TOO

I started pre-production for Too at the beginning of August. The goal of this preliminary meeting was to agree on the project's timeline and discuss the band’s vision for the song. This entailed a discussion about the song’s instrumentation, equipment and instruments I would be providing, and reference material.

On September 12th, I drove out to Stow, OH, to meet with the band again to solidify availability for the project’s timeline, schedule initial studio dates, and create an outline in greater detail of what we wanted to accomplish during each projected studio session. At this meeting, we also finalized the tonal goals for the different instrumentation.

To wrap up pre-production, I filled out all the guest artist forms I would need for the course of the project, I filled out the equipment checkout forms for the first studio sessions, and I updated my Pro Tool template that I had created for the band. Additionally, I created a Gantt chart in order to ensure the project stayed on schedule.

Before bringing in musicians for scratch tracks, I typically program a basic drum beat for them to play to; Exotic Behavior told me that they would all be more comfortable playing to a basic click instead. As I had worked with them in the past, I knew they could keep time with a click track, so I was happy to focus the time I would have spent programming drums on other production decisions.

We recorded scratch tracks for ‘Too’ in the TL. The main reason why I chose this room is because I knew I also wanted to record drums on this day, specifically in this room. Furthermore, I knew the warmth from the tubes combined with the small tracking room size would fit the vibe we were going for with the song, which limited the amount of editing I would need to do to the scratch tracks.

The ribbon track of the song is a guitar. I decided to record this with an SM57 positioned on the amp that would later be used for the final recording. My main goal for the scratch tracks was for them to be an in-time guide for the song that set the mood for the other tracks to be recorded.

As for the scratch vocals, I used the 1176 by Universal Audio to compress them during the recording. I also took the opportunity to compare a Neumann U87 to the AT4050. We ended up liking the clarity that came from the U87, combined with the warmth from the tubes, more than how the presence peak from the AT4050 affected the vocals. Having the opportunity to do this mic comparison helped me to decide what to pull for the final vocal.

We recorded drums in the TL on the same day as the scratch tracks for this song. I specifically wanted a smaller, warm drum sound for this song, and I knew the size of the tracking room combined with the tube amps would give me the intimacy that I was looking for without making the tracks too dark. Also, when determining how to get the drum tone we were looking for, I had a conversation with the drummer during pre-production about what kit to use. We decided he would bring his cymbals and snare, but we would use Tama Swingstar drum shells that were already set up in the TL. We knew his drums were set for a bright rock performance, whereas the TL drums would give a warm tone. The drummer's only concern was making the drums sound too small, but the shell sizes on the Tama Swingstar kit in the TL are closer to rock than jazz.

During the session, my kick and snare were a standard setup, and I decided not to mic any other shells. However, my cymbals were a different story. I put an Oktava MK-012 on my hi-hat and ride cymbal, I used a set of Neumann U87s and Coles 4038s for overheads, and I set up a pair of AT4033s for room mics.

From previous experience with this drummer and the pre-production, I knew that the hi-hat and ride were a staple for the song, so I wanted to let them shine. I used the Oktava’s specifically because I have been using them a lot in live situations. I have loved how they make cymbals shimmer, and after asking around, I heard that they sounded good in studio applications as well.

As for my overheads, I wanted to get the sound I was looking for while recording, rather than fixing it in the mix. I knew I wanted the choruses to have a brighter overhead sound than the verses, so I set up the U87s for the brighter tone and the Coles to give me a warmer and darker one. Both were set in an AB Spaced Pair, phase aligned to each other and the snare. However, the Coles were positioned slightly narrower than the U87s. Then, I blended the two and used volume automation to adjust the blend throughout the song.

Regarding the room mics, I probably would not have set them up if not for the fact that I recorded drums in the TL with a set of 4033s as room mics last spring, and I loved how they opened up the space.

For this song, we recorded the Gibson Les Paul bass in the Yamaha. While it was not my original plan to record in this room, it worked out because of a happy accident: my original room was needed for a class. What I knew even before the room change was that I wanted to record the bass in a smaller room to make it sound denser.

The bassist was willing to try out a bass not owned by him, and he ended up loving the tone and feel. I went through a DI box and positioned an RE20 on his amp. In the final mix, I blended in a touch of the amp. I found the DI gave me the clarity and tone I was looking for, but the small amount of amp made the performance feel less sterile and allowed small mistakes to feel purposeful.

The band's guitarists presented me with a bit of a challenge during pre-production. The rhythm guitarist had a very flexible schedule, but the lead guitarist, who is also the lead singer, had difficulty finding any availability on the days I could get him into the studio, so I needed to minimize his trips. The solution was for the rhythm guitarist to play all the guitar parts for this song.

By recording through different amps but keeping everything else in the set-up the same, we got different tones that worked together for the guitar parts. For the rhythm guitar I asked my guitarist to bring in his own amp, then for the lead, we used a Fender Hot Rod. I had the same setup on both amps: a DI box, a Royer 121, and an SM57 set up together, and I later blended them into the tone I wanted. The Royer provided warmth, the SM57 brought out the amp tone, and the DI provided clarity.

We recorded both guitar parts on the same day, back to back, set up in one of the booths in the SSL. While I was worried about my guitarist feeling too isolated in the iso booth, he ended up having a great time, dimming down the lights for his performance, and enjoyed the feeling of being on an island without any pressure.

My keyboardist originally planned to do all the keys tracks for this song on his Nord until he saw Rhodes. I was warned that the Rhodes could be very temperamental, so I decided to see how he would play it in a 5-minute trial run at the end of the day of a different session. It did not seem to give him too much grief, he loved it, and I loved the sound, so we decided to change plans and do the keys with the Rhodes.

The original plan was to record in the SSL, not because I thought it would be the best space but because, as far as I knew, I was not allowed to move it. That changed when I was asked if I would be amendable to recording in the Yamaha if the Rhodes was moved for me because the SSL was needed for a class. I said yes, and I am glad I did.

The Yamaha setup was much better than what I hoped to get in the SSL. The Rhodes was off the wall, I was able to mic the two speakers in the back with SM57’s, and the smaller room made the sound denser, which is what I was wanting. Additionally, communication with my musician was much easier in the smaller space.

The Rhodes had a learning curve, but I accounted for this when planning what to get done in the studio that day: I scheduled the session so that my musician could have a full hour to practice and get used to the Rhodes before we recorded. When it was time for the first take, my musician was not fully confident, so I asked him to play the full take without stopping, and afterward, we would listen and discuss what to change before the next take.

The tracking space's sound was much different than what I heard in the control room. At the end of the first take, my musician felt discouraged, thinking it sounded too harsh and muddy, but that changed once he listened in the control room. The sound translated to a sparkling high end that was not harsh, and the warm mid-tones held definition. After listening in the control room, he was reenergized and ready to do it again.

While he had to play a lot more aggressively than he was used to, he understood that it did not come across that way in the recording. In the final mix, I ended up using some parts from his first take.

In the week and days leading up to this vocal session, I encouraged my vocalists to drink extra water, avoid dairy and smoking, and limit overall stress on their voices. Before recording vocals, we did a mic shootout with a Neumann U87, an AKG 414 XLII, an SM7B, and an AT4033 for both the lead and harmony vocalists. They both wanted the opportunity to do a mic shootout, so I was happy to take the time. It allowed me to find the best fit for the song while allowing them to become more knowledgeable about their voices. In the end, we used the AKG 414 XLII for the lead vocal and the AT4033 for the rest.

For the vocal session, we were in the Audient. For the recording, we did a practice run and three recorded takes. I recorded the vocals by bypassing the board, and instead, I went through the Focusrite Red Preamps, into the Teletronics LA2A, and then directly into Pro Tools.

Throughout the recording process, I had been comping and time aligning the tracks. For the drums and percussion specifically, I used Beat Detective for the time alignment. Once everything was recorded, I finished the comping and time alignment that was still needed, and then I used Melodyne to tune all of the vocals and the bass.

After editing, I started my mix with pans and faders. Then, I used two EQs on every track: The first EQ was focused on fixing anything I deemed a sonic issue. The other consisted of broader movements for tonal shaping. After EQ, I put gates on my drums and individually compressed all the tracks. Then, I used EQ and compression on all my buses to unify them. Throughout this process, I periodically adjusted my pans and fader levels.

After EQing and compressing everything, I added reverb. For the most part, I only added reverb to the busses, but for a few tracks, I inserted additional reverb. Then, I used automation, mostly on the buses, but also on some individual guitar parts, and my master fader to emphasize dynamics. Then, on my master fader, I used EQ to cut some of the low-mid to clear up some mud. After my master EQ, I used a gentle compressor at a 2.29:1 ratio to level everything out without killing the dynamics. Finally, I mixed in a hit of a large plate reverb.

I was not quite satisfied with where my mix was, and I felt like it needed a bit more processing. When I attempted to do this with the master fader, it sounded overly compressed, so I routed everything to a bus, set that bus as the input on a stereo audio track, and added additional processing. My “MIX” track had a compressor with a fast attack but a super low ratio and a single band EQ with a large cut of around 1k. Between the attack from the drums and the body of the instruments, 1k was overtaking the mix. Finally, I added saturation to tie everything together before bringing it up to Soundcloud's recommended LUFS level in iZotope RX 11.