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Jin Huang
April 21, I had an empty session with Lionel talking about music and each other’s origin. Anthony’s band, Lake of Lions, was supposed to come for a tracking session that day, but they didn't show up probably because of Easter Monday or something. Anthony was always on time. Anyways, that was probably why I have missed their mixing sessions completely. However, the good news is that Anthony will help me with the drum part of my EP; I’m so excited to see him again. By the end of that day, Lionel told me that some older guys would come into the studio next, and that was how my journey with the band Low Orbit began.
Day 1 — Tracking: Live Off The Floor
April 26, 10:30 ~ 19:30
The first full day session was supposed to begin at 11, but it seemed that the band was already there at 9. When I came in, everyone was busy setting up the session. ‘What?! I’m half an hour late?’ I thought… Without saying anything, I was in a mess and went into the work. Lionel’s brother Dave was there too, and he taught me how to run the cable properly and where to leave the coil. ‘You are messing yourself up that way,’ Dave said; that was when I realized how stupid I was behaving when my mind was not clear…but then I was very excited to setup Lionel’s big tube CAD mic. We put on microphones and adjusted the setup for drums and cabinets. We did spend sometime dealing with the noise of the guitar amp by switching pedals and changing cables, but it wasn't quite satisfying really; we ended up re-recorded the guitar parts the next day, which I shouldn't be talking about for now. After everything was done in the live room, we came into the control room to setup Pro Tools and organize the patch bay. The band started playing, and we were checking signals and getting levels; then pressed the button, we were good to go.
The band is called Low Orbit, and it’s a three piece rock n roll band, so guitar bass drum. I find it almost like a golden triangle that never breaks. Anthony’s band is also the same structure; apparently, Greenday is also the same, but the possibility out of three people is unlimited! Low orbit was going to record a full album in the studio, 9 songs plus an intro track, so altogether ten tracks. You know what, they finished tracking them all in day 1; that was so efficient! I like their way of doing things — because they had so many songs, they tracked each song only once and then moved to the next; then they listened back to all their takes to decide which ones they would like to try another take and only focused on those songss; if it was just something small and unnoticeable, just fix it with Pro Tools to save time. They re-recorded only three songs and everything else sounded pretty cool. What I want to say here is that performance is the key. When your skill is not a problem, then conveying the music can be a lot easier. Also, when you know how to fix things, you are saving a good amount of time and energy. ‘Do your magic, Lionel, you are going to fix this for us the band said a lot of times. One good example was they like the overall performance, but it sounded a little faster. I thought it would be difficult to fix by changing the tempo map, analyzing the BPM since they didn't play with a click; then guess what, it was the alternative of the trim tool! Lionel selected all the tracks and stretched them a little bit, and everything sounded perfect!
By the end of the session, we left the setup the way it was. The band would come back the next morning to check everything we did for the day. Angelo, the nice guitarist, asked me, “Are you coming tomorrow as well?” “Yes, sure!” I had said the same thing hundreds of times, of course I won't miss anything in the studio. “These guys like working with you. This is always a good signal.” Lionel told me. This was the start of the journey, and this was also how I followed their complete journey. It was a great experience to witness the birth of a new album!
Ah, I failed to mention one thing. What made me super excited that day was when Lionel talking about the music industry with the band during the break. “Los Angeles, New York, London and Toronto are the centre of world music industry; Toronto is even like a bridge connecting Europe and North America.” All of a sudden, I found myself being in the right place more than ever, and I thought it’s also because that Canada is open to different people of different backgrounds; it transfers the ideas of different cultures smoothly. Lionel was right, ‘if you want to know more of the real country, go to see its people and their lives.’ Music is also a matter of harmony.
Day 2 — Tracking: Guitar Bass Overdubs
April 27, 10:00 ~ 20:00
A band always needs someone who spends more time on the project than others since there’s still too many little things to do in the background to keep everything organized and moving smoothly. Every time Angelo came early and left late, he had really done a lot overdubbing alone when everyone else was busy working. By the way, he liked kidding me, which was fun ;p
The focus of day one was the drum kit because it was the most difficult part. If the tone of the drums were correct, then everything else would be easy. On the second day, as I said, we did some guitar overdubs, added some solo parts, and also made the bass sound right. We spent a good amount of time to get the right tone for the electric guitar. We changed guitar cabs and heads back and forth; we switched the pedals and effects from the source; we tried different setup of microphones and room sound. Finally, we got the tone that we wanted. We set the orange cab and head in the corner of live room, where used to be drums for most of the times. Then we set an SM57 and an MD441 to the speakers, with a blumlein pair of 414 and 121 as room mic. The fat orange cab made the sound more robust and the head reduced a lot of noise. All the combination of the microphones made the guitar sound huge in the big live room. That was the result we got after trying changing a couple of different factors that affected the tone.
I was very excited to help not only setting up the sessions, but also record, playback, loading sessions and stuff while Lionel walked away. It was exciting to sit in the mix position and touch the faders of Neve’s 5088 console. I didn't know when it would become true to me in my future; but it was like a kid’s first tasting the candy, I knew it was sweet. Of course, paying efforts, learning techniques, trying things, being creative, earning money, even good luck… everything counts to make a success.
Talking about the arrangement of a song, it’s not only a case of arranging all the tracks properly. When we were tracking, we tried to put all our ideas into the mix. Even when it came to the mixing stage, we were still tracking only because that the ideas show up. What worth mention was that they added a guitar track which was an octave higher but the same as the bass track. Instead of letting the guitarist play it, the bassist, Joe did it. As a result, only the instrument was changed, all the techniques and feel of the sound remained the same, just like a man and his shadow, which gave the song a nice texture.
Lionel also mentioned Ebow during the session. Although it had nothing to do with the album, I would like to mention it here too because it was magical to me. An Ebow can change your electric guitar into a violin instantly! It uses a magnetic field to sustain the vibration of the guitar strings. As you move the Ebow closer to the pick up, it sounds louder, and vice versa. You can even switch the harmonics that you want to alter to affect the tone and octave being played. I’ll get one some day. xp
Day 3 — Tracking: Vocal And Harmonics
May 1, 13:00 ~ 22:00
Since we had finished most part of the music, it was time to track the vocals. It was a good idea to start a vocal session in the afternoon because it would be better for the vocalist to warm up his throat. Bring water and eat less, these are all great useful tips for recording vocals.
We recorded the vocal dry with absorbers in an iso booth, using the tube condenser microphone. That was not the end. In order to get the best performance out of the vocalist, the headphone mix becomes super important. For example, Angelo, and also a lot of vocalists including me, doesn’t like hearing himself completely dry. Lionel also gave me an example of an opera singer first came into his studio to record an opera song — without hearing the natural reverb of the concert hall, it didn't sound correct for the opera singer to sing properly. That was when we put some reverb in the headphone mix for the vocalist to sing properly, while still record dry. Other situations like changing tiny little bit of the levels in the background music to encourage the vocalist to sing confidently or less sharp. There were tons of tricks that we could do that were even unnoticeable to get a better performance. Yeah, let’s do our magic!
For these rock n roll songs, vocals were more pushed into the background. People still wanted to hear the strength of the amplified instruments and drums. However, the vocal still needed to be able to compete even though it was not on top of the mix. We fattened the vocal with some flanger and added some reverb to make the sound bigger. We also added some delays to fill in the gaps, but it was in the mixing stage later. There weren't too many lyrics, so for the same parts we just chose the best take to copy and paste. After that we did some vocal harmonics too.
Later that day, after we had done all the vocal parts, we recorded the short intro track. It was pretty simple. Joe had produced the track with an app on his iPad, so we recorded the track directly into Pro Tools. Done!
I was almost to stay overnight in the studio that day because I have my lesson 16 the next morning at 10 am. ‘I’ll see you again within 12 hours’ I joked to Lionel, ‘If you allow me to stay here overnight, I’ll be playing the drums until the next morning.’ Yes, I always want to play some drums, but every time it’s just too noisy for others. I wish I could play some drums and I thought I could, but I never know. Say good night.
Day 4 — Mixing: Two Songs
May 6, 17:30 ~ 22:30
This was a shorter session, and we were supposed to finish mixing 3 songs. Unfortunately, when it came to the third song, Angelo’s D string was broken when he suddenly came up with an idea to track something into the mix. Yeah, D string was broken, you can imagine how strong the songs were. That day Angelo was the last one to leave because he had to fix his guitar string. Luckily, it was not broken at the beginning of a tracking session. I had my B string broken on stage before… it was like the end of the world… oh, forget it.
I was very excited to see how Lionel mixed differently for a different band. Remember the first time when Lionel mixed for My Friends Big Heads, they had already got everything when tracking so mixing was really just a matter of level. This time was different. I saw Lionel EQing, cleaning up the frequencies, adding effects and automating the whole mix. The first song we mixed sounded fantastic, and we didn't change anything about it till the end. The band was very happy with the mix and I saw how excited they were when Lionel used his ‘magic’ to achieve the kind of sound they want. Wow, it was fantastic!
Day 5 — Mixing: Three Songs
May 14, 18:00 ~ 00:00
Finally, I got a chance to meet a new day in the studio. First of all, Angelo fixed his guitar and tracked the part that he wanted for the third song. This time was a little different. Angelo played in the control room while Lionel routed his guitar into the patch bay and recorded with the same setup in the live room, which made the tracking more casual. Later on they played a lot with the Roland Space Echo adding effects to their mixes. I found every band that came into the studio love that little echo box using the old tape techniques. It was just so cool! The old analog technologies were so interesting and they did sound great! Analog is half side of the world and it is just too unique to be replaced.
Another good example was that Lionel said he had tried plenty of EQ plugins but still couldn't get the kind of sound he wanted. Then he gave it up and spent some hours built up the Tube-tech EQ, then it saved the day. Yes, it was the best moment of this session when Lionel brought out his newly built Tube-tech blue EQ; I saw how happy and satisfied Lionel was when holding the nice blue EQ, and he began to talk about the components and his wiring inside it. The band was also surprised to see Lionel’s handcrafted EQ. Lionel was ‘magical’ again!
Mixing, well, was almost the same. We did some quick editing for some of the songs to match the beats in time better. Also, there were a couple of decisions to make during the mixing stage. Since we had multiple microphones and DIs on the same source, we had to work out which sound we wanted more and which less. Then we routed all the tracks about the same instrument to one fader on the mixer for an overall control, which makes it a lot easier. Also, from this session, I started to take some recall pictures of the console for Lionel. If they wanted to change anything about the mix, we had to restore the positions of the faders on the mixer according to the recall picture.
By the way, the studio in the midnight looked pretty cool!
Day 6 — Mixing: Four Songs
May 24, 10:30 ~ 19:30
This was the last mixing day, another full day session. We finished the last four songs and improved some of our previous mixes. As a lot of settings were the same as what we had already got, the process became a lot easier. Lionel simply imported the session data from previous mixed sessions, and then adjusted the unique parts for each individual mix according to the clients.
The next step would be mastering. Lionel explained how the mix would change after the final compression, so we didn't leave the mix 100% as the band wanted, but Lionel knew it would be right then. After they got the mastered CD, listen for about one week and take notes about the problems. Then they will share their notes in the studio. If everyone gets the same thing, then that is a problem. We’ll follow the recall pictures and restored the mix and fix it. Otherwise, that is the final CD. The most important thing, however, was to decide the order of the album and how each song was connected to one another.
At the end of the session, Lionel listened to my final mix assignment. Lionel said it was a great mix. He told me that when the materials were recorded properly, it would make the mixing stage a lot easier, and that was the problem with my own mixes. Unfortunately, I don't have the right gear and right environment to make my recordings good from the beginning for now; but if I can fix them to get the kind of sound I want, my mixes will be even better when I get everything I need in the future, so good luck to myself.
Day 7 — Mastering: Full Album
May 26, 12:00 ~ 16:30
This was the last day of the journey. The band was not there; only Lionel was doing the mastering, and I was aside to see. Lionel exported all the printed mixes and brought them into a mastering template one by one. Lionel said that he was going to build two very good bus compressors; as soon as he got those pieces of equipment, he would change the way he mastered. Everything needs time to develop; this is the nature. We work with what we have.
Lionel had three tracks in the template — a back up track of the original mix, a process track for mastering, a print track with all kinds of meters, and there can be a reference track too. Lionel first put some tape emulation plugins to thicken the how mix, and then it would be the EQ and multi-band compressor. He didn't roll off any high frequencies because the 5088 console tended to be dark. On the print track, Lionel first inserted a stereo widening plugin, followed by different kinds of meters. It’s important to check the phase correlations; if the meter moves positive and negative back and forth, it’s going to be a problem — when you sum the left and right channels into mono, phasing problems occur. Lionel didn't do any limiting in Pro Tools because Samplitude did it better. After Lionel had mastered all the 10 tracks of the album, he jumped into Samplitude and ordered all 9 songs in one track with 1 exception, the intro track. Because the intro track was supposed to bleed into the first song, Lionel put it in a second track at the beginning of the album overlapping the first song with cross fades. Then Lionel did the limiting and wrote the metadata. He finally dithered it down from 96k 24 bit to 44.1k 16 bit and burned the CD.
My final lesson ended with my final session at the same spot — mastering, and then it became my starting point of the master’s program. It was great to see how an album was born, and it’s even more exciting to begin my own project. That’s all about the awesome rock n roll album by a great band called Low Orbit. I’m looking forward to see the album on iTunes or in music stores some day. Also, fix your eyes on my first EP coming in the next few months. I will be updating about my full journey in the studio, too. Some songs you may probably have heard, but they are going to be different. I’ll keep some secrets about my EP for sure; tomorrow is to surprise you! That’s it for now. Stay tuned.
