dbstudios-shanghai.com

db studios (with all our purist analogue/high brow musical pretensions… who am i kidding!!!) has finally acquiesced and the DJs are rolling in thick and fast to do their mixes… well what does it take?!?

Aside from our standard studio rig… the macs… the project mix i/o… protools 8 (and ozone 4 mastering plug-ins) not much!!! A pair of Pioneer CDJ’s that fit your budget a decent submixer (a DJM 2/400) is just great and then that all important connection a pair of high quality RCA/jack leads.

These were not that easy to come by and i ended up getting my man james (see blogroll: sunnytone) to make me up a set; the net result… (dj danes was the first through the doors – hailing from Barcelona he produced a heady mix of house trance and techno)… blistering.

Then all you need to understand is normalisation the media you are mastering to and hey presto… mix-tastic!!!

http://thirdshift.nu/portfolio

Talk to any band leader and am afraid you’ll hear the same old cliche… things ain’t what they used to be… guys not rehearsed up… not knowing the changes… the hooks… the bridges… whatever it may be… you get the picture; well after yesterday’s dbstudios’ session I’m afraid I experienced very little that would persuade me otherwise.

We were “hohnered” (no prizes for her instrument of choice) to welcome Marion Campbell all the way from Stirling Scotland; now at 81 you might expect there to be a few glitches a few lapses of memory a few forgotten chord changes, but indeed nothing could be further from the truth; she laid down well over two hours of music played pretty well back-to-back ranging from Irish folk to Scottish ballads with even 45 minutes of modern tunes thrown in, with out a single sheet of music or chord prompt in sight… just wonderful!!!

A big thanks to Nick Watson (who many of you from Shanghai will indeed know) for bringing Marion (who is indeed his maternal auntie) to our attention and he’ll be the man to contact for the three album boxed set when all the material is finally mixed and mastered.

All studio buffs wondering how we recorded… well because of time constraints were we obliged to mike externally… a pair of Lunas (essentially one for each hand – the left hand mike (assuming a right handed player must have a good bass response) and a pair of overheard Pulsars to fill things out; more details check out:

http://tinyurl.com/cyjv8a

Musicians and studios alike often put off buying or owning ribbon microphones (the ribbon refers to a thin aluminium, duraluminum or nanofilm ribbon placed between the poles of a magnet that may be damaged with careless usage) partly because of their at times heavy price tag, their (perhaps not entirely deserved) reputation for being overly fragile or maybe just a greater familiarity with the available range/s of cardiod and dynamic microphones; but from #dbstudios perspective all of those considerations will fly out the window when you actually listen to these babies, in a word unbelievable.

Originally developed in the 1920′s by Dr Harry F Olson of RCA; they went on to be a staple of radio and television broadcasting for many years to come because of their accuracy and to a certain extent flattering capture of sound, being it vocal or instrumental; only recently being featured extensively in studio and stage scenes from Olivier Dahan’s stunning recreation of Edith Piaf’s life both on and off stage La Mome.

Once again fast becoming a must-own for any serious studio you could do a lot worse than consider the AEA range, beasts such as the R44 or R84 (which even comes in a slightly more robust DJ version) available at outlets such as: 

http://atlasproaudio.com

http://mercenary.com

http://wesdooley.com

you can even pre-listen to your purchases at:

http://studioauditions.com

now you have no excuse!!!

As a studio engineer/producer if you don’t know something about click tracks you darn well should.

Nearly every band/musician (apart from those who really know their s###) will fight you tooth and nail… cos they want to record “live” (whatever that really means in a studio setting) and would prefer their drummer’s meandering sense of rhythm (seeing it as glamourously creative and spontaneous rather than is often the case downright meandering) as opposed to the discipline of playing against and recording over a click track; but if your goal is a truly polished end product then I advise you (& then it is for you to advise them) to think again!!!

So for each and every recording you make (with very, very few exceptions) go to Track (assuming you are working within Protools) and select Create Click Track; then you’ll have to think about the song’s tempo and meter (e.g. 92 bpm 2/4) but believe me this will, with some practice, come quicker than you think.

Set up some foldback headphones for your drummer and then in most instances (after laying down a guide/scratch guitar +/- vocal track) get your drums down, switch your session to “grid” (as opposed to “slip”) mode and your songs template will be ready.

From there… bass… guitar… keys… horns… vocals/BVs etc. and so on and very soon you’ll be one step nearer that studio sound you’ve heard a thousand times over yet never been able to achieve.

musicians struggling send ‘em off to: http://www.metronomeonline.com

limited click sounds try adding Xpand: http://tinyurl.com/bbftl5

In the old days (good or bad it’s all a matter of perspective) in addition to the house monitors (which would always include (and somebody please tell me why!!!) the inevitable Yamaha NS 10s) we would run any final mixes through a small set of radio speakers… why you may ask… well cos it was, and to a certain extent is, a place where a great deal of music is still consumed.

But nowadays there is a new standard (or to be more precise format) the MP3 and it’s why at #dbstudios we always “switch” all our final mixes at some stage into MP3 format and have a good listen… initially on our Harman/Kardon Sound Sticks II and then via i-tunes on our coveted nanochromatic using the standard suppy earphones, cos that is how the vast majority of music, at least for now is consumed.

You know it makes sense

When recording more is often less… in that you can decide not to use a track at the mixdown stage but you can’t (other than by digitally cloning) whip up a track out of thin air if it wasn’t recorded… well at the recording stage.

So that’s why at dbstudios you’ll often see us multi-miking in situations where many engineers may save themselves time and energy by using just one source microphone. Above is the way we miked Sam Hooper’s Fender Deluxe Reverb for his rhythm tracks.

An M-Audio Luna over the cone edge (which we later digitally cloned and panned to -33 and a Shure 57 which we later dropped through an Eleven LE vintage amp simulator and panned to +33). The resultant clean, rich, warm sound can be heard on Sam’s forthcoming album recorded at #dbstudios where the “only limit is your imagination”.

Any studio buffs will have heard the term but in case you’re not sure we can glean the following from Wikipedia…

A sound baffle is a construction or device which reduces the strength (level) of airborne. Sound baffles are a fundamental tool of noise mitigation, the practice of minimizing noise pollution or reverberation. An important type of sound baffle is the noise barrier constructed along highways to reduce sound levels at properties in the vicinity. Sound baffles are also applied to walls and ceilings in building interiors to absorb sound energy and thus lessen reverberation.

But used incorrectly they can produce more problems than they “mitigate” and if you’re interested be sure to explore…

http://tinyurl.com/cacvg3

Thanks to a great question from sxsyfly (see “comedy of errors…”) I thought we’d give a little attention to kick/bass drum microphones.

Above is a shot of the Shure 57 we used to capture Sara Routh’s foot stomping on Big Yellow Taxi… in this instance it’s a robust “dynamic” microphone with what we could call a good “bass response”… the following diagram will reveal all:

So as you can see… different instruments occupy different frequency zones… so with something like a “foot stomp” or a kick drum… you want a microphone that responds well in the lower frequency ranges and in this instance something that is quite robust cos it may get a kick or two!!!

As you can imagine there is a huge debate as to what the best microphone for the kick drum application is… if you are interested check out:

http://tinyurl.com/an46pw

What a day… if it wasn’t one malfunctioning lead it was a cellophane covered 9V or ear-splitting Chinese fire-crackers… but when we sat back and listened to what we had laid down damn it sounded good & I thought you might appreciate a quick after-hours shot to see how we rigged Sara’s guitar.

Check out a pair of Lunas, a Sputnik (used on Madonna’s last album) matched Pulsar IIs and a sneaky bass drum mike to catch that stomping foot… as the great man himself said… “all’s well that ends well”!!!

After a very sweaty couple of hours trying to work out why our 24″ heart-of-the-studio’s i-mac’s very noisy (and let me remind you we’re a recording studio!!!) fan would not shut off i got to learn all about the System Management Controller (SMC)… damn i wouldn’t recommend it but if you hit the same problem just check out: http://tinyurl.com/6u7eqt

In case you’re too impatient let me explain:

The System Management Controller (SMC) is a chip on the logic board that controls all power functions for your computer. If your computer is experiencing any power issue, resetting the SMC may resolve it. The SMC controls several functions, including:

• Telling the computer when to turn on, turn off, sleep, wake, idle, and so forth.
• Handling system resets from various commands.
• Controlling the fans.

So what better to calm my by now very unsteady nerves than some online late night Windows (or in this case Mac) shopping… you know it makes sense!!!

see it in action at:

http://tinyurl.com/dnj8ts