Makna Kesabaran

Makna Kesabaran
Oleh HABIB ALWI ASSEGAFF

”APAKAH manusia itu mengira bahwa mereka akan dibiarkan (begitu saja) berkata, "Kami telah beriman", sedang mereka tidak diuji?. Dan sesungguhnya Kami telah menguji orang-orang sebelum mereka, maka (dengan ujian itulah) sesungguhnya Allah mengetahui orang-orang yang benar dan sungguh Dia mengetahui orang-orang yang dusta" (Q.S. Al-Ankabuut: 2-3).
Maha Benar Allah dengan segala firmanNya! sungguh indah dan tepat sekali ayat ini yang menjelaskan kepada kita bahwa setiap klaim tentang keimanan dan ketakwaan terhadap Allah SWT. memerlukan pembuktian. Setiap orang yang mengaku bahwa dirinya telah beriman, bersiap-siaplah menghadapi berbagai macam ujian dan cobaan dari Allah. Sebab, hanya dengan proses ujian inilah nanti akan diketahui dan terbukti siapa yang benar dalam pengakuannya dan siapa yang dusta. Kita semua tahu bahwa setiap bentuk ujian membutuhkan kesabaran dan keikhlasan. Sabar dalam menjalaninya; jangan sampai kita gagal di pertengahan atau kandas di ujung jalan, jangan sampai batin kita keluar dari garis ketabahan, ketegaran dan penyerahan diri secara total (tawakal) kepada Allah, dan jangan pernah biarkan diri kita terjerumus ke dalam jurang kekecewaan (pesimis) atau berputus asa dari rahmat dan pertolongan Allah.

"Janganlah kalian berputus asa dari rahmat Allah. Sesungguhnya tiada yang berputus asa dari rahmat Allah melainkan kaum yang kafir" (Q.S. Yusuf: 87). Ikhlas dan murnikanlah niat kita dalam menghadapi segala cobaan tersebut begitu juga kesabaran yang menyertainya, hanya sebagai niat ibadah, taat dan kecintaan kita kepada Allah semata, jangan sampai kita telah berusaha keras dan bersabar dengan susah payah, (namun karena tidak ikhlas) segala jerih payah kita ini menjadi sia-sia atau bahkan menjadi bumerang bagi kita sendiri. Na'udzu billahi min dzalik!.

Ujian dan kesabaran adalah dua hal yang tidak bisa terpisahkan, sebagaimana sabda Nabi saw. "Barangsiapa yang mau bersabar, maka siap-siaplah menghadapi cobaan". Lebih jauh lagi Allah SWT berfirman: "Dan sungguh akan Kami berikan cobaan kepadamu; dengan sedikit ketakutan, kelaparan, kekurangan harta, (kehilangan) jiwa dan (kerugian dalam) buah-buahan. Dan berikanlah kabar gembira bagi orang-orang yang sabar. (Yaitu) orang-orang yang apabila ditimpa suatu musibah, mereka mengucapkan:" "Sesungguhnya kami adalah milik Allah dan kepadaNyalah kami kembali. Mereka itulah yang mendapatkan berkah yang sempurna (shalawat) dan rahmat dari Tuhan mereka, dan mereka itulah orang-orang yang mendapat petunjuk". (Q.S. Al-Baqarah: 155-157).

Kenapa kita mesti sabar?, berikut ini beberapa ayat dan riwayat sebagai jawabannya; Allah SWT berfirman: "Apakah kamu mengira bahwa kamu akan masuk surga, padahal belum nyata bagi Allah siapa orang-orang yang berjihad di antaramu, dan belum nyata siapa orang-orang yang sabar" (Q.S. Ali Imran: 142).

Sesungguhnya surga itu hanya bisa dicapai oleh hamba-hamba Allah yang sabar: "Mereka itulah
orang-orang yang dibalas dengan martabat yang tinggi (di surga) karena kesabaran mereka dan disambut dengan penghormatan dan ucapan selamat di dalamnya" (Q.S. Al-Furqan: 75), "Dan Dia memberi balasan kepada mereka karena kesabarannya (dengan) surga dan (pakaian) sutera" (Q.S. Al-Insan: 12). Nabi Muhammad saw bersabda: "Barangsiapa yang menginginkan surga tetapi tidak sabar terhadap hal-hal yang sulit dan pahit, sungguh ia telah bercanda atas dirinya sendiri". Imam ali as. berkata, "Hanya dengan sabar, cita-cita tertinggi bisa diraih".

Tentang kesabaran ini diriwayatkan juga, bahwa Nabi Isa almasih as. berkata: "Sungguh engkau tidak akan bisa mencapai apa-apa yang kau cintai, kecuali dengan kesabaranmu dalam menghadapi apa-apa yang kau benci". Dalam kitab-kitab akhlak disebutkan bahwa sabar itu ada tiga macam. 1. Sabar dalam musibah. 2. Sabar dalam ibadah dan taat kepada Allah. 3. Sabar dalam meninggalkan maksiat. Selain ketiga jenis sabar ini ada juga yang menambahkan jenis keempatnya; yaitu sabar di saat kaya, bahagia dan sejahtera. Banyak manusia yang sabar ketika miskin atau susah, namun ketika keadaan berubah mereka tidak kuat derajat dengan kekayaan atau jabatan; karena menahan lapar di saat makanan tidak ada lebih mudah daripada menanggung lapar ketika banyak makanan di depan mata.

Selama hidup di dunia ini kita tidak akan lepas dari ujian dan cobaan, sebab dengan ujian inilah maka manusia akan matang dan dewasa secara spiritual (rohaniah). Tahapan demi tahapan dari ujian yang kita terima merupakan saat-saat yang akan selalu menentukan; Apakah maqam spiritual kita naik atau terpuruk, apakah derajat keimanan kita bertambah atau tidak. Setiap saat kita diperintah untuk meningkatkan keimanan dan ketakwaan kepada Allah. Oleh sebab itu, maka kesabaran ini tidak pernah mengenal batas. Kesabaran menunjukkan cahaya dan kesucian yang ada dalam batin manusia. Bagi sebagian orang awal kesabaran itu mungkin pahit, tapi akhirnya manis dan indah seperti ucapan Nabi Ya'qub as. (Q.S. Yusuf: 18). Tetapi untuk sebagian yang lain kesabaran itu, baik awal maupun akhirnya sama-sama pahit. Kita tidak akan bisa mencapai hakikat iman dan takwa selama tidak bisa merasakan manis dan indahnya kesabaran ini. Bahkan, seseorang yang memahami nilai kesabaran tidak akan pernah sanggup untuk kehilangan kesabaran tersebut.

Semoga kita dimasukkan oleh Allah ke dalam golongan orang yang sabar, karena "Sesungguhnya orang-orang yang bersabar akan dibalas dengan pahala yang tanpa batas" (Q.S. Az-Zumar: 10). Begitu juga firman Allah: "Dan bersabarlah. Sesungguhnya Allah beserta orang-orang yang sabar". (Q.S. Al-Anfal: 46)***

GETTING IN

February 2005

Itching to get your project started? Yeah. We bet you are. And you can. Right after you do what we tell you. Yup. Do what we tell you and NO ONE will get hurt.

TRIP THE TUNING FANTASTIC

--BOB HODAS (rhymes with YODA’s) knows more about tuning rooms than any one individual has the right to. He’s analyzed and corrected studios for everyone from Sony Music Entertainment to Abbey Road Studios and his most recent projects include an acoustic renovation of The Record Plant’s SSL-4 and Flea’s home studio. He had wanted us to call this “6 Cheap Sirloin Tips” but we decided that while they were free they were in no way cheap.

1. Build your room around the best speaker/listener setup for your space.

Why are you in this business? Audio! A studio should be a listening space, not a gear showcase. Clients will not come back to you if you have the coolest gear but their CD does not translate when they take it home. Many of a room’s serious bass problems can be solved just by getting the speakers and listener in the right position. Finding the proper positions can be difficult and time consuming even with good measurement gear, and the process is too long to explain here. An inexpensive alternative ($100) that can achieve, at a minimum, a 75% solution is RPG Inc.’s Room Optimizer program. It can help calculate the proper speaker placement for rooms with parallel walls (your basic home studio).

2. Symmetry.

If you don’t set your speakers up symmetrically in a room, they will wind up with different frequency responses due to speaker/boundary interference. Your speakers are fairly omnidirectional below 200Hz. So a lot of low energy is coming off the back and sides of the speaker. The signals that bounce off the walls and ceiling are going to mix in with the direct speaker signal. This delayed bounce will cause comb filtering. The time delay and thus, frequency of interaction is dependent on the speaker distance from the walls. If the left and right speakers are different distances from the walls, the cancellations will occur at different frequencies. Different frequency responses means that the speakers will sound different and also mess with your imaging. Bass is the foundation of building any mix so it has to be correct, and boundaries significantly affect a speaker’s bass response. Symmetry also applies to your equipment setup. Low frequencies are sensitive to gear placement. For example, if all of your gear is piled up on the left side, the left speaker will have a very different bass response than the right. So try to distribute your gear evenly around the room.


3. Find and treat your first order reflections.

High frequencies will act the same as the bass described in Tip #2. The difference is that they are more directional and above 400Hz will be subject to simple geometry. This means that you can use a mirror to find the reflection points. Invest $30 in a 2'x2' plastic mirror. Have a buddy sit at the mix position while you place the mirror flat against the walls and ceiling. Move the mirror around until your buddy sees the left and then the right speaker reflected in the mirror. Have your buddy slide side to side across the console to cover the entire mix area when looking in the mirror. Mark these areas so you can treat them. For the side walls and ceiling an inexpensive solution is a 6 lb. density, 2" compressed fiberglass, such as Owens Corning 705. The fiberglass should be covered with a fabric that is acoustically transparent. Go to a fabric store and pick out something with a very open weave. You should see some light pass through and if you hold it over your mouth you should be able to easily blow through it. Only treat the areas where you saw the speakers, or slightly larger, and don’t over do it. An over-damped room will sound like the life has been sucked out of it since you will disproportionately damp the high-end reverb time.


4. Put your speakers on stands, not on the console.

At this point I want to mention the evils of console reflections. The console and worktable are subject to the same reflections as your walls. Now I realize that you can’t do this if you have one of these all-in-one workstation pieces of furniture, but you should be aware of these tight reflections bouncing into your face. If you have the freedom, move the speakers back on stands. Use the mirror again for this. If you sit at the console and can see the tweeters in the mirror, you’re in trouble. Move those speakers back so you see no reflection in the mirror (usually about 8" behind the console).


5. Bass traps can help or hurt you.

There is no rule of thumb for bass traps. Many times trapping a corner is just what you need to control a room bump, but I’ve also seen corner traps put big holes into a room response. Sometimes you would do better to cut the corner off with a hard surface or leave the corner as is. In some cases the trap should be in the ceiling and in some cases on the back wall. I personally believe in measurement and experimentation to get the best results. I don’t think you can do it just with tones so I’ll recommend renting an RTA and a flat microphone (don’t use your favorite vocal mic). Experiment with treatments and do some listening too! The ears are the final judge in all of this.

6. Gather as much knowledge as you can.

This space is too short for any in-depth advice. The NARAS Producers & Engineers wing just published a guideline for setting up 5.1 mix rooms. While not perfect, there is a lot of good information in there. Read the articles on my website at www.bobhodas.com. I am way behind on getting current articles up there but I’ll be putting more up as we get into the new year. Read your trade mags. You may get frustrated by conflicting opinions in the studio design trade the deeper you get into this, but hey, it’s not a perfect world.

7.Get a leg up on it.

There are probably certain setup things you do with any sequencer each time you use it. So why do them every single time you start a certain kind of project? Outside of bad home training? Use a program’s “template” feature, and if it doesn’t have one, then just save certain basic projects according to type.

8. Pre-patch.

Nothing kills inspiration like waiting for the engineer to set up the recording chain (or taking time to patch things in yourself, if you’re wearing the artist and musician hats). So plan ahead. If you’re going to be overdubbing electric guitars, set up any DIs, re-amping boxes, tuners, and so on, ahead of time, so all you have to do is plug in and hit record.

9.Run and get back up.

If you have a piece of hardware with an internal fuse, you know that it will go at the worst possible time. Make life a little easier by attaching a replacement fuse inside the case, so that when you open it up to access the fuse, there will already be one there. If the equipment doesn’t run too hot, you can just tape the fuse to the side with duct tape. If you’re concerned about the fuse coming lose and wreaking havoc, then drill a hole, attach a dummy fuse holder with a screw, and insert the replacement fuse into the holder.

10.Scratch out a password/authorization code file.

If you lose a password or authorization code for your software, don’t expect much sympathy from the manufacturer. Create a file that contains all this crucial information, along with info like passwords to user update areas, then place this file in a folder that contains any other needed files (like HTML files used to register software). Make this folder “Copy Protection Central” with all the data you need to install and authorize software. Save this to CD, and buy a USB thumb drive that’s dedicated to holding this data. Print out the file of passwords as an additional safety measure. You’ll be glad you did.

11. Do some dry running.

During a mix or recording session with the client sitting over your shoulder is not the time to learn how a new piece of gear works. Take time in between sessions to practice with it — run a variety of tracks (drums, guitar, vocals) through that re-issue “vintage” compressor at different settings, feed a guitar cab with a direct “reampable” signal while repositioning a new microphone, or whatever, and be sure to record the results so you have an audio record of how things sound at different settings.

12. Power up older gear periodically.

We all have them: Those pieces of older gear we once loved, don’t use, but can’t bear to sell. However, if you want them to continue to exist, power them up from time to time, work the controls, plug things into the jacks, you know: do the do. Moving parts like to move, and corrosion can build up in connectors unless they get some exercise.

ALEX OANA’S TRIBUTE TO
THE PAINFULLY OBVIOUS

Well when they say “somebody has got to say it,” pretty often it goes unsaid. Call it the fear of the obvious, the fear of the redundant, or the fear of the nose on your face. ALEX OANA (Mudvayne, SPY MOB), it could be said, is absolutely fearless in this regard. Forthwith his FIVE tips on stuff you probably know (but can’t hurt to be reminded of).

13. Know your bands.

Not frequency bands either. Get to know the artists as well as you can. Collaboration is about people — the better everyone knows everyone the more honest everyone can be in the process. If you’re on an out-of-town session, stay with the band. Share toothpaste.

14. The buck stops here.

Going back and forth over decisions can be a huge time-suck. Figure out who the producer is to avoid any power struggles. One person calling the shots can streamline any process. Stiff upper lip, soldiers.

15. I mix alone.

Mix the song until you love it, without anyone looking over your shoulder. Then email an MP3 to all the band members, A&R, and so on. Have the band elect one member as the liaison to communicate their wishes to you. Tell the A&R to get a real job.

16. Computers make music.

The biggest blessing and curse is the ability to endlessly rework a song. Make sure it’s a good song in the first place — that’ll save time!

17. And to cynically simplify, remember to:

not get creative, develop presets for your recording, mixdown, and mastering phases so you can get through a lame project as quickly as possible, and if the band is no good and you’re not looking forward to the session, get someone else to do it. These might make me sound horrible, but they are eminently practical.

18. Get…Ouch! Custom cables!

Do you have a piece of gear that depends on some weird cable that’s made by the manufacturer and no one else? Buy a replacement, now, and put it in a safe place.

19. Replace batteries.

A battery that’s leaked all over your gear will likely ruin it, because the chemicals inside batteries are highly corrosive. If they just attack the battery connectors, that’s bad enough; but if a PC-mounted battery (e.g., for backup) leaks over the board, that board will die a premature death and will be almost impossible to fix. When equipment isn’t going to be used for extended periods of time, remove the battery. Your gear will thank you for it.

20. If you’re not going to paint the town, at least paint your plugs.

Buy a set of enamel paints with a wide variety of colors at a hobby store, and put a dab of paint on each end of your patch cords. Ideally, each cord would have its own color. This makes it sooooo much easier should you need to troubleshoot which connections are going where.

21. So how old is that battery?

With battery-powered gear (including remotes), write the date you replace a battery on a removeable sticker, and affix it to the outside of the gear (preferably somewhere near the battery compartment). This gives you an idea of how often batteries need to be changed, but more importantly lets you know if a battery is really old and should be replaced just to make sure it doesn’t leak or cause other problems.

22. Got PDF?

A lot of companies post their manuals online as PDF files. Download these and save them to a CD. Not only will this let you get rid of the paper version if you need to save space, but the document will probably be searchable — great when you need to look up a specific term to remind yourself of how it works.

23. Realize that NONE of these tips will help you. At all.

JACK JOSEPH PUIG (John Mayer, GREEN DAY, Goo Goo Dolls, NO DOUBT) says “none of these tips matter. They matter but they don’t matter. There’s a balance. A perfect example is I once did a session in a studio I had never worked in before and I wanted to prove to myself that it didn’t matter what gear I used, but that the real talent was in being creative, breaking the rules, thinking out of the box and trying something you may have thought would never work. We were tracking drums and I told the assistant to grab the first 12 mics on the left and put them up . . . it ended up being the most amazing session and the song went on to be a massive hit. The SM57 is the most commonly used mic on a snare drum or guitar amp. But it’s more about what you do with that microphone. These tips are important, if they inspire you to go down creative paths. Hopefully your interpretation of these tips will inspire you and that is what really ends up making the difference.”

GETTING OUT

February 2005

End game. This is where you wave your project goodbye in the full bloom of knowing that when you see it again it’ll be all grown up.

88. Why mastering loves presets.

When mastering with a digital audio editor, if possible, save the setup you use (plug-ins, levels, etc.) as a preset. Then if the client wants to make some changes, you can make a few tweaks rather than having to start over from scratch.

89.Always think 24 bits.

Save your final mastered versions in 24-bit resolution, even if the target playback medium is a standard 16-bit CD. Then apply dithering to the 24-bit file to create the best-sounding 16-bit file.

THE GOLDEN YEARS

John and JJ Golden are the pere et fils dynamic duo of adventurous Left Coast mastering. Yeah yeah, Bernie Grundman’s good but for bands like CALEXICO, PRIMUS and SONIC YOUTH, Golden’s is the choice for making the most of mastering. But they’re FED up. And to that their 8-point...

MAKE YOUR MASTERING GUY HAPPY GUIDE

90.Make a mock up.

A mock-up CD-R of the correct sequence of the finished product will save us time and you money.

91.Label everything.

92. Compression? Nooo.

People will want to know if they should give us a mix with or without compression. And mixers are under pressure to make the mix sound competitive with a mastered version of something and so they compress. Don’t. When we say “compression” we mean bus compression over the whole mix that when once done can never be undone. Give us one without. And one with if you can’t help yourself.

93. Leave mixes unfaded.

And if needs be, include an example of a fade you do like because if the mixes have the ends faded out when we bring up the volume, the fade is shot and we have to refade.

94.Call ahead.

A minimum of two weeks.

95. Don’t send in your mixes if you know they have problems.
Avoid the “fix it in the mastering” phase.

96. Less IS More.

You want more detail out of your mix? Try not having four layers of guitars there.

97. Choose formats. Carefully.

GOD SPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR mixed to half-inch after they had recorded to analog 24-track. But it had major problems with tape hiss. It was louder than the music. They should have mixed down to digital format or recorded it digitally. We had to use various forms of EQ to get rid of the hiss. If you want that tape saturation sound, well, we have tape machines in the studio and we can do that.

98. Maximize your tax deductions.

If you’re running your home studio as a business, file a Schedule C, and have clients come in from time to time, be on the lookout for additional deductions. For example, if your studio has a bathroom and you have to replace the hot water heater in your house, then the percentage you claim for the studio can also apply to the hot water heater. Same with a lawnmowing service if you’re trying to keep your house (and studio) looking nice. Caution: Consult with a qualified accountant or attorney before taking any deductions to ensure that they apply to your situation.

99. Disclaimers are a good thing.

If you’re like many studios, you archive the work of your clients as well as provide them with backups. But make sure you give them a form letter stating that this is done as a convenience, that you don’t guarantee your archives will always be accessible, and that it is ultimately the client’s responsibility to ensure that all backups are functional and to create additional safety backups.

100. “The key to home recording is marijuana,”

LES CLAYPOOL states unequivocally, then waffles a bit. “Actually, experimentation is the real key. Of course, you can and will make mistakes, but you learn from ‘em. Just go for it!”

GETTING IT DONE

February 2005

This Is The Light At The End of The Tunnel Place.
This is the magical SPACE where everything is supposed
to be fixed. This is “IN THE MIX.”

78. The free Windows spectrum analyzer.

To analyze how a song’s energy is distributed over the audio spectrum, open Windows Media Player and go View > Visualizations > Bars and Waves for three spectrum analysis screen options. There’s also an oscilloscope view. (Note that to see visualizations, you need to check “Digital Audio” under Playback Settings at Tools > Options > CD Audio.) None of this is calibrated; still, it’s useful to see how your music compares to commercially available CDs. And if the bars stay at the top a lot, you know there’s a ton of compression being used.

79.Fixing doubled vocals.

With doubled vocals, sometimes the overdubbed vocal will “fight” the original vocal on an occasional word or two. Rather than recut the doubled vocal, copy the same section from the original (non-doubled) vocal. Paste it into the doubled track, but delay it by about 20-30 ms. Short segments (a few words) will sound fine; longer segments will sound echoed. This may work, but won’t sound as much like two individual parts being played.

80. Sends: Don’t just set and forget.

A person commented after hearing a mixes that used a lot of delay on voice, that the delay never seemed to “step on” the vocals or muddy things up. This is because we like to vary the send control in real time to pick up just the end of phrases, so that when the phrase stops, the echoes continue — but just before the vocals return, the send goes back down. This is an ideal application for a control surface, but the patient among you can draw in curves for the send level.

81. Speaker switching.

Set up two or more monitor systems so you can easily switch among them during mixdown. That way, you don’t have to wait until you think you’ve finished a mix and burned it to a test CD, only to realize it doesn’t translate to other systems.

82. Mono good.

When you start mixing, pan everything to center, and sort out the levels and EQ. Then deal with the stereo placement. You’ll find that if the mix works in mono, then it will work even better in stereo. Also check the overall mix in mono to make sure there aren’t any phase cancellations going on.

83. Double your (metering) pleasure.

Want to monitor peak and average levels at the same time on your master bus? If your metering doesn’t allow this option, there’s a simple workaround, assuming your host has assignable buses. Assign all the tracks to be mixed down to a bus, set its level to 0, and adjust its metering to average (RMS) response. Now assign that bus to your master bus, and adjust its metering to peak. Arrange your window so the two sets of meters are close together, and you’ll be able to see what’s happening in peak-land and average-land at the same time.

84. Parallel effects with DAWs.

Even if you don’t have an effects matrix like BIAS Vbox, don’t worry. Make two copies of the track you want to process, then add one line of effects to one of the copied tracks. If the effects have wet/dry mix controls, set all of them to wet (processed sound) only. Next, add a parallel line of effects to the other copied track, again with all effects set to wet only. The original track serves as the dry signal; use the DAW’s mixer to set the correct mix of the three tracks.

85. Preset management for effects.

Preset files take up virtually no space at all — typically a couple kilobytes, if that. Because there’s no penalty in saving lots of them, any custom preset I use in a song gets saved under the name of the song. I find it’s easier to remember a sound that’s associated with a song rather than just giving it a name like “BrightTelePreset” or whatever.

86. Why two measure loops are better than one measure loops.

When you create loops, avoid one-measure loops and do at least two-measure loops. Make the second measure a variation on the first measure. That way, if you want a loop to keep repeating and sound the same, just split the loop in half, and copy the first measure repeatedly. When you want the variation to come in, use the full loop so it plays through the second measure.

87. Latency as a tool.

When it comes time to mix, increase the latency on your computer a bit, say from 5 to 10ms. This will let you use more plug-ins during the mixing process.

GETTING IT ON

February 2005

It’s Marvin Gaye time. They’re looking at you. You’re looking
at them. Someone’s going to break first. Since it’s
your job, why not make that you, wiseguy?
Yeah, yeah: Start it up.

44. Delaying tactics for the direct approach.

Taking a direct and miked signal from the same source? Don’t forget that the miked signal will be delayed a bit, because sound had to travel through the air to hit it. Remembering that ome-foot delays sound by about 1 milllisecond, nudge the direct sound a little bit late to compensate.

45. Reverb diffusion: good for drums.

Percussion sounds get along best with reverb if the diffusion setting is relatively high. Otherwise, you’ll hear discrete echoes that can give the dreaded “marbles bouncing on a metal plate” sound.

46. Time sure flies when you internalize.

If your synthesizer or digital keyboard part isn’t sitting well in the mix, use the instruments’ internal EQ or effects to help shape the sound to suit the other tracks.

47. Hype that vocal performance.

When you feel a singer is really starting to hit a groove and that the next take might be the one, bump up the volume in the singer’s headphones a tiny bit — like one dB. This will hype the sound just a tiny bit, and might bring out an even better performance.

48. Warming up the old stuff.

Run any vintage keyboard or any sampled vintage keyboard through a tube amp such as a Fender Twin or through a tube preamp before going to tape. This will add warmth to digital samples and will make a real vintage keyboard part sound more musical.

49.The right meter for the right job.

If your metering has a choice between average and peak settings, use peak when recording drums, percussion, acoustic guitar, or anything with strong transients. These instruments have a relatively low average signal level, but high peaks that can distort if you’re not careful.

50. Choose meter dynamic range appropriately.

If your meters have adjustable dynamic range, use a really high dynamic range for tracks so you can see if there’s any low-level noise or crud. Use a lesser dynamic range for your master bus so you can see what’s going on in that all-important top 10-20dB of the dynamic range.

51. The cheapo hardware controller.

Haven’t checked out the joys of using a hardware controller? Don’t forget that a lot of gear in the typical studio can generate MIDI control signals suitable for realtime control over a sequencer, plug-in, and whatever else. For example, a synth usually offers more than just a mod wheel, like foot pedal control, one (or maybe more) assignable data slider, and so on. These will provide at least some degree of realtime control until you move up to a serious hardware controller.

52. Double-click to default.

Quite a few software programs have “knobs” that will return to their default positions if you double-click on them.

53. Don’t drive more than necessary.

Enabling lots of drivers within a host program for multichannel sound cards wastes a lot of computer resources. If you’re recording a stereo instrument and don’t need more inputs, turn off the unused ones. Ditto for outputs.

54. When to push “eject” with digital tape.

If you still use digital tape like ADAT or DAT, always eject a tape at the beginning, the end, or in a space between songs. Should any tape damage occur while threading or unthreading, your song will be spared.

MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE

MALCOLM BURN'S work with DANIEL LANOIS, EMMYLOU HARRIS and now THE STRING CHEESE INCIDENT has marked him as the go-to guy for SPARSE. Steph Jorgl corrals Burn for his Tip take on taking it easy.

55. Think small.

The current trend is to record a lot of tracks and then when you go to mix, deciding what not to use in the mix. When I first started recording in the late 1980s, I was given the opportunity by a couple of people to work within a very limited format. It was a 1" 8-track Studor machine, with a rack of fine pre amps, a very nice Neve 12-channel broadcast board, and a grab bag of microphones. It really taught me the principle of simplicity.

56. Old Dog, Old Tricks.

I was recording this band called Crash Vegas in the late 1980s. We’d already filled up seven of the eight tracks and we still wanted to do a vocal and some background vocals. But we only had one track left to work with. I didn’t know what to do. Then one of my mentors — who came from the 4-track world — said, “In the old days, we would bounce the bass and the tambourine track together.” And I said, “Yeah, but what if you want less tambourine later?” And he said, “Well, that’s easy. You just cut the top end out, because that’s really not going to effect the bass. And the same goes for if you want more bass.” It was this kind of pragmatic minimalist approach.

The experience sort of led me to believe further in this certain mentality that it is a good thing to commit yourself to something and stay with it, rather than come back to it a second or third time. That way, you come up with a real piece of work, rather than a bland kind of mix — which is unfortunately what I’ve heard a lot of in music. To be honest, I think that things have improved over the last few years, but there was a point in the mid-1990s where every rock record was mixed by like two people. And all of it sounded the same because they were all using the same EQs and the same compressors. That all didn’t go down very well with my revolutionary nature.

Even with the band I’m recording now, The String Cheese Incident, their manager was like, “Why are you only using 24 tracks? We have 52 inputs...” And my answer was, “I’ll tell you why — because we’re only going to 4 tracks for drums. If we have 6 vocals—we’re going to comp them together and put them down to one track. And when we go to mix the record, it’s gonna sound done. That’s why.” I’m still immersed in that same simplistic mentality that is far more concerned with creative decisions than technical nonsense.

57. Compress? Or Not?

I’m a firm advocate of using good, clean analog pre amps and going straight to tape. And I don’t use a lot of compression or EQs while recording.

58. Best = Least.

With SCI we’re using the RADAR format. I’m still a huge fan of tape — that’s the format I prefer. But the location we’re recording at is a beautiful house in the middle of the hills. So it wasn’t practical to drag a tape machine all the way up here. The RADAR functions very much like a tape machine. It has a 24-channel transport, you can arm tracks that you’re recording. . . . You don’t have to stop recording to punch someone in on another track. It doesn’t distract me from what I consider the ultimately important thing in the song: the performance.

59. Least = Fewest.

One thing that I’ve got an opposition to these days — not just in music, but in the modern world — is this emphasis on having lots of options. My attitude is that I firmly believe I’d rather have one piece of equipment that does its job passionately than 10 things that it does not do very well. A computer is a multi-tasking format. And there’s this whole corporate push to get people to multi-task. But this multi-tasking is not something I want to be involved in. I want to use one machine that does one thing and that is: record music really well.

A great guitar only does one thing: it’s a great guitar. So why have a recording environment that’s any different. I don’t get it.

60. Future Shock.

I’m fairly worried about the way things are going now because, I mean, everybody’s got Pro Tools….everybody’s got an Mbox. My concern is that the aesthetic is getting lost. I find that one of the places where a strong aesthetic still exists is with rap music. It’s the one area that I find kind of exciting in that they’ve gone the other way. They don’t try to fill every track that’s available. Instead they’ll do like five tracks, and a couple with vocals. I mean that’s where the rock and roll still exists for me.

MR. MACKAYE’S RULES OF ORDER

IAN MACKAYE (Rollins Band, FUGAZI, Minor Threat, THE NECROES), producer, player and founder of DC’s seminal DISCHORD Records has been recording with DON ZIENTARA at INNER EAR STUDIOS for the better part of the last 25 years. Notoriously direct, MacKaye’s advice on getting the sound that’s informed everyone from BLINK 182 to GREEN DAY was not much different.

61. Do NOT laugh at your bands.

When we were 17, we started recording with Don because he was the first guy to take us seriously. We were in one other studio before then and the guys at the board were laughing at us WHILE we recorded. Yeah, we weren’t great, but we were serious. AND we were paying them.

62. DO try absolutely anything.

When we started recording with Don, all he had was a half-inch 4-track reel-to-reel and a homemade board. The control room was a boiler room. We only had the most basic separation schemes, and would run two snakes up the stairs into the backyard. HR from the BAD BRAINS did all the vocals in the backyard. You could hear neighborhood kids asking him “what are you doing mister?” The fidelity wasn’t there but it was PUNK, and good songs and power were there and what mattered.

63. Recording vocals in a vocal booth is creepy.

I was having a real hard time recording vocals on this one song, “the Argument.” I started thinking that recording in a booth was not really working for me. So I tried it just sitting at the board. It’s awkward but singing live is awkward sometimes and it worked. So that’s what I do now.

JOEL HAMILTON IS NAILS

Working out of Studio G in Brooklyn, with everyone from Sparklehorse, Frank Black, and Ludacris to Swiss strongman Rollie Mossiman, Hugh Masakela and Lubricated Goat, Hamilton takes neither crap, nor prisoners. Forthwith his...

TOP 10 THINGS TO NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATE YOUR LIFE IN THE STUDIO & HOW TO DO THEM...EVERY SINGLE TIME.

64. Putting 2 million mics on any given source.

Nothing makes a simple rock recording really get unmanageable quicker than overprinting every single sound. Use your judgement. Will you really use the CB mic through the distressor and the LA2A on this roots rock band? Was that decision for the band or you?

65. Having crappy wiring.

I am constantly amazed at what passes for wiring in a “studio.” Wiring is easily the most boring thing to buy for the studio, and yet it makes an ENORMOUS difference in the sound of your room. A good patchbay, well done with decent wire, will get all the sonic goodness you hoped for from your new snazzotron 2000 to the listener! You can always patch up 30 feet of cheap mic cables to the pre-fader insert point on your console if you miss the wheezy, squeezed grain of the old wiring you had....

66. Print way too hot to tape.

For some reason, every engineer I know (including me) goes through a renegade cowboy phase where doing things TO THE EXTREME becomes the norm. If you think that transient information is just for suckers, then by all means keep on rockin’ the crap out of the JH24’s output electronics. But when you chill a little and hear how punchy the snare gets, and how much oomph the kick drum has when it is not pasted to tape, you go “oh, wow.” Tape is an amazing thing, and should be preserved at all cost for many reasons, but use it wisely.

67. Get really scared about EQ, compression, or reverb.

Amazing how certain clients come in and you would swear their big brother used to beat them with an 1176 when they were kids. Maybe it was an EQ, or a Lexicon 480 bit them when they were young.… People have all sorts of hang-ups about certain techniques used to make them sound good. Used with good judgment, and good taste, under the right circumstances, these things actually HELP them, and you, get a good mix happening. Try to be as diplomatic as possible, and show how good it can be. If you make someone look great, they always come back.

68. Using advertising as a guide for usage.

I see so many people using the mic that is “FOR THE BASS” and it sucks. Listen to what something gives you when it is at the edge of acceptable parameters. That seems to be where “character” really lives. I swear that is what makes something a classic or not, how it reacts to being abused or used for something the ad would have never led you to. There is a lot of useful information about your gear that lives just south of “acceptable usage.”

69. Let an inexperienced band dictate your pace.

This will negate any of the hard-earned lessons you have learned about when and how to do things every time. Stay focused. Try not to let the guitarist standing over your shoulder psychically make you keep pushing the guitar faders up.

70. Talk about a four-minute song for 30 minutes.

What a nasty trap to fall into. Forget about getting a great take by analyzing the snare part for 30 minutes solid. Why not hand out brochures about “what rock sounds like” as well? Doing another take of the song with a few little key points in mind takes four minutes (duh). It is easy to get caught up in a very academic discussion disguised as “important” to the session. In my experience, this leads to boringly dutiful takes.

71. Overthink the process of recording at large.

I talk to people all the time about this. People analyze every tiny little aspect of recording, and then play me some sterile, crappy, one-dimensional recording with no character and certainly no life. Have a plan, but don’t be afraid of deviating as the situation calls. Let the music dictate your every move, rather than the neurotic pianist or the spastic guitarist or the drunk drummer.


72. Have lots of preconceived ideas.

If you can’t shake what you THOUGHT would work, it is hard to get to what ACTUALLY does work! Be prepared to do things you never thought would be good, because every single session is different. Start with your way of doing things, of course, but be ready to backtrack and re-evaluate your position. When you can’t do this anymore, get a Zildjian jacket and a fanny pack with gaff tape on it and start blaming “kids these days.”

73. Don’t make a decision.

Don’t decide anything. Let every one of these “easy-to-go-along-with” things carry you into a world of hell, where the sounds are pretty lame, and the process is no fun for you or the client. Making decisions requires experience and know-how, two things that cannot be purchased at your local retailer. Try and be dutiful to the band or client but be true to your own goals as well. After all, they are paying you to make them sound good.

ACTION ADVENTURE AUDIO

Movies without music are slideshow curiosities. Pretty pictures minus the sound and the fury. Which is why they invented JEFF RONA (Philip Glass, Hans Zimmer, Brian Eno). With fingers in everything from the design of new electronic instruments and music software to his film work (Traffic, Black Hawk Down, The Thin Red Line), Rona, with writer Steph Jorgl, covers the waterfront of making music for the movies.

74. How to Mix a Film Score…

When you mix a film score, you want the orchestra on a set of tracks, the bass and the percussion on a set of tracks, your synths on a set of tracks, and your high percussion and your low percussion split up on anywhere from 8 to 32 tracks. When I deliver these stems, they should just be able to put their faders in a straight line and hear my mix exactly as I heard it. That way, if a helicopter is drowning out the percussion, they can bump it up. Or if a guitar or other solo instrument is making a line of dialogue hard to hear, they can pull it down a little bit. So I print in stems using an environment I set up in Logic.

75 …WELL:

When Hans Zimmer asked me to write some music for Black Hawk Down, I made just one limitation for myself for the project: no synths, no samplers, only Logic, no outboard mixers, and no outboard effects. I would write the music entirely inside of Logic. It was the first time that I had done a virtual studio project. And it was probably the first big movie to have music done entirely without any physical instruments. The music never passed through an external wire. I just mixed it inside of Logic, generated a 24-bit music file, then put it on an iPod and took it over to the music editor’s room and off it would go.”

76. What to Use to Do What Needs to Be Done:

For the movie Traffic, I wrote a ton of [Cycling ‘74] Max apps that ended up creating a lot of the textures and rhythms in the film score. I kind of built this DJ system inside of Max using Max and the virtual Virus software instrument. But with a lot of projects, I’ll sketch something out in Reason. I can be on my laptop at my dining room table, building some rhythms and bass lines. Then I’ll solo each track, bounce it out and import the whole lot into Logic. Then I’ll start chopping, flipping, flanging, and stuttering, and then start organizing it. After that, I’ll put it up to picture and look at ways to have elements move in and out, or to stop, start, or shift around. Sometimes I’ll pitch shift something. You can come up with your own ways of taking one whole system of working — like in Reason — and going in a direction that it couldn’t go once it’s in there in Logic.

77. Using Soundtrack as a Sampler:

I’ve been using Soundtrack a lot. It’s so quick, dirty, easy, simple, stupid, great. I’ll know the tempo and key that I want and I have one Mac lightpiped to the next, so I’ll just put together combo platters. I’ll mix a tabla with a guitar and together they’ll create this cool thing. And I’ll build a little sampler of ideas — two- or four-bar ideas. Then they all port over to Logic and get chopped up into bits. I use it like a live sample library, like a sample library that doesn’t exist until I click on a button. I find it very useful.

GETTING IT UP

February 2005

You’ve gotten all of the back story taken care. All the homework’s been done. Now on to the setup.

ROBBY TAKAC’S 7 CENTS

We love saying his last name around here. It’s like firing a machine gun. Or singing that Billy Joel song. Anyways Takac, taking some time off from The Goo Goo Dolls and opening his three-room facility called Chameleonwest Studios in downtown Buffalo, NY is going to help us with our Tip Travelogue. He helps with Tips 24 through 30 and all we have to do is mention that his joint has three Pro Tools rooms with a small o.d. studios, and with each featuring NEVE, TRIDENT and a variety of outboard Pres, EQs and compressors. And what of The Goo Goo Dolls? Well, they’re going to pitch a tent with a remote system in an old Masonic hall in Downtown Buffalo to record through the Summer of ’05. Gotta be nice.

24.Have a good variety of pre-amps and microphones on hand,

even if they’re not all Class A pieces, they’ll all add character to your tracks and add dimension to your recording. Having tube gear helps!

25. Drum rooms are simply pleasant-sounding cavernous spaces. These cavernous spaces exist all around us. Don’t feel restricted to tracking in a studio room; explore other places for remote recordings. Room microphones on your drum set are your key to a “pro” drum sound. Use your room sounds!!

26. Great guitars, amps, and microphones are a must.

27. Crappy guitars, amps, and microphones are another must.

28. Amp Farm, AmpliTube, and Sansamp are useful on just about everything but guitars.

29. Bass amps are generally a phase-wrestling match reserved for the mix room; a good D.I. is always best to track with.

30. GET A REAL DRUM TECH !!!!!!

31.It’s all where you put it.

Miking a guitar amp? Experiment with where you put the mic in relation to the speaker. Closer to the center gives more bass and a “looser” sound, while miking toward the edge of the speaker sounds “tighter” and has a bit less low end.

32.Get a digital cameras and use it.

They’re really handy. Done a great mic setup? Shoot it, and you’ll find it much easier to duplicate the setup in the future. Set up a piece of hardware and want to remember the control settings? Sure, you can write down where the dials point — but a few shots of the front panel might be easier. Recording an instrumentalist? Take a picture. Then, when Guitar Player interviews you and asks “Hey, what guitar was The Edge playing when you recorded U2?,” you’ll remember. Digital photos are the best, because you can store them in the same folder as other project data.

33. Avoid option anxiety.

It may feel satisfying to marvel at racks full of gear, but having too many choices — whether it’s umpteen varieties of tube compression, duplicate types of plug-in effects, soft synths, sample libraries, microphones, or whatever — can become overwhelming and prevent you from actually getting anything done. If you suffer from option anxiety, limit yourself to a small subset of tools to work with. Do this at the beginning of a project, before things get out of hand. Chances are, you’ll find creative ways to get more from less gear.

34.That @#$%^& computer

Having problems with mysterious freezes, long bootup times for some programs, and general instability? Better make sure there isn’t any cracked software on your hard drive. Aside from the ethical considerations, remember that cracked software by definition leaves out some of the original code. This can come back and bite you in various ways.

35. Hunting for updates.

These days, it’s not uncommon to have a bunch of incremental “bug fix” updates for every piece of software in your virtual studio. Hunting these down online after you’ve already downloaded them can be frustrating and time consuming. So keep all update installers in a single location, and back this up to CD-R. If the computer crashes, or you migrate to a new machine, pop in the disc, run the installers, and get on with your life.

36. Backup for the terminally lazy or pressed for time.

You probably have separate drives for your system and data (if you don’t, you should — consider that another tip). And admit it, you probably get a little lax on backing up from time to time. If you don’t have the time to burn to a CD or DVD, then at least create a folder (and preferably a partition) on your system disk called “Safeties.” Copy the file(s) you want to back up over to this folder. Although this isn’t as secure as having your backup in a separate physical location, at least if your data drive fails, you’ll be able to pull a copy off the system drive.

37. Don’t touch . . . or should you?

Manufacturers tell you never to touch a CD drive’s laser lens. So I’ll tell you the same thing. But I’ll also tell you that wiping the lens with a soft, lint-free cloth has bailed me out a few times when my CD drive said “CD? What CD? I don’t see a CD . . .”

PRO TOOLS TIPS THAT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE

TAL HERZBERG (Black Eyed Peas, NELLY, Johnny Lang, CHRISTINA AGUILERA, Counting Crows), the Pro Tools guru of all mankind, between crafting genius and throwing us out of his place, gave us some must-do tips. Ignore at your own peril.

38. ASSET MANAGEMENT:

When I talk about data management I’m really talking about asset management. This includes track and playlist management, clear labeling of all production elements, disk management, and data backup. Consider this Engineering 101. If your assets are damaged or non-retrievable it doesn’t matter if you’re the world’s greatest sound engineer or mixer, you’re failing the very tedious and initial mission of data retrievability.

39. Basic proper backup procedures are:

Always keep AT LEAST one (preferably TWO). And an additional Running Copy of the main data drive (updated daily using backup software).

40. The right storage medium?

Acceptable storage mediums include cloned drives, data tape, and CD/DVD.

41. COMPING:

When we’re dealing with comping (creating composite performances from multiple takes), we live and die by our ability to seamlessly crossfade between audio segments that we are cutting between. Pro Tools offers a wide pallet of crossfade forms, and knowing how to choose the right crossfade for a given cut between two takes dictates the seamlessness of the transition. When I’m comping between multiple vocal takes, I’ll use one kind of crossfade between vowels and a different kind between consonants. Other examples are: Use wider and longer crossfades when dealing with low frequency instruments such as bass and keyboard pads, versus short crossfades when dealing with percussive instruments such as drums and percussions.

EASY STREET & HOW TO FIND IT

JIMMY DOUGLASS (Timbaland, THE NEPTUNES, Mary J. Blige, MISSY ELLIOT, Justin Timberlake) gives you highly detailed directions, scribbled on the back of a napkin, to the avenues of ease.

42. Simple mics, simple miking techniques, minimal EQ, and compression.

And if you must marry the effects you love on something, go back and record it on a separate track because where its ends up being mixed may not have the plug-in or gear you used to get it.

43. Getting the Best Piano Sound in The World:

Start with two U87s and go through the Neve pre amps on the board. Put each mic through an 1176 and a Pultec EQP1A. Run back and forth to move the mics around the various holes in the piano to see what kind of sound’s coming out of the top and bottom. I get the optimum sound near one of the holes. This is my roll n’ roll sound that I really like. I use the 1176s and just do basic compression going in. For the EQ I use something I picked up from the British guys a while ago… on the top mic I add a little bottom, at around 60 to 100 cycles. On the bottom mic I cut the low end and add a little top end… about 7 to 10k. This gives me a psycho acoustic illusion because the low end is now bright and present whereas the high mic is now a little warmer and richer, not brittle, so it smoothes the high lo, left right thing. I play with the compression on both sides to see which one I need. And that’s what I do if I have time to really play around with the piano and get an amazing sound. I would also set up two U47s in the room. Place them far away left and right room, and then super compress those as well. When possible put them on separate tracks, and blend them later to taste at the mix.

BRIAN GARDNER interview w/ MIX magazine

Brian Gardner

BY MAUREEN DRONEY

Mar 1, 2002 12:00 PM

Just how long is Brian Gardner's discography? Well, pulling up his allmusic.com page results in a list of over 750 credits. It was hip hop heavy Dr. Dre who gave Gardner the handle “Big Bass,” so people tend to think of him as purely a hip hop/R&B expert. While there's no question that he is expert in the genre, those in the know seek him out for mastering expertise on all styles of projects, from alternative to classic jazz. And among those 750-plus credits are such monster hits as Janet Jackson's Velvet Rope, Blink 182's Enema of the State, Eminem's Slim Shady, En Vogue's Funky Divas, Fastball's All the Pain Money Can Buy, Smash Mouth's Astro Lounge and 2 Pac's All Eyes on Me.

And the hits just keep coming. On the day we spoke, Gardner had six cuts in the Top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100: Mary J. Blige's “Family Affair,” Nelly Furtado's “Turn Off the Light,” “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias, “Get the Party Started” by Pink, and two by Jah Rule: “Livin' It Up” and “Always on Time.” How's that for a hot week?

Because in person his vibe is so energetic and youthful, it's a surprise to discover just how long Gardner has been tweaking knobs in the mastering business. He got his start cutting vinyl, and early on worked in the studio with such notoriously challenging artists as Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Jefferson Airplane.

Maybe it was those early psychedelic experiences that resulted in Gardner's unflappable demeanor. I've personally seen him sit calm and collected, a lightning rod in the kind of violent storm that sometimes strikes when creative artists hit mastering: that last-chance saloon for changes.

We sat down for this interview in Gardner's suite at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood. That unpretentious room is where, five days a week, he gets down with DATs, CDs, hard drives and analog tapes of every stripe, turning confusion into cohesion, and individual songs into the complete statement that's an album.

You actually began your career in the mastering room.

Yes, I started in mastering first, then did some recording. I had always had a desire to get into the industry in some form or another. I was trying to get jobs when I was, like, 12! I didn't realize that I couldn't because I was too young! I always enjoyed tweaking — EQ'ing music at home. I always knew you could improve it by adding certain frequencies.

Were you into electronics and building stuff?

No, I just had a basic interest. I played piano when I was young, of course. That's actually something I regret: not having pursued the piano. But I still have the basic skills, and I have all this MIDI equipment at home. I work on it and think I've come up with something good, then I come to work and a client comes in with something they've done…and I just put my track aside.

What was your first break?

Bill Robertson at Capitol helped me get my foot in the door and land a job at RCA Records, where my professional career started. I started out in mastering, but when I wasn't busy I got to go down and second engineer for a lot of big dates. Harry Nillson, the Guess Who, Jefferson Airplane…I was a teenager and it was the late '60s, so it was quite an experience. Huge mega dates with big artists — Henry Mancini, Vic Damone, The Monkees…

How did you learn to use a lathe?

It was at Century Records, my very first job. It was a custom kind of place, and they cut records for schools and the armed forces. I don't remember the first session I did. I understood the concept — the transfer of mechanical energy to electronic energy through the cutting head — so it wasn't any big surprise to me. I learned from watching it and reading about it; just knowing the process.

Of course, at that time, I wasn't allowed to EQ — back then, you were forbidden to touch what the engineers had done. Your job was just to put it on the disc. “Do not touch this tape; it is perfect!”

And then Creedence Clearwater came along. We kept cutting refs for them over and over, thinking there might be something off on the frequency response. And it still wasn't right. So I broke out the Fairchild limiters and the Pultecs and I tweaked it, and that kind of changed the whole thing — being able to doctor up tapes.

They liked it better.

Oh, yeah. It was a radical difference. And that's really where my career changed. Because, after a few years of mastering Creedence hits, they [Creedence] plucked me out of RCA and I went up to Fantasy for four years.

Fantasy Studios: the house that Creedence built.

I was the first employee there. They wanted mastering in there first, before anybody else moved in. It was '69 or '70. That was another fun part in my career. Living in Berkeley, hanging out, having the Grateful Dead around. It was a great time — going over to Record Plant in Sausalito for the live KSAN broadcasts, hanging out at Wally Heider's Studios with Jack Casady and the Airplane.

And that led to the next phase, because after my four years there, I went to Allen Zentz Mastering, where we ruled in the disco department. We did all the Donna Summer records, the Casablanca catalog. That was really something.

Was doing all that disco music the beginning of Brian “Big Bass” Gardner?

Well, kind of. I did Donna Summer, the Village People and all of the George Clinton stuff. Really, the thing that struck me the most at the time was the different levels of stardom that I was working with. I remember doing the Jackson 5's first record and having Berry Gordy in the room. Having Ike and Tina Turner there, in the room alone with me in the evening. And the Jefferson Airplane memories… seeing Jimi Hendrix loan speakers to them…

So you learned to “go with the flow” from some very talented and eccentric artists.

Yeah, people say that I find a groove. And that is how I try to approach a lot of the stuff we do today. You can go in almost any direction with a project: You can make it real crunched and bright, you can make it hurt, or you can make it warm, mellow and wide. Usually I just go with what I feel. Most of the time it ends up being what my initial EQ was. [Laughs.] But sometimes we go on a big trip — a big circle — trying different things. And then we end up with the original.

To a lot of people, the mastering process is very mysterious.

Well, a lot can be done here. Today, we have projects where recording goes on for months and months, sometimes in different studios, with different producers and engineers. What we have to do is put it all together and make it come up [sounding] the same.

I do miss sequenced albums. And one mix, one version. The projects we get now are in so many different formats. There are a lot of different things you have to know how to use.

It takes a lot more outlay to equip a mastering room today.

It's just my opinion, but I do think our technology has gone too far sometimes. I mean, who really cares about 26k? Take The Beatles. I don't think there's anything above 10 or 12k on all those great-sounding records of theirs. There's nothing wrong with having the capabilities of capturing that 26k, but it brings in all kinds of other problems. And with our levels today — with having to deal with always operating on the threshold of distortion — well, that's always fun.

Do you mean that people are sending you stuff cut hotter than ever?

No, not necessarily how it comes in; it's just they want the end product to jump. They always wonder, “Can't you make this a little louder?” It keeps moving up and it's got to stop somewhere. [Laughs.] I'd like to put out a record sometime that's the lowest out there: “Oh, did you hear that new record? It's so low. It's so cool.” But that's not going to happen. Although Steely Dan put out a record that sounded good and it wasn't loud. It didn't have to just slam the levels.

You're talking about losing dynamic range.

Of course. But a lot of today's music is enhanced by taking some of those things out — punching it up and giving it less dynamics. That's the nature of much of the music that's popular — it's just more intense.

It seems like the great mastering engineers all started with vinyl. It gave them an understanding of what's important.

Yes, with vinyl there are certain parameters you have to really be careful of. And sonically…well, sibilance can still be aggravating on CDs, even though it doesn't splatter like it used to on vinyl. Some of the phase things are still important today, even though there are fewer restrictions on CDs.

You still cut vinyl yourself, right?

All the time. Nelly Furtado, Pink, Jah Rule, Dre — they all have vinyl. Even the soundtracks get put out on it. All the majors will usually release a vinyl. Because of the time factor, with albums running 70 minutes, we have to split them up to four sides just to keep the level competitive.

Really, vinyl is a lost art that wants to go away but can't. There are too many vinyl lovers out there. People who are into it miss the sound. And although digital is getting a lot better, I'm still an analog guy, basically. In general, I think bringing some analog in somewhere in a project really makes a difference. Preferably, on the basic tracks.

Although, I've had full digital projects in here lately that amaze me with how good they sound. But then, I've also seen groups come in here with really funky setups that sound fabulous. And then they become stars, money rolls in, they upgrade everything and they lose it — they lose the sound. So you never know.

For a long time, all of you at Grundman avoided using computers.

Our basic philosophy is to stick with the original source, whatever it is. Now, though, we're using the German [computer] system called Audio Q, which is really amazing. Actually, it's one of our secret weapons, so I don't think you should print that. [Laughs.]

Nothing is stock here, everything has been modified. And we've always been very particular and careful. We listen to blanks and hear the difference.

Blanks?

CD blanks. We'll throw away thousands of them if they're not right. We get samples from manufacturers and make tests and A/B. We listen very carefully before we pick the lot that we're going to buy. A lot of people think once you're going D-to-D, it doesn't matter because it's all numbers. But you can hear it. Every step makes a difference, and when you add all the subtleties up, the result is dramatic.

So, yes, we're in the computer age. But there's so much more to it than just the technical part. You can't just sit there at a computer and think you'll make it right. The person sitting there operating the equipment has to be able to feel it to turn the right knobs.

You're also very particular about the consoles here.

Yes, it's all discrete. There are no transformers, and all the equalizers are handmade by Karl Bischof and Beno [Thomas “Beno” May]. In some instances, they've avoided switches. We'll actually change the patches, say to the 1630, or to the computer, to avoid switching and to make the signal path better. It's a pain, but it's worth it.

And, of course, we went through great expense to make sure that, even for the shortest runs, the wire is the best possible. It really is surprising the difference a cable can make.

What do you monitor on?

Our main speakers are Tannoys. And then I have an array of different ones, from NS-10s to KRKs to the new little Yamahas, which DJ Quik just gave me. Those are kind of interesting: They have a switch on them that makes them sound like NS-10s. And they also have adjusters to give you a little more bottom and make them sound better.

They're all just another reference point and for clients to listen on. Really, I depend on the main Tannoys. But I also use KRK 7000s. And little Radio Shack Minima 7s.

Those little things? Why are they on the floor?

I like them there. A lot of people have copied me on that. They don't serve any purpose sitting there in your face; it's an in-the-next-room, on-the-radio kind of thing. Sometimes they're turned the other way; I don't care. It's a good reference. I usually listen to them at a low level and you can tell a lot. Unfortunately, they don't make that particular model anymore.

Do people hear things in your room they haven't heard before?

All the time. And most of the time for the better: “Well, I never heard that before, it's great.”

Do you listen at home or in the car?

I do still listen to my projects in the car once in a while, if I'm really trying to discern certain things — like long fades. And then I'll try to talk the client into not letting them go so long! Things like that. But you also have to consider the environment of listening at home; the long fade might work there. Noise and traffic are factors, and sometimes I'll listen in the car for balances. I have a jeep and a sports car, so it's, “Let's see, who am I working with today? Oh, yeah, I'll bring the jeep.”

Do you listen to radio stations?

That's another thing that I've had the luxury of. Over the years, I've often been able to hear stuff on the radio almost instantly, and to experiment with limiting parameters and with EQ and how it translates. Especially with rap stuff: We'll pick a ref and it'll be on the air in an hour. Some of the big guys can do that. We can hear it right away, and that's been really valuable.

I don't really need to do that anymore; now I pretty much know what goes on and how they limit it to death on the radio. So I've learned what kind of limiting you can get away with without it being ruined on the air. I've heard some records — good records — but they end up horrible because there are vocals in your face, and all of a sudden the band comes in and they're gone…you've got to know how to work with it so it doesn't do that.

What converters are you currently using?

We have the DB's and we also still use Apogees occasionally. Of course, how you hit them, and how you hit all the different variables, the EQs, etc., is very important.

But everything goes through an analog process in your room.

Yes. And that's where we adjust it and try to make everything fit together, even though they are from different formats.

You can fix a lot…but what things are unfixable?

If a machine was set up wrong. Or if something's been saturated. In either the analog or digital domain, if they just slammed it — if it's just crunched and really distorted — there's nothing to be done about it. You can try and adjust the sonics a bit, but those crunches are always going to be there. Or, sometimes I get projects where it's almost distorting, but not quite, and the mastering process will bring it out. We have to deal with it, and that can be difficult. Sometimes EQ and level adjusting will work, but sometimes it will really need to be remixed.

So the most common problem is too much level, so that the tape is saturated. Not only is distortion the result, but that kind of saturation takes away the attack. It flattens things out. A kick drum, for instance, becomes all mush, so you don't feel the real solid slap to it.

Do you prefer to get multiple mixes of a song?

Occasionally when they want a vocal up that's a help. But to have a lot of mixes of guitar up ¼ dB…I haven't found that useful.

Okay, you're mastering some really hardcore stuff. How do you relate to the lyrics?

You have to appreciate all forms of music. There are good elements to all of it, even hardcore rap. But, actually, when I hear a mix initially, I don't even hear the lyrics. I just hear this whole thing. The lyrics are like another instrument and you've got to place them in the right spot.

Speaking of placing things in the right spot, what compressors do you use?

Well, we've modified most things; they're not stock. But we have Dominators, and an SSL-style limiter, which was handmade by Beno in our shop. Really, I use limiting very little. I don't like to do it. As opposed to what you might think by hearing some of the things I've done! I really don't like to take away attack — I just love that punch. But that SSL is a good one when I do limit. And I bought a Waves L2 when I was over in Germany last year — an Israeli electronic piece of gear. Once in a while, I'll fire that thing in and it works wonders.

You just have to know by feel what to put in when. Some limiters will deceive you and you won't hear them suck, but they will still be holding back desirable transients. You always have to A/B to the original, and make sure you're improving it.

I see a Spatializer among your gear. What do you use that for?

It's a modified Spatializer, which I will use when the mix is kind of dead. I've almost been able to create a miracle with it, on occasion, playing with space and width and then re-EQ'ing. It's a fun tool to have.

Do you have an overall philosophy for the work that you do?

Let's see…that would be: “Compress till it sucks, then back off ¼ dB.” [Laughs.] I'm not necessarily a technical person; I go by my ears. To me, the most important thing is what's coming out of those monitors. That should also be the most important thing to the mixers — what they're listening to. Some people get caught up in the technical aspects of a mix, and they may have a great-sounding mix in their studio, but their monitors are screwed. And that's where we have to come in to fix it. To them it was probably great. But sometimes it's hard to explain that to people.

Do artists and producers generally come to your sessions?

It's a mixture. Once they've done a project with me, they will often just send the masters in. But usually the bigger groups will come. They care. And I like it when they care. No Doubt was just in here — the whole group. That's kind of neat when they're interested in having a part in even the segues and spaces between songs.

It's the last chance.

It is, and I've had to do percussion and keyboards, bass…all sorts of things in the mastering room. It's fun, actually. Sometimes creative people have an idea at the last minute, and we'll do it. What the heck.

Sometimes there are songs or mixes that just have this magic to them, and that's what I love, that's what I reach for. And I'm probably more of an experimenter. I've never been afraid to break the rules — in fact, I enjoy breaking the rules.

What kind of rules?

[Laughs.] Well, level, for instance. I guess I have to admit I've been responsible for a lot of what I complain about. Because I always went for loud. Not meaning to destroy anything, but…and a lot of the stuff I may have been judged for sounding too crunched is not necessarily my fault, it may have been the mix that I was working with. Because, as I've said, we are at the mercy of what the engineer has done. It's just our job to make it better.

Sometimes you go too far and you have to back off. I don't mind going too far — try it! If somebody has an idea, I'll go for it. I remember cutting a Donna Summer song with Bruce Swedien and we kept blowing circuit breakers. “Well, that's too much — we'd better back it off a half dB.” That's when we were doing the club records. We had a lot of fun doing that stuff.

So, why do people come to you to master their records?

I hope those who chose me like me! And I guess they like the end result. Maybe they also enjoy working here — which they should — it's fun working here. And those who haven't been here owe it to themselves to come here — there's a plug! There's a lot of people I haven't worked with yet that I'd like to.

For the last few years, R&B and hip hop have been predominant for me, but, liking all forms of music, I want to do it all. I'm looking forward to compressing the heck out of a classical piece one of these days. Just kidding! But I do like my work; it's always fun to make things better.

Maureen Droney is Mix's L.A. editor.
SELECTED CREDITS


Beck: Midnite Vultures (1999)

Blink 182: The Mark, Tom and Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back) (2000), Enema of the State (1999), Dude Ranch (1997)

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony: E 1999 Eternal (1999, re-release), The Art of War (1997), “Creepin on Ah Come Up” (1994)

Cypress Hill: Stoned Raiders (2001), Skull & Bones (clean, 2000)

Destiny's Child: Destiny's Child (1998)

Eazy-E: Str8 off Tha Streetz of MuthaPhukkin Compton (1998), Eternal E (1995), It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa (1993)

Emperor's New Groove soundtrack (2000)

Eric Benet: True to Myself (1996)

Fastball: The Harsh Light of Day (2000), All the Pain Money Can Buy (1998)

Herb Alpert: Colors (1999), Passion Dance (1997), North on South St. (1991)

How Stella Got Her Groove Back soundtrack (1998)

Ice Cube: Greatest Hits (2001), War & Peace, Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc) (2000)

The Isley Brothers: Tracks of Life (1991), Spend the Night (1989), Smooth Sailin' (1987)

Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack (2000)

No Doubt: Rock Steady (2001)

Prince: “1999” (new master) (1999), Crystal Ball (1998), New Power Soul (1998)

Smash Mouth: Smash Mouth (2001), Astro Lounge (1999), Fush Yu Mang (1997)

Suicidal Tendencies: Freedumb (1999), Prime Cuts: The Best of Suicidal Tendencies (1997), Friends & Family (1997)

Transformer saturation

Things might sound a lot more "ballsy" if you drop your levels and simplify your signal path. Low frequency transformer saturation is about the only thing you could be adding while the sound of tiny power supplies running out of steam might well be the very thing you didn't like that led you to this approach. If you can arrange your gain structure to saturate the Neve transformer but not be pushing anything else hard, especially the a to d converter, you can get the best of both worlds.

One thing to understand is where mixing ends and mastering begins. Mixing is about the presentation of the recording and the music. Mastering is about the presentation of the MIX.

Bob's workroom (615) 385-8051
http://www.hyperback.com

This Is Your Brain On Mixing

The two hemispheres of our brain are optimized for processing different types of information. The right brain deals with more abstract, creativity-oriented issues, while the left brain is more analytical — it follows directions, and does the math. Generally, when you’re in one mode of thought, you want to stay there.

If you do your own engineering, you don’t want to have to think while tracking or mixing: Dedicate your brainpower to the right hemisphere, so it can get creative. Which of the following is less likely to break your concentration: Scanning the screen for some button or fader, moving the mouse, grabbing the control, and then dragging it — or simply moving a physical fader? What’s worse, a mouse is a “monophonic” device. Suppose you want to bring three channel levels up a little bit. You have to group the three together, move them, then ungroup. It’s a lot faster to just move three physical channel faders.

---

http://www.keyboardmag.com/story.asp?sectioncode=32&storycode=10106

Andy Wallace interview w/ MIX magazine

Andy Wallace

By Michael Barbiero

Oct 1, 2005 12:00 PM

TALKING TECH WITH THE HOTTEST MIXER IN ROCK

Driving up to Andy Wallace's farmhouse, nestled on 200 acres in northwestern New Jersey, one gets the sense of a man who is at peace with himself. Had a tractor been parked in front of his barn instead of a black and silver 1930 Rolls Royce Phantom II, I might have guessed I was at a country farmer's home rather than at the refuge of one of the hottest mixers in the music business.


From fashioning his own humble garage studio in Cresskill, N.J., to founding Hit City West recording studios in Los Angeles, through his involvement with seminal recordings such as the Run-DMC/Aerosmith hit, “Walk This Way,” and one of the defining albums of the '90s, Nirvana's Nevermind, Wallace's career has been a success story. More than 80 million albums have been sold with Wallace's mix credit on them, and since his breakthrough with the Nirvana album back in 1991 and the subsequent shift away from the “big rock” sound of the '80s, his synthesis of danceable drums and in-your-face guitars has taken rock well into the 21st century. The Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill, Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory, System of a Down's Toxicity, the Grammy Award — winning Velvet Revolver album, Contraband, Puddle of Mudd, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine — these and dozens of others have kept us all accelerating along life's highway with radios blasting.

As a producer, he has helmed albums by the likes of Jeff Buckley (Grace), Bad Religion, Faith No More and Phish, among others. For the past three years, however, he has put his production ambitions on hold to satisfy demand for his mixing talents. It was precisely because of his busy schedule and because he and I share Advanced Alternative Media for management that Wallace and Universal Records entrusted me with the surround sound versions of his mixes on the new 3 Doors Down album, Seventeen Days. Sitting behind recalls of his work in Studio G at Soundtrack Studios New York, I was provided with a unique opportunity to get a bird's-eye view of some of Wallace's personal mix techniques. Graciously, he has acceded to my request to share some of them.

You use very little outboard gear: A few digital chambers, a symphonic effect more or less on the bass, a couple of delays, but, by and large, you stay with the compression and gating on the SSL. Is this for ease of recall or because you prefer the SSL sound as compared with older equipment like Pultec or UREI?
It's a little of both. The primary concern is not so much ease of recall, although that's definitely a good benefit, but I like the way the SSL compressors sound and, for the most part, I'm happy with the gates. I have been known to patch in Drawmer gates from time to time, just because I can fine-tune them better and they have nice ducking abilities and that sort of thing. But for the most part, I'm happy with the onboard compressors. I don't really know if I would say that I prefer them to the old gear, but I guess I don't prefer the old gear enough to warrant fiddling around with it.

That's fair enough.
I do a lot of riding anyway, so I'm not relying on the compressor solely for level control. It's usually more for the sound, and the SSL compressors are pretty aggressive-sounding. One exception to that is that I used to like to use the old LA-2As for vocals. When I was recording, I would almost always use them.

There is a unifying, overriding personality about your sound that says “Andy Wallace.” Part of it is the very present, crisp drum sound; part of it is that the guitars are brutal and outrageous; and part of it is a dynamic sense that comes from your own musicality. Do you do your drum rides first?
Not generally. I listen to the song and try to get a feel for it. If it's a rock song that has a section that's really rockin', I'll sometimes go to that first and just work on that section, getting the band to really kick ass. I'll do that just to kind of make sure that that's my level. Then I'll work it down and build up from there, but that's the place that's really got to be rockin'. And that's usually where I find out how hard I want to hit the quad compressor.

Which I've noticed you consistently set at 4:1 on automatic release.
Pretty much.

And you usually leave the makeup gain at unity?
To my ears, the gain makeup sounds like a noisy amplifier. I suppose it's paranoia, but I figure I can achieve the same end by how hard I hit the compressor. As long as I can get a reasonable output, which I can, I'll usually only use seven groups to put everything on and then I assign all those groups to group number eight, which serves as kind of a universal pre/quad compressor trim. So I can adjust how hard I can hit the compressor by moving that without having to adjust the makeup gain.

From watching you in past years up at Bearsville, I was under the impression that you ran your compression between -2.5 and -4 at 4:1. I was surprised to see it running between -4 and -6 on the 3 Doors Down Seventeen Days album. That's pretty slammed in there. How would you advise a young kid mixing today to handle stereo compression without ending up with a tiny mix? It's a trick.
Yeah, it is. I don't really know. I mix through the compressor right from the beginning — maybe not the very beginning, but while I'm still working on that loud section.

Do you begin by defining the size of your bottom end?
Yeah, and everything. Defining the impact. And I usually do it pretty fast. Usually, when I'm working on a mix after I've gone through and done my little road map and decided, “I'm going to work on this part of the song,” within about 15 or 20 minutes, I've got the basic energy slamming the way I want it to sound or pretty close. Then I'll just keep going over and trying to find out how loud I can have this guitar and have it still feel right or how quiet.

And all your records seem to have a really ballsy kick drum that's never defeated by the compression.
I like to have the kick drum really in there. I guess it's from the old club record days. And, for the most part, it seems to work. Every once in a while, I'll say, “Okay, maybe it's more appropriate to tuck this one in a little bit.” I don't like super-bright kick drums. My kick drums usually have a good snap on them, but not that little typewriter thing.

I believe that dynamics are really, really important. Most mixes I hear that are unexciting to me, that's usually one of the faults. Things just are too mashed together, which passes as kind of a sound at times, but to me just sounds uninteresting. It's kind of like watching a movie that's out of focus.

I noticed that you ride the overhead tracks of the drum kit up in the choruses. Having seen it, I've listened for it and can hear it in other albums that you've done, so it's obviously a dynamic thing that you bring to all your mixes. When did you start doing that? I mean, did you just find that you were burying the cymbals with guitars?
Well, first of all, I ride them a lot of times because sometimes a cymbal won't be as loud as another cymbal or something. So there's that. But also, in a greater sense — and I think that this is what you're referring to — every cymbal crash will be ridden up maybe 5 or more dB.

Sometimes I will feel that I'm hearing more ambient stuff in the overheads than I want to hear in the mix. So when I get that loud section rocking the way I want, I'll end up with the overheads balanced where I want to hear the ambience and sometimes the cymbals simply won't be loud enough to have the impact that I want.

Speaking of ambience, there's another interesting difference between you and other mixers. You use samples in virtually all of your mixes, but unlike other mixers who use samples either to replace a drum or to repair a deficiency in a drum sound, you tend to use your samples as drives to ambience.
Right. Exactly.

I find that very interesting. On the Seventeen Days album, you only used a snare sample, but I'm told that you also used a kick sample.
I have a similar thing I do with kick drum, sometimes.

But just to drive ambience? Then do you design the drum sound to fit into that ambience?
No, not exactly. I use the samples more to drive reverbs. If you killed the reverb, you'd still hear the sample. And the thing I like is that I can EQ them so that I can really tune the ambience and where it sits in the whole frequency response.

Again, more so than I can with the overheads because I usually EQ those so that the cymbals sound the way I want them to sound. Not always, but often, when the cymbals are sitting where I want them to sit, I'll hear more ambience from that. I'd rather keep that down and be able to shade with a little more control using my ambient sample.

And just ride the cymbals for the actual hits?
Right. And then after I end up getting the guitars happening, the vocals in and everything, I'll find that the cymbals to be effective need to be a little louder. But, as I said, I don't like to flood the drum sound with too much ambience. It depends on the nature of the song, but especially if it's a dense song with a lot going on in it as opposed to an old Led Zeppelin thing with one guitar and bass and drums for miles. You can get away with a lot more interesting ambience with that kind of a thing. But there are not that many records out there that are that sparse.

The Jeff Buckley album Grace is, by my reckoning, a masterpiece, yet you no longer produce. Why?
Well, I never made a conscious decision to stop producing. And I like producing a lot. I kind of like doing both producing and mixing, but in a production, you're really working from the ground up. That was my whole initial drive in the first place.

So it's not something you've given up permanently. It's just that you've focused more on mixing these past three years.
It came about in a funny way. I had an opportunity to produce two albums that I really wanted to do. One was the Phish The Story of the Ghost album and the other was Skunk Anansie's Post Orgasmic Chill. And I thoroughly enjoyed doing both albums and had a great time up at Bearsville. But the problem was that the [albums] came back-to-back. I can't remember if I mixed an album in-between them or not, but in any event, I was out of the mix game for about six months. Right about that time, I was getting a lot of good mix work and I was on a roll, so to speak, with A-level projects mixing. And I do like mixing, so it was certainly to my advantage to keep that ball rolling. I lost a lot of momentum over that six months when I was out of the game, so we — we meaning Andy [Kipnes] and Mark [Beaven of Advanced Alternative Media] and I — kind of put our heads together to regain that ground. They really helped get the ball rolling in the right direction and helped mend a few bridges.

You mentioned Bearsville as the studio you used for productions. You mix on an SSL G Series. Do you prefer the Neve for recording?
I tend to like old, non-automated consoles for recording. I'm pretty open-minded. I can just move pretty quickly on a console like that without a lot of frou-frou.

You and I started before the days of Pro Tools. When did you first start using Pro Tools?
The first time I used it — and probably the last time I used it without having an operator — was when I did the Blind Melon Soup album. I did vocal comps. Somewhere in the middle of it, we had to clear out of Daniel Lanois' studio, Kingsway, for about four or five days. So I took that opportunity to go to another little studio down there [in New Orleans] to do vocal comps.

Did you enjoy that?
I found it fascinating. It's always kind of cool to learn something new, and it certainly did give me the opportunity to do a little more precise editing, although I had a very rich bag of tricks for editing analog tape. Not just editing and cutting tape, but bouncing and moving things around and shifting guitars ahead — as well as back — 30 milliseconds and this type of thing. And not just the whole track, but even certain sections or just one little bar. I did that for years.

The Pro Tools thing is a mixed blessing. The younger guys who have never had to cut tape or edit by bouncing on analog have a different perspective and are more easily caught up in over-editing. Not so much to the detriment of the material, although that can certainly happen, but just taking up too much time. Editing stuff to a degree that doesn't matter. You're never going to hear it.

With the advent of HD 96k recording, do you think that the difference between analog and digital has become minimal enough as to make analog tape superfluous?
Probably. I mean, I realize that analog tape has a certain tape compression that I've relied upon in a lot of productions, but I don't think that that's the be-all, end-all. The first thing I liked about digital was the absence of hiss. When I first discovered noise gates, I thought, “God has smiled on me,” because I really, really like to get rid of noise and you're so far ahead of the game in digital without having that hiss.

And then, being able to edit — as I've said, as long as you don't get caught up in it and lose sight of what you really need to accomplish — it's wonderful. Even with the 3348, being able to bounce drums in and not have a hole every time you punched in — things like that were great. Not that I'm the world's greatest critic of fidelity in recording anyway, 'cause I always operated with whatever I had and did whatever I had to do to make it sound as good as I could get it to sound. But I have to say that the new manifestation of Pro Tools really sounds pretty good.


To get back to the recall of your work on the Seventeen Days album, I was fascinated to see how you constructed your delay reverb. You pan your delay on the vocal slightly off to one side and then make up the difference on the other side with reverb return. Then you crack the pan on the vocal just off detent to open up the middle of the record.
Yeah. I do a lot of little things like that where I don't put things down the middle. Just moving them a little bit sometimes seems to open [the mix] up, which is one of the reasons I like to use the symphonic [effect]. Not so much as, “Dig the flange on that bass,” because I kind of prefer that nobody even knows it's there. Sometimes it gives it a growl, which is kind of cool. But a lot of times, I use that just to open things up a little bit so that everything is not kick, snare, bass right down the middle. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but sometimes it feels sonically a little more interesting to me.

You are among the most in-demand mixers in the music business today. To a large extent, radio has changed to accommodate the sound of what you do. Your mixes sound completely different than mixes sounded, say, 15 years ago. Do you mix for radio or primarily for the sound of the CD, or a combination of both?
It's a combination of both. Primarily, I mix so that the thing sounds good to me, which I guess translates to how the CD sounds. But I grew up with radio and I guess I kind of like the way mixes sound on the radio with that compression, which is why I probably have gotten a little more aggressive with it over the years. Years ago — 10 years ago — I probably rarely drove the SSL compressor beyond that -4 mark. But I found that occasionally I'd get things hitting harder without even realizing it. I'd say, “Oh gee, I'm getting 8 dB of compression here,” and I'd say, “I better back this thing down.” But when I backed it down, I didn't like it as much. It was rockin' that way.

A long time ago, I learned that the great amount of compression in radio broadcasts was seriously changing how the low end [of my mixes] sounded and the balance: how much low end was there, how much of the bass I could hear and other things. That's when I really started experimenting with a substantial amount of stereo compression. And I found that if I had something compressed ahead of time and was happy with the sound of it, the additional compression from the radio station had less effect. So I sort of felt that I was doing damage control, as well as the fact that I liked the sound.

I found that I was automatically compensating by bringing up the bass in my balance, and I don't know if this bears out in reality, but it seemed it was true that the mixes I compressed more aggressively and then compensated for in the process of doing the mix held up better with additional radio compression.

Soundtrack New York has designated Studio G as the “Andy Wallace” room. How important is it to you to have a regular home base in which to do your mixes?
It is nice to have a room you're familiar with. Not just sonically, but you know what's where and you're physically comfortable in the room. For years [it's closed now], I used to mix in L.A. at Enterprise Studio E.

I asked you a long time ago what project you felt was the biggest turning point in your career and you mentioned Nevermind by Nirvana.
Sure. That has to be about the biggest.

What is one of the most satisfying moments for you in a recording studio?
As far as my career of producing and mixing records, it's really hard to say, but working on Jeff Buckley's [Grace] album was phenomenally satisfying. It was aggravating at times because Jeff could be very hard. Not that he was an aggravating person, because he wasn't and I got along really well with him, but he could be very scattered at times and difficult to reel in. Anytime you're working with an intense artist like that you're going to have frustrating moments.

You got such personality out of his vocal performances. I remember coming up to Bearsville and doing a project in Studio A while you were in B. I don't know if it was the Jeff Buckley project, but you had speakers set up and the artist wasn't using headphones because you felt he performed better without them. How important is the ambience that you set up for an artist to perform in?
Well, it's pretty important. I never had any formula as to how I would get an artist in what I felt was the right state of mind to do a recording, but a lot of it is creating a certain personal trust: They're in good hands and that an intelligent person is listening to what they have to say and maybe not agreeing, but at least not missing the point.

Working with Jeff was extremely satisfying in the sense that you really felt that you were working with a uniquely gifted artist. Had he lived, I think he would have been one of the very great artists like Bob Dylan or Paul Simon. It was gratifying to be able to capture that and be a part of the inspiration of making it happen.

What has been your most difficult moment in a recording studio?
It's difficult for me when I have a mix that I know is sounding good and the artist and the producer, or whoever is appropriate, starts getting too involved in little things that really don't make a big difference; they're not making a better mix out of it, they're just changing things. I don't mind that to a point, but if it gets almost endless — you know, where they just can't let go and need to keep changing things — then I feel like I'm just doing damage control, trying to keep the thing from eroding. Sometimes that'll happen. They'll ask me, “What do you think?” and I'll say, “I liked the way it was when I played it for you; otherwise, I wouldn't have played it.” Is it possible to make some changes to it without my hating it? Sure. Are any of the changes you're making, in my estimation, making it any better? No. And, collectively, when you keep doing it, sooner or later we're going to get past where we are. So that's always difficult when I get into a situation like that where it's getting overboard.

The mix is degrading.
Yeah, and then I really can't just pop back into it and repair it all. I mean, I can repair it all by recalling settings and such, but as far as the mind thing, I'm out of it.

I've also had a kind of a thing where it's sort of like breaking up with a girlfriend or something like that — where, after getting into a thing for a couple of mixes, you realize that you're not the right guy for the job and that you're not giving them what they want. I may not agree with what they want, but it's their record. Usually, it's something where they want it to sound real garage-y or super-muddy. I can certainly get something to sound garage-y, but I can still make it have definition and such. That's just a matter of ambience. That's not a matter of clarity, you know? But that's happened a few times. It's usually mutually felt by all of us that we're not nailing it.

Aside from the change in compression you mentioned, have you made a conscious effort during the years to change what you do to change with the times?
I don't really have any particular approach toward what I'm doing, either in terms of changing with the times or really even toward the style of music. I pretty much go into it with the same head, whether I'm doing Sepultura or Jeff Buckley or Sinéad O'Connor or whatever.

Did you have any idea that Linkin Park was going to be as big an album as it was when you were mixing it?
No. And I would say the same thing holds true for Nevermind. We knew we liked it as an album. We knew that it was a particularly strong record. But given that there was no track record for that kind of music on a major label and you only had indie sales to go by, 50,000 looked good!

And so we all thought, “Wow. Maybe it'll go Gold.” In fact, I remember I recorded the band live at the Paramount Theater in Seattle on Halloween, and we'd just gotten word that night that the album had gone Gold, and we were all like, “Yeah!” — totally naive to the fact that it had gone Gold in about three days. So this indicated something was up. But you never know. Because when a record sells multi-millions, it's a combination of so many different things that led to it.

Luck and timing.
Yeah. And, of course, a good record is a big part of it, but no one can hear a record and say, “Oh, that's going to sell 15 million.”

Last question: Who would you most appreciate having an opportunity to work with, if given the chance, of all the artists you've never worked with?
The Beatles.

Michael Barbiero is a noted producer/engineer/mixer with credits on a slew of albums by top artists, including Ziggy Marley, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Gov't Mule, Maroon 5, Counting Crows, Blues Traveler and so many others.
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY


P = producer; E = engineer; M = mixer

Nirvana:Nevermind (M, 1991), From the Muddy Banks of the Wishka (M, 1996), Westwood 1 Live Concert (P/M)

Jeff Buckley: Grace (P/M, 2002), Sketchees for My Sweetheart the Drunk (M, 1998)

A Perfect Circle: Emotive (M, 2004), Thirteenth Step (M, 2003)

System of a Down: Mezmerize (M, QQQ), Hypnotize (M, QQQ), Steal This Album (M, QQQ), Toxicity (M, QQQ)

Linkin Park: Meteora (M, 2003), Hybrid Theory (M, 2000), Reanimation (M, 2002)

Jay-Z and Linkin Park: Collision Course (M, 2004)

Sheryl Crow: C'mon C'mon (M, 2002), The Globe Sessions (M seven tracks, 1998)

Disturbed: Believe (M, 2002), The Sickness (M, 2000)

The Strokes: Upcoming album (M)

Rage Against the Machine: Evil Empire (M, 1996), Rage Against the Machine (M, 1992)