parts.

An anecdote - I remember reading an interview with Billy Corgan from right around the time Mellon Collie was released, where on one of the songs (I forget which) on the outro I think he pulled on the neck to make the strings go a bit sharp. When he went to double it, he turned to the producer, jokingly said, "watch this," and then without a click track did the neck pull perfectly in sync with the one he'd just recorded, because he could just feel it when the moment was right. That's why he got these gorgeous thick guitar tones - because he was(or got) very good at doubling guitars, and not because he was using four mics on four different amps for each performance.

There's no trick, there's just practice and skill.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

"Billy wanted to make a record that people would put on and say, 'What the fuck was that?'

Well, at least he succeeded on that ladder .

One thing that people forget when others talk about massive layering is that it doesn't necessarily mean that all those other layers are really all that loud. There may be forty layers, but thirty eight of them may possibly be only a couple of dB worth of color each.

Plus remember that Billy Corgan is a goofcake.

G.

 

[themdla]

just to clarify...

when i'm talking about using multiple mics i'm thinking about this technique.

1) use vic's hiss to find mic position 1
2) bring in second mic and flip the phase
3) find sweet spot where second mic cancels the most
4) flip phase on second mic
5)...
6) profit

or

1) stick two mics in from of an amp
2) set pre amp gain accordingly for both mics
3) flip phase on second mic
4) change volume of second mic until i get the most phase cancellation
5) flip phase back
6) GTR explosion!!!!!

any takers????

 

[themdla]

Well, at least he succeeded on that ladder .

One thing that people forget when others talk about massive layering is that it doesn't necessarily mean that all those other layers are really all that loud. There may be forty layers, but thirty eight of them may possibly be only a couple of dB worth of color each.

Plus remember that Billy Corgan is a goofcake.

G.

ah-ha!! thx glen that makes a lot more sense

 

[FunkDaddy]

Not much to add myself, but just wanted to say I'm really enjoying the conversation and thanks to Chibi for the GS link, really cool to hear stuff from the man himself...always been one of my favorite producers.

 

[nialldoran]

thats pretty mad that amount of guitars, standard for me would be to quad track rhythms and dual track leads, and my projects an avarage mix will hit about 50 tracks all in including returns and individualld drums,

default mic technique would be the fredman technique

mics setup as below, then either a,b or c on the horizontal axis to get the sound i want, using two sm57s,

 

[Dark Imagery]

Wow, reading this makes me shudder to think what went down on the Mellon Collie album (which is my favorite album of all time, btw.) All 28 songs on that album seem to have a different production; even style. From the thrashy Tales of a Scorched Earth, to the 1930s-esque Lily, My One and Only. The complexity of the songs seem miles above anything on Siamese Dream. From what I've read this album was also recorded on tape. Edit: And in the linear notes from Mellon Collie, they credit ID software for using the explosion noise from DOOM. I think I hear a fucked up version of it in Tales of a Scorched Earth or XYU. Anyone know what song this noise appears in?

 

[kcearl]

i just finished a 50 track song recently...only three tracks of it were guitar and they were already mixed onto one track....it was the hardest thing Ive mixed so far, and it still doesnt sound right...100 guitars?

lol, yeah Id manage that no bother

 

[shorttonpro]

Here is my basic method of dealing with a large session. Organization is key and I do most of it before even listening to the track.

1. Properly name all tracks
Go through each track and name the track something meaningful. Sometimes tracks I receive have software instrument names like “Light Years” which I would rename to “High Delay Synth.” With many guitar tracks this can also help distinguish between the common “Guitar 1, Guitar 2″ etc.

2. Color code tracks according to instrument group and use this scheme for all sessions.
For example, I make all my drums orange, my bass tracks purple, guitars green and so on. There is no specific rhyme or reason, but the fact that I use the same colors for the instrument type in all my sessions means I can quickly glance at the screen, find the track I’m looking for and go to work.

3. Set up Groups and Sub-Groups.
Setting up groups now will make editing and processing later on much easier. If I have 30 tracks of background harmonies, I’m going to run all the tracks through sub-group for processing and use an edit group on the individual tracks.

4.Clean up
This is the most time consuming process of the lot as it involves going through all the tracks from beginning to end and editing out silences and building nice crossfades in and out of each region. Use short cut keys and groups to make your work flow faster. The end result will give you completely clean tracks to work with and you won’t have any back ground noise or awkward fades to worry about.

Sometimes with larger sessions, to help me and my CPU I have a session just for vocal stems, or guitars etc and then I import those stems into my master session.

I did get a session with a bunch of guitar tracks the other day, and phase was very whacked out. Had to go track by track testing phase coherence and flipping certain tracks. Also, I just ended up plain deleting some of the tracks because I didn't feel they added anything. I try to keep tracks according to their purpose, one might have more body, one might have more grit and top end and they product of their layers makes the track.