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It should be no secret (by now) that I’m first a foremost a nerd. Whether it be recording/music gear, technology, or video games, I’m a nerd.

I’ve followed Blizzard and played their games since my Dad first intorduced me to Warcraft II. Since then, I’ve been somewhat of a Blizzard fanboy. I’ve purchased all the games, played them to death (I’m still playing World of Warcraft), and have always loved the music and sound design.

When I saw that the Echoes of War set would go on sale, I immediately pre-ordered the “Legendary” edition: 2 music CDs, 1 behind-the-scenes DVD, several art cards, and a pretty lengthy booklet containing information about some of the key musicians on the recording and some really nice commentary about the whole process.

So here’s what I think about the set as an audio engineer/normal guy and not so much as a musician/theory guy:

The Music: Well, assuming you bought either versions of this set, this is probably why. The music is amazing. Its moving, its epic, its huge. You can really tell, in listening, how much love, blood, sweat, and tears went into this project. From the scoring to the composition to the actual recording…its simply amazing. Being familiar with all of the universes covered (Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft), the music really took me back at times. I can remember being younger and playing Warcraft II matches against my neighbors on my awesome 56k modem.

Going back to the overall quality of the music and the recordings, you can tell that the musicians chosen for this project were some of the best in the world. Because, as you know, good players are the base of any good recording.

The music is amazing. It is the reason you should be buying this now.

The DVD: The icing on cake. It’s around 50 minutes long and full of awesome content. You get to meet a lot of the key players in this project: from the composer, to the arrangers, to some of the recording engineers behind the console at the studio. Its just awesome.

My favorite part about the whole DVD was the theme of “challenge.” None of what these people did is easy. From concept to planning to execution. Its all very difficult.

They even talk about the difficulties of an acutal recording session at times. The interviewees talk about recording for three hours and MAYBE getting ten minutes of music (and that’s pretty generous). Long days, frustration, and little-big-mistakes (turning a page too loudly while tracking) are all very good depictions of what real, efficient, professional recording sessions are all about. Not all recording sessions are Auto Tune and drugs.

The Booklet: This is a nice addition. I won’t go on and on about it, but it was really nice to read about the musicians who made this happen. It was packed with info about the songs and what game universe they’re from. It even contains some nice commentary from a one Nick Kolan. It’s not the best part of the package, but since when were the liner notes the reason you bought a recording?

Overall, this package proved what I already knew: the recording engineers behind this and all Blizzard products have my dream job. I want to do what they do…badly.

All jealously aside, this is an amazing project spanning quite some time and involving people from all around the World.

If you’re a fan of Blizzard and the music in the games, you NEED this in your life. You wouldn’t be a fanboy without it.

Go here to buy this. Now.

Man, Auto-Tune really is hitting a high-point of popularity. The above excerpt was taken from an early week edition of Conan O’Brein in which Kanye West talks about his use of the “Audio Processor.”

I wonder what corner of television Auto-Tune will show up next at.

On another note, happy Thanksgiving!

Personally one of my favorite SNL skits ever. Blizzard Man faces off against the King of the Re-Tune Setting, T-Pain. The skit is also proof of how mainstream programs like Auto-Tune (and to a lesser extent) Meoldyne are.

In case you’re not familiar with Auto-Tune, the “T-Pain Effect, or terms like “re-tune speed,” check out this video here. I think it does a pretty good job at illustrating what T-Pain does.

You can also read this hilarious gem which talks about whether or not T-Pain uses Auto-Tune or a vocoder.

If you want my two cents, I personally think T-Pain uses AT and he probably doesn’t know his own vocal chain (as suggested in the Gearslutz post)

In the new (9/08) issue of Mix, there’s a (short) interview with Mastadon’s FOH engineer/tour manager, Lewis Lovely (sidenote: what a badass name).

Mix: How much gear are you carrying on this tour?
Lovely: We are carrying backline and a mic package. The boys are in the middle of recording their new record with Brendan O’Brien and are really concentrating on that right now.

Do you have a specific mixing style for the band?
I try not to make any one thing the predominant ingredient in a mix. You always run across engineers who think kick drum and vocals are all you need to hear. I want to comfortably hear any of the little nuances Mastadon has written in their songs.

What is the most difficult portion of your job for this tour?
As tour manager and FOH engineer, I have the wonderful job of taking care of their daily lives. They are a true trouble-rousing rock ‘n’ roll band, so press is always fun to schedule. 

More than anything, I’m stoked to hear Mastadon’s new album. It’ll be interesting to hear if the new album more resembles earlier efforts (Remission, Leviathan) or their latest effort (Blood Mountain).

Reamping is one of those recording techniques that I always read about, heard people talking about, and also hear people raving about. It took me awhile to really understand what it was, how to do it, and what it can be used for. I figured I wasn’t the only one that, at one point, was curious and ignorant on the subject of reamping.

Before you reamp, you should probably know what it is. Reamping is taking a signal and stepping up the impedence (from mic level to instrument level) for the purpose of recording an instrument (usually a clean/DI guitar) through a pedal chain or recording the signal through different amps. That’s it. It’s not really that mysterious, is it?

But, before we go on, you should read this disclaimer: please, before buying a remap box and getting stoked on doing this, check out your cable situation. Seeing as most interfaces have TRS outs and all reamp boxes have either male/female XLRs in, you really need to make sure you have the proper cables before attempting this. And no, taking the output of your interface into an amp or pedal chain will not sound as good. Not even close.

Reamping is, essentially, three steps that anyone familiar with the world of recording should be able to handle. But, in case you’re confused, here are those three essential steps:

1. Route your audio out of your selected DAW (in this tutorial, Pro Tools 7.4 HD) and take the output of your interface (in this case we used interface out A3 of our 192 I/O) and plug it into the input of your reamp box. In the case of this tutorial, we sent the DId guitar and snare out of an aux on the SSL 9000, so our outputs on the panel were Cue Output #1. You will probably just take whatever oupute of your interface out right into the reamp box (no patching or auxes necessary). Pictures: The 9K / Sending Signal Out of Pro Tools / Output of the Wall Panel / Input of Our Reamp Box
2. The next step is to take the output of your reamp box (1/4″ cable) into your amp or pedal chain.
3. If you’re reamping into an amp, then all you would need to do is run the 1/4″ into your amp, play the audio back and simply set up a mic and record the result on a new track. In our case, we needed to take the signal from the pedals and turn it back into a mic signal to record into Pro Tools. All we needed to do to accomplish that is take the output of the pedals into a DI and then back into the wall panels. Pictures: Output of Reamp Box / DI Input / DI Output / Input of the Wall Pane

That’s all there is to reamping. It’s not a horrifically difficult task…it’s just a little confusing if you’re not sure what it is or how to do it.

I recorded some samples of what reamping CAN sound like. The first sample is an example of reamping a bass signal thru our pedal chain. The second example of what reamping a snare can sound like.

So, as you can see, you can really alter the tone of your tracks (bass or otherwise) via reamping. If you’re interested in doing this, do it. It’s a lot of fun.

While you’re at it, why not go discuss this topic (or others) in the forums?

Cryptopsy is a Canadian-based (super technical) death metal band formed in 1992. They currently released a new album (The Unspoken King, 2008, Century Media) and EQ (which has had quite a few interesting articles over the past few months) had an article by Roberto Martinell in which he interviewed the drummer and only founding memeber of Cryptopsy, Flo Mounier, about tracking the drums for their new album. Chris Donaldson, Cryptopsy’s guitar player and recording engineer, is also interviewed.

EQ: Flo, how much control did you have over the recording of the drums on The Unspoken King?
Mounier: We recorded the drums in my home studio. It’s not a huge room, and the ceilings are pretty low, but I wanted to have the most comfortable situation possible. We recorded the drums in six days-even though we didn’t practice as much as for the other albums. It was more improv this time, and the tracks flowed a little more.

You didn’t miss recording your drums at a commercial studio witha  big room?
No. Everything is sampled and replaced, so there’s no necessity for a great-sounding room. And anyway, our music is so fast and busy that any natural drum reverb wouldn’t be heard.

Did you trigger the drum samples?
Donaldson: Yes. After we recorded Flo’s performances, we took tons of samples of him hitting his drums at different intensities: left and right hand hits, hits with low- and high-hand placement, rim shots, ghost notes, and every other kind of hit we could think of. Later on, I chose what samples to use based on what he played. I worked like a maniac to get the triggers to sound real. This is where the editing comes in. You check the tracks, and if there’s anything wrong, you fix it.

You’d actually audition every individual drum hit and match each one dynamically with the right sample? Why didn’t you just use an automatic program like Sound Replacer?
If I’m writing a MIDI track to Flo’s playing, then I know precisely where he’s using his right hand to hit a rim shot, or his left hand to perform a ghost note. A program that replaces hits automatically based on the intensity of the note played won’t know what hand played what. If you do it yourself, it’s more accurate.

How long did this process take?
A month.

Why not just record the drums, not use the sample replacement, and be done with it?
Because everything is clearer, and there’s no signal leakage. You get a huge drum sound.

What ratio of sample to acoustic sound did you use?
It was about 60% sample replacement against 40% original acoustic drum sound-except the bass drums, which are 100% samples.

Flo, did you play each song all the way through several times and pick the best bits for comping?
Mounier: I’m pretty big on perfections, so I didn’t play any songs all the way through. We had a scratch guitar track recorded to a metronome, and I went through the parts on each song about ten different times. It’s usually the easiest parts that give you the most problems, and the harder parts that get done in one take.

How many channels were needed to get the drum tracks down?
Donaldson: One for the snare, four tom tracks, six overheads, one for a second snare, and one for a submix of his two kick drums-a total of 13 channels.

What gear was used to record the drums?
I used Pro Tools LE 6.4, and we rented an Apogee Rosetta 800 8-channel AD/DA converter into which I routed two API 7600 channel strips. The API compressor puts the snare sound right in your face. I also used two Vintech X73 preamps and a Vintech 473 preamp for the overheads. They’re so crystal clear. As for mics, I used a Shure SM57 on the snare, Neumann KM184s for overheads-one mic for every three cymbals-and these Beyerdynamic clip-on mics. My gear was very minimalist. My main gear was patience.

My god. Hand replacing every single drum hit manually? And a solid month to do it? I guess for 100% absolute death metal precision, that is actually pretty understandable. Nice to see Mr. Donaldson is also a fan of API compressors!

Check out the audio sample for a small excerpt of what Cryptopsy sounds like (the clip is from their 1996 album “None So Vile”).

In the September issue of EQ Magazine, there’s an article about a band, the Wedding Present, and their experiences recording with Steve Albini (all good, apparently). Mr. Albini was interviewed along with the Wedding Present to discuss how to get a good recording out of a good band:

1. Be Brief

Mr. Albini says it should take no more than four days to do basic tracking but could take as little as three.

“…All an album should be is a representation of a band doing its thing presented in a permenent format. It shouldn’t take a month to do that.”

2. Track Live

“I prefer letting bands play in the studio like they play live or in rehearsal. Eye contact and other non-verbal forms of communication are very important. It helps if they are in close proximity to each other-not reach-out-and-touch-you close, but at similar distances as when they are playing live. I resist screening one musician off from the others, because that is essentially a ‘live overdub’ situation. Bands are very complex with their interactions, and bands are a very fragile system. The recording process shouldn’t interfere with their natural interaction. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all the albums people refer to as classics or benchmarks are records that were tracked by the band together as an ensemble. And there is nothing in contemporary recording that would make this practice obsolete.”

3. Speak Your Mind

“…I tend to follow the band’s lead. If they don’t feel that they did a good take, then I believe them. If they think they did a good take, then I believe them, as well. If they feel burnt out or unproductive, we’ll drop the song for the day. You have to succumb to the group dynamic and not force anything. If there is a consensus on what everyone wants to do, then that is what you do-especially when it comes to a band like The Wedding Present, who have such a strong identiy. For a third party to come in after the fact and say, ‘You have been doing this wrong for 25 years, let me straighten yo out’ would be ridiculous. Bands should do their thing in the studio. They should always call the shots.”

I really like Steve Albini and his approach to recording. These three tips seem to make a lot of sense. I think, especially in rock music, that capturing a bands live feel is essential and should be a major reason to record. I also like the 3-4 day rule: if a band can’t knock out basic tracking in that amount of time, maybe they need to rehearse a bit more, or maybe they’re not ready to record a full length yet. Of course, there are always exceptions to these rules.

Mr. Albini is a pretty opinionated guy and has said some things that upset a lot of people. Say what you will about him, but, in my opinion, his work speaks for itself. Want to hear some of his finest and most recent work? Check out “You are There” by the amazing Japanese group Mono. You’ll hear these three rules in action, and it sounds great.

Have you ever heard of Soundscape? I sure haven’t. But after reading the latest issue of Tape Op (Soundscape was mentioned in an interview), it made me want to check out their website.

If you’re not familiar with this program, don’t worry. Most of the US isn’t. Soundscape is the anti Digidesign in the sense that they don’t require you to buy controllers for their hardware, nor do you only have to use RTAS/TDM-type plugins (Soundscape runs off VST and VSTis as well as DSP-dependant plug-ins). I’m not sure that Soundscape utilizes DX plug-ins.

The selling points for Soundscape are (1) zero latency, (2) complete freedom of routing; you can route anything anywhere [according to the maker's website], (3) the program and hardware are supposedly extremely stable [in the Tape Op interview, the engineer who was describing Soundscape said he's had his computer crash and had Soundscape still chug on recording]. If this is all true, why isn’t Soundscape more present in the US?

Oh, that’s the other selling point (depending on who you are): Soundscape operates soley on DSP chips. None of your PC’s (yes, its a PC program) resources are ever used. All plug-ins and processing are done on DSP chips that you can buy.

Apparently Soundscape is a big presence in Europe. I’m willing to bet Digidesign’s marketing army won’t let that be the case in the US.

If you’re interested (and hopefully you are), check out the maker’s, Sydec, website here.

Note: I’m currently interning at a post-production studio in Northern California that does some pretty big time projects. When I signed on to be an intern, I had to sign an NDA saying, essentially, that I wouldn’t leak any information over future/current projects as well as not give away any secrets as to how the studio works. Seeing as I enjoy this internship and intend to keep it, I’m going to leave things as vague as I feel comfortable with, meaning I won’t be posting a lot of specific names for gear, people, etc. Hopefully you understand!

Post-production is a completely different beast from any recording studio I’ve ever heard of. From the sounds of it, most post houses are versatile businesses: they’ll ultimately do whatever their client needs. One facet I never thought about or discovered was recording voice overs via an ISDN line for applications such as grocery stores (the voices you hear advertising stuff at your local Wal-Mart), telephone applications, and so much more.

To most engineers, ISDN recording isn’t a mystery or some well-kept secret: it’s something a lot of studios do. So let me run you through how an ISDN V/O session works:

• First off, when I talk about ISDN recording, you are to assume that the V/O talent is not in the studio. Rather, they’re somewhere else: LA, Nashville, etc. Both ends (recordist and talent) need some type of ISDN interface. (If you’re unclear as to what ISDN is, click here). Essentially what happens when both studios have all equipment needed is the talent will dial in to the studio where the studio answers.
• The talent often time has their own vocal chain: some type of channel strip followed by a limiter. Each talent has their own settings for each device and every studio they record at will hold their settings in case they ever do an in-house session. At this point, the talent recalls their settings and the recordist sets up a recording session in their DAW of choice.
• Both talent and recordist will have a script for the day’s session: it could really be anything. The talent will read through the script while the engineer follows along, taking notes. At this point its just like music: the talent will often times have to do re-takes of certain lines. The reason for this is their P might pop, they might have a clicky mouth (excess saliva), or they might miss a T at the end of a word.
• Guess what? There’s people that produce V/O sessions. Often times, the producer will be just that: some producer. It’s his job to make sure that the talent is getting good takes and getting the kind of V/Os the client wants. In some cases, the engineer will act as the producer. However, when the engineer acts as producer it’s more about quality control. Getting good lines that are usable.
• Once the session is done, the recordings will go off to be edited.

According to this article, the first ever music to be recorded on a “modern” computer with RAM has been uploaded. You can check out the mp3 of this recording here. You can also read more about this recording on BBC’s website.

The songs were recorded on the Ferranti Mark 1 computer in 1951 at the BBC. 

Pretty remarkable stuff considering this was done in 1951. Leave it to the BBC to be super cool and make the first digital recording.