Guitar Mic Shootout Round Robin
Lesson 32 from: Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A BootcampEyal Levi
Guitar Mic Shootout Round Robin
Lesson 32 from: Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A BootcampEyal Levi
Lessons
Intro to Bootcamp
13:44 2Purpose of Pre-Production
15:54 3Technical Side of Preproduction
11:32 4Pre-Production: Setting Up the Tempo Map
12:05 5Pre-Production: Importing Stems
10:10 6Pre-Production: Click Track
15:26 7Creating Tracking Templates
17:03 8Intro and the Tone Pie
04:51Drums - Lay of the Land
10:44 10Bearing Edges
03:09 11Wood Types
10:36 12Depths and Sizes
04:00 13Hoops
02:38 14Sticks and Beaters
07:38 15Drum Heads
07:30 16Drum Tuning
1:03:54 17Drum Mic Placement Intro
10:37 18Basic Drum Mic Setup
53:36 19Cymbal Mic Setup
35:24 20Touch Up Tuning
46:55 21Microphone Choice and Placement
40:34 22Drum Tracking Intro
01:01 23Getting Tones and Final Placement
34:51 24Primary Tracking
31:54 25Punching In and Comping Takes
20:11 26Guitar Setup and Rhythm Tone Tracking
01:59 27Amplifiers - Lay of the Land
10:00 28Amplifiers & Cab Shoot Out
27:12 29Guitar Cab Mic Choice and Placement
03:56 30Guitar Tracking and Signal Chain
29:07 31Finalizing Amplifier Tone
51:24 32Guitar Mic Shootout Round Robin
05:21 33Intro to Rhythm Tracking
07:46 34Setting Up Guitars
15:02 35Working with a Guitarist
05:04 36Final Guitar Tone and Recap
04:10 37Guitar Tracking with John
15:19 38Guitar Tracking with Ollie
32:03 39Final Tracking
22:08 40Tracking Quads
33:44 41Intro to Bass Tone
01:26 42Bass Tone Setup
07:35 43Bass Tone Mic Placement
16:42 44Bass Tracking
45:08 45Intro to Clean and Lead Tones
02:15 46Clean Guitar Tones
34:04 47Lead Tones
10:58 48Vocal Setup for Tracking
11:26 49Vocal Mic Selection and Setup
02:38 50Vocal Mic Shootout
09:13 51Lead Vocal Tracking
38:09 52Writing Harmonies
07:44 53Harmony Vocal Tracking
23:25 54Vocal Warm Ups
11:39 55Scream Vocal Tracking
18:56 56Vocal Tuning and Editing Introduction
01:35 57Vocal Tuning and Editing
29:26 58Routing and Bussing
25:16 59Color Coding, Labeling and Arranging Channels
17:54 60Setting Up Parallel Compression
30:50 61Setting Up Drum Triggers
10:41 62Gain Staging and Trim
1:00:54 63Drum Mixing - Subtractive EQ
25:38 64Drum Mixing - Snare
23:00 65Drum Mixing - Kick
11:39 66Drum Mixing - Toms
24:47 67Drum Mixing - Cymbals and Rooms
17:23 68Drum Mixing Recap
08:57 69Mixing Bass Guitar
16:26 70Mixing Rhythm Guitars
1:16:07 71Basic Vocal Mix
1:08:59 72Mixing Clean and Lead Guitars
58:55 73Mixing - Automation
43:35 74Mastering - Interview with Joel Wanasek
31:01Lesson Info
Guitar Mic Shootout Round Robin
As you guys have heard, John Brown and I have been tweaking new tones with a new set of mics and just to kind of recap how we got to this point, first we decided on which cabinet heads we liked, just from listening in the room. Then Brown put his ear to the speakers and decided which one he liked, then we tested that just to make sure that he wasn't crazy, or deaf, which I knew he wasn't gonna be, but you know, still gotta test it. So we put a 57 on each speaker, got them going through the same exact preamps with the same, at the same exact levels, and not only that but we checked with the studio to make sure that SM57s were all of the same build and very similar serial numbers. The reason I say that is because, there is a batch of SM57s out there in the world, that are... bootleg 57s and they are everywhere and they sound completely different and it's very, very hard to know except for by looking at the serial number. So you always want to check your 57s, for the serial number and mak...
e sure that you have a real one and not a Chinese knockoff. So anyways, as you could hear in there, he was actually right, he heard that the top right speaker was the best and through testing in there, we agreed. But, we didn't like the tone that we were just getting off the 57, straight on, it just wasn't good enough. So we came in here and changed some stuff up, now this mic right here, the SN7B is pointed up at the ceiling, we're not using this. The reason it's still here is because, I am very scared to remove it completely, because this is a game of centimeters. I'm afraid that if I move this I might knock a cable which will move a mic and I really like where we're at. So just know that this is a game of centimeters and if have a tone that you like and a mic placement that's good, you need to cordon off that area like it's Fort Knox or someone will bump into it and mess you up. So let me show you what we've got. We've got one 57 that's straight on, now that's in different position than it was before, before it was on the edge, where the speaker met the dust cap but this is actually straight on at the center of the speaker. That captures a lot of high end, as you probably noticed, and we have the angled 57 which is at a 45 degree angle and that shaves off a lot of the high end. That's our favorite mic, and that's called the Fredman Technique, made famous by Fredrik Nordstrom of Fredman Studios. Great, great metal producer-mixer, did lots of wonderful things, big influence to all of us. Than we put a 421 in the opposite 45 degree angle, now it's gotta lot of top end bite and in all honesty I don't typically like them on guitars and neither has John Brown but, people seem to use them so much as a secondary mic, that we just figured why not, let's try it. As you saw in there though, it does have a lot of harshness, it gives a lot of bite but, maybe a little too much. So we did have to filter out some of the upper mids, pretty, pretty intensely. And then I don't know if you can see this on the camera but, right below the 57 that's straight on is a D6, and the D is just there to add just a little bit more bottom, a little more roundness and maybe just a little more fullness to the low mids. It's something that you know, like anything else in recording, doesn't always work, but when it does it's really really cool and as you heard in there, it just added a little bit more body to the tone. We made sure that all of these mics are the exact same distance from the speaker, so we won't get any phasing issues and we did check in the other room, and they were perfectly in phase. Now one thing you should know, is when your mic, different speakers on a cabinet, they will move at different rates and will cause phase anomalies. Not always, but definitely more often. So yeah, once you find the speaker you like, focus on that, try to get the mics the same distance and yeah go for it, have fun. So, we feel like we are almost there. We're much happier with this mic choice and placement and now were gonna just make a few final tweaks, maybe on the amp, maybe it's the guitar choice just to get a little bit more hate in the tone.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Ron
I'm on lesson 19! Already worth every dollar!!! Priceless insight! I have already incorporated some of the ideas (preproduction common sense stuff that I never thought of, but damn). VERY HAPPY with this course! ALWAYS LEARNING and looking forward to the next 50 (or whatever) lessons!!! Excellent course! GREAT PRODUCER/ENGINEER, GREAT DRUM TECH, and GREAT BAND!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
ceeleeme
I'm just part way though and I'm blown away by the quality approach Eyal takes to getting the best out of the sessions. I love how well everything is explained and Eyals calm manner is just awesome it really makes you want to listen to the gems of wisdom he offers.
Will
Wow is all I can say. This bootcamp goes in so much depth from tuning drums, setting up guitars, to recording and mixing. I have learned so much by participating in this bootcamp. It has taught me some new recording techniques and signal routing for my mixes. I just want to thank Eyal, Monuments, and Creative Live for taking the time to do this. It has been amazing and I will keep going back to these videos.
Student Work
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