Studio tips from Trackmix Studio

Part 55

 It has been mental few weeks. The Punk rock mayhem show was a great success:-) All the bands delivered rocking sets. It is so much easier running show like this when you get to work with professional bands. Also a massive thank you once again to every one who came in, without you guys we could not do this. After having a few days time to reflect on the night, I have already decided to run the show next year at same time. But that is still long way a head, and we'll be running lot more gigs between now and then:-)
  Ok so this week I have something really special for you. I have been talking a lot about recording in the past, so I decided to ask for some tips from a professional studio engineer. Me and Qra headed to Trackmix studio in Blanchards town, that we had our eye on for a while now and many of our friends have recorded some killer tracks in there:-) So I sat down over a coffee with Michael Richards in the studio and picked his brain for some tips on recording and studio work for up and coming bands. Michael is also a guitarist himself, so we couldn't help but to squeeze in some guitar tips as well. So over to our chat:

J.P.  What's your background in music and as a sound engineer?
Michael I played (guitar) in loads of bands and got pissed off getting crap sound every where, so initially I did three years in the Bolton street (college) so I am qualified building services engineer, but never worked at that and never will at this stage. It was basically my back up plan before I did what I wanted to do. So I had a plan B, then I did year in the Sound Training Center in Temple bar.
J.P. How did you find that course?
Michael Well it's completely different now. When I did it, it was all cutting tape, tape editing, the birth of MIDI, that would have been 1991 so it was all AKAI sound players, MIDI cables and CV gates and stuff. So that was what the course was about back then. Then I worked in the Sun studios in Temple bar for a while. When you finished the course it was like get your own bands and bring them in to the studio. In 1995 myself and another guy opened the Trackmix studios. We were thinking of going to UK to to do the SAE School of audio engineering degree over there, but the cost involved in that basically allowed us set up our own studio instead. Got busy straightaway really. We got very good sound compared to other studios around at the time. It was 24 track reel to reel and 48 channel Soundtracks console, Alesis and Lexicon external reverb units, all gone now.
J.P. Do you ever miss the tape machine?
Michael No, it was one inch with Dolby S, so it was decent, but nothing like Studer or Otari. In 1998 we opened a guitar shop Instrumental on Bachelors walk with my business partner at a time. We were there for 10 years. We also opened a live music venue at the top of a Frazers pub on O'Connell Street in 2001. We rented the top floor off them, got good bands in and had Phantom doing Friday nights there, so we got good crowds in. At the point the venue got busy the studio was busy as well. We had arrangement that I would run the studio and my business partner would run the Venue and then we both worked in the shop. After while he lost interest in the studio and I just didn't have time for the venue, so we decided to split those parts of the business and I got the studio. In 2008 my daughter was born and between the studio and the shop I was working six to seven days a week, so at that point I decided to get out of the shop and concentrate on the studio.
J.P. So the studio has been in business since 1995, have you seen the changes in the Dublin music scene in the past 16 years?

Michael Oh god yeah, when we opened it was lot of Indie rock, Oasis sort of stuff. Then it went through big pop punk boom for a long time. That lasted probably five or six years, everyone wanted to be Blink 182. The problem with that is you get lot of drummers who tried to copy Travis Barker, who is very good drummer, and not being able to do it and ruining the songs in the process. But at the same time, lot of them were young bands, so Blink 182 made lot of young kids start bands, so fare play to them. Then that died down and now it's all gone metal. Metal is huge in Ireland at the moment.
J.P. What would you say is the divide between young bands or bands through record labels coming in to your studio?
Michael Well it depends. For example last year I had four Albums between September and Christmas eve. So unfortunately that meant that any younger bands had to go somewhere else or come back in January. It is nice to work with professionals, but having said that, I don't mind working with young bands either. For example I had a young band here who did not expect to get an album sounding product as they have been gigging and knew their limitations, but then with little bit of studio magic, drum editing and good choruses you get really good product, which all their friends and fans were blown away.
J.P. So could you give some advice on how a band with no studio experience could prepare them selves for the studio?

Michael Number one: Learn to play to a click track. Very important. When you play in rehearsals, you might not notice that you are speeding up or slowing down, but basically since the popularity of dance music  general public's timing has got lot better. So when the Stones brought out Exile on main street they got away with it, but now up and coming band wont get away with starting at 100ppm and finishing at 125ppm. People notice it now. So that would be the really big one. You also get band insisting using their unintonated out of tune guitars (Trackmix has has a selection of 10 really nice guitars with top notch set ups). They have their Epiphone Les Paul that is their baby, but after tuning it when you go past fifth fret, everything is out of tune. Or you get bass players with three month old strings... And here is a tip for bass players: put your strings in to a pot with vinegar and boil for a half an hour, you will lose bit of elasticity, but you get all the gunk out of them. You'll get away doing this three times.
  Another good tip, a band that comes here regularly, their singer, few days before coming in to the studio goes to a singing lesson in Waltons and learns the song they are about to record with the teacher. Then when they come in to the studio, all the pitching is already worked out. So usually it ends up being two warm ups and then a take.
J.P. I'm sure few guitar players could do something similar :-D
Michael Another common mistake that young bands make is over play riffs. You might feel great playing the riff, but it tends to go on too long, it would not be as interesting to listen to. Big intros as well. If it's a demo that you hope people will listen to and like, get the vocals in there as quick as possible. Take it easy on the intros.
J.P. Would you get in many young bands that would not understand the recording process yet?
Michael Oh yeah.
J.P. Would you recommend them to learn the process before?

Michael Just from my experience I can deal with bands that are inexperienced. Sometimes you get a phone call from a band, saying they want to record three songs, and you tell them it would probably take two days to do them properly. "Ah but its only 10mins, sure we can do them in an hour?" You do get that. Generally though if it is an inexperienced band I let them do it live, and then over dub. So when they are actually putting the takes down, I keep the drums, possibly bass if its in. So instead getting a guide guitar and vox, let them play as a band. Or sometimes if the guitar takes are good, I keep the D.I. and re-amp them after. I think the technology to re-amping has made a big difference.
J.P. That was actually one of the points that brought us to here in the first place. I find it so refreshing to hear from studio engineer ideas on how bands can save money.
Michael Yeah, it might sound like I'm shooting my self in the foot there, but not really. If I get a young band That can't afford four days in the studio that want to do five or six songs,  if they can get everything prepared, D.I. guitar and bass to a click or guide drums and the come in to record the real drums and re-amp everything. Definitely the way to do it.
J.P.  When people come to studio, what separates the pros from amateurs?

Michael The pros gets stuff down quicker. And you find that experienced drummers mix the kit them selves. If you were to put just overheads on the drum kit, it would sound like drum kit, when with inexperienced drummers you find all you get is hi-hat. The proper way to play the drums, in studio at least is beat the crap out of the shells and hit the cymbals lightly, where as the younger bands tend to lash the hi-hats and crashes while tapping the snare. One of the best examples is if you watch Keith Moon, he's like spider flying around the place but Cymbals are just shimmering. He looks like he is all over the place, but he is very controlled, hitting the shells hard and cymbals lightly.
J.P. What about bass players?
Michael Inexperienced bass players tend to follow the guitar rather than the drums. I always put the guitars down before the bass as well, it's easier to fit bass in to the guitars than other way around. Most rock music, no offence to bass players, but guitar sound is more important than bass sound. The bass is very important to the low end and over all mix, where as the guitar sound can define a band. So if you get the guitars down the way you want them first and then get the bass to cut in the low mid, rather than doing it the other way around. So as mentioned you get sometimes bass following the guitar, if that is the case, we separate the song in to sections and work out a bass line that follows the kick drum and works with the guitar, but not follow them.
  If you prepare for the studio and there is a band you like, don't only listen, analyze what every instrument is doing. You do find if you get bands that also play in cover bands in weekends, their own songs tend to be better constructed.
  Also good example on sound is AC/DC. Massive drum sound, but fairly thin guitars. If AC/DC were to use (Mesa Boogie)Triple Rectifier on full gain the mix would not sound as big. People think more gain sounds bigger, put not at all, less gain actually sounds bigger.
J.P. Totally, I find myself turning down the gain and getting away from the pedals.

Michael Tube screamer, drive at zero. Tightens up the bottom end and emphasize the attack. It's used more as filter driving the middle range. It emphasizes the pick attack and pushes the mid range. I use it all the time.
J.P. Now on the subject of money, we're going to use JPKALLIO.COM as an example here, what would you think would be a reasonable budget for recording an album?
Michael Well it depends on type of music. For example metal album, you are looking at spending lot of time on drum editing. Three days tracking, six days editing drums. It's all Lamb of Gods fault I am a fried. They were the first band to have absolutely metronomic timing and everybody just expects that since then. There's no away around it if you want a good modern metal record you have to edit. Where as straight up rock or punk record you might get drums down in two days, guitars down in two days, bass a day, vocals two days, so normaly depending on the type of the music, straight up rock band kind of live feel down in eight days, proper finished modern metal album maybe 14 to15 days. So it really depends on the music.
And when band leaves my studio they will be leaving with mastered album ready for print.
J.P. So you master as well?
Michael  Yeah, if you talk to a mastering engineer, they make them selves sound like some sort of alchemist, but its all about having a good ears and good monitors. Lot of mastering EQ would be what you call seek and destroy EQ, what is high boost sweep to find resonant frequencies and then cut them.So you need very good monitors, which we have here in the studio. Like normally you cut around 2 and 7K to get rid of some fiziness, and then low mids around 400-500hz, that's the low end woofiness that kills headroom.
You get once and a while some saying they want it sounding great and not worried about the volume, and thats like Christmas, you get to be creative with the EQ. When mastering you are subtracting frequencies to get the desired level. People just expect stuff to be loud these days. You just have to deal with it. If studio put out mixes that are not loud enough, they just don't get work.
J.P. Do you feel sometimes inexperienced bands underestimate the importance of mixing?

Michael To a certain extent. Lot of guys don't see the big picture, so you might get a band in with low tuning with a kind of piccolo snare sound, so the snare is on top of everything else in the mix, or you might get guitar players wanting too much gain and cutting all the mids out so the guitar is actually scooped in the frequency it's supposed to be in. So sometimes you spend time convincing inexperienced bands that this is the correct way of doing it. Tracking is mixing. Every time you hit the record you are mixing. You have to get the sounds that will fit later in the final mix.
J.P. Lot of young bands can find studio bit intimidating, do you think degree in psychology would come handy?
Michael No... It's just experience. You get engineers that would be very good, but would not have the people skills. Its as, if not even more important than knowing what you do really. Keeping the band comfortable and you always need to keep an atmosphere, tell jokes, slag the drummer ;-) But you have to keep an atmosphere in the studio that is comfortable. I would always try to make sure the band has a positive experience. Sometimes I do get bands that are not ready for recording, and I always ask for Myspace, facebook or youtube link, and I would advice them not to spend their money on the studio yet. But what I tell them to do is go to Soundtraining centers student session, for a fraction of a price, and they will get more experience and see where they need to improve before they do spend their money on professional studio.
J.P. How much, or little do you get involved in the projects?

Michael Well, every recording that comes out of here is an advertisement for the studio, so I do try to make every recording the best I can. Sometimes for example drummer would not like if I tell them that the drum roll on the chorus is not great. You do need to think which is the focal point in particular part of the song and prioritize. Everything can't be a lead instrument all the time and drummers can be big offenders on that. If you listen to professional drummers, they might be playing amazing stuff, but not over the vocal line. I do tend to do production as well as recording. Never would I just sit back and record. It's a case of trying to improve the parts. And as I said sometimes some members of the band wont be very happy about it, but generally they are happy when they hear the result.
J.P. Do you still get exited about any bands coming in?
Michael For sure! If I didn't I'd be in the wrong job. I do get exited about recording. Especially if it's a band I do want to record. Like last year I did the Cruachan album for Candellight records for world wide release, when I heard I got to record them, I was delighted, high as a kite.
J.P. So to wrap up this interview, I know many people feel like studio is bit like solicitors office, as soon as you get in from the door it's costing you money. Any encouraging words that might ease their mind a bit?
Michael Well I work very very fast. Any one who's been to other studios and then come to me, always say I work very fast. If you're recording with me and use the studio kit, which you probably should as it is very good kit, you'll be tracking drums by 11am. Normally it would be three releasable quality tracks in two days. So just give ma a call.

  Big thank you to Michael for his time and hospitality. I must say even we we're not recording, we did feel very relaxed in his studio while doing this interview. And JPKALLIO.COM will be doing some recording in the Trackmix studio in the near future. You can contact Michael through the studios Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/trackmixrecordingstudio
  So that's lot for you to chew on this week, back for more next week:-)
  J.P.