Chris Sheldon is a producer and mix engineer who has worked with the likes of Foo Fighters, Feeder, Radiohead and Pixies.

He also worked on Biffy Clyro’s first three albums, each of which has a song featured in my influences playlist. The tracks can be found at the bottom of this entry.

I added the three Biffy Clyro tracks to my playlist because I thought YCIALM sounded similar to some of their early material. Having listened to YCIALM’s previous recordings, they are produced in a similar style to the early work of Biffy Clyro, so I wanted to try to recreate some of the techniques used.

Finding information on how Blackened Sky, The Vertigo of Bliss and Infinity Land were produced has proved problematic because of the less popular nature of Biffy Clyro’s earlier material however there is information on the techniques that the producer of these albums, Chris Sheldon uses. “I worked on Biffy Clyro’s first three albums and even though those albums weren’t particularly commercially successful, they’re still getting me work.” (Speakhertz)

An article on ‘The Audio Hunt’ called ‘Want Your Drums To Pop? Learn the ‘Chris Sheldon Method’ displays several techniques used by Sheldon when recording and mixing drums.

The first step, according to the article is to fully ensure the kit sounds good before you record. This is pretty standard but easy to forget.

• “Bass Drum would be a Neumann FET 47 and an AKG D112 – one inside halfway between the heads and one just outside the outer head. These can take a lot of pressure which makes them ideally suited for this purpose.”
• “Snare Drum. I am a sucker for a Shure 57 (or 58 with the pop shield unscrewed). It generally gives me what I want and can deal with the high pressure from the drum, plus it can a take beating from an inaccurate player! I normally have the mic around 1 inch or so from the head, and I would also mic up the underneath to pick up some of the rattle. This will help bring out some of the high end on the snare too.”
• “On Toms, I would generally use Sennheiser MD421 mics on the batter skin and AKG 414’s underneath to bring out the tone. It’s important to also flip the phase between these two mics.”
• “Hi-Hats would be a Neumann KM84 and probably the same on the Ride cymbal. It amazes me how many people do not spot-mic the ride, but for me it’s a must. You can filter out a fair amount of bottom on both these mics, it’s not really useful and can cloud things up.”
• “Cymbal or Overhead mic-ing would be a pair of Neumann 87s or equivalent.”
• “For the Ambience, I will always use two Room mics maybe 15 feet back from the kit and 15’ between them, in addition to a Centre mic placed a little bit closer. For the pair, I would ideally use Coles ribbon mics or something similar.” (TheAudioHunt)

It seems to me that Chris Sheldon’s mic’ing techniques for drums are directly opposed to those used by Butch Vig. Where Vig focuses on simplicity and performance to get a great capture of the drum kit, Sheldon uses a large selection of mics to ensure a high-quality recording. The microphones he chooses to use are mostly expensive and difficult to get hold of so I may need to substitute them for other mics when booking equipment. The D112 is a microphone that I have always used for kick drum and I’ll do so again. Using C414s on the toms lines up with how Butch Vig recorded drums on Siamese Dream so I will also do this. This will mean that my microphone setup will be condenser microphone-heavy, which hopefully will capture a range of different tones from the drum kit. I have always used an SM57 or two on the snare drum and will do so again, as Sheldon does. I have never mic’d the bottom of a tom, which is something that Sheldon seems to do and I think this contradicts Vig’s idea of simplicity when recording. I could also run into some phasing issues. For these reasons I’ll only be mic’ing the top skin of the toms. The use of condenser mics on hi-hats and ride cymbals is something that, while I’ve done before, I have not done in my more recent projects. I aim to do this in order to capture as much of the kit as I can, to better my own drum recordings. A pair of condenser mics as overheads goes without saying though I will not be able to use Neumann 87s, and will make alternate arrangements. Using three room mics again seems a little extravagant for my own personal tastes but I could potentially experiment with this, while I will likely settle for one in the centre of the kit or two either side. While Vig and Sheldon have contrasting methods for recording drums, I will aim to use techniques employed by both to record my drums.

Mixing drums

Again, Sheldon shows a fondness for using compression to bring out dynamism on the drum kit. I’ll experiment with the following techniques in the mixing stage.

“Mixing the kit will most likely require you to EQ again to make the kit fit with the bass and guitars, but this is where you can also use compression to really make the kit thump.”

“Don’t go crazy! An over-compressed kit will sound smaller than one with none”

“Room mics can benefit from a touch of compression to give you a bigger sound when they’re trying to compete with raging guitars. It’s also worth compressing the kick and snare drum, but again, don’t overdo it.”

One trick I always use is to run the recorded snare drum back through a mic amp and overload it to distort the signal, then record this back to another track. This has the side effect of bringing out harmonics and tones that can be very useful for infusing some life back into the kit when the other instruments are taking up room in the mix. You won’t need much (just a few dB’s), but it will really help.”  (TheAudioHunt)

Mixing Vocals

On mixing vocals and adding a lot of compression, Sheldon notes that “well, I think it brings character. ” I decided to experiment with that and have ended up doing some of that too. Kate Bush used to have tons of it on her vocals. It’s all about how you set it up. You might start with slow compressor, to let the consonants ring through and follow it up with a hard brick-wall limiter at the end, to push everything. If you’re careful with it, it gives you the ability to set the vocal where you want it in the mix. Of course, I’m mainly talking about noisy ass rock music. If its a ballad or a quieter song, it won’t be suitable for that. In full on rock songs, you don’t want a huge dynamic range on vocals, the vocal needs sit firmly in the middle of everything. So by limiting the dynamic range, you can make sure that it’s neither overbearing, nor hidden, although this does mean that you bring out a lot of sibilance and the consonants become very hard, but this is very easily dealt with.” I will pay close attention to these notes while mixing the vocals on the EP. When I’ve mixed vocals in the past I’ve treated processing and effects as necessities rather than creative choices, so I will attempt to try something a little different to what I have previously done.

https://www.theaudiohunt.com/blog/want-your-drums-to-pop-learn-the-chris-sheldon-method

After months of contact with the band, we have recording sessions organised on the 31st of March and the 1st of April. While communication has not been entirely easily I have managed to extract all of the information I need. The playlist was approved by Alex, the drummer and the band have set time constraints for the session. It may be that they are only available on the 1st of April and the evening before, which makes the need for strong timekeeping absolutely essential in order to record everything in time. The session the evening before where we will set up drums and hopefully also do some recording are there to ensure that there will be no problems when recording on April the 1st. The band have also indicated that they would like to record drums at the same time as bass, which will save a lot of time in the long run, but will also require us to set up the bass recording the night before.

In conclusion, communication between myself and the band is good though I would ideally like it to be better, and the time restraints for the recording sessions will shape the way in which they are executed.

Three of the tracks in my influences playlist, Drain You by Nirvana and Quiet and Cherub Rock by the Smashing Pumpkins, were produced by Butch Vig, widely regarded as one of the most influential rock producers of all time. Nirvana’s legendary ‘Nevermind’ album is highly regarded both musically and in terms of production. Both Nevermind and ‘Siamese Dream’, which features the two Smashing Pumpkins tracks mentioned will be key to the choices I make when recording and mixing this EP.

Firstly, it seems clear the Butch Vig is not especially partial to using ambient microphone techniques. In an interview with izotope.com (link at the bottom of this entry), Vig states that when working on Siamese Dream, which features Quiet and Cherub Rock, ‘Billy Corgan and I wanted to put the sound right in your face—we didn’t want anything to sound three feet away, or five feet or ten feet. With the drums, we did have some extra room mics, and we may have used a few extra with the guitars, but in general, I really found that if you get one mic, put it right in front of the amp, and get the right sound, you simply don’t need six microphones placed, y’know, behind the cabinet, around the cabinet, across the room, and all that.’ Grunge, which arguably isn’t what the Smashing Pumpkins would be categorised as, is certainly a genre I was considering when approaching how to record and mix YCIALM. This information shows a clear way of getting an ‘in your face’ sound which I want to get from the band. Vig concludes that ‘that simple close-miking technique is the sound of that record.’ While I’m not focusing on guitars, rather drums and vocals, these techniques will be translated onto drums.

On mixing Nevermind, Vig says ‘I kept the mixes pretty au naturel. But at the time, I think the label thought that the mixes could have a little bit more sheen to them, or they wanted to pump them up a bit more.’  ‘In the end, my mixes are just a little more primal sounding than the album version, but they’re exactly the same performances: guitars panned left and right, Kurt singing with some doubling here and there, Dave singing some harmonies, and bass and drums. That’s it.’ A primal sound is something like what I aim to achieve from this recording and therefore this information is useful. The doubling of the vocals is something that I am keen to replicate on this project, should time constraints allow it.

One particular aspect of Drain You and, by extension, Nevermind that I find particularly fascinating is the drum sound. It is incredibly famous due to the power and dynamism of Dave Grohl’s drumming and the way it was recorded and mixed. In an article on Consequenceofsound.net, Vig claims that ‘people always say, ‘how’d you get that sound on Nevermind?’ and 90 percent of it is Dave Grohl… it’s just how Dave plays and he’s just so, so powerful.’ To MusicRadar.com, Butch Vig said of the drums on Nevermind, “It was recorded in Sound City, California, which is basically a big open room. We used a drum tunnel on the kick, where you take another bass drum, extend out the regular bass drum and put the mic further away, which I often do to get more boom. But the set-up was really nothing fancy. It was the player and the room that made that record sound so special.”

This may make it difficult to replicate the drum sound on Nevermind due to a differing drummer and room, but nonetheless, I will take key pieces of information and impliment them wherever I can.

On Siamese Dream, Vig says that he used condenser mics on the snare drum and toms because Jimmy Chamberlain, Smashing Pumpkins drummer, “has unbelievable dynamics, so I was able to use really good condenser mics on the snare and toms. Sometimes he’d explode into rock, and sometimes he’d be playing little grace notes on the snare, often all in the same performance, so I had to make sure the mics were able to capture all that” (MusicRadar.com).

For mixing drums, Vig speaks of the importance of the room mics and which frequencies can be problematic in a mix. ‘It’s a balancing act. Hearing the room mics is important. To me, the mid-range frequencies define what the room mics sound like, though these frequencies are also what can clog up a mix, particularly in the 300Hz-500Hz range. So you have to determine what’s important, be it the room or other sounds in the track. Sometimes I will push up the room mics in calm sections of a song, like breakdowns, and then pull them back when things get dense in the chorus’ (Speakhertz.com).

In terms of mixing vocals, I have actually found a Waves Plug-In, created in unison with Butch Vig that allows you to replicate the vocal sound synonymous with his work. The creatively named ‘Butch Vig Vocals’ is available to download as a plug in and is described on the website as ‘designed for those looking for a creative approach to shaping vocals, Butch Vig Vocals features intuitive EQ controls, a compressor and a de-esser, and several tools for coloring your sound in numerous shades, including Tube and Solid State saturation, a unique Focus knob, and other inspiring features, all carefully crafted by Butch himself to help you realize your vocal vision. With instantly hyped vocals that cut through the mix and a sound that is dripping with character, Butch Vig Vocals now gives everyone the opportunity to work with the sound of a true rock innovator.’ A link can be found at the bottom of this page.

In terms of artist management, Butch Vig has always maintained that is important as a producer to let the artists dictate how they want the tracks to sound. While the producer does have an input, Vig understands that the songwriters and performing musicians know the meaning of the song better than the producer ever could. Regarding Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, Vig discloses that ‘we were having trouble recording “Disarm” and kept putting it off. With all the other songs completed and our backs to the wall, we attempted to record the song with the full band. We tried various arrangements with the traditional Pumpkins sound: ringing guitars, pulsating bass and pounding drums. But it just wasn’t working. Out of frustration, Billy Corgan walked into the control room with his acoustic guitar, closed his eyes and sang the song. It was so simple and emotionally direct, it made the hair rise on the back of my neck. And we both realized it was exactly the kind of feel the song needed. So Billy went back into the studio and quickly recorded an intensely emotional “Disarm”‘ (from Rolling Stone).

All in all, Butch Vig has played a pivotal role in influencing the production methods I will use on this EP.

https://www.izotope.com/en/community/artists/recording-artists/butch-vig.html

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/08/producer-butch-vig-credits-dave-grohls-drumming-for-90-percent-of-nirvanas-nevermind/

http://www.waves.com/plugins/butch-vig-vocals#butch-vig-vocals-audio-demonstration

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/butch-vig-my-favorite-moments-in-the-studio-19961017

The vocals in 1979 are one of the most distinctive aspects of the track, and the recording process used on them, as well as the vocals on the rest of the album that features it will be influential in choosing how I record vocals on this EP.

In terms of capturing the vocals, Flood, one of the producers of 1979 along with Alan Moulder, discovered that “Corgan was a much better singer pitch-wise when he didn’t use headphones, so he switched Corgan up to a Shure SM58 and had him sing in front of open speakers” (emusician.com)

An SM58 is a highly accessible microphone that is regularly used for performing vocals live however isn’t as orthodox in a studio. They are popular microphones for live performance due to their ruggedness and ability to cut plosives from the sound, delivering a clean tone. However in a studio environment, most producers will prefer to use a condenser mic, with a pop-shield to remove plosives. This is because condenser microphones are more adept at capturing nuance and a range of differing tones from the human voice than a dynamic mic.

I will consider using an SM58 when recording vocals, particularly during group vocal sections or in tracks with an aggressive singing style.

As you can hear in the ‘vocals only’ video at the bottom of this entry, there are certain sections in 1979, mainly in choruses where there are two (more in places) backing vocal takes panned hard left and right to create space. This is a common technique for the mixing of backing vocals and allows the lead vocals to remain dominant. The central lead vocals in the track are without any noticeable form of distortion but they are compressed. I will use these techniques when recording and mixing vocals on the EP.

http://www.emusician.com/gear/1332/signal-to-noise-the-sonic-diary-of-the-smashing-pumpkins/40242

In terms of how the drums were captured on this track, it is difficult to know fully, but articles on how the album it belongs to (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness) do share some techniques used.

Flood, one of the producers of the album along with Alan Moulder, said in an article for emusician.co.uk that Jimmy Chamberlain (drummer of The Smashing Pumpkins) “used to love having the kick drum and a bit of snare going through his wedges, which were directly behind him. So if you’ve got a kit that’s lacking a bit of bottom end, you pump the kick and the snare through the wedges and you start to tweak them to get extra weight.” This is an interesting technique to add lower frequencies to the drum sound, but is not entirely practical given that I will be recording in the university Multi-track studio.

Chamberlain then notes that “from there I go to microphones as far as how I want the drums to sit dimensionally in the track. If I want the drums up front and aggressive, I’ll use a lot of AKG C 414s so they sit in front of things dimensionally. If I want the drums to sit in a rhythm section configuration, I’ll lean back towards the 414s and maybe some Shure SM98s. Then maybe go for Shure 12As on the bigger drums.” These microphone choices will be hugely useful in influencing my own choices in mics. His fondness for AKG C414s is something that I will try to take into account when choosing mics. I have always traditionally used these mics to record overheads and as room mics but have never tried them on individual drums or cymbals.

http://www.emusician.com/gear/1332/signal-to-noise-the-sonic-diary-of-the-smashing-pumpkins/40242