Ya, but Steve Albini makes a great point... What happens in 20 years when your Pro Tools session is no longer able to open because of version number, computer cant read the old format, license on a plug in is expired or out of business... I can't believe a legend like him went the route of in the box.
@@Tomix098 he is pretty humble. You will never hear him say that the way he does things is better or call out certain ways other people tend to do stuff "wrong". Someone can be humble and confident at the same time.
This is a man who's work I've been madly in love with for many, _many_ years. Yet, I had no idea who he was. It wasn't until recently that I discovered the secret ingredient behind many of Rock's GREATEST band's for the last 30+ years. The incredible Andy Wallace. Engineer's receive so little credit, yet play such an integral role in all of the music we know and love.
Exactly. I've seen so many interviews with Butch Vig re Nevermind, even ones where he was moving faders, but Andy Wallace was the real sound guy? Weird.
With regard to the down-beats on the intro/chorus of Smells Like Teen Spirit: If you listen to the isolated drums (readily available online), you can distinctly hear that Dave Grohl is playing the first beat of each bar slightly late. The tiny deviation from perfectly gridded time makes the start of each bar punch out and gives it an extra impact that it would otherwise not have.
@@BobbyGeneric145 The beauty of using a DAW, for editing, is that I can literally place a note wherever I want to put it. I can even quantize it to a grid, if that's what I'm going for. Just because I can't play every note the way I hear it in my head (because I'm a human being), doesn't mean the final product can't still sound like what I have in my head.
Holy shit.. the records he’s done all on only an ssl.. no fancy 1176 or neve compression or vacrac. Christ al classic records that I adore and listened to every day of my life.. #respect
Oh man, I'm old college friends with Andy's son and he used to come up now and then when there were performances at the college - we were all music majors - and it was like a big event for us when he'd visit. Of course, he was just someone's dad when it happened, we'd maybe have a few words over a beer at the local dive bar, but he'd be gone as fast as he came.
So good to see this video, I was lucky enough to work with Andy in the 90s and see what he does, it was a great inspiration to how I approach any song in Pro Tools now.
The one thing on the Smells Like Teen Spirit drums that backs this up is how you can hear the snare drum has detuned from the beginning of the song, to the end.
You know, it's funny because I read this, went to the song, and flipped back and forth between the end in both the verses and the intro and outro to see if I could hear any difference, and although I could, it seemed more like because the mix was just more dense at the end was why the snare sounded more buried. Not that I believe it was sampled replaced anyways (MAYBE sample *augmented*, as so much stuff is - even from "the good old days" which most don't realize. But I didn't think it was outright sample replaced) but was just curious about the detuning throughout the song and how audible it was. I was about to comment along the lines of that and add that I don't hear the detuning. And then I remembered it's 2022 and there's probably an isolated drum stem that I can listen to somewhere (Spoiler alert: There is, lmao) and sure enough it absolutely is "detuned" at the end compared to the beginning, but because it's only the batter head that's detuned from him beating the shit out of it, and not the resonant head - it still has mostly the same fundamental note when it's sitting in the mix, it just sounds sloppier because of the looser top head. Really interesting to hear. Also goes to show how important the dynamics and performance itself is, with regards to giving the proper energy to a respective song. Most professional drummers (at least from what I've seen) would probably not have that intense of result despite playing an aggressive song like that with "appropriate" energy, but the song is an imperfect, grungy and angry wall of sound and it absolutely serves the energy of the song despite not being the "cleanest" way to play. Besides actual rhythm, ability and taste, I think the intuition and ability to give a performance like that is was sets great drummers apart from the rest. It's that extra little "Oomph" that you can't really hear per se but you can feel it 100%.
Thank you MWTMs! When I see audio things that involve Andy Wallace (or Max Norman or Toby Wright or Greg Fidelman, but I digress), I know my ears will be happy! Though I would be extremely nervous and anxious, I can only imagine how much my playing could benefit from a few hours session with Andy's ears and his seasoned feedback (no pun intended).
QUITE impressive mf'er!!! Upper percentile sonic approach indeed...Enlightenment is often palpable, and on full display here Master Wallace! Time well spent!!!!!!!
Whenever I would hear an album that sounded phenomenally mixed, it would never surprise me to see Andy Wallace in the credits. It's great to finally hear him talk about some of his processes. Great channel!
This man literally mixed Nu metal itself by raiding faders, hardly compressing, gain and phase staging in half an hour and with just "no big deals" of ambience and samplings. I mean, dude
Love his response on P Compression, alot of people seem to think it's the solution for everything now adays, when if you just get it right in the sound it's generally unecessary.
Seany06 I was going to rant on that myself, but deleted it. If also there were no vocal auto-tune I'd be happy. Not a fan of digital drum replacements either. Just record it right to begin with, yup.
He still uses it quite handily; every channel on the SSL, for example. SSLs aren't exactly subtle. Then you have the guys like CLA and Joe Barressi who's sound it's central to, so saying it's "generally unnecessary" to them would get you laughed out of the room.
I hope this video finally puts the Dave Grohl drum sample thing to bed. Maybe he did use drum sample ambients in later recordings as Ric Beato has famously pointed out. The drums on Nevermind don't sound like those albums. You can definitely make drums sound the same even without those samples. Listen to Butch Vigs mix of Nevermind. The drums sound a lot like the 80s drum tracks from the big bands.It doesn't make Dave sound bad but definitely not as awsome as Wallace's mix. Listen to how the drums sound on Appettite for Destruction. Many drum recordings from that era sound the same and they were definitely not sampled. They sound very dated now but it's likely to albums being mixed in similar lower frequencies. Butch Vigs mix definitely has some of that. This man just put a different spin on things and it changed music. It's just a different way to make the drums cut.
What OP wanted to hear: "If I recall correctly, we record in stereo with 2 different mics which then we'll mono at different gain levels inside the console. In terms of the chain, I think the first part is we double up the preamp. One set to HPF the other adding 3db of air. Then the L channel goes to an LA2A doing about 4db GR, and the R channel goes to an 1176. We do that because it creates a subtle sense of tension, particularly in the chorus section. We run that line to the Massive Passive for 8 db boost to the mids, then it goes into an old warehouse transformer that Jake found in storage at his old studio, it just adds some saturation to the bottom section and tightens the highs. Finally, we run it through a Fairchild 670 with no reduction, just on, for that touch of mojo. I hope that answers your question."
12:30 people who ask that may never have listened Grohls playing style (super strong hits) even at the bloody conservatory they know about Grohls strenght, and recommend NOT to play so loud or you will break the patches (we shared the shool drum kits)
Remember only top singer and musician can help great sound engineer, especialy with Jeff Buckley, he sounds good, because he was a good performer ^^ just a regular studio standard mic and tape recorder, no magical secret trick behind this, you should listen him on rare stage video, is realy impressive also the band who play with him.
well, you could say so. but it is kind of magic because he covers every primary color of sound engineering here. Granted, he might not have had his process as intellectualized when he was working with Buckley, but clearly had integrity.
Everyone in the comments are completely missing the point. All those great sounding records didn't sound great because Andy Wallace mixed and recorded them, they sounded great because the bands that recorded those records were great. Nevermind sounds great, but then so does In Utero and Bleach.
An example of a mixing travesty was the recording of Ringo Starr’s Beatles drumming. At the time it was prohibited to put a mic into a kick drum. He’s also mixed very low and his cymbals are dull. I would like to hear some early Beatles remixed by Andy.
Its so interesting, you would have thought that he needs a gazillion effects to make his mixes sound so hughe, samples etc. But its seems quit the opposite. 3db compression on a main vocal? Try finding that in todays world of smashed trap vocals...
I just learned this from Rick Beato. If you listen to all of Andy's mixes from the 90s he uses the exact same kick & snare sample on all of them. Each band's drums sound the same. Here he says he doesn't put samples in himself, but they come already present in the multi track. Odd.
I am waiting for years for this, and now.... he is reading page one from the recording hand book. Very interesting. The key is to have a 90% perfect working multitrack masterpiece and add the final 10% excitement to it. He gets already great sounding tracks so he don´t have to use five inserts and two parallels on a each track to get it work. Working with Pro´s, or in most of his cases legends, is that makes the records sounding so great. But in my world 99% of the time, unfortunately, i need more than a SSL Strip and a delayline to archive greatness. I would say than he makes one of his mixes, with the tracks that i got most of the times, than i call him genius. Otherwise a very, very lucky and of course talented and disciplined guy. Listen to the Butch Vic Mixes and hear, it was 95% there. Same this Sepultura´s Roots or RATM. The sound was there. It´s the artform to find the last 10% that makes it even better and not skew it up.
Amen, it´s neither the equipment or the guys. Great art is a combination of talents. To hear that most of these mixes are done in a day or less requires real craftsmanship down the line. No second guess.
A factor people dont consider is that the tracks he gets are generally well produced and treated and therefore doesnt need to 'save' a mix. For example listen to mixes of Nevermind from the sessions and they sound great, the drums and vocals arent as punchy but its obvious it was recorded and produced well and Andy Wallace just enhanced it making it go from great to amazing! If you dont have nice rooms and nice gear and cant record in this way then using other techniques can help solve these problems. Also take into consideration the type of music he mixes, dance music for example tends to lend itself to parallel compression and saturation to get certain sounds.
Also why I like Slates stuff because I tend to emulate both sides of the path when having to use cheaper cleaner interfaces and no outboard gear basically doing what one would with tracking (Neve pre or tape emulation or both, a little bit of compression) then what one would do with mixing (EQ a little bit more different compression, reverb etc)
