recording notes

On the last album, this section tended to be a track by track, blow-by-blow account of the recording process, but I figured there's so much that is common that a general overview might be more helpful & less dull.  There's also a continually growing section regarding recording tips and tricks on the main tbm website for those interested in those sorts of things!  More details on the studio equipment can be found in the main studio pages.

You'll need yer Mac on!

Unlike PfAC, all of strange tale was recorded directly into the computer rather than a mix of computer and Roland VS.  We completely refitted tollbooth last year with a nice new Apple G5 dual processor machine forming the core of a highly flexible and powerful recording system.

Apple Mac G5 tower / dual 1.8GHz processor / 1.5Gb RAM / 120Gb Int HD / 80Gb Int HD / 2x 120Gb Ext FW400 NetDrives

That runs: Digital Performer v4.52 (now v5).  we've used DP since v2 in OS9 and it's always been immensely stable and highly creative.  For me, having used many of the other platforms, DP still offers a much more intuitive way of recording for the creative musician, whilst still offering all the high end facilities needed for the most discerning engineer and producer.

DP is fed by MOTU hardware (2408 & 24i/o, giving us 36 simultaneous live inputs) which is a really smooth signal path.  all the inputs are patched into pre-amps and modules and fx racks and can just stay there.  it makes for really fast working as i can pick i/p, o/p & aux routes by name from within DP.  A Mackie Universal Control surface provides a touchy-feely interface for the otherwise mouse dominated way of working.

The soft side of instrumentation

Though the studio is loaded with a stack of virtual instruments and plug-ins, when i'm working on my own, i have a few 'usual suspects' that i always run to.  this is particularly true of soft-synths where I have a number of modules that are great for providing flexible sounds for external clients, but that i don't use too often for myself.  Featured heavily on this album are:

Spectrasonics Atmosphere - dubbed the "dream synth" Atmosphere is a wonderful synth for providing very organic pad beds or track textures.  It excels at providing sounds that develop over long periods of time (often in the region of minutes!) in the way that modules like the Wavestation used to be so good at.  I love it for providing beginnings and ends of tracks from which percussion or drums can rise.  It also has some great vintage synth emulations which i love - big analog basses and string machine type sounds.

Native Instruments Absynth v2 - i've always looked at Absynth as the aggressive cousin of Atmosphere.  though great again for developing sounds and highly layered sounds, Absynth seems to have a harder, maybe more industrial, edge to it.  Absynth sounds often have a very rhythmical component which is fully sync'able to your sequencer, which makes things really interesting.  for those interested in synth programming, Absynth is fantastic for sound development and design and has some really powerful editing features.

JV1080 - my old workhorse hardware module.  there are some sounds that the JV still does just so well!  they may be classics, but they are classics for a reason!

Native Instruments Reaktor - this is such a memory eater that i don't use it too much on my own projects, but one of the things i really wanted to experiment with was using it to feed audio signals into and using the software filters (which are excellent) to process particularly lead guitar sounds.  this features highly on 'cover me with daffodills' where the only fx are the Reaktor filters & delays. 

Native Instruments Battery - effectively a soft drum machine, Battery is immensely flexible at editing drum sounds and constructing very complex velocity layered custom kits.  I use Battery mainly for playing 'live' drums and particularly for adding cymbals and little percussion bits and bobs.  I trigger Battery off my trusty old Roland R5 ( a classic drum machine in its own right!) and Roland Handsonic in the same way as some of the new Akai and M-Audio finger pads are designed to do. I have my own favourite cymbal only kits that I use a lot on Strange Tale.

Spectrasonics Stylus RMX - this programme was a revelation in the production of this album.  fundamentally RMX is a looping tool, but that's really underselling it.   RMX allows you immense control over drum and percussion loops and astonishing creativity in terms of layered loops and sounds.  It takes a little while to get to grips with just how powerful it is, but once you are there, building rhythm tracks (which is my personal joy though has been a bit of a chore up to now) is a delightful process.  We have fully loaded RMX with all its expander libraries giving us access to thousands of loops, kits and styles, and they really are worth the extra money for once!  And Indrid just loves playing it!

Anyone for cards?

Most of the dynamic and fx processing on this album was done within the computer this time, very little was flown out to external hardware.  Though DP comes loaded with some very good processors and plugs, there are times when 30 or 40 tracks of audio with reverbs and eq's and mastering plugs can all take their toll.  Halfway thru the project I installed a t.c. powercore element PCI card into the Mac and it has breathed life into large multi-track plug-in intensive songs.  The Powercore takes much of the hard work out of fx processing by coming with its own reverbs and dynamics which it handles on the card itself.  And nice plugs they are too - the reverbs are particularly stunning and are fantastic for vocals and long ambient tails which are usually the first things to suffer on cheaper reverbs.

I also bought two additional plugs for the Powercore - Noveltech Character and t.c Master X5. Character is a beautifully mysterious compression & eq based dynamic processor which has very few controls (and not all of them logical!) and yet, it just seems to do the job.  Slightly saggy bass guitars get a new lease of life thru Character and you can seemingly add extra snap and pound to basslines.  The sound is not dissimilar to units such as the spl Vitalizer or Aphex Exciters, but it just feels very different and much more immediately musical.

Master X5 is a multiband mastering processor, based on the t.c. Finalizer series.  It's a great plug for adding whallop and depth to tracks in the master channel and I wouldn't be without it (until I can afford the new MD3 series that is!)

Getting all pre-vious?

The last, but most important part of the chain is getting all this wonderful stuff into the computer in the first place!  Most of the pre-amp duties were handled by my big red beloved tfpro P2 built by Ted Fletcher.  Ted's pre's have the most wonderfully musical opto-compression - it's not everyone's cuppa, but i've always loved the way that Ted's units handle my material.  Clean guitars, vocals, bass, and even the Handsonic Percussion synth all go through the P2.  The EQ is warm and glossy at the same time and the compression is never obvious.

Stick goes through either the P2, or even an older Focusrite Trakmaster.  The Trakmaster just gives a slightly more edgy sound to the Stick bass parts for when a gritty and tight sound is needed.  When it's deep bass, then it's the P2.

Lead guitars tend to go through the PODv2 then direct into the A/Ds.  Every now and then i get enthusiastic and mic up my new Tech21 Trademark 60 cabinet (used on lead sound in Nephelokokkygia) and remember why it's a good idea!

For clean guitars, i just tend to run the guitar thru the relevant stomp box and then straight into the P2 again.  The wobbly guitars in 'Down The Line' were recorded very basically on a very short input chain of guitar to Digitech Multi-Voice Chorus (a wonderful chorus pedal) then into the P2.  for more chordal work or tight arpeggios i will add a Boss compressor before the chorus.

The Almeira classical guitar is a hybrid piezo/mini condenser mic pre-amp version and records beautifully and simply just plugging straight into the P2.

All other processing is done in the Mac.