
chrisharris
King of Bling
I'm floored you asked, but all I can take credit for recording are the vocals and acoustics, both of which were recorded with an AKGc3000 condenser (I hear it's good for mic'ing drum toms, lol).NL5 said:Hey Chris,
Could you explain how you recorded this peice? (with as much detail as possible)
acoustics/vocals - Actually, I kinda' dig that mic on my acoustic, but that's probably because it's a rosewood (really boomy) and something about the harshness of the mic kinda' helps offset the "warmth" of the guitar, lol. On just about every song I record, acoustic gits are part of the mix, and my standard treatment is to roll off everything below 80Hz right off the bat. On this tune, I ended up compressing them fairly heavily, then I hacked out a hole at 100Hz and eventually made a pretty wide/deep cut at 315Hz because the drums and bass were all in that area and the mix was muddy. I also almost universally boost 12K about 3dbs. On vocals, the mic is rough. On this tune, I ended up making about an octave wide cut 3 or 4 db deep centered at 2.5K to scoop some of the harshness out, and then I boost it a bit around 12K to try to give a touch of life to this shitty mic, HAHAHA!!!! There is absolutely no reverb on either the vocal or the rhythm acoustic guitars. There's a little bit on the acoustic leads. I did some doubling of the vocals in a few spots where it was sounding too upfront. When I double a vocal, I take the doubled track and compress the living shit out of it, boost the highs in it, autotune it,

Drums - As far as mixing goes, the kit was the hardest. It was well recorded, but everything except the kick was a lot darker than any drums I've ever mixed. It works in the context of the song, but it took my slow ass awhile to get it close. The drummer sent me the Kick, Snare, 3 tom tracks, and 2 overheads. I just highpassed everything except the kick, which I boosted at 50Hz and 6K (normal). I hate to admit this, but I actually used a BBE sonic maximizer on the kick to soften it a bit and put a little more meat in it. If the drummer sees this post, he WILL flame me, lol. I originally overcompressed and overgated the snare and it was just really shitty and thin, so after jacking around with it for 2 days, I finally just started over and manually enveloped/automated the volume of the snare throughout the entire song. Toms I only highpassed...and notched out around 315Hz. The overheads were the the easiest. Just panned them out about 70% each way, highpassed them at like 300Hz, lol...used a soft knee compression preset after the reverb plug, so it was kinda' compressing reverb, which is usually a disaster, but I liked it okay for the overheads.
bass - I got a good bass player who sent me a good bass track, end of story, LOL. I think he played through a POD, but I only made 2 adjustments to it. First, cut out a hole between 80Hz-100Hz (to make room for the kick) and then boosted it a couple of dbs at 500Hz and 1K. It was just a little too bright, so I also ended up using one of my favorite "fake vintage warmth" plugs, LOL. (PSP Vintage Warmer)...it's basically a multiband compression plug, but I didn't use much compression at all...used it more like a very simple EQ to add some lowmid psychoacoustics. It's hard to explain, but that plug is capable of warming up a track without muddying up a mix as much as using normal EQ would to get the same sound. I really don't know how it works, and just a LITTLE BIT goes a long way, but I dig it. In fact, I used that same plug to compress the acoustic guitars, too.
I don't know how the electric leads were recorded, but I'd bet that the wah was a mic'd mesa boogie. Sluice sent me another clean lead track that I think he actually liked better from a tone standpoint, but then, it wasn't a wah, hahaha. I'll ask both shredders how they recorded.
Wow...detailed enough? The truth is that all the tracks I got were just very well recorded, so even a knucklehead like me will eventually be able to stumble onto a decent mix. Others could make an astounding mix out of it, I think. Thanks a lot for asking...I enjoy rambling about this stuff.