Mentioned this in the Soundgarden thread and thought I'd start it up over here proper.

I'm always fascinated by production talk and recording technique and mixing choices and such. The problem is I'm not nearly steeped enough in studio "speak" to sound coherent. But I love when people break that shit down.

So here is a thread for it.

I suppose I'll start off by talking about what made me think about this in the first place. The March Madness tournament had me hone in on a few songs on No Code in particular, and the dynamics on that record are insane.

On the one hand you have the airy yet intimate feel of songs like Sometimes, Present Tense and Around the Bend.

On the other hand you have the wall of barking guitars sound of Hail Hail, Habit and Lukin. Hail Hail in particular is so expertly mixed because you can hear each individual instrument but together they sound monstrous.

Then you have Jack's drums which, to my ears anyway, sound like they're mic'd very differently from how they are on Yield. On No Code, they sound much more distant to me.

What was BOB's technique here?

Would love to hear some of you technical geniuses pipe in on this and other albums.

Re: Your first comment about the dynamics of No Code -- I've never looked at a wav form, but I'd say there's a very broad dynamic range on that record. Both Sometimes and Off He Goes are very quiet songs followed by blasts of jarring rock. You'd have a tough time talking with a few friends over Sometimes and Off He Goes and still hear the music; those songs demand your attention if you actually wish to hear anything. But of course you could have a conversation over Hail, Hail and Habit, without having to reach for your volume dial. This is a good indication of a record with broad dynamic range: the quiet songs require you to listen, or turn up the volume if there's too much ambient noise in your listening environment; while the loud songs hit you with a force precisely because they stand in contrast to the quieter parts of the album. It's something that's obviously been lost with the last couple releases, and when combined with Matt's playing style and the pushing of Ed's vox to the front of the mix, any sense of subtlety has been completely lost. A song like Come Back or Yellow Moon should be quieter, should demand that you pay attention, but of course they don't; they come out your speakers at roughly the same volume as the loud songs.

Re: your comment about Jack's drums -- It's difficult to gauge, because No Code really plays like a hodgepodge of different recording techniques and environments. But listen to Hail, Hail and Brain of J, two loud rockers with a similar pallet, and his drums sound very similar to me. There's a slight difference in the sound of his kick and snare, but not much -- Both are fairly dry and up-front. I'd say the actual instruments have maybe changed, and I think there's a bit more room sound to the snare in Brain of J (and possibly it's a different room, at that).

The main difference I hear between those two songs is the volume of the guitars. They are really massive in Hail, Hail, and I wonder if that's what makes the drums sound further away to you? Whereas in Brain of J, I think they are dialed down a small amount to let the drums, and the sense of space around the drums, take a bit more precedent.

Another thing I really love on those two records is this sort of mid-range fuzziness. There are all sorts of non-scientific terms for the characteristics a particular piece of audio gear may lend to a track, and then there's a lot of science and peeking-under-the-hood that gets done in an attempt to explain those characteristics.

Based on articles I've read about Southern Tracks (where No Code and Yield were mixed), we can assume both albums were mixed on an SSL console. This has a reputation as being very "surgical," meaning that the EQ is so smooth that the engineer can dial all the tracks in to just the right part of the EQ realm. Yet that's not what I'm hearing -- as I said, I hear this mid-range fuzziness. That sort of sound is sometimes called a "Neve haze," or similar, because it's commonly heard on Neve equipment; other pieces that impart a similar characteristic are Pultecs and Fairchilds. In a nutshell, as a particular realm of EQ starts to get crowded by multiple tracks, you begin to hear a slight buildup of harmonic distortion that many listeners find very pleasing. You can't really get that sound on an SSL, because the EQ circuitry is too clean.

So assuming both albums were mixed on the surgical SSL, I'd wager a lot of the tracks were recorded with Neve mic pres, and/or there is some Neve, Fairchild, or Pultec gear used while mixing in addition to the SSL EQs. A blog post briefly mentions BOB using a Pultec somewhere on Yield: http://www.swimmingpoolqs.com/jeff-cald ... m-facilit/
Neve equipment is expensive, but not nearly as expensive as Pultec or Fairchild stuff, which can often fetch $30K-$60K for ONE SINGLE CHANNEL of equipment, so you typically see those two used on one track everywhere on an album. They impart such a desirable quality that mix engineers will often find something that is really flattered by the equipment, then make that sound a lynchpin of an album's overall vibe. I wish I could pick out where those units are used on those records (if I had to guess, I'd say the vox and bass). One really great intro to the Fairchild sound is Thurston Moore's vox on the Rather Ripped album. Once I heard that sound, and knew that's what he used, I could never un-hear it.

It's a huge contrast to the last few records which, apart from the lack of dynamic range, sound like they were tracked and mixed on very "fast" gear, like an API or similar. This equipment has very short, clean circuitry, and you never hear any harmonic distortion. It's a characteristic that is sorely lacking on Backspace and Lightning Bolt (while S/T is too squashed, I do think it has some nice harmonic distortion). Compared to No Code and Yield, those records sound downright clinical in their execution -- the playing, recording, mixing, and mastering leaves nothing to the imagination, no little corners to revisit on headphones to hear something new over time.

I'll stop here and let one of the other audio guys chime in.

Trag, you are the king. Fucking shit man, thanks for the thoughtful answer.

I would kill to know how much input the band has into technical stuff like this. I assume most of it is like Trag playing the BOB part for evenslow, and translating feelings into technical know-how.

But Stone has a studio and I'm sure he knows a lot of the ins and outs - would love to hear the conversations they have about this. I'm assuming since they got BOB back in the fold, they've basically delegated everything to him, i.e., we perform, you record.

As for Jack's drums, it seems like his drums are more up front in the mix on Brain of J, especially compared to something like Habit. But like you say, it probably has less to do with his drums than with how the guitars are mixed.

in my expert opinion no code sound real good

/thread

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed. I'm geeking out now and want to expand on this:



Wanted to clarify that analog harmonic distortion is very different from digital clipping distortion. The latter is what many claim to hear on S/T, and it's a far less pleasant sound. Another different, but still related, contrast between the older stuff and the last 2-3 albums is that when recording to analog, there is only so much real estate on the tape on which your audio can sit, so there is a natural compression of both HF and LF audio (somewhere around 14K and 80Hz, respectively) that is lacking in digital audio -- the eq spectrum doesn't get "bookended" in the same way, and that can create a bunch of aural ugliness when not treated correctly.

Solid post, mate.

Yep, 5/7

i love these kinds of technical posts since my music vocabulary is so underdeveloped

trag, which album has your favorite production?

And a follow-up Mr. Trag (and anyone else with musical vocabulary), which album deploys Ed's vox in the best way?

It's difficult for me to judge an album's production apart from the music; I think they go hand-in-hand. I'd say that either Vitalogy or Riot Act offers the best marriage of production to the music.

Vitalogy has a lot of that mid-range fuzz I mentioned earlier, and the depth of field (the width or overall sense of space) on Vitalogy is fairly narrow and claustrophobic. With lots of layered guitars, often playing the same part but with a slightly different tone and strumming feel, the effect is one of overwhelming emotion. All the pressures the band was feeling at that time are perfectly illustrated by the combination of the music and the production choices. With headphones on, you can feel the sense of being trapped, or under pressure, that PJ, and Ed in particular, were experiencing at that time. But there's also a warmth, a sense that the music offered some sort of safe retreat from the storm outside.

Riot Act has such a loose, open feel. The depth of field feels much larger than on Vitalogy. Even if a computer were to show that the stereo spread of the two albums was similar, the effect is completely different. The air in the room plays a big role on Riot Act, and with headphones you're in the room with the band, as a beleaguered Ed implores you to dig deep and find the strength to fight, and to love.

The major technical difference in these two records is the focus on condenser mics on Riot Act. There are, for our purposes, three kinds of microphones:

Dynamic: The element in this sort of mic is designed to withstand high levels of air movement (SPLs) without degradation of sound quality, but at the expense of detailed space/air around the instrument. These are typically positioned right next to loud instruments that move a lot of air (kick drums, loud amps, etc). They are great for getting the power of an instrument, and the details of something played very loud: You throw one of these next to a cranked guitar amp, and you can hear every little detail in the guitar track, but none of the air around the amp.

Condenser: The element in this sort of mic is very sensitive, so it captures all the fast transients (fast moving air) and are great for picking up a room, multiple players, anything open and airy. Because they are so sensitive, they have to be applied in the proper manner to ensure that harsh blasts of air don't create a rattle ("tympanic resonance") or worse, destroy the mic. Were you to put one of these next to a loud amp, you'd get a detailed guitar track, but you'd also get a lot of air around the amp.

Ribbon: These mics are EXTREMELY sensitive to damage, but offer exceptional detail. Are usually used on acoustic guitars, and other more delicate instruments; also work great as drum overheads. Ringo Starr used the Coles 4038 as a solo drum overhead all the time, and you can hear the terrific detail available with a nice ribbon mic with some heavy compression: lots of airy detail, lots of crack on the snare. (There seems to be some nice ribbons on Binaural, but I couldn't say for sure.)

Vitalogy seems to be mixed very heavily towards the tracks recorded with dynamic mics: There's a lot of amps that sound like they were recorded up-close, and with all the layering of loud guitars, any air that might be present from room/overhead condenser mics is buried underneath. Though there's some nice space around the drums, it gets swallowed by the guitars. Ed's vox appear to be recorded with a dynamic mic (probably an RE-20 or SM7, two industry standards for singers of his ilk), and so we don't hear any of the breathiness that characterized their earliest recordings and the most recent ones.

Riot Act obviously features a lot of condenser mics. Drums, guitars, vox, even the bass all have a sense of space around them. There's hardly any guitar layering beyond each member's primary instrument, and the depth of field feels wide open.

It's apples and oranges, really, but I think those two records are my favorite in terms of production choices. Binaural could have taken the cake, had they let Tchad mix the entire record.

Sorry Evenslow -- I think Ed's vox sounded best from Vs --> Riot Act. It sounds like he used mostly a condenser mic on Vs, but the vocal track isn't too far ahead of the music, and his singing is just superb. Vitalogy, No Code, Yield, and some of the Binaural tracks all sound like dynamic mics on his vox, and I think those are his best work. Some of the Binaural tracks sound like a condenser (think of the sense of space around his vocal in Of the Girl and Soon Forget), and I think it's been condenser mics from Riot Act onward. Which is a shame, because he's gotten so breathy and wharbly, and they're pushing his vox ahead of the rest of the mix, so the whole thing is super unflattering.

Would love to hear from Spenno or any of the other audio dudes.

Those are superb, insightful posts, Trag. Very illuminating, thank you.

Really need to change the title of this thread to Ask Trag Anything. This is awesome.

So why on earth would BOB go in that direction? He must think there's some kind of benefit. Or has he completely lost the plot?

Well, doesn't the wider audience love this kind of sound, though? Haven't the last three albums been PJ's most successful in a long time? It sounds like shit, but it's sellable shit.

Trag, can you give us your opinion as to the origin of the phantom drum sound at the start of "Swallowed Whole"?



Is it Ed's mic picking up a drum track they later deleted, or some sort of guide track?

Right, I'm guessing the method reflects whatever is popular commercially at this point in time.