The Real Pat Blair

The (r)evolution has begun…

Good news: I am done, pending final band approval, mixing the Lone Strangers new album, Revolve.  That only took 6 weeks longer than it was supposed to.  I knew that it had taken too long when I was listening to mixed wav files today, hit stop, and was surprised that there were no reverb trails (nerd alert!).
In somewhat related news, I learned yesterday what REM, Toby Keith, Bon Jovi, the Kaiser Chefs, Prince, Wilco, Blink 182, Ben Harper, Linkin Park, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, U2, and Coldplay all have in common: they use the Midas XL4 mixing console when on tour.  It is about as close to the industry standard as you can get.
Todd from the Audio Engineering Group was saying that at the Bon Jovi show in Des Moines, they had 2 (TWO!) of the 96-channel boards set up – one to mix with, and one as a backup, in case the other failed.  Not too shabby, he pointed out, considering that the 96-channel boards go for about $256,000 each.  And people think I’m crazy when I say that we could easily spend (only) $150,000 on a PA!
Anyway, I did some research on the intrawebs and, lo and behold, there is a bargain-priced previously-owned 48-channel XL4 that is currently for sale.  And it doesn’t cost anywhere NEAR a quarter of a million dollars (though it is only 48 channels).  So… what are we waiting for?

In my time as a sound-guy, I have noticed some trends in the music industry.  So, based on my experiences and observations of artists from all around the country, I have compiled a list that should be helpful to aspiring artists.

The Things That You Need to Succeed as a Rock and Roll Musician:
-Women’s jeans (pre-worn/torn is a must)
-Studded/rhinestone belt¹ (the fashionable way to keep those way-too-small pants from falling way-too-far down your skinny butt)
-Converse shoes (other low cut skate shoes are acceptable substitutes)
-Retro screened t-shirt² (70’s is best, 80’s will do; must also have an undershirt to keep your skinny frame warm)*
-Sport coat (didn’t anyone learn anything from watching Miami Vice reruns?)
-Emo-mop haircut³ (plastered down in front, flattened and spikey on one corner; also known to the less-enlightened as “bed-head”)
-0% body fat⁴ (apparently the ’starving to death’ look is hip)

¹Thick-framed emo-glasses are an acceptable, but not required, accessory
²An ugly shirt (not quite buttoned) and tie (not quite tied) combo can be substituted for the screened t-shirt
³Ridiculous, ugly facial-hair is optional
⁴I’m not kidding.  If you want to succeed, just plan on not eating for the next 5 years.  There’s nothing wrong with getting nutrition from all of the beer that you drink before going on stage.

When making a high-quality recording a song, control over every element is very important.  The better your conrol over every detail, the more options it gives you for a final mix of a song.  For example, if you put 3 different microphones on the bass-guitar amp when recording, this gives you 3 different tones to use when mixing.  As I am fond of saying, you can always take something out of the mix, but, if you don’t have it, you can’t put it in.
One of the most difficult things to have detailed control over is a drum set.  Even if you put a microphone on every drum, it is still impossible to stop instances of “bleed-through.”  Example: when the drummer hits their snare drum, the pop is “heard” by every microphone on the drum kit.  The problem with this is that, even if you turn the snare drum all the way down, it is still easily heard through all of the other microphones when the recording is played back.  This means that adjustments to the equalization, compression, reverb, etc. on each drum are more ‘ballpark’ adjustments than precise ones.
To combat this problem, some very smart engineers dreamed up a device called a Noise Gate.  This device, in essence, only allows sounds of a certain volume to be heard.  If you could measure loudness on a scale of 1-10 and set the threshold of your noise gate at 3, sounds louder than 3 would be heard (allowed through the gate), while any sounds softer than 3 would not be let through the gate: the listener would hear only silence.
An example of when this would be useful would be a vocal microphone on a stage with a full band.  While the vocalist is not singing, you don’t want the background noise of the drums and guitars to come through the microphone, so you put on a noise gate.  Then there is only silence until the vocalist sings, at which point the noise gate opens, and the microphone ‘turns on.’  Magic!
Unfortunately, I have never been able to get noise gates to work on a drum set.  There are too many things going on and too much bleed through.  The snare always opens the gates for the other drums, and the opening and closing of the gates can lead to some awkward sounds.  So I had pretty much given up on them.
Until, that is, I discovered frequency sensitive gating technology!  This allows you to set the volume where the gate opens (3, in our example), and ALSO the frequency range at which the gate ‘listens’ to the volume.  So for a Tom that resonates at 250Hz, you would set the frequency from about 100-500Hz (or something like that).  This way, when cymbals crash, the gate-keeper doesn’t even hear them.  All of the high-frequency ‘pop’ from a snare drum is ignored.  But when the Tom hits, the gate opens up.  To do this to all of the drums, of course, takes a long time and a lot of fine tuning, but arguably leaves you with a much cleaner, superior sounding mix.
Apparently this tool has been available for some time, but I just recently became aware of it.  The morals of the story are, 1) discovering new technology is wonderful, and 2) if you’re wondering why it’s taking so long to finish the new Lone Strangers CD… now you know.