Challenge: Watch an episode of Dave Pensado’s Place. Write a paragraph about a technique/topic that you found enlightening. Put your Name and paragraph in the comments section of this post. DUE: September 19, 2011
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Challenge: Watch an episode of Dave Pensado’s Place. Write a paragraph about a technique/topic that you found enlightening. Put your Name and paragraph in the comments section of this post. DUE: September 19, 2011
Jeff Seitz
Pensado’s Place, Episode #22. Interview with Jack Joseph Puig.
So much good information in this episode. JJP talks about the soul of music lies in the midrange, from 600hz to 3.5kHz. Get the midrange right and the music will translate well to various mediums.
He talks about how he uses compression to alter the “feel” or groove of a track. Altering the attack of a rhythmic track might make it more interesting. Altering the length of a note makes the brain perceive if the player is playing early or late. Increasing the ratios increases the effect of the feel.
He also talks about creating systems to remove the technical issues so that you can react in a creative manor. This was a method learned from Glyn Johns. For example, he always lines up his tracks in the same order. Now when he is thinking about making a fader move, he just reaches down and does it. If you have to hunt for something, your mind loses its creative force.
Nick Walters
Pensado’s Place, Ep. #30. Interview w/ Steve Baughman
There was a little bit of rambling at times but there were definitely some golden nuggets there as well.
During the ITL portion of the show Pensado taked about different ways to use gates to his advantage in unique ways. One technique that I really liked and can’t wait to try, was using a gate on vocals to trigger the reverb bussed to that vocal track, so that there is still space between words. Along with that was the revelation to use a gate to trigger any track other than the track that the gate is on. Mind=Blown. Another technique was to use vocals to to duck the guitar track.
During the interview with Baughman I liked his suggestion of adding a “trim” to groups of instruments. I also like how he described the process and art of mixing as a “sonic puzzle”.
Alex Moon
Pensado’s Place, Ep. #24 – Sidechain Compression
In this episode, Dave talks about sidechain compression. I really like the idea to use the compression to clean up mixes. His idea to use the compressor on the bass track, controlled by the kick drum, to make the kick drum come out of the mix. Also, using the compressor on the guitars, controlled by the vocals, to make the vocals come out, and not having to constantly adjust the volume of the guitars is also good. His recommendations on plugins are also very helpful.
Ryan Lentine
Pensado’s Place, Ep #31 – Eric Valentine
In this episode, Eric Valentine, producer of albums by bands like Good Charlotte, Third Eye Blind, and Queens of the Stone Age, is interviewed. They take a tour of his studio which is incredible. He has some really cool things in there, such as the “Drumbrella” which is a sort of canopy he places over the drums which can be raised or lowered via remote. Based on the height of the canopy, different overtones are achieved from the drums (Jeff – we should get one of these!). He also has something called a mic robot which holds microphones for the guitar amps and can be controlled from the control room for finite adjustments to eliminate having to keep getting up to move the mic (we also should get one of these).
After all the cool stuff, they get into an interview with Eric. One of the things he talked about that I found really informative was his technique for miking drums. Instead of using a bunch of microphones to capture every drum, he uses around four microphones. One of them hovers over the hi hat, snare, and hi tom. Another one hovers over the low tom and is looking into the the center of the kit (helps capture some kick attack). He also puts a microphone about three feet in front of the kick drum. The coolest part of his setup comes from the snare drum. He puts a SM57 on the snare, then splits it to two guitar amps that are placed in isolation. He uses the sounds from these amps combined with spring reverb to get a unique snare sound that cuts through the mix.
Tyler Hoover
Pensado’s Place: #26 – Producer Alex Da Kid and Engineer Claudio Cueni
The program started with some organizational tips for ProTools. Drew went through color coding, sorting, and general organizational techniques he uses when he gets projects for Dave.
I found the Alex da Kid interview really interesting. They discussed his multicultural influence on the music he makes. Alex talked about how big of an influence technology is on his music and how it is so imbedded in the music. Also, they noted the importance of engineers having production skills and producers having engineering skills so that everyone is on the same page.
Claudio Cueni is in the batters box, and also answers questions at the end. He talked about working on 2Pac’s vocals and how he uses compression to color vocals instead of an EQ.
Pensado’s Place #29: Jimmy Douglass
On this episode in ITL Dave talks about creative ways to use gates in a mix. The first demonstration Dave uses a kick drum to open a gate. The gate which is then side chained to another channel’s tone generator which set to a low sine wave to add consistent low end to the kick drum tone. The second technique is similar in that he side chains a hi-hat to a synth pad. The hihat opens the gate and when the gate opens it allows the synth pad to go through. This gives the pad a more definite rhythm that is caused by the modulation given by the hihat. The final technique Dave used a transient designer plug in to cut out the extra grit from a snare drum. The transient design was acting as a gate on the sustain of the drum.
The guest on this show was recording engineer and producer Jimmy Douglass. A large part of discussion centered around the responsibilities of an engineer within the session from earlier years to now. They talked about how when musicians walked in before the engineer was in charge. They knew less about the actual recording process then they do now, thus the engineer was able to just do their job and was trusted by the band and producer. Jimmy mentions how the industry now is more delegated and even stiff.
Another interesting topic was different panning philosophies Dave and Jimmy have. Jimmy in one section stated that in analog the space is filled and smoothed out. It has a fuller sound allowing you to pan LCR and still sounding rich and full. In digital there is no smoothing or smearing which leaves gaps if you were to mix LCR.
Darren Shahinian
Pensado’s place: #2 Jean-Marie Horvat
I watched several episodes of Pensado’s Place and really enjoyed this one in particular because it seemed to touch on things that I already have a concept of and have used in practice. One of the major things discussed was stereo bus compression, where he gave an overview of why and how it is used as well as some tips of his own. For instance, he talks about listening closely for the differences that are not always very obvious when you listen to the mix with the added compression and when you bypass the compression. Something that is more obvious is that there is a difference in volume which can be adjusted by messing with the gain. However, something that at least to me was less obvious that he mentions is the mix having slightly less low end ( which he states is really just more apparent high end). Another comment that he made that really stood out to me was that “less is more.” He also talks about using compression to add color to a mix.
In the interview, Horvat talks about how he gets such excellent drums in his mix. Drums have been one of the most frustrating things for me in my mixes, and I am looking forward to changing things up by trying what Horvat does and mixing drums last. This allows you to mix the drums so that they not only sound good but really fit with everything else going on in the mix. Vocals, he says, are what stand out and sell a mix. Mixing the drums around the vocals and other elements will allow you to find the drum sound you want in the overall concept of the mix. I think this would be helpful conceptually when mixing in the sense that drums should be mixed as more of the supportive role that they are to the vocals and other tracks.
Jon Ross
Pensado’s Place Ep. 20
Dave talks on his into the lair section about using many small compressions bit by bit on each source, aux, and stereo bus track so one isn’t doing all the heavy lifting. that way each one isn’t “whacking the piss out of it, it is just gentle kind of stuff.” This episode also shows how he uses 4 to 5 busses that he sends grouped tracks to so he has everything condensed down to work with which is something that I have never done, yet sounds really handy.
Jacob Groft
Pensado’s Place Episode 31: Eric Valentine
Eric starts off by going around his studio showing off his equipment, such as his mic robot which he uses to adjust the mic placement on guitar amps. The cool thing about it was that he could actually change the sound of the guitar on the fly and right from the control room, and he uses this to get a natural EQ rather than reaching for EQ knobs and tampering with the sound. Another really cool piece of equipment he talked about was the “drumbrella”, which is a giant canopy that can be moved up and down to change the resonance of the room and help get certain overtones to resonate and tune to the song.
One thing that really caught my interest was the discussion of recording in Pro Tools and then moving that to tape. Eric would record and get all the essential sounds he would want on Pro Tools and then dump that onto tape, giving reasons like it lightens the work load and it saves tape. He also said it had a sonic benefit as well, talking about how the overtones are preserved better on tape and even harmonics that will not be perceived can still have an influence on the harmonics below that, where as in Pro Tools when you record at 48k anything that is over 24k is replaced by digital distortion that is being filtered off by the software.
Patrick Howell
Pensado’s Place, Episode 18: Michael Brauer
Brauer opens the interview by giving us a tour of his studio. When showing us his various delays, he mentions Coldplay, and how some of his favorite guitar sounds on Viva La Vida were achieved by simply tampering with long and short delay times through a Binson. Brauer then went on to talk about some of his personal techniques when applying compression. What I found interesting was Mike’s unique style of Multibus Compression called “Brauerizing.” Brauerizing uses a combination of both bus and aux tracks. Multiple busses are used to insure that individual instruments or groups of instruments don’t affect other instruments. The use of Multiple Auxes generates a bold sound, and a more controllable tone. Compression is triggered more by bottom end frequencies than high end. So Brauer combats that by having some compressors modified to have a low frequency control. Brauer speaks heavily on having control of your mixing board. This will not only lead to faster production but also to a less limited mentality. Use contrast in reverb/compression balance in different areas of the song (i.e. bright compression/dull reverb on things like verses and warm compression/broad reverb on choruses). These are some good ideas that I plan on implementing for myself.
Pensado’s Place: #31 – Eric Valentine
A big part of the episode was Eric going through his studio. I watched quite a few of these episodes wanting to see a tour of a real studio. The two details of the video that I remember are the Drum Umbrella and the guitar mic machine.
The drum umbrella was really cool to listen to. I couldn’t believe that an umbrella could make that much difference. It really did make them sound fatter. He uses the umbrella because he likes to tune the drums, particularly the snare, to the key of the song. Sometimes it would make the drums sound weak.
The other aspect of the episode that I liked was the guitar mic machine. It’s so simple that it’s genius. Instead of having to leave the control room to adjust the mic or have an intern do it, he just sets up a machine to move the mic in/out/left/right and a camera to display the changes in the control room.
Jacob Zimmerman
Pensado’s Place, Episode 6: Manny Marroquin
I thought an interesting part of this episode was when Manny is asked how he fits synths into a mix because they can be very “powerful” and have a broad frequency spectrum. Manny talks about having a focal point (usually the vocal) and “carving out” frequencies in instruments that compete with it. This is something I’ve always found to be challenging; I often feel like my mixes have too much going on and it is sometimes hard to hear everything equally.
Dave also mentions earlier in the episode how he likes to mix vocals first and build everything else around them, which reinforces what Manny says about having a focal point. Making the focal point sound the best it possibly can before adding anything else makes the process easier and creates a better end product. I may try this on my next recording.
Erica Eis
Pensado’s Place- Episode #29 Jimmy Douglas
In this episode Dave talks about the use of gates in a mix during ITL. He makes two demonstrations of using a kick drum and a hi-hat to open the gate. With the kick drum he uses the open gate side chained to a signal generator to add more low frequency to the kick drum. For the hi-hat example he uses the same technique except it is side chained to a synth pad.
During the interview with Jimmy Douglas, they discuss the importance and differing opinions of panning. Jimmy talks about using just left, right, and center in the digital domain. He mentions that he uses delays on the vocals in place of a lot of reverb because it helps deepen the space and fill in the empty space left by panning everything LRC.
They also talk about the changes in the dynamics of the team that puts together a record over time. Where there use to be defined positions, now the lines are blurred. Jimmy also mentions how important it is to be able to where different hats and have the abilities to do different jobs, but not to overdo work that someone has already done.