In this episode we take a look at the elusive art of mastering. This is not an instructional “how to master” video, but a non technical explanation of the process, and how the art of mastering audio has evolved over the years. What is it that all those guys like Bob Ludwig, Stephen Marcussen, Greg Calbi and Bob katz are actually doing? Get the part of the answer here.

I shot this really fast on a break in a studio in Italy with REALLY bad lighting. I will replace it with a better looking video when I get some time.

If you want to watch this on your ipod, download the m4v version

A lesson for beginners on understand DIs, Direct Boxes or Direct Inject boxes. Ever wonder what Direct boxes are used for? An explanation of what they do, how to connect them and use them in your home recording studio.

To watch on your ipod, download the m4v file

Information for beginners about Mic pres. What are they? Do you need one?  What does it do and advice about integrating an external microphone preamp. Also discussed are the benefits of using higher quality mic pres and why some one might choose Neve or API or Great River, etc over the pre in their audio interface.

To watch on your ipod, download the m4v file

Welcome to the adventure of Home Recoding. In these videos we will help you understand the basic building blocks of the recording studio and how they apply to your recordings.

I am working in Italy for 5 weeks. Producing 3 singles for various artists and also doing the Italian Villa Recording Boot Camp (which still has one space available) In addition to the work I am having a lot of fun enjoying the food, wine and Italian culture. I am doing a somewhat regular video diary of my time over here and posting them on youtube.com I am posting my 4th right now. The first few are mostly about having fun and food and such, but they are going to be more and more about recording stuff as the month progresses. Click on the video below to see the others and subscribe to the youtube channel for updates, because I will not post about them here too often.

Ciao

Ronan

We have scheduled a six day Recording Boot Camp June 14-19, 2010.

Please note that we had this one was schedule for May but have moved that session to June. Contact us if you are interested in attending.

Also, although we have a couple people interested in the last spot of our Italian Villa Recording Boot Camp, as of now there is still one spot available.

It takes a pretty hardcore audio geek to find beauty in a much of dancing meters in a rack, but I guess I am guilty as charged 😉 I was mixing a tracks for the LA based Eggshell Egoz and I looked at one of my dynamics racks and thought that just watching lights on cool gear was art.

The gear in this video:

Emperical Labs Distressor (x2)

SPL Transient Designer (4 channel verion)

A Designs 500 HR rack with a Petes Place BAC-500 and Electrodyne 501

Drawmer DL241 two channel gate

Just at the bottom of the screen you can see the RNC and RNLA from FMR Audio. I had other dynamics processors working on the mix as well but there are in another rack to the right.

I was recently invited to participate in a round table discussion of the hosts of the top recording related podcast on the net. If you are a fan of recording, check it out and check out all the other podcasters. You can hear the Recording related podcasters round table Ryan Canestro’s on “Home Recording Show”

I was invited because of my Ronan’s Recording Show

The other featured podcasters can be found at

http://www.homerecordingshow.com/

http://www.insidehomerecording.com/

http://sessionswithslau.com/

http://projectstudionetwork.com/

Its pure coincidence that the last two blog posts have been Nigel Godrich related

I love Radiohead. I think they are one of the truly great bands of my generation. OK Computer is an iconic album that I have a feeling people will be listening to long after we are all dead and gone. It blew me away on the fist listen. Their latest on the other hand disappointed me on first listen, but I kept getting drawn back to listen to it again. Then one day I was out for a long walk with my ipod shuffle listening to it and it clicked. I had been listening to it wrong. Its a beautiful album but one that requires listening in a different way then OK Computer or even Kid A. I realized, at least for me, that this was an album to experience passively where as OK computer is a work that is better served by careful attention and really engaging the journey.

Since then “In Rainbows”, my ipod shuffle and I have taken many long walks together and I love the album. That sounds romantic, but its probably because I am writing this on Valentines day.

I was really excited to hear that producer Nigel Godrich had started filming bands in his (very large) basement studio and that there was a film of the band performing the songs from ‘In Rainbows”. As I was watching, something really struck me.

It sounded like the album!

Sure there were some differences in tone and the level of a few effects, but the overall feel of it, and signature sounds were intact in the live performance. This would not cause a second thought in a live performance of a typical rock band, but “In Rainbows” is full of swirling effects and backwards loops and a constantly evolving landscape. This is the kind of album that one would assume is is the work of using the studio as an “instrument”. Studio Trickery. When I listened to this album I attributed so many of unique sounds, effects and soundscapes to brilliant mixing and post production, but as I watched the guys from Radiohead playing those songs and stomping on pedals and sitting on the floor spinning knobs I realized that as great as that recording is, its actually seems to be a fairly simple recording of brilliant sounds.

This got thinking about the mantra that almost all experienced producers and engineers know. Its all about the source. There are many tricks and techniques we can use later in the recording process to try and enhance and alter things, but a very important thing to remember is that so many of the great and most  creative albums are actually fairly straight forward recordings. The magic is happening before the mic.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that magic is something that you add later in the recording processes and neglect to put the effort in where it really matters most, which is at the source. When people focus on great sounds, great performances and finding the magic before the mic, its amazing how easy the rest of the process can be. If you are fan of radiohead, check out this video for recording inspiration.

nigel godrich from the basement

I intended to post this before Christmas but life got busy, but it still gets the point across.

It may seems strange that I am recommending a depressing break up album by a Scientologist as the perfect Christmas gift, but there is a reason I think it’s the perfect gift for any lover of recording….

Beck’s Sea Change album is a staggering production and engineering Tour de Force. The strong writing is perfectly captured and supported by Nigel Godrich’s stellar production. The Sonics and arrangements takes the material to a place that perfectly suits the mood and emotion of the songs, and envelops the listener. The recording techniques Nigel Godrich used perfectly support the material. Although I teach tons of people how to record I am, and hopefully always will be, a student of recording myself, and I seem to learn something new every time I listen to this album. I am solidly good at making records, and quite often I hear a great album, and think to myself that I could have done that, with that group and those resources, but Sea Change is one of those (to quote Wayne’s World) “I’m not worthy albums”. The production is pure genius.

I am constantly amazed at the beautiful texture and depth of the recordings, and how Nigel Godrich weaves sounds that often might not sound ideal on their own, into a part of an amazing sonic tapestry. Sonically the album seems to effortlessly combine the last 45 years of recording, coming off as some love child of Nick Drake, Neil Young, Pink Floyd and Radiohead, and some how managing to never sound forced or campy. As a producer myself that has been aspiring to such goals for 20 years, I can tell you its no simple feat.

Of the many things I love about the production,  the album holds together as a cohesive whole, but each of the songs has its own identity. In some songs the drums are very big dry and in your face, other times they are tiny and distant. The guitars shift from bright and sparkly to warm and dark, but always in a way that best supports the song. The shifts in arrangement and dynamics take the songs from small and intimate to huge and epic, but with out any of the harshness in the big sections that can plague so many modern releases. The arrangements and sounds are always intriguing, and surprising but never take your focus away from the songs and the voice. Despite all the elaborate production, Sea Change at its core never stops being an intimate singer songwriter album.

One of the great things that Godrich does which is easy to experiment with in your own work is to keep most of the element in the mix very dry and focused but to accent the arrangement with elements that have huge amounts of delay and/or reverb on them. The contrast of super dry and super wet creates a ton of front to back depth in the mixes, but what is so cool is that the very wet elements come and go through out the song, keeping the landscape of the mix constantly changing. Is a wonderful mixing technique that is easy and dose not require super expensive gear to accomplish.

Although I am getting all of this second hand, I have been told that most of the album was recorded live at Ocean Way Studios, tracked and mixed analog with no automation. The mixes were done as musical “performances” While I can not confirm this, the album seems to convey that that feel.

If I was to levy any criticism against what I consider to be a near perfect production, it would be the song “Sunday Sun”. Not that it is bad in anyway, but it’s the one moment of the entire album where the production takes me away from the songs rather than enhancing them. The vocals sound really strange in the verses, almost like Beck is singing with his hand in his mouth, and the dissonant melodic material and unnatural percussion sounds feel almost gimmicky to me in the context of such a stellar album. But even that might knock the production down to a 9.9 out of 10.

I guess the real reason for this blog post is that so many people turn to me these days to learn about recording, that I periodically want to share things that inspire me and educate me on my journey towards making better records.

Produced, engineered and mixed by Nigel Godrich at Ocean Way Studios

Assistant Engineer: Darrell Thorp

Mastered by Bob Ludwig

Check out Nigels insanely cool web site www.fromthebasement.tv which features footage and photos of many of the artists he has worked with.

If you have albums that continually teach you things, please post them in the comments section.