Also -
For those interested here is some background of the recording and mix (it might be way too much info - but I tend to talk way too much anyway - so consider the following what you might have to suffer through if we were actually in an attended session together):
The piece was composed in 2004 by Chris George, who is the other cellist in Invert (also featuring myself on cello, Helen Yee on violin and Chris Jenkins on viola). He fully scored this out and then further small tweaks to parts and arrangement were worked out in rehearsals. Over the past couple years it's become both a favorite of both the band and our audience. This track will most likely be the lead off track for our upcoming third CD.
While Chris is a big fan of Kronos Quartet, the soundtracks to the films of the Brothers Quay, and composers like Golijov, Piazolla and Arvo Part, he also counts Rachel's, The Beatles. Guided By Voices, Velvet Underground, Ramones and Stereo Lab as big favorites too, and I think these influences reflect in his composition and in the approach he was wanting in the recording also.
The majority of the rest of the pieces for our upcoming CD were recorded in a more "traditional" way with just the quartet playing together in a single large room to an eight mic setup (4 close, pair of overheads, M/S pair in front of ensemble). However, for our last CD we did a cover of the Beatles doing overdubs over percussion loops at my studio - and Chris really loved the way this turned out - and he wanted to try the same approach for this track. Initially this was going to be a recording of only the quartet - but I felt that the addition of drums was necessary to keep the energy of the track in an overdubbed performance, and after hearing the drum tracks Chris agreed.
The drums are performed by special guest Roberto Rodriguez, who leads his own group and has performed and recorded with tons of folks like John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Ruben Blades, Joe Jackson, and umm, even Julio Iglesias. I think he contributed an amazing performance. He was recorded at Studio G, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, by Joel Hamilton (who many of you might know as one of the moderators on the Tape Op board) who has recorded the likes of Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Book of Knots, and numerous others. It was tracked to ProTools using stock HD192 converters. I was too busy rehearsing and listening to Roberto to pay attention for the most part to what pres and mics were used, although I know Joel used a pair of Sage Electronics pres that he was really raving about. Besides snare, kick, two close mics on the toms, and two overheads, he also put up three room mics to choose from - an AKG C12 and a Blue Ball both slamming analog comp/limiters to the point of distrotion (which we ended up deciding not to use at all for this mix) - and a Tannoy Ribbon - which we did use.
The strings were overdubbed at my studio using 2 Grace Design Model 101 pre's feeding a Mytek Stereo96 ADC. Mic's used were two out of the three of an AudioTechnica AT4051 & AT4047 and an SE Electronics SE3500. Usually the AT4051 was a couple feet from the source with the AT4047 out about 6 feet away in the room, and then panned and blended to taste. All the strings played their parts one at a time except for the 2 places where you hear the siren like glissing - which were played with the two pairs (first time violin and viola, second time violin and Chris's cello) playing at once while facing each other.
It was mixed at my studio entirely in-the-box using RML Labs SAWStudioLite. Extensive splicing and editing was done of multiple takes to get what you hear. Processing plugins used were the Sonoris EQ (on the string tracks), JMS Audioware Hi-res EQ (for some of the drum tracks), Sonoris Compressor (on a couple drum and string tracks), Sonoris Multiband Compresssor (on a couple spots of the violin close mic), AIPL Warmtone (on the initial cello melody), Digital Fishphones Blockfish compressor (on the kick), and the built in SAWStudio compressor (used on a couple spots on my cello track). Artificial ambience was generated by the Anwida Spazio plugin set to "Plate," and the dBAudioware Tempo Delay for some eighth-note echoes. I actually mixed with a tiny bit of "protective" brickwall limiting on the 2buss using the RML Labs Levelizer - but I removed this for the mix provided.
For my own trial mastering efforts I found the track benefited from a few bands giving a slightly smiley faced shapes on the Amek Medici analog eq, a little smoothing via my API 2500, a smidge of high and low shelf boosts with the Sonoris linear phase eq, and finally a decent bit of brickwall limiting. Other approaches are very very welcomed though!!
Best regards,
Steve Berson
