Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Welcome to Recording Studio Rockstars. I created it to help you learn more about the recording
studio, so that you can take your own recordings to the next level. On the podcast I interview
pros from the studio so they can share their stories and insights with you. The Mix Master
Bundle is my way of saying welcome, and thank you for joining the Rockstars email list.
I want to help you be a Rockstar of your own studio!
I know one of the challenges you may be facing is getting better at mixing your music. You may
be trying to get a feel for what can be done when you are mix in a DAW. How can you get your
drums and guitars to sound slamming? How do you get your mixes to sound punchy or loud and
clear enough?
For some, you may be comfortable mixing in your DAW but just want more practice. And for
others, you just may not have the ability to record a full band with drums and loud guitars in your
home studio. So I want to provide you with multitracks, from a full production recording studio, to
practice your mixing. You can even use this song to show off your mixing ability to attract future
clients.
I only ask that you do not offer my song for sale anywhere, or use it as your theme song.
I’m already using it for The Toy Box Studio Show :)
Either way, I hope you enjoy the Mix
Master Bundle!
The song is American Winter from my album Skadoosh! I wrote this 9 song instrumental
record with a great Nashville drummer, Corey Siegle. We spent 5 relaxed days recording the
basic tracks (drums and 1 guitar). Then I added the other guitars, bass, and even piano over
time.
It took me a long time to finally go back into the studio and finish the overdubs.
And it took me an EVEN LONGER time to finally go back in to finish the mixing and
mastering.
Skadoosh! The record was mixed with Pro Tools 6 and bussed out through my mixing console
at The Toy Box Studio. The console is a one of a kind custom built MCI that made many hit
records at Criteria Studios in Miami during the 1970s. I may have also mixed it through my ¼”
MCI tape machine too (I actually don’t remember if I went through the tape machine or not.
Sorry!) Later I mastered it using Logic Waveburner with stock plugins.
But for the Mix Master Bundle due to the limitations of the internet, I couldn’t send you
my MCI console and tape machine . Lol
(Plus I don’t use Pro Tools version 6 anymore).
So instead I remixed American Winter in Pro Tools 11 to create a new mix that I could share
with you to show everything that I did. (Who knows maybe this mix sound better than the
original anyway!)
Watch the Mix Master Bundle videos.
Making your own record can be both a great deal of fun and a very painful experience. During
one session while doing an overdub, I set the guitar (Strat) down onto a guitar stand right in
front of the patch bay. Later I had forgotten it was there and leaned over to pull a patch cable.
BAM! the headstock of the guitar went right into my right eye! For a moment I thought I had
done permanent damage. Luckily it was just badly bruised. I had a blood red eye for two weeks
after that and have needed glasses ever since (I just don’t ever want to wear them. lol)
I literally almost gave my right eye to make this record.
But despite that near blinding tragedy I had a freakin blast recording this. So I hope you enjoy it!
Cheers!
Lij
In the Mix Master Bundle I give you a quick break down of the mix process to show you how I
address the different elements of the song. There are no vocals on Skadoosh! But I do cover
the basics of Rock n Roll:
drums, percussion, bass, guitars, and how to mix it all.
You can download the multitrack files and the Pro
Tools Session here.
So you can practice mixing them yourself!
Lucky for us I took recall photos to document the recording session
.
I’ll walk you through my setup here:
Tracking Guitar
I have an old 70’s looking black hollowbody guitar with a
tremelo bar. Somebody bolted a Yamaha neck onto it and
scribbled out the Yamaha logo. Years ago a friend of mine
said he loved that guitar and offered to buy it from me. At
the time I never played it, but still I didn’t want to sell it (I like
having a lot of guitars around the studio).
Boy am I glad I held on to that guitar!
When we started writing these songs I randomly pulled that
guitar down off the wall and…
Holy Moses! I could not believe how awesome this guitar is.
Why had I never used it before? It has what look like plastic
P90 pickups. They look really cheap but they sound
incredible!
It’s still a difficult guitar to control. It sort of goes crazy on
you at times. And the tuning is tricky. But It sounded just
right! I’m so glad I didn’t sell it off. :)
Here I am rocking out in the control room and feeling Lucky!
Black Beauty got used on nearly every song on the record.
The Amps:
I also borrowed some killer amps from
friend and producer, Roger Alan Nichols.
I ran a 50ft speaker cable from the
control room out to the dead iso booth
(aka the Phone Booth). The cabinet is a
custom 1x12 that I bought from a local
music store. I have no idea what it is, but
it sounds fantastic! I know because I shot
out ALL of my speakers and cabinets,
and the 1x12 won.
You can see the mics I used on the
cabinet. I chose four to listen to:
The EV RE10 dynamic
The Shure SM57 dynamic
The Oktava MK 319 condenser
AKG C414 BULS condenser
I was able to send all these mics to
through individual preamps and then
to the console on separate faders.
That way I could sculpt the sound
while I was playing by adjusting the
fader blend until I got something that
inspired me! My console at The Toy
Box Studio is one of a kind.
You can learn more about it here .
The Akg 414 through the Neve 1079
The Shure SM57 Through the MCI Console mic pre:
As you can see from the labeling on the
console I ended up using the SM57 blended
with the AKG 414 (a classic rock guitar
combo).
It looks like I also had the B&O ribbon mic
setup at one point but I didn’t use it.
The blend of the mics goes out of the MCI
console to the Urei 1776 compressor in
mono on the way to Pro Tools!
Next up is the Drums:
Corey used my house drum kit for this
session which is a my 80’s Pearl Maxwin
student kit with a Ludwig Acrolite Aluminum
Snare drum. I can’t explain it but that cheap
drum kit always sounded like a million bucks!
I did a little Googling and found out that
the kit may be from 1979
Drum Miking:
Kick Inside AKG D112 > Calrec PQ116102
by far my favorite!
Kick Front head AT4033 > MCI condenser
mic
Power Mic for the drums, Coles 4038 Ribbon > MCI
Room Mics Altec M20 lipstick tube lavalier mics
(these things are cool!) > MCI
Bass guitar:
I used a bass that I bought from an old college
friend of mine. She had played it in a punk band
but had it sitting around and needed to sell it when
she was a single mom. This is the same bass that
Flea has used in The Red Hot Chili Peppers (I
think), the Ernie Ball Music Man Sting Ray.
Sting Ray >Avalong U5 DI > 3 way split output…
>Ampeg SVTII head > Dietz 1x15 speaker
> U5 Di goes to Tech 21 Sans Amp rack unit
>U5 Line Out goes Straight to Pro Tools
Then the mics on the Dietz 1x15 cabinet are blended:
Audio Technica 4033
Shure SM57
ElectroVoice RE10
The blend of the mics happens at
the MCI console
and then goes to the Urei 1176
The real magic on this session
happened in the tuner however!
Since we started with just guitar and
drums I had no pitch reference. And
Black Beauty has a tendency to drift
out of tune.
We ended up with a batch of songs
that were not quite in tune with
A440.
The way I solved this was to listen very carefully and play along with the song until I had the
bass overdub in tune with each track. When the bass was in tune I would adjust the fine tuning
of the strobe tuner to match the shift in tuning...
So when I wanted to overdub another guitar I would use the special strobe tuner setting to
and viola! I was in tune for the overdub.
Here’s an example of how far off I was,
the tuner is set to 8 ½ cents sharp!
And it wouldn’t be rock and roll without a
little bit of the absurd! Here are Corey and
Roger who stopped by to give us a little
production advice during the session.
I think they are measuring the hugeness of our
song writing talent here! :/
If you have any other questions about the multitrack audio files, the session, the recall photos,
or recording technique feel free to email me, and I’ll try to email you right back and answer it on
Recording Studio Rockstars for everyone.
Cheers!
Lij