#1
|
|||
|
|||
Acoustic album...
A friend of mine recently released his first album of acoustic Americana music and I thought I'd share some of the details here including the guitars used and the way it was recorded... because we all love guitars and some of us are definitely interested in how they are recorded.
It's always a tricky thing when a buddy launches an album of music... they might be a good buddy and they might be a great musician but they make music that you don't really like. That isn't the case with "The End of Ours" by Alec Lytle & Them Rounders. He has produced an album of lilting, beautiful, heartfelt songs delivered in an effortless production of sonic honey. The album was produced by Tony Berg (Aimee Mann, Nanci Griffith, Peter Gabriel, Edie Brickell etc), engineered by the legendary Bob Clearmountain and mastered by the equally legendary Bob Ludwig. He also managed to garner the services of some stellar guest musicians on this album; bluegrass fiddler Gabe Witcher, guitarists Greg Leisz and Val McCallum, dummer Matt Chamberlain and various others–I'll let you google some of their recording credits. Quality oozes out of every second and every facet of this album which contains 9 original songs and two covers (including an amazing version of Talking Heads' "This Must Be The Place"). So, guitars... Alec and I are buddies through shared interests and one of those interests is, of course, guitars. Also, in the past few years I've invested a lot of time and effort into learning how to record guitars in my home studio so I tend to pick the brains of everyone and anyone I can when it comes to recording gear and technique. I've always loved his late 50's Martin with a great back story, so I asked him about it and the other guitars he played on the album: 1959 Martin 00-17I also asked him if he would share details of how his guitar and vocals were recorded because it really is a beautiful sounding album. I've become kind of obsessed with chasing a good recording chain for several of my guitars so I'm always asking. I was stoked when Bob Clearmountain himself furnished the details; "The mics we used were a Neumann KM-86 on Alec's acoustic guitar while he was singing into a vintage Neumann M-49. The KM-86 had no processing on it during recording, although I may have used a Distressor compressor during the mix. The M-49 was recorded with a bit of UREI LA-3A compression and something like a 90 cycle high-pass filter. I probably added a bit of a 10 or 12k shelf on the SSL E-series EQ when we mixed. All pretty simple, really.I hope that's of interest to some people and I hope you check out the album, you can hear it on iTunes here, or if you're into CD/vinyl you can get it from Alec's website here. Alec also sent me some pictures of the recording setup, I'll post them here later if anyone wants to check out the arrangement and simplicity (hella expensive simplicity) of the 86 and 49 mics...
__________________
Martin BC, Canada |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Gave the previews a quick listen - this is outstanding material, not over produced - sounds like I'm gonna have to circle back and buy this. Nice stuff.
__________________
DD Gibson J-45 TV (LR Baggs Lyric) Gibson J-45 Legend Gibson J-50 (K&K Pure Mini) Martin D-35 (Trance Audio M) Gibson J-35 Vintage (Trance Audio M) Martin 1937 D-28 Authentic "Aged" |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
I've been listening to North and Rain for quite some time and I think they are great tunes but The River and This Must Be The Place have been total 'earworms' since I got the album. The River, in particular, just has this phenomenal ending with some tasty slide guitar licks from Greg Leisz and swirling Gabe Witcher fiddle part... lovely.
__________________
Martin BC, Canada |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Here's a couple of images from the recording session, by Scott McKissen, showing Alec in the booth playing his Martin with the two Neumann's angled in as described, above.
(photo: Scott McKissen) (photo: Scott McKissen)
__________________
Martin BC, Canada |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
I like under processed music like this whoever the performer. If it has strings and tuba I turn it off.
|
#6
|
|||
|
|||
To me, this stuff is both inspirational and aspirational... I've been chasing this kind of mellow, intimate vibe for a while...
__________________
Martin BC, Canada |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Mic Description Update
Since sending that mic description, our co-engineer, Brandon Duncan reminded me of a few details I managed to omit or actually, forget. So here's the updated description:
"The mics we used were a Neumann KM-86 on Alec's acoustic guitar while he were singing into a vintage Neumann M-49. The KM-86 had no processing on it during recording, although I may have used a Distressor compressor during the mix. The M-49 was recorded with a bit of UREI LA-3A compression and something like a 90 cycle high-pass filter. I probably added a bit of a 10 or 12k shelf on the SSL E-series EQ when we mixed. All pretty simple, really. The M-49 was set to its figure-eight pattern and—as you can see from the photo—was angled up about 40 or 45 degrees to try to reject as much of the acoustic guitar as possible, utilizing the figure-eight pattern’s 45º null characteristic. For the same reason, the KM-86—also set to figure-eight—was angled down toward Alec's acoustic guitar, rejecting a good deal of his voice. While not giving us perfect isolation between the voice and guitar, it gave us quite enough separation to effectively balance the two elements without any problem. For Val McCallum’s guitar, we used a vintage AKG C-12 sporting a cardioid pattern, recorded without processing. I used a bit of Distressor set to a 3:1 compression ratio in the mix.” Sorry about that! |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
That's a whole lot of vintage microphone goodness going on right there, Bob. Thanks for the update, the album sounds so good.
__________________
Martin BC, Canada |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Martin, I'm glad you love the album as much as I do! It's one of the few that I can't stop listening to. And thanks for the warm words about the sounds, as well!
—Clearmountain |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
I see Taylor Goldsmith appears on a song, too. I may have to get this.
__________________
Craig 1977 Martin M-38 1982 Stelling Staghorn 2013 Larrivée D-40R 2014 Andrew White Eos 1011 (sold) 2016 Pisgah Possum |
#11
|
||||
|
||||
Quote:
__________________
Enjoy the Journey.... Kev... KevWind at Soundcloud KevWind at YouYube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD System : Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1 Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Ventura 12.2.1 |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
The album was tracked through Apogee converters and recorded digitally... the mixdown happened through an SSL board using Mr. Clearmountain's outboard gear.
__________________
Martin BC, Canada |
#13
|
||||
|
||||
Hey thanks . I knew the SSL, Distressor , and UREI were outboard, and suspected hybrid .
__________________
Enjoy the Journey.... Kev... KevWind at Soundcloud KevWind at YouYube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD System : Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1 Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Ventura 12.2.1 |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Oh yeah, I suppose that bit was already mentioned... so... yes! Ta da! Recorded digitally!
__________________
Martin BC, Canada |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
-Mike
__________________
For sale: Mint Condition Guild D125-12 All Mahogany 12 string 2009 Martin 000-18 Golden Era 1937 |