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Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A Bootcamp

Lesson 29 of 74

Guitar Cab Mic Choice and Placement

 

Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A Bootcamp

Lesson 29 of 74

Guitar Cab Mic Choice and Placement

 

Lesson Info

Guitar Cab Mic Choice and Placement

All right. So John Brown and I decided that we liked the 3-channel dual rec through the oversize recto cab. After shooting out a few different options, we liked that one the best. So if you notice, the room looks a little different. There's a cabinet missing, the head missing, and there's this giant monstrosity behind me. And what this is is a set of gobos, and gobos are basically a dumb word for portable acoustic equipment or acoustic treatment. You use that when you want to change the sonic characteristics of a room. Like for instance, if a drummer was too live, and you're recording a fast drummer, like at my place in Florida, you might put gobos around the kit to get the mics to sound more focused and get less room in them. In the case of this room, like we've been saying there's a lot of 300 buildup which is gross, something that we don't want in guitars, and so we don't want that getting in there anyways. On the other side of this wood, which the cabinet is, there's also foam padd...

ing, so it kind of isolates it. Now, let me also say that when you're miking up a guitar cabinet for this kind of music, you might be surprised to know that a lot of room will get into the microphones, even when they're right up against the speaker. More room gets in than you would expect, so you really do need to take steps to isolate the cabinets as much as you can. It's counterintuitive. You'd expect that blasting the amp with a microphone that's literally a centimeter away would drown out the sound of the room, but that's just not the case. So, even if this was a great-sounding room and didn't make 300, and didn't sound like it was boosting 300 everywhere, we would still be doing this. So let me show you what we've done. So you can see we've got gobos on each side, and when I get out of here, I'm going to be closing this one off. If this was my studio, I would actually also put one up top to prevent any reflections coming from the ceiling, but, you know, work with what we've given. The cabinet itself is decoupled for the ground. It's lifted up and it's on a foam padding inside that case, and we've got sandbags holding the case down so that it doesn't move, because a movement of even a centimeter can completely change the tone. And as you can see, we've got four SM57's. We picked SM57's because they are the go-to de facto standard for dialing in guitar tone. Now, these are not placed in any great way or anything like that. What John Brown did was he went and listened to each speaker with his ears, and decided that he liked the top right speaker, but just to make sure, we're going to listen to every one under a microphone, because John Brown's ears are not what's going to be sending the material into Pro Tools. It has to go through a microphone. So we have each one of these 57's the exact same distance from the speaker. Then they're all right where the speaker meets the dust cap. It's just a good neutral starting point. We're going to record all of them, and pick what we like best and go from there. And that's it. And then if we get something that rules, and we can just start tracking, great. If we get something that's just kind of okay or terrible, we'll try something else. So that's what's up. So I'm going to close this and we will begin.

Class Description


Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A Bootcamp will give you access to one of metal’s most in-demand producers and educators. You’ll also get to watch the talented and seasoned performers of Monuments show you how to record flawless takes and how to prepare to enter the studio.

Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A Bootcamp is the definitive guide to recording and producing metal. From soup to nuts, start to finish, A to Z, you will learn everything you need to know about recording and producing a metal song.

Eyal Levi will take you inside the studio with Monuments as they record a song from scratch at Clear Lake Recording in Los Angeles. In this bootcamp, you will learn how to:

  • Prepare for a session in preproduction by choosing tempos and organizing the session
  • Record flawless drums from selection and reheading/tuning to mic choice and placement to editing
  • Record rhythm guitars
  • Record clean and lead guitars
  • Record bass guitar
  • Record, edit and tune lead vocals, harmonies, and screams
  • Mix and master from session setup to final bounce

Lessons

  1. Intro to Bootcamp
  2. Purpose of Pre-Production
  3. Technical Side of Preproduction
  4. Pre-Production: Setting Up the Tempo Map
  5. Pre-Production: Importing Stems
  6. Pre-Production: Click Track
  7. Creating Tracking Templates
  8. Intro and the Tone Pie
  9. Drums - Lay of the Land
  10. Bearing Edges
  11. Wood Types
  12. Depths and Sizes
  13. Hoops
  14. Sticks and Beaters
  15. Drum Heads
  16. Drum Tuning
  17. Drum Mic Placement Intro
  18. Basic Drum Mic Setup
  19. Cymbal Mic Setup
  20. Touch Up Tuning
  21. Microphone Choice and Placement
  22. Drum Tracking Intro
  23. Getting Tones and Final Placement
  24. Primary Tracking
  25. Punching In and Comping Takes
  26. Guitar Setup and Rhythm Tone Tracking
  27. Amplifiers - Lay of the Land
  28. Amplifiers & Cab Shoot Out
  29. Guitar Cab Mic Choice and Placement
  30. Guitar Tracking and Signal Chain
  31. Finalizing Amplifier Tone
  32. Guitar Mic Shootout Round Robin
  33. Intro to Rhythm Tracking
  34. Setting Up Guitars
  35. Working with a Guitarist
  36. Final Guitar Tone and Recap
  37. Guitar Tracking with John
  38. Guitar Tracking with Ollie
  39. Final Tracking
  40. Tracking Quads
  41. Intro to Bass Tone
  42. Bass Tone Setup
  43. Bass Tone Mic Placement
  44. Bass Tracking
  45. Intro to Clean and Lead Tones
  46. Clean Guitar Tones
  47. Lead Tones
  48. Vocal Setup for Tracking
  49. Vocal Mic Selection and Setup
  50. Vocal Mic Shootout
  51. Lead Vocal Tracking
  52. Writing Harmonies
  53. Harmony Vocal Tracking
  54. Vocal Warm Ups
  55. Scream Vocal Tracking
  56. Vocal Tuning and Editing Introduction
  57. Vocal Tuning and Editing
  58. Routing and Bussing
  59. Color Coding, Labeling and Arranging Channels
  60. Setting Up Parallel Compression
  61. Setting Up Drum Triggers
  62. Gain Staging and Trim
  63. Drum Mixing - Subtractive EQ
  64. Drum Mixing - Snare
  65. Drum Mixing - Kick
  66. Drum Mixing - Toms
  67. Drum Mixing - Cymbals and Rooms
  68. Drum Mixing Recap
  69. Mixing Bass Guitar
  70. Mixing Rhythm Guitars
  71. Basic Vocal Mix
  72. Mixing Clean and Lead Guitars
  73. Mixing - Automation
  74. Mastering - Interview with Joel Wanasek

Reviews

Ron
 

I'm on lesson 19! Already worth every dollar!!! Priceless insight! I have already incorporated some of the ideas (preproduction common sense stuff that I never thought of, but damn). VERY HAPPY with this course! ALWAYS LEARNING and looking forward to the next 50 (or whatever) lessons!!! Excellent course! GREAT PRODUCER/ENGINEER, GREAT DRUM TECH, and GREAT BAND!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

ceeleeme
 

I'm just part way though and I'm blown away by the quality approach Eyal takes to getting the best out of the sessions. I love how well everything is explained and Eyals calm manner is just awesome it really makes you want to listen to the gems of wisdom he offers.

user-eb82bd
 

Amazing knowledge is being presented here. If you want to start out recording, this should be your first step, it'll save you lots of time and get you awesome results. Highly recommended class.