Production on latest Sleepmakeswaves album

[daxliniere]

Hi DSK,
If you're still interested, I'm still happy to answer your last question.

Cheers,
Dax.

[Phase Shift]

Hey Dax,

I think it would be nice if we tried to keep this thread alive. it is worth it. I just finished mixing the band i was telling you about. lots of work and frustration, but i think it was worth it.

So in spirit of this:

how much was the album changed during the mastering phase? was any treble added for example? compression to alter the feel of "movement"? I can detect some pumping in the cymbals some times ( which is ofcourse normal at that kind of rms). Did the band want it loud? did you?


Regarding bass. Was it just Vandal? through which preamp? I think your snapshots were great, maybe you could do it again.

Drums. Which was the main reverb used?. Any parallel bus processing? Again, snapshots of the mixer window would be nice.


Regarding reaper, i dont think its a matter of getting used to it, yet. I think it boils down to this : i don't like the mixer.And i usually use the DAW mixer for submixing 120-150 tracks to 32 on the board. which is a royal pain in the butt, but worth it imo.

again, thanks for doing this. Personally, i got a chance to see how someone else works in a genre that i am involved as well.

Alex

[daxliniere]

Hi Alex,
Yes, it would be nice to keep this thread alive, as I'm sure some people can learn something from it.

Originally Posted by Phase Shift

how much was the album changed during the mastering phase? was any treble added for example? compression to alter the feel of "movement"? I can detect some pumping in the cymbals some times ( which is ofcourse normal at that kind of rms). Did the band want it loud? did you?

I was very happy (and proud) to hear that the album was changed very little in mastering.
As we all know, Howie's a pro and though I was at first a little concerned he might learn more to the loud side, he was very receptive to my wishes.
This is the mastering brief I wrote to Howie;

Mastering brief
Not super-loud. More like Deftones' White Pony than Saturday Night Wrist. (Definitely not as loud as Rammstein's Reise Reise, for example.) Open and clear (with appropriate warmth) is more important than loudness.
Cloud Mountain is a good example of the openness I aimed for in the mixes.
Clipping should be kept to non-audible levels.

The band and I were particularly impressed to discover that you mastered Jeff Buckley's Grace and Thrice's Alchemy Index volumes, all quite dynamic albums.
As you'll hear in the mixes, the vision I had for the music is that it should be quite dynamic. This is especially obvious in tracks like Gaze.

As for tonality, I'm quite happy with the album, but of course use your best judgement. There may be a smidge too much sub-bass at some points.

If I get some time soon, I will post some short before/after-mastering comparisons here.

Originally Posted by Phase Shift

Regarding bass. Was it just Vandal? through which preamp? I think your snapshots were great, maybe you could do it again.

Well, for amp sims it was predominantly Vandal, but I always use a DI track as well/ You can get very different sounds from amp vs DI. DI will often sound flatter and more full, then you need a bit of grit and angry which is where the amp sim comes into play.
There are some massive distorted sections where I used an additional track, passing the bass through a high gain guitar amp sim (sometimes with no cabinet sim! ). I think Cloud Mtn (middle snare drum section) and the intros of Birds and ...ASWDE are examples of that.

Bass was always recorded through Atlas Juggernaut Twin. Transformerless input (98% of the time) with nickel output trafo 75% of the time and iron output trafo for the 'more rockin' sections where I wanted some more grit and bite as opposed to the smoothness and low-frequency extension of the nickel output.

As for Vandal snapshots, there's nothing to it. Open the plugin, switch it to Bass Amp mode and tweak the tone knobs to suit the song. Simple.

Originally Posted by Phase Shift

Drums. Which was the main reverb used?. Any parallel bus processing? Again, snapshots of the mixer window would be nice.

For this album, I ran 2 room and 2 plate reverbs for every project, plus other specific reverbs. The drum buss was always sent to both rooms (Tila and possibly VariverbPro or MoVerb) and toms individually sent to the plates (VariVerbPro and PoorPlate).
Parallel compression? Yes! I love 112dB Big Blue Limiter. Sidechain Compressor also got some use.

Originally Posted by Phase Shift

again, thanks for doing this. Personally, i got a chance to see how someone else works in a genre that i am involved as well.

My pleasure, Alex.

All the best,
Dax.

[tulsraeg]

Just found out this by accident...
A wonderful EP, beautiful textures!

[daxliniere]

Thanks Tulsraeg, it was great working on this album.