The official "El Borrachito" Q&A thread

[Mark Wein]

Just to make life easier I am posting this here if you guys have questions for Scott about recording, gear, music or his fine collection of David Hasselhoff memorabilia.

[El Borrachito]

We need a Hof icon!

[Mark Wein]

We need a Hof icon!

How about this one?

[El Borrachito]

WOW!

[Mark Wein]

WOW!

I think that was my avatar on Harmony Central for a while.

[Kerouac]

Hi Scott!

Are you a mod? Because I DID NOT drop a steamer in the pool. Honest.

I see you who have "composer" on your credits... have you done any for TV/film? What software do you use to create it?
__________________

[hobo]

is he still on line

[baimun]

One of the first influences on me as a guitar player was George Lynch.... and his monsterous guitar tone.

Can you give us any insight?

Is he just that fine tuned into every piece of gear he uses... or would he sound that huge playing a banjo through an electric milk crate?

I have gotten to meet him very very breifly at an early backstage to bus signature run, a guitar clinic that he did years ago and recently watched him in a tiny club that maybe held 200 people. He seems very laid back and cool but you never know these days. Any side stories would be interesting as well.

[T-BoneBarnet]

Hello Scott, cool to have you here. "El Borrachito"? I did a beginner's Spanish course aeons ago, IIRC, that's "The little drunkard" or something?

One of the things I've found the most difficult to get right is mixing vocal tracks. I'd just like to know how you go about recording vocals to get them to sit in the mix right. Any info on no. of tracks, panning, EQ/comp/reverb/delay settings etc. etc. Cheers.

[T-BoneBarnet]

One of the first influences on me as a guitar player was George Lynch.... and his monsterous guitar tone.

Can you give us any insight?

Is he just that fine tuned into every piece of gear he uses... or would he sound that huge playing a banjo through an electric milk crate?

I have gotten to meet him very very breifly at an early backstage to bus signature run, a guitar clinic that he did years ago and recently watched him in a tiny club that maybe held 200 people. He seems very laid back and cool but you never know these days. Any side stories would be interesting as well.

This is from Neil Kernon's forum (he did "Under Lock & Key")

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/n...ar-set-up.html

[mosiddiqi]

Hey Scott, good to have you here...I was just curious about your views on using modellers for recording guitar...I know that opinions as ever are mixed on this..and of course the right amp in the right room with the right mic etc, etc...is ideal but...do you/have you used a modeller for any professional recordings?

[El Borrachito]

I see you who have "composer" on your credits... have you done any for TV/film? What software do you use to create it?
__________________

Yes. My current career focus is composing for picture.
I use Pro Tools for everything. Most of my composer clients use PT as well.
Some guys use Logic. I rarely see any of the others.
At the end of the day, the show is assembled and mixed in PT, so going back and forth between PT and Logic can be a hassle.

[El Borrachito]

One of the first influences on me as a guitar player was George Lynch.... and his monsterous guitar tone.

Can you give us any insight?

Is he just that fine tuned into every piece of gear he uses... or would he sound that huge playing a banjo through an electric milk crate?

I have gotten to meet him very very breifly at an early backstage to bus signature run, a guitar clinic that he did years ago and recently watched him in a tiny club that maybe held 200 people. He seems very laid back and cool but you never know these days. Any side stories would be interesting as well.

Sorry, I worked on "Erase The Slate" which was one of the albums without GL. Reb Beach was cool, though and quite a character.

sf

[El Borrachito]

Hello Scott, cool to have you here. "El Borrachito"? I did a beginner's Spanish course aeons ago, IIRC, that's "The little drunkard" or something?

One of the things I've found the most difficult to get right is mixing vocal tracks. I'd just like to know how you go about recording vocals to get them to sit in the mix right. Any info on no. of tracks, panning, EQ/comp/reverb/delay settings etc. etc. Cheers.

Si. ¡Me gusta cerveza!

All about compression!
When I track, I rarely use eq unless I'm using a less than ideal mic.
I compress it some then, and quite a bit more when I mix. I'll add a little more top end then.
Automation is a beautiful thing as well. I'll usually spend a lot of time riding vocals when I mix.
As far as doubling or multitracking goes it depends on the style and the song. If I do double stuff, often I'll do any pitch/time fixing on the first one and the double to that. If you're careful you can get the double down without having to do much editing and "keep it real."

sf

[Zemmy]

hi Scott!! Can ya get me on the list at Skybar?

wait...stay on topic stay on topic...

is there ever anyone you worked with that made ya nervous? like someone so famous you couldnt help but think "lord please dont let me screw up"

[El Borrachito]

Hey Scott, good to have you here...I was just curious about your views on using modellers for recording guitar...I know that opinions as ever are mixed on this..and of course the right amp in the right room with the right mic etc, etc...is ideal but...do you/have you used a modeller for any professional recordings?

I use them all the time for TV stuff. They are very useful when time is tight, and you need to get all sorts of sounds quickly. The recall ability is also very handy.
The trick to getting modeling pulg-ins to sound as good as possible is own them all and use the best of each.

Each plug has a couple of good models and the rest are usually crap.
Sometimes the amps they choose to model suck in the first place.
I use Amp Farm, Waves GTR, Eleven, and Guitar Rig in all sorts of combinations.
Sometimes in parallel like you would gang up two amps, but more often it's something like this:
Waves GTR overdrive pedal - Amp Farm JTM45 - Eleven 4x12 cab - Echo Farm memory man.
Just sort of a random example, but you get the idea.

If it's a record I'll fire up the amps.

sf

[Prages]

All about compression!
When I track, I rarely use eq unless I'm using a less than ideal mic.
I compress it some then, and quite a bit more when I mix. I'll add a little more top end then.
sf

I think I'm developing a bit of a man-crush on you.

Signed,

Resident Compression Junkie.

[Prages]

I have a question.

When you're recording bands, do you usually do a live take for the rhythm section or do you usually do all overdubs?

Most of the recording I do is just me playing everything, but occasionally I'll record a full band, and while capturing the live feel is great, I don't have proper isolation so I get a lot of bleedover. Also, I find that most of the time, the band members can't play the song without the rest of the band playing with them.

[Mark Wein]

Here's one I'm going to ask because I think it would be good for folks to see....

How possible is it to "Sound Proof" a room in a house?

When you hang things like Auralex on the walls in a room what does it really do?

[Prages]

Here's one I'm going to ask because I think it would be good for folks to see....

How possible is it to "Sound Proof" a room in a house?

When you hang things like Auralex on the walls in a room what does it really do?

I can give you a bit of an answer to that.

Auralex won't do a thing to keep sound from escaping the room. What it will do is keep nasty echos and standing waves from happening within the room.

To keep sound from escaping a room, what you really need is isolation. IE, build a room within a room. It's a very expensive undertaking. Basically, you don't want the floor, walls, or ceiling of the interior room to be directly coupled to the outside floor, walls, or ceiling. The cost of doing this is prohibitive to most home recorders, so the best bet is to use lots of insulation and a heavy material like drywall on the walls and ceiling.

Of course, in my home studio, I've got lots of insulation, and drywall, and you can still hear me pretty well from the outside. Good thing my neighbors are A. Not close by, and B. Very understanding.

My closest neighbor is an older dutch lady who says she grew up in an apartment over a bar in Holland, so hearing the noise from my house helps her sleep.

[Kerouac]

I can give you a bit of an answer to that.

Auralex won't do a thing to keep sound from escaping the room. What it will do is keep nasty echos and standing waves from happening within the room.

To keep sound from escaping a room, what you really need is isolation. IE, build a room within a room. It's a very expensive undertaking. Basically, you don't want the floor, walls, or ceiling of the interior room to be directly coupled to the outside floor, walls, or ceiling. The cost of doing this is prohibitive to most home recorders, so the best bet is to use lots of insulation and a heavy material like drywall on the walls and ceiling.

Of course, in my home studio, I've got lots of insulation, and drywall, and you can still hear me pretty well from the outside. Good thing my neighbors are A. Not close by, and B. Very understanding.

My closest neighbor is an older dutch lady who says she grew up in an apartment over a bar in Holland, so hearing the noise from my house helps her sleep.

THIS.

I swear, I get asked how to soundproof a room all the time.

[Kerouac]

Yes. My current career focus is composing for picture.
I use Pro Tools for everything. Most of my composer clients use PT as well.
Some guys use Logic. I rarely see any of the others.
At the end of the day, the show is assembled and mixed in PT, so going back and forth between PT and Logic can be a hassle.

Thanks for the response. Can you give us a little background on how you transitioned into that part of the industry? This is something I've been wanting to do more and more of, but other than doing some shorts for friends and 48 Hour Film Festivals, I'm unsure how to approach it.

[Mark Wein]

THIS.

I swear, I get asked how to soundproof a room all the time.

Thats why I brought it up

[Kerouac]

Thats why I brought it up

Parents of drum students are the most notorious.

[Dew Knot Hump]

Yes. My current career focus is composing for picture.
I use Pro Tools for everything. Most of my composer clients use PT as well.
Some guys use Logic. I rarely see any of the others.
At the end of the day, the show is assembled and mixed in PT, so going back and forth between PT and Logic can be a hassle.

I have a question for you. I recently upgraded to PT 8 LE after spending about 8 years using Pro Tools Free. In PT Free when I bounced to disc and burned the bounce to CD it would play in all of my CD players. In PT 8 when I bounce to WAV or AIF they don't play on CD players.

What is the best format sound wise to bounce and then burn to disc?

[Mark Wein]

Parents of drum students are the most notorious.

That usually happens after you've resolved the "Does he actually need a drum kit to take lessons?" question.

[Dew Knot Hump]

I have a question.

When you're recording bands, do you usually do a live take for the rhythm section or do you usually do all overdubs?

Most of the recording I do is just me playing everything, but occasionally I'll record a full band, and while capturing the live feel is great, I don't have proper isolation so I get a lot of bleedover. Also, I find that most of the time, the band members can't play the song without the rest of the band playing with them.

I'll tell you the way I do it, not sure if it's the best way but we cut drums first and play the bass and guitars run through modellers live along with the drums with everybody wearing headphones. This gives the drummer a feel for playing the song live and then we recut everything to the drum track using the mic'd amps or plug-ins.

[Kerouac]

That usually happens after you've resolved the "Does he actually need a drum kit to take lessons?" question.

[Mark Wein]

I have a question for you. I recently upgraded to PT 8 LE after spending about 8 years using Pro Tools Free. In PT Free when I bounced to disc and burned the bounce to CD it would play in all of my CD players. In PT 8 when I bounce to WAV or AIF they don't play on CD players.

What is the best format sound wise to bounce and then burn to disc?

Are you bouncing at 16 or 24 bits? For it to work on a CD I think it will eed to be bounced at 16 bits even though you recorded it at 24...

[T-BoneBarnet]

Scott, thanks for your response.

[Dew Knot Hump]

Are you bouncing at 16 or 24 bits? For it to work on a CD I think it will eed to be bounced at 16 bits even though you recorded it at 24...

Good suggestion, I've been recording and bouncing at 24 bits, I'll try to bounce to 16 bit and see if that works!

[El Borrachito]

Thanks for the response. Can you give us a little background on how you transitioned into that part of the industry? This is something I've been wanting to do more and more of, but other than doing some shorts for friends and 48 Hour Film Festivals, I'm unsure how to approach it.

I'll do an in-depth post on this in the near future.

sf

[Kerouac]

I'll do an in-depth post on this in the near future.

sf

That would be awesome. Thanks.

[Mark Wein]

Good suggestion, I've been recording and bouncing at 24 bits, I'll try to bounce to 16 bit and see if that works!

[El Borrachito]

Are you bouncing at 16 or 24 bits? For it to work on a CD I think it will eed to be bounced at 16 bits even though you recorded it at 24...

Any project you do, ALWAYS work 24 bit, especially if you are mixing in the box.
16 bit sounds inferior to 24 bit in general, but those extra bits become really important to the number crunching going on in the computer when summing tracks, processing plug-ins, etc.
There is no reason to not work at the highest bit depth and sample rate available. If I'm recording any sort of record project I am going 24bit/96k unless there is some technical reason prohibiting it.
Hard drives are cheap! Treat them as reels of tape. Any project I do, I buy drives specifically for that project, and that project only.
Anyone who degrades the quality of a project to save drive space is nuts! 1TB costs less than a reel of 2" tape used to, let alone now.
Keep the quality as high as you can for as long as you can.

If you're doing bounces to burn a CD, then they need to be 16bit 44.1 stereo aiffs. Usually I'll bounce a mix at the rate of the project, tell PT to automatically import the file and then export it as CD audio or an mp3 or whatever I need. This way I have an archive of mixes at the highest quality available within the session. Very handy if someone wants an mp3 of a rough mix from a month ago. One click and it's made!

sf

[Prages]

I'll tell you the way I do it, not sure if it's the best way but we cut drums first and play the bass and guitars run through modellers live along with the drums with everybody wearing headphones. This gives the drummer a feel for playing the song live and then we recut everything to the drum track using the mic'd amps or plug-ins.

When I'm doing everything myself, I'll cut a scratch guitar track to a click, and maybe a scratch vocal track too.

Then I'll do the drums along to the click and the scratch guitar part. Then the bass with the scratch guitar track just loud enough to be heard. Then I'll cut the keeper rhythm guitar tracks, then vocals, then lead guitar.

But like I said, I mostly just do everything myself. The few times I've recorded full bands, I've either gone with the whole rhythm section live and bleedover be damned, or I've done the direct bass, modelled guitar thing to a live drum track.

[El Borrachito]

hi Scott!! Can ya get me on the list at Skybar?

wait...stay on topic stay on topic...

is there ever anyone you worked with that made ya nervous? like someone so famous you couldnt help but think "lord please dont let me screw up"

Projecting confidence is very important.
Knowing what you are doing helps a great deal toward that end.
The first couple days with high profile clients (ie. Mr. Rock Star) can be a little tense until you get a sense of how they are. At that point the tension turns to relief if they are cool or dread. As in: "Six more weeks with these assholes?"

sf

[Dew Knot Hump]

Projecting confidence is very important.
Knowing what you are doing helps a great deal toward that end.
The first couple days with high profile clients (ie. Mr. Rock Star) can be a little tense until you get a sense of how they are. At that point the tension turns to relief if they are cool or dread. As in: "Six more weeks with these assholes?"

sf

This is great advice because no matter what business you are in if somebody hires you to do a job they will feel comfortable if they know you are good at what you do.

[El Borrachito]

I have a question.

When you're recording bands, do you usually do a live take for the rhythm section or do you usually do all overdubs?

Most of the recording I do is just me playing everything, but occasionally I'll record a full band, and while capturing the live feel is great, I don't have proper isolation so I get a lot of bleedover. Also, I find that most of the time, the band members can't play the song without the rest of the band playing with them.

A really good band playing together in a room is a beautiful thing. Bleed or no bleed. Too bad it almost never happens. If you don't have iso space then di the bass and gtrs. This is one thing having a Pod or amp farm is very handy for. Get the bass and drums happening, (you can always reamp the bass) and just treat the gtrs as scratch.

sf

[Prages]

^^^Thanks. That's kind of how I tend to approach it, but was wondering if it was different in the real world.

[mosiddiqi]

I use them all the time for TV stuff. They are very useful when time is tight, and you need to get all sorts of sounds quickly. The recall ability is also very handy.
The trick to getting modeling pulg-ins to sound as good as possible is own them all and use the best of each.

Each plug has a couple of good models and the rest are usually crap.
Sometimes the amps they choose to model suck in the first place.
I use Amp Farm, Waves GTR, Eleven, and Guitar Rig in all sorts of combinations.
Sometimes in parallel like you would gang up two amps, but more often it's something like this:
Waves GTR overdrive pedal - Amp Farm JTM45 - Eleven 4x12 cab - Echo Farm memory man.
Just sort of a random example, but you get the idea.

If it's a record I'll fire up the amps.

sf

Thanks!..I've been blown away by some of the Amp Farm stuff.

[El Borrachito]

Can you give us a little background on how you transitioned into that part of the industry? This is something I've been wanting to do more and more of, but other than doing some shorts for friends and 48 Hour Film Festivals, I'm unsure how to approach it.

Is spent most of high school playing guitar, making four track recordings, and running sound for my friends. By the time I started college I had an associates degree in hearing damage.

I studied guitar in college while simultaneously playing gigs and doing all of the composing and recording I could. I got more than one lecture about how my outside activities interfered with my schooling. "Oh, you mean my career? Sorry about that." I learned a lot in college. About music, certainly, but also about managing big egos, navigating bureaucracy, and enduring people who will treat anyone they can like a peon. It was much better training for the real music business than I realized.

My last year of college I got my first full time, entry level job working as a cartage guy. This job entailed schlepping instruments and audio rentals in and out of every studio in town. I enjoyed this most of the time. It gave me a great fly-on-the-wall view of the music business and I met many talented people. To this day I'm regularly working with people I met during this time. After about a year, one of the clients- a TV composer- was getting busy and asked me if I knew someone who was interested in being his assistant. The following week I was working for him. This job entailed mostly turning written scores into midi sequences and keeping the substantial amount of equipment running smoothly. We used Performer running on a Mac Iic and two racks full of synths and Roland S-760s. After the sequences were prepared, all this gear was moved to the studio- by someone else now -where the musicians would play along with the sequenced material and it would all be recorded live. Ahh, the good old days… This was my introduction to the discipline of composing to picture. I thought I had a great break, but it was short-lived. Both shows we had were cancelled abruptly within days of each other. I didn’t know it then, but I wouldn’t work on a TV show again for over four years.

Another friend I had met as a cartage guy was managing a recording studio. He hired me as an assistant engineer. Though I had been recording myself and doing sessions for others at hole-in-the wall studios for years, my formal training was minimal. Since I was used to being the engineer, it wasn’t very exciting. It was, however, an education in how real records with real budgets were made. This friend went on to open his own studio. My loyalty was rewarded when he hired me as staff engineer. Though the title was more prestigious, I was in reality the sole employee. I was responsible for duties from cleaning, to phantom producing major label artists for never-there producers. Generally I was the assistant engineer on big projects or the engineer on smaller ones.

Around this time Pro Tools was becoming an integral part of the recording process. (This was 1999-2001.) I was already familiar with digital editing, but far from an expert. It was pretty obvious that this was the way things were going, so I bought an 001 and learned how to use it. At the time, tape was still the principal medium. Pro Tools was still a fairly expensive rental item. I managed to scrounge up enough money to buy a rentable 24-channel Pro Tools system. At the time, there was almost always a system rented in on any session we had. That system was now my system. It paid for itself in a few months. Often my system was making more on a session than I was! This changed my life. For the first time I had excess income- and the security that comes with it. I also developed a very useful set of skills. Skills that now define modern recording. Since then, I have also had the capacity to create music anywhere, any time that owning a Pro Tools system allows.
By 2001 two important things happened. First, Pro Tools became the principal recording medium. This meant most studios now included it as part of the room. The ability to rent my system for extended periods on record projects dwindled. Secondly, the record business went in the toilet. This meant fewer albums made for smaller budgets. Tape became a luxury. Having artists in the room working stuff out became too time consuming (ie. expensive). The approach shifted to getting the band in and out of the room as quickly as possible, leaving most of the work to the nerds twiddling away on computers. Working like this was more like being an accountant than a recording engineer.

The next thing that happened to me was the single luckiest break I have ever had. My buddy, the TV composer from paragraph three, called me out of the blue and asked me if I was busy. I said, “Not really.” (This is what you always say until you know what the gig is.) He said he had just been hired on a show called Malcolm In The Middle. I hadn’t seen it, but it was a big hit already. The pay was about what I was making already, but the promise of leaving behind 80-hour workweeks in an industry with an uncertain future was appealing.

I started on Malcolm on September 10th, 2001. On Tuesday I stayed home.

My five years at Malcolm was the equivalent of a master’s degree in scoring for single-camera comedy. At some point I used every skill I had, played every instrument I knew how to play, sang, whistled, acted (badly), and created all kinds of wacky stuff I would have never even dreamed of: An organ made of household items, an opera written by a 10-year-old (played by a real orchestra), Ode to Joy played on pots and pans, a Jimi Hendrix style version of “Oh Canada”, a techo version of “Sometimes When We Touch”, and countless other things like that. It was fun to go to work every day. We knew we were making classic TV. Everyone was motivated to make it as good as it could be.

One of my main duties on Malcolm was to handle the music editing. I hadn’t done much of this before, but my pre-existing Pro Tools skills made easy for me to focus on learning the cinematic and people-management aspects of the job. By the time Malcolm was done I knew what I needed to be a competent music editor. The less demanding schedule and summers off also made it possible to see my wife and do other gigs as well.

Since then, I have worked mostly as a music editor and composer assistant on a number of shows. The trick now is to branch out into other TV genres. It’s not always easy, since people are reluctant to hire someone who isn’t experienced in a particular genre. My persistence has gradually been rewarded over the last couple years. Now I am just as comfortable on a one-hour drama or cartoon. Comedy is still my favorite, though. Other genres have a style that changes very little from week to week. With comedy, you never know what they will ask for. It’s often a lot of work, but it beats flipping burgers.

[T-BoneBarnet]

I was responsible for duties from cleaning, to phantom producing major label artists for never-there producers.

I sometimes wonder how common this is. Just as an example, Brendan O'Brien's records all share a similar sound, which suggests he's there from start to finish. Same with Rick Rubin's earlier records, but then somewhere in the late 90's/early 2000's his records started sounding very "un-Rick-Rubinesque".

[Mark Wein]

By the time I started college I had an associates degree in hearing damage.

I've probably contributed greatly to that.

[Mark Wein]

Quick question from me - what do you suggest hard drive wise for recording?

[Prages]

Quick question from me - what do you suggest hard drive wise for recording?

Big. Fast.

The more of those, the better.

At least that's my take on it.

[Mark Wein]

Big. Fast.

The more of those, the better.

At least that's my take on it.

I guess USB vs. Firewire...on my desktop I have a Firewire drive but I haven't gotten one for the big studio yet so I'm using a USB drive in the mean time...

[El Borrachito]

Quick question from me - what do you suggest hard drive wise for recording?

Get a couple good-sized firewire drives. One for projects and the other as an offline backup. With time machine, this is pretty easy to do now.

[El Borrachito]

I sometimes wonder how common this is. Just as an example, Brendan O'Brien's records all share a similar sound, which suggests he's there from start to finish. Same with Rick Rubin's earlier records, but then somewhere in the late 90's/early 2000's his records started sounding very "un-Rick-Rubinesque".

Rick is much more of an executive-style producer.
In other words, not around much.

[El Borrachito]

Get a couple good-sized firewire drives. One for projects and the other as an offline backup. With time machine, this is pretty easy to do now.

Oh yeah, make sure they're 7200 rpm.