Hello, and welcome to another episode of Inside the recording studio. I am Jody Whitesides and with me as always is Mr. Chris Hellstrom. How are you today, Chris? Oh yeah. Yeehaw. I'm feeling hot. Feeling very hot. I was just outside playing pickleball I always put a smile on my face, Jody, I am good. I see what you did there with the intro. So creative. I'm good. How are you, man? Yeah, good.
against a professional pickleball player and did fairly well. Can't complain. Yeah. I lost Yeah, yeah, you told me the score here. So what's the score on today's pickleball tournament? Well, that sounds pretty good. 1110. Yeah, it's not bad. Yeah. Sucks to be ahead and then lose considering the competition, right? Well, that's what experience does for you. at the end. But yes. Yes, there's experience we're talking And speaking of experience, yeah.
about warm mixes today. And what does it mean to you and I? Well, obviously it's one of those adjectives Let's kick it off with you. that we like to describe stuff that means probably something different to everybody. Mm hmm. But when I think of a worn mix, think of a mix where not everything is like super hyped in the high end. I think of something that sounds a little bit not necessarily dull but not everything
has that super brightness. I'm not confusing this with a muddy mix but something that is a little bit cozy that's not gonna hurt you if you touch it's gonna you know wrap you up in a warm blanket. Yeah I'm trying to describe Listen to all these adjectives that you're throwing out. Sure. as best as I hear that but perhaps a little bit on the throwback side would be a good way to think about it but that doesn't mean that we can't do modern
productions without without it sounding like it was recorded in '72. So how's that for a vague answer? What about you? Yeah, you can't get much more vague than that. Okay, so just the crunchy dusty needle scraping across something. For me, I would liken it to putting on A vinyl record without the vinyl, that to me would be warm. No, no, no, no, no. You take the vinyl noise out of the audio recording Oh, thank you for clarifying that.
and you've got a warm mix from that particular era that vinyl was so popular. Mmm. Yes, that would be my definition Nope. of what a warm mix might be. Okay, but you are not a vinyl guy. You haven't done that thing and you were certainly not one of those that early on were talking about, "Oh, digital sounds so harsh and it needs to be..."
No. Oh, no, no, no. I was of the mindset immediately when digital came out [silence] after recording on tape, that digital literally was a mirror that gave you back exactly what you gave it. So if you gave it crap, it gave you back crap. And if you didn't give it warm, cool shit, Yes, and the exact crap as well. You didn't get back warm, cool shit. Things have changed since that era, but yes. I agree because I think what people were probably conflating a bit at that point, and of course Mm-hmm.
digital technology and converters of things have grown with leaps and bounds since the beginning of like recording to a DAW, but I think people were thinking that there was I think it was more there was a lack of coloration a broader frequency range to a certain degree. That's not right. that was automatic from recording to tape. Right, but what that did was that it essentially rolled off certain frequencies. That's what I think it is. High end. Mm hmm. You walk it through the path.
Yeah, exactly. So that's what I'm saying, that the breadth of the high end was not as crispy because you couldn't. It was limitations in the technology. So I think that was something that made people say, "Oh, it sounds cold or harsh, or it's not as warm." And we're going to actually touch a little bit on that today, how that kind of goes together. released in my mind how that goes together with one.
All right, well the first thing I'll say then is this always something that we should shoot for I'll follow along. Well, the answer to that is no, because sometimes when you shoot, if you shoot yourself in the foot, it's not a good thing. is always desirable. Should we try to get a warm mix on everything that we do? Having a warm mix in a particular style that's not known for warm mixes is probably not a wise idea. I do. Boy, lots of adjectives you're throwing out today.
Yeah, I think of this as something that we always used to say that is very style dependent or context dependent or content dependent even, right? I did, no I didn't. Did you get it, Thesaurus? [LAUGHTER] If you imagine like a indie rock track versus like a modern EDM track, you would probably be more akin to think about a warm mix when you think about an E&D rock track as opposed to like an EDM track which tends to get really polished and have this
massive low end and crispiness in the high frequencies, right? So there's something that Yeah. Orange. if you're dealing with a certain style of music, another example I guess would be like a modern pop track versus like a grungy kind of throwback rap type of thing, right? It is very style dependent. It's not appropriate for everything. It is something that if a client asks us, we want something more
warmer. We want it to be like artist XYZ, right? But you can communicate a little bit and make [LAUGHTER] Budget no option? make sure that you can deliver that. What's the first thing that comes to mind here, if that's our goal? We want it to be like a warm top of production and assuming that we're a part of the recording stage here as well, what's the first thing that you tend to go for?
Yeah, let's say budget no option, but even if it is, All right, well the first thing you're going to do, or at least that I would do, is get I think we can probably get a little bit more general than this, but let's say budget no option and you're making this happen. Okay. some really, really nice microphones. [BLANK_AUDIO] That's like the very first thing.
You can get all the coolest mics on the planet from RCA ribbon mics, which are stupid expensive, down to C12s to TLM 103s to U67s and 87s Yeah, the sort of more general thing I was looking at here is that obviously starts at and all kinds of things of that nature that have the classic era value of being full-bodied would be a good way of saying it. at the recording stage and appropriate instrumentation, right? And like you mentioned, mics, right?
Have that mic choose that microphone that's gonna... - Yeah. What's the first thing that's gonna capture the instrument Right. that you're talking about as a microphone? So you gotta have a suitable microphone for that. And I think especially when it comes to vocals and things, Here's an example in a microphone sense, right? Having a mic that maybe doesn't have all that super sizzle on top, right? Can help you get there. Something that sounds appropriate and that warm that adjective. [ Pause ]
and we're going to use a vocal idea in regards to this. In doing a mic shootout at one point, I found that there was a very, very close similarity between a GT200 and a U87. The very point where the difference fell apart Sure is. is in the super high end where it got super brittle on the GT200, but it stayed real nice and smooth on the U87. But the price difference between those two microphones is thousands of dollars. Right. Then if you take and compare the U87 to say a C12, Yeah.
the C12's high end is even smoother sounding than the U87's, but it's like probably less than 1% of the world is ever gonna notice it. Again, there's now thousands of dollars in difference in price to go from the U87 to the C12. Yeah. Yeah, anything that you put a microphone in front of, That's why I choose the microphone as being the first point of where you're going to think about your warmth on your mix, especially for live instrumentation. Ah, yes.
whether that's a guitar cab or anything, we want to consider this at the recording stage, that we're getting the sound that we intend to get, right? That just helps the mixer, if that's you or whoever that is, just make those decisions easier when it comes mixed on. Bringing up guitars there, also even if we're using amp sims here, right? Yes, yes, yes. [ Pause ] Hopefully we receive a DI track with this as well.
But also the choice of amp sims here where sometimes in the high end, again, there they can start like falling apart and they sound brittle and just like noisy and all that kind of stuff. So choosing good tones. Again, if you have that and you already have the DI as a mixer, you can just kind of re-amp that as it is. Things to keep in mind anyway. Well, the next tool in the chain, if I'm going down the mic line here, and even your amsim Right. Indeed, yeah. concept here, is the mic pre.
A good mic pre is going to help that mic sound really awesome. That's the second choice that I would think of in terms of a tool. And of course vacuum cables. No, I'm not even going to go there. Inside joke. Don't even go there. That's... Yes, it's terrible. I don't have another joke for that, so I'm just going to continue. vacuum your cables. Just leave it and move on. All right. With Yeah, I will. OK, so let's say that everything has been captured sort of appropriately, right?
With warmth in mind and as best as can be. warmth in mind, you're saying And also, of course, if you don't have an unlimited budget and you have the gear that you have, that's what you have to use, right? So hopefully some of these other things that we're going to talk about now will help you deliver that mixed result. Yes, but we were talking about budget no option here, so it's all good. Yes.
Well, when you were going over it, but I'm saying that it's not like you can't produce a warm mix without a budget, no option. There's true. There's yeah, that's true. So bouncing into the mixing stage of this, So. So at least appropriately recorded. you've now said you've been given appropriate tracks that have been quote unquote, warmly recorded. What do you do? What are you looking at? >> Yeah. Mm-hmm. My first tool is EQ when it comes to this. [ Silence ]
And it takes a little bit of a mindset here as well. Because if we just start taking away high end, I'm not sure that you're achieving the warmth so much except as a muddy, unclear mix. What I would do, or I would suggest is picking what is, that's gonna be the focal point. If it's a vocal song, it's probably the vocal. Thank you. And letting that have as much high frequency as needed, Please write or control your but not everything might have to live up there.
Twitter AM Esparza and So let's say that if you're with your overheads or whatever, gamma Is Maybe you get to use a little bit of a low cut, maybe perhaps 10K, maybe even lower, pal but you're probably gonna start getting you tons into a little bit of mud there. console Same thing with electric guitars. Don't be afraid to roll off some of that high end, Salvation is but let the vocals stay up there. So you still have that presence at
I don't know if it's so much conflicting as maybe my mentality or my approach or my approach. I don't know if it's so much conflicting as maybe my mentality or my approach. I don't know. It's so much conflicting as maybe my mentality or my approach. It's just so much more conflicting. I don't know. It's so much conflicting. and it doesn't sound like somebody just threw a blanket over your speakers, right?
That would be my first thing when you kind of warm things up and especially distorted guitars, that type of thing. There's very little of value up there anyway. That would be my first sort of weapon of choice there or tool at least in this case. I would start with EQ. How would you deal with that? Do you have a conflicting ID on that or how would you treat it? [ Pause ]
or my approach comes from a different angle and what you're describing is more of how I start placing various instruments into the mix regardless. I'm not always going to be high EQing, high-end EQing above say the 1K, 2K, 3K, 5K mark on everything. Generally speaking, it depends on the instrumentation and where it needs to live. So I might be lopping off low-end, I might be lopping off high-end, I might be lopping off both depending on where everything needs to sit. [ Pause ]
It also is very dependent on how dense the mix is. Cause if there's like a hundred items going on, you need to find a little niche for every single one of those items. So your EQing becomes substantially different, right? Sure. But I get where you're coming from by saying what you're saying because you want [silence] to give a specific instrument focus. but I always tend to think about that regardless of whether I'm going for a warm mix or a super hyped mix kind of thing.
Well, absolutely. I'm not arguing that point at all. Mm-hmm. My way was just talking about how this might be different from any other situation, right? right? And if you have all that high frequency information in everything, which is something that >> Sure. I would strive for on a regular project, because I like that. Now, obviously things have to sit >> Mm-hmm. >> Okay.
where they're supposed to be and something is going to take charge, right? But perhaps being a >> Okay. little bit more judicious with a roll-off there just to kind of take away some of that air I think >> Okay. Sure, that can work. Right. Mm hmm. Yeah. So, I'm gonna go ahead and do a little bit of a can make something sound a little bit warmer. But then you bring up a good point because clarity and all that kind of stuff as well is not going to take a back seat because then you just
end up with a sludgy, dull sounding mix, right? So working with the mids there, with a mid-range and stuff to make sure that we have that clarity where that might live, right? Let's say there's a lot of damage there in like the 1k to 2k, 3k mark, right? Have to be really judicious there as Yeah. Sure. And with that, we'll take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.
well, but my point with EQ to make something warmer is perhaps to start with a little bit more of a roll off on the high end than you might be doing on just your everyday mixed type of thing. And we're back and we're moving on to the next little piece of the puzzle when mixing I like overdrive and distortion. That's not, I do say, and if you're a frequent listener to the to get this concept of warming up mixes going. What do you got, Chris? You don't say. Finally
podcast. First, thank you. But then you know that we say that a lot, sometimes half jokingly, sometimes a new stitch. (silence) not. To warm something up and essentially just adding harmonics, which is something that overdrive and distortion does, it can by its very nature take care of the high end. That might sound a little bit harsh and just add a little bit of crunchiness to that, which can give that sort of
sense of one to the instrument. I'm not talking about adding massive amounts of Mm-hmm. Like a pinch, a pinch of overdrive. gain here and just completely destroy something, but adding a little touch of overdrive or something to a source can make it just feel a little bit more pleasant when it's appropriate. Yeah, a pinch of overdrive. I like to do this on Mm-hmm. a lot of sources. I like to sometimes do it on vocals, which sounds, wow, that's Right.
kind of weird, but not necessarily in an industrial Trent resonator kind of way, just adding a little bit of that. Distortion, overdrive? That's something that I use a fair bit to give a little bit of simultaneous attitude actually to things. And it can just make Yeah, of course. it sound less pristine. Do you ever use that at all? Yeah, Distortion? Overdrive? Yeah, of course. It's not 100% of the time, but I do it. I've done
distortion. Yeah, besides on the usual suspects, like obviously, like, yeah, where do you like to use it? Right. Where do you... it on vocals, I've done it on drums, I've done it on bass, I've done it on synths, I've So that's a big fat yes then in other words. done it on strings, I've done it on pianos, I've done it on every, pretty much any instrument. Yes, it is a big fat yes, but it's not 100% of the time that I ever do it. Right. Well, it's when needed, right?
Where it's just... Yeah. Okay. Of course. We mentioned at the top, you mentioned tape. tape. How do you like to use tape emulation? You kind of use it on just about every mix, I did mention tape when it came to describing the concept of recording and warmth at the very beginning. Yes, I did mention that. All the time. I do know it's it's 100% now.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO] And as I was having a discussion with a set of friends in a fairly famous band last night, actually, who played here just yesterday and hadn't seen them in a while. [LAUGH] And we were having this discussion and I had mentioned the podcast and the recording and some other things. And they started talking about, well, man, you know, digital is just, they'd had the old digital adage that it's not as warm.
And I had to bring up the fact that we do have [LAUGHTER] tape plugins that are very much like recording with tape without all of the nasty effects [ Pause ] [ Pause ] of having to take care of a tape machine. And they were like, pfft, mind blown. They were like, really? [ Pause ] They have these things? Like, yes, they do have these things. My favorite is the Studer tape emulation [pause] from Universal Audio.
I use it as if I were recording directly to whatever channel tape machine that I dream up, whether it's 24 track, 48 track, 68 track, 148 track, it doesn't matter. I use tape emulation. It is my thing. I like it. I do. you print with it as well, don't you? Right. So you do it. No, I'm talking about on the I do print with it as well, but I use, when you talk about print, I'm not sure if you're talking about printing, the multi-track or you talking about the two track.
way in. Yeah, I'm talking about on the way in. Yeah, as you're recording. And then you Yes, I do. On the way in, I print on the way in as if I'm printing straight to a tape machine, yes. I do do that. add it again on your on the mix. Right. Okay. And then you put it obviously just on your On the mix, as if I'm mixing from the tape. No, once I've done that point, master buss on your music buss or do you put it on your master how do you do it? I do not do it until the mastering stage.
okay so if you're not mastering the song and you're just mixing it because it's If I'm mastering something, I pretend like I'm running it through a ATR two track. to track. Then I don't do that. I'm just mixing it. It's already baked into the tracks that already baked in and the tracks right right okay and you do that obviously I've done. Yeah. Uh huh. It's the extra mojo that I like on my mixes. Yes. because of what it adds, right? And you feel like it gives you that little extra mojo. And...
Well, that's a good thing. Yeah, yeah. I don't do it on every track. ( I do it, it's very much a, ( ( audio obviously a sound for me as well. And it sometimes is appropriate and sometimes it's not. ) Well, the fun thing that I like in comparison to the era of actually recording with Studers, Yeah. which I'm happy to say I never got the full value out of doing that, which is a pleasure to me for some reason.
The thing that is cool with using say the universal audio version of it is they have four different tape emulations and they also have multiple IPS speeds. And for those that don't know, [ Pause ] there were a plethora of different tape formulations and every tape formulation required its own biasing with a tape machine, which gave you a different EQ curve while you were recording.
And for tape speed, it also is how much noise and hiss you're gonna get essentially while you're recording on a tape machine. The faster the tape speed, the less hiss you're going to get. More tape is being used for less information, which apparently makes it sound better. I heard a great analogy and description of that at one point called Peter McEan who did It's not even apparent it is actually that. You You Mm hmm. men at work and all this kind of stuff.
And he was talking about different tape speeds and his way of describing it is if you imagine a train pulling into a station and you're standing there on the platform with a spray can as the train is passing. The slower the train is passing, the more spillage [silence] there's going to be from your paint can. If it's going by in super speeds, the color, the paint in this point coming from the spray can is going to be less
spread out just by nature of how the train is passing. So that made a lot of sense to me how to kind of like wrap my head around that. Oh okay, that makes sense right? Take that for what it is now. I've shared it so you live with it now. But that's All right. Great. but that made sense to me why the faster tape speed picks up less noise that type of thing.
Sure. Well leaning a little bit more on your analog emulation and your plugins right when it comes Well, moving on from tape emulation, because we've kind of beat that horse to death. What are other things that we can do to kind of add this concept of analog work in our digital world? Mm hmm. [Silence] to your besides the tape obviously your EQs and your compressors and that type of thing.
They're going to impart something there that was inherently analog which was noise and that type of thing and that can you know make it have a certain sound in this case a warmth that you may or may not notice on one track but it probably builds up over the size of your project. >> Yeah. It's the same sort of thing with the console emulations that you can get now. You can essentially build out a DAW to have a console set up.
And the beauty of it is just like the tape emulation [ Pause ] I was talking about, and I actually didn't dive into it too heavily with that, was that you could choose different tape formulations and tape speeds for various instrumentations, like if you wanted a really grungy, dirty sounding set of drums, you could run it through 256, I believe, as the tape formulation, at a really slow IPS.
And by the same token, you can use a console emulation like a Helios, which is a good console emulation, but is a very vocal type of console emulation Yeah. that has an insane amount of character to it, comparatively to say an SSL 9000, Absolutely. which has an entirely different, very clean, very clinical kind of character to it. Okay. And that's something that I've gone through and tried out with because I'm a slate user. We've got the virtual console collection, right?
So if I'm going that route, well, there's different emulations. And flipping through those, there's one that is a Trident, that is obviously an older console, No, not likely. and that would have a drastically different sound than a Neve or an SSL, whether that's a 4000E or G. Also from other plugins that might use a console emulations, if you're going for like a really warm mix, I'm probably not gonna use an SSL 9000J, because it's sort of like that super pristine sound, right?
Mm-hmm. Other things that we can use in terms of the way we would approach getting that Then you might go for something like a Trident or just another and older SSL, like a 4000E or something. Absolutely. sound in a mix is emulations of reverbs and delays as well. [BLANK_AUDIO] Is that something that I do part of my workflow anyway, not to be afraid of EQing the reverb returns Right. and same thing with delays, right?
And if you have the emulation now, you're a UA guy, I know you really like the Lexicon 224, right? Simply by using something like that, it would, 'cause it's not gonna have the full frequency spectrum there necessarily, right? Because it's an accurate emulation of an older reverb. Right. That can be a good choice as well. But if you don't have an emulation of that, is to think about just rolling off a lot of the reverb, possibly, on the return.
And if you're going for something that's a little bit more modern like the NeoVerb from Yeah. Isotope, that actually has the ability when you go through its AI, if you're trying to Yeah, that's a really nice touch. figure out the type of reverb, you can choose a darker sounding reverb and it will automatically deal with that for you, which is nice. Yeah. Talk about speed, baby. Get it done fast. And just the fact that it does it for you, it's like, oh, cool. especially in a pinch, right?
All right. And then of course with delays as well, a lot of emulations of older delay modules and Absolutely. Yeah. tape emulation delays as well, like tape delays, not tape emulation delays, but tape delays help getting that delay sound that sounds a little bit more warm. I like the tape delay and logic actually, Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I think is a pretty good tape delay as well. Just the way it sounds, it's super accurate. I don't know, but it sounds good to me.
And again, they're rolling off some of the high end and making that sit. And maybe even on just to sort of go back and tie this together where we started with the vocals and stuff, right? Okay. Mm hmm. Even if you choose to have that clarity and that breathiness of a vocal by having perhaps a more aggressive EQ on the reverb for said vocal. Right back in your face.
I can make that sound a little bit warmer as opposed to just really, really pristine and getting all that room sound right back in your face. So we mentioned a few things here, Yeah, I did. but what are your favorite tools when it comes to this? I mean, you mentioned that the Studer emulation, you mentioned the Helios, I mentioned Neoverb. Do you have... Well, Neoverb isn't such as an emulation of anything.
Right, but outside of those that you mentioned that you have anything else that you're kind of going to let's say somebody a client is coming to you It's a modern digital reverb, but it has the ability to do warmer, darker types of sounds if you tell it to. Well, the first thing I would ask is what their reference for warm is. And hey, Jordy, I want this to be a really warm sounding mix anything initially that you do Yeah.
And I would ask them to give me several different artists or several different recordings that they're thinking of as in the ballpark. Once I know that, then I can go and do some actual research. and I would research what the engineer or producer used in said recordings if it's findable so that I can possibly pull up those plugins that emulate that gear and just use that stuff.
Yeah. And that will get me as far into the ballpark 'Cause again, the warm thing that is a moving target as I can get without going and spending thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of dollars to get the exact gear that they used. and it probably means something completely different. different things to different people. Yeah, on different days and what have you. I would agree with that. So that communication is key there, definitely.
You're asking me like you don't already know and when I told you, you were like, what you're And with that, we'll move on to our Friday finds, Chris, what have you got for us this week? (Chris laughs) going with that? But now I'm going to share it with our listeners. Oh. And I did some library stuff this week and I decided to give the Logic Drummer another try. [BLANK_AUDIO] I am an avid tune track user. I love tune track. I love Superior Drummer.
In this case, I just needed something really quick and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna use Logic [LAUGH] and see what I can do with it. And I used the Logic Drummer and I gotta tip my hat to it, man, because what it actually sounded like was I could make it work there. So, yeah, did that really happen? I think my brain just melted and came out my ears. Okay. Did I just say the Logic Drummer?
But I did, yeah, so that's my, it's not necessarily a find, but let's say it's my tip of the hat for this episode. What about you? What do you have? I'm going with something unique here. Wasn't that a comedy on TV and like the 70 sample in Sun? Well, not necessarily unique, but there is a company called Sample Sun. It almost sounds Japanese is the way I just said that, but it's sample sun two words melted into one.
they have Samson and so sample and son. There you go. Yes, a Yeah, sample in Sun. Wow. 70s comedy. They have created a grand piano plugin that is a total of 60 megabytes to its installation. But supposedly, Uh huh. supposedly, this sounds like a piano that has 30 gigabytes worth of samples. Now they say that their technique for how they've done this is meticulously
rebuilding it using math algorithms. They claim that it is highly accurate and that [ Pause ] there is full decay for every single note with up to 90 seconds of decay in the low notes with no looping and no velocity switching. That's impressive to me. They also have asked added the ability to control levels of the release feel of the piano key and mechanical noise. So you can adjust the responses on all of this stuff, just like you would on a high-end piano recreation Wow. from say VSL.
Yeah, it's pretty crazy. So that is gonna be my pick of the week. And right now I believe the offer for it is an introductory price of $60 from the Sampleson website. That is correct. That's the time of this recording, that is. While we've got your attention, we ask that you go to insidetherecordingstudio.com and sign up for our mailing list. You'll get weekly reminders about the Tuesday tips when they come out and we'll make sure you don't miss any future episodes of the podcast.
Send us an email at goldstar@insidetherecordingstudio.com [Silence] with the word warmth and you'll get something cool back in your inbox. If you have a topic or suggestion for Chris and I to explain in a future episode, contact us at the contact page and we'll put it into consideration for a future episode with that. I'll say, see you next week. Thanks for listening everybody. Have a good one Jody.