Oct 1, 2001 12:00 PM, BY MAUREEN DRONEY

Is it still a part of your technique to bounce tracks to a 3348 and place them where you want them to come up on your console?

Absolutely. Pretty much everything comes in on Pro Tools, and I have my two crack assistants prep it the way I want it and transfer it.

Is that what you did with Dave Matthews Band's latest?

That came in on 48; it was on Pro Tools, and they transferred it themselves. I asked for two copies of each song so that I could manipulate one and leave one existing. By manipulate, I just mean parking tracks where I want on the faders digitally, without having to cross-patch. Or comping vocals or other parts that I think should go together. Because, for me, the less faders you have to deal with, the better it sounds. You don't need 90 faders to make it happen.

Do you listen to a rough mix before you start?

Generally, I don't want to hear it until I mix it. If it's what I call a “bug hunt,” and the rough mix contains mutes and arrangement issues that are not locked into their tape, then I need the rough mix to find out what's going on. Even if I disagree with their arrangement, I'll make their arrangement happen first, then I'll have an alternate and say, “Here's what I think is better.”

But with most of my clients, everything that's on that tape I use; every morsel is eaten. And in that case, I don't listen to their rough mix unless they are so married to it that I have to emulate it. Generally, I don't want to have any concept. I don't even want to know the song title. Put it up, here we go — completely fresh. If you asked me what song I mixed yesterday; I may not remember the exact song title, but I'll always remember the hook and the vibe. That's what's important.

Because you're so into speed and efficiency, I'm surprised you haven't converted to hard drive random access.

It's not recognized as a professional medium that can be archived. What are you going to do? [What if you] put the hard drive away in some vault, and in 10 years, when they want to resurrect that album, that software is not to be found, or it doesn't work, or those files are corrupted? Yeah, that's really helpful. The format is not nailed down as a stand-alone medium that will sit in storage, and right now the 48-track is.

But what about all that wasted rewind time?

You know what? I need the rewind time. You record on the 3348 at the right level, and you set it up so it hits the console at the optimum level, which is something you don't generally see with Pro Tools. Pro Tools is a great recording and editing medium, and maybe at some point they'll have an interface that works with every console and can be put away for archiving. Until then, I want it on a piece of tape.

There have been many times lately that I've been trying to remix a single and they can't find the tape — because there is no tape. The guy with the Pro Tools file is nowhere to be found, and they don't know who edited what. I'll have to get all these different Pro Tools sessions to try to pull together one that makes sense for what they did in their final mix.

The truth is that a lot of guys who are doing it are making a mess of it. They don't notate properly, they don't archive properly, they don't have it pulled together. A record company ends up scrambling to find this record that they paid a million dollars to make.

Until they come out with the ideal medium, I say stick with one that works. People are saying, “Well, it's not 24-bit, it's only 16-bit.” And I say, “If it sounds good, what do you care what the word length is?” Let the bits fall where they may. The system I use works, and it sounds good.

You're known for your opinions on getting rock 'n' roll drum sounds.

Well, a drum kit is a kick, snare, toms and cymbals, but it's really one instrument. So when you're recording, of course you don't want a lot of crap on the kick drum, and you don't want tons of hi-hat in the snare, but you want to record it so that each mic complements the other. I'll EQ the hi-hat track to sound like a snare drum to help the snare if I need to, because the hi-hat is going to come through everything anyway.

Also, there's a disadvantage right off if you're recording the drums to digital. If you record the drums analog, you can make a lot of mistakes, and they're going to automatically sound like something because of what the analog tape does to it. You can't get that out of any kind of digital. A really good engineer can record digital and get away with it; but if you're still fishing around for the perfect drum sound, digital isn't going to complement it.

Analog is like one of those low riders driving around with tinted windows; it's got a vibe. You see through it, but not completely. There's a little tint. Digital is like a clear pane of glass that, if you're not looking, you'll walk right into. It doesn't do anything to the sound; if anything, it makes it worse, makes it more clinical. When I get records where I can't stand the drum sound, where it just doesn't feel right, I transfer it to analog and back just so I can bear listening to it. Because as a drummer, it's got to feel right to me.

What compressors do you like on drums?

When drums are recorded, my preference is to try not to use any compression. Use the old Neve mic pre's, use the good mics, try not to over-EQ and add as much bottom as you can, because the bottom is the thing that's tough to get right. Try to make it so the mic pre's aren't clipping on the kick drum. Which happens all the time — can ya just listen to it, please? There's nothing wrong with the drums being a little plain Jane. If you want to mangle a couple of tracks with these cool compressors at the studio you're recording in, put them on a couple of extra tracks.

I'm not saying make the original drums boring — you try to go for something. Maybe the band's into Led Zeppelin or that dry, old disco sound. Whatever. But try to do it so it makes sense, where you've got somewhere to go.

Sometimes I get drum tracks and they're so mangled that there's nowhere to go and I have to try to undo what they did. The rooms are distorted, or the snare is so compressed it's just a little “ping.” I know you guys all want to experiment and try all these things, but try to leave some of it simple, straight-ahead, clear, because it's a lot easier to mangle it later than to unmangle it. Compression can be dangerous in the wrong hands. It's like a gun; once you shoot a hole in something, you can't plug it.

Okay, say you've been given some nice, plain-Jane drum tracks.

On the kick and snare I'll generally end up with some Manley EQs, and I go between Distressors and dbx 160s. A lot of times, the console compressor is perfect for the kick and the snare. Or I'll tinker around between an 1176 or an old Neve compressor — one of the verticals that I have.

A lot of times, I won't even touch the room tracks. If they're uncompressed, it can be even better; I can just ride them. Overheads, if they're kind of lackluster, an 1178 will put them right there.

When you're compressing drums, it depends on how aggressive the song is. If you have two pounds of baloney in a one-pound bag, and there's a wall of guitars competing with the drums, you've got to compress more and more to get the drums to stay punchy through the whole song. And if the snare drum isn't too high and it has some depth to it, that gets a lot easier.

I hear you use an oddball pair of Pultecs across the mix bus.

They're 1S3s, with consecutive serial numbers. They're a different bandwidth (than EQP 1As.) So the whole mix goes through tubes. Tube low end really helps the overall picture; it makes it sound more musical.

Listen to the radio. These days, it's all about the low end — getting it clear. Low end is the hardest thing to get right. High end is easy because everybody usually records so bright. And this console — old console that it is — has the sweetest-sounding high end. You crank the knob to the roof, and it's just enough.

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