Taking back sunday / Eric Valentine production

[dusty cooper]

does anyboy haven some info on how the Taking Back Sunday drums on their album Louder Now were recorded? I think they sound absolutely amazing! I can't put my finger on it what it is exactly, but it has power, and is really something different.

the producer/engineer is eric valentine btw.

yoow

niels

[SkunkWorks]

This is one of my favorite kiks. Lots of mids and the low end is based around the punchy bass frequencies, deep low end rolled off. Bass guitar compliments it. Snare is deep. Kik is kind of like the Hot For Teacher Van Halen treatment.

EDIT
Pump the crap out of a kik's 1khz (maybe a tad higher) and it will sound like "Miami." Roll off the deep sub stuff

[lordnielson]

Perhaps a few samples in there for good measure ?

Very focused and tight sound. I dig.

[basskater87]

i think i remember somebody telling me they miked the overheads under the cymbals............so underheads?

[jchadstopherhuez]

eric valentine....rules...


best,

jchristopherhughes

[lordmiguel]

yes, let's get an eric valentine thread going.....would love to know how this this sound came together.

[heisleyamor]

the kick is actually the only thing I don't like about the taking back sunday's album. It sounds too real...haha

[shadewind]

Though I would guess that nothing about the drums on an Eric Valentine record is very real. Listen to the drums on Taking Back Sunday's Louder Now and then listen to the drums on Good Charlotte's Young And The Hopless and Chronicles of Life and Death? Sound similar? Way too similar if you ask me. Almost cardboard box like. tutt

Though on Smashmouth, it sounds quite good.

It's the same with John Feldmann, listen to his productions... the snare is exactly the same and the vocals even sound the same. tutt

[lordnielson]

I must confess that I'm not talking about the entire album. I just really like the production on MakeDamnSure and a one other song. Some of the material IMO is sketchy at best. The back and forth thing between the singer and the guitarist gets supremely annoying at times coz it seems unnecessary and superimposed. The slick mixes serve to cover this up quite well.

[Prestige77]

I love this record, but I can't stand the drums. they're the best drums sounds from any tbs record, but i don't like Eric Valentine's idea of drum sounds. I read an article/interview with him in Tape OP a couple years ago before he did tbs and he mics drums in quite a different way. i thought it sounded cool to try, but i'm sure i'd mix much differently. The kick drum is my least favorite of the drums too. except in miami b/c it was recorded in a large closet pretty much and they sound super tight and samply, but i'm pretty certain no samples were used. maybe to supplement, but i remember reading him say he doesn't like to use samples. if you listen to the 3eb, lost prophets and good charlotte cd's he's done, the kick sounds nearly identical, so maybe he does sample it, or maybe he just uses the same kick miced the same way for every record.

so here's how he mics drums. standard reinforcement mics, i forget what exactly he uses, but nothing out of the ordinary, pretty sure he stereo's the room, but not certain, and the thing that i remember very well is that he mics overhead from underneath. he uses a figure 8 pattern and places the cymbals a bit higher to pick up full sound, then positions the mics in between the drums and cymbals so that the softer response side is to the cymbals and the stronger response side is facing the drums. he only uses 2 and said that those 2 mics give him his overall drum sounds minus the kick, then a little reinforcement. this could be why his cymbal mix always seems a little low and it never bleeds and also why the kick is so isolated and punchy, but it sounds like a flat basketball to me on all his recordings. i have yet to try this figure 8 recording method, but years after that inteview, i'm still going to try it as soon as i have a matched pair of super nice condensers i can put in figure 8 pattern. don't get me wrong, i love most of his recordings and he's an amazing producer/engineer, but his kick drum sound isn't to my liking. i'm more of a roomy bottom heavy kick with a lot of carry, a la Dashboard's A mark a mission... but then again, different projects, different sounds. hope that helps you though. i remember him using a kick mic that isn't standard too. like a really expensive condenser of some sort. I've used a combination of an EV RE20 at the soundhole of the kick and a Rode NTK about 6 feet back and the RE20 will give you that punchy sound very similar to the Valentine kick. I eq'ed the crap out of it to get rid of that, but it's still very characteristic of the mic. it's a neat trick. i'd combo it with a D6 or D112 though and blend them b/c that RE20 just cuts right through and you get no low end. hope this helps a little bro. good luck!

bob

[SkunkWorks]

Wow. No love in this thread for the TBS or Good Charlotte kiks or John Feldmann's production values.

Well, in trying to keep with the original poster's positive spin and counter alot of the negativity which I don't think is in the spirit of his question, I have to say I love all of it. What I like about the TBS and GS kiks is that they're different and I find that refreshing. They're what I used to call "floor board kiks" because they remind me of when I was young and we used to cruise around in my buddy's Chevy half ton and I'd tap my boot on the floor board along to the kik drums in the tunes we were listening to... had a nice thump. Some of these kiks also really remind me of Van Halen kiks from around the time of Hot For Teacher. All of them can be cranked to the max on a car stereo without launching the speakers into outer space which I always thought was kind of cool. As far as samples and similarities, I don't know if they were used in this stuff we're talking about, but it's pretty easy to get them just with EQ... you just crank the crap out of the mids around 1khz (and maybe compress the crap out of those mids)... roll off the low sub frequencies (maybe boost around 70 or 80hz with a narrow bell), and any high end is usually more lower highs or very upper mids. I'm not a professional engineer but it only took me a few minutes to figure this out and try it... it works. And I'm sure it helps to have a drum and mic that compliment this to give you a good place to start.

[Kadden Heart]

i was listening ot louder now just earlier (this thread insired me to)

the kick only "snaps" through during the verses,..everytiemt he choruss ride up in all the songs it seems like all i hear is this low end no snap, no definition thump coming from the low end, hardly.
,...never noticed that,....


the guitars are great though, very defined,...but don't attack your ears, a huge wal of different uitars yet every note is identifiable,...wish i could layer like that.
the vox are especially ncie to my ears.

drums are a little too,..real,... nice cymbals though,
can't get over that kick though.

the primary principle that all the big guys seem to do really well at, tha ti can't comprehend,.. is how they get the noise floor down, all commercial releases are so clean, every insturment has it's space and all the notes can be made out without noticing automation an such,... TBS records o this well.
,..i can't.
lol

[Assailant]

Originally Posted by shadewind

Almost cardboard box like. tutt

I normally just lurk around and never post, but i felt like i just had to say how much i hate this kick. Its so distracting that i cant enjoy this cd. Its a damn shame too, the rest of the kit sounds pretty good and the guitars sound awsome. Especially, the first song and the first maybe 30 second the guitars sound amazing.

But that damn kick i cant stand.

[crille]

What amplifiers did they use?

I agree about the guitars, they sound great.

[Phase-Ish]

The Bridge is Error Operator is awesome

To me it sounds like Distortion with with alot of filtering

I would like to know how that was done

As far as the kick and stuff

I like the Oh'S the most out of the drums

[Jake 2.0]

The kicks dont sound like the same kick drums on the records he does but rather similar miking and eqing. its a nice extreme smiley face on the kick, snare, toms, very snappy, not much mids all highs and low.works for him its kinda cool but its a matter of taste.

[Louderock]

Kick drum --- Ns10 woofers, inside mic, batter head mic.... All eq'd to handle specific frequency ranges.

[Tandem5]

i know this is an old thread but...
come on all!!

louder now's production and engineering is a piece of art!
....isn't anyone else sick of hearing standard sounds in records today?

bring on the Eric Valentines and the Ethan Johns and Gabriel Roths!

WE encourage musicians to be so creative in their song writing.. shouldn't we demand the same of ourselves?

[opmode]

Originally Posted by shadewind

Though I would guess that nothing about the drums on an Eric Valentine record is very real. Listen to the drums on Taking Back Sunday's Louder Now and then listen to the drums on Good Charlotte's Young And The Hopless and Chronicles of Life and Death? Sound similar? Way too similar if you ask me. Almost cardboard box like. tutt

Though on Smashmouth, it sounds quite good.

It's the same with John Feldmann, listen to his productions... the snare is exactly the same and the vocals even sound the same. tutt

BAHAHAHAH so very true... just listen to the drums on the album "Start Something" .. caged animal drums.. bleh!

but they serve the song in a refreshing, non-distracting sort-of way and I do find myself singing along more to eric valentine albums too........

[dave_ocean]

Here's some footage of the drum setup. the drummer mentions Eric Valentine so I'm assuming he is at the helm.

YouTube - You Could Play Harder (That's What She Said)

[petermiles]

Eric, any chance of some insight into this? Lot's of speculation in this thread, but no reply from the man himself. First time I heard this record, the sonics just blew my mind! Such a unique sound, sure not everyone loves it but to me, it's awesome.

[Richardwynne]

Eric, after you finish talking about the drums, can you talk about the vocals too?

[ElijahJackson]

o one is entirely sure what emo means anymore (remember when bands and fans would sit down and have a good cry?), but ask Mark O’Connell what kind of player he is, and you’ll get a machine-gun mantra that leaves no room for sissy stuff: “I grew up in a hardcore scene. I grew up listening to metal. I can’t stand wimps behind the drums. I can’t stand light hitters … I just like banging the s**t out of my shells.”