Mark Schenker

I promised to get this one up a little sooner but things have been progressing so quickly that it just didn’t happen until now. I’m currently in Myrtle Beach and editing what I wrote a few months ago as I sweat my ass off in 115 degree heat – it IS July in the South after all! Luckily my studio is 350 miles away or I’d be in there working on stuff rather than editing this!
Boy what can I say about Steve that has not already been said? I’m not sure where to start but here goes. I thought we might get three songs done but we got all six of them done! Steve is a fucking professional animal. I know I said this on the last album sessions, but he’s always prepared, and it seems like he doesn’t even have to try hard.

Most of the time, Steve will double his lead track with another track sung the same but slightly laid back. That of course will be mixed alot lower than the first. We did this on “Skin” and Steve says he has always doubled his vocal tracks since Midnite Dynamite. Before that he would only double some tracks. I think we decided to start with an easy song so he doesn’t have to push so hard right out of the chute so we chose “Fool’s Confession” to start with. It had been so long since we recorded vocals together, just he and I, that I had forgotten how truly great he is. When you’re in a studio recording a project, the microscopic environment and the scrutiny of the details will bring to light all of your weaknesses. It will also highlight all the things you are really good at. And Steve is phenomenal in the studio!

We tracked all the songs, saving one of the screamers for last. As we did the doubled tracks we sometimes had to go back and redo some of the trailing vocal lines to match the first one, but 99% of the time, Steve remembered exactly how he had just sang the first track and matched it almost precisely almost every time.

Steve then told me a story (from the room we are using as a “vocal booth”) about a conversation he had about double tracking vocals with famed producer Tom Werman, who produced “Blow My Fuse” as well as a Crue album or two as well as producing the likes of Dokken, Cheap Trick, Nugent, Poison, Twisted Sister, and L.A. Guns just for starters. Werman told Steve that the only people he had ever worked with that could properly double track vocals were Steve and Robin Zander. Steve says he thanked him but reminded him he had worked with the likes of Bret Michaels and Vince Neil and that he wasn’t sure if Werman was really complimenting him at all really! Robin Zander is damn good company to be mentioned in the same sentence with for sure.
Now for the technical part. I had used an Audio Technica for lead vox on the last record. As you already know I have upgraded some of my studio equipment and one of my better investments so far has been a Neumann TLM103 large diaphragm condenser mic that I have so far been using for a room mic on drums and guitars. The only time I used it on vocals previously was when Rob and I were recording some demos for songs we wrote and a couple of scratch vocal tracks Rob did here and there. It’s a great great mic with a capsule derived from the ultra high-end U87 and a nice response curve that is dead flat until it starts to rise at about 4k and drops off around 18k with what looks like about a 3-4dB boost in that range. Perfect for a rock vocal mic.

I also used the old standby Presonus mic-pre and a Distressor for light compression on the way in, 3:1 with about 2-3dB of gain reduction. I also used the HP response curve button on the Distressor which does something really cool. I’m not sure how many other compressors do this but the Distressor does it quite well. Enabling the HP circuitry does this – paraphrased from the manual: p’s” and “b’s” can hit the mic with an air blast that shows up as a high amplitude, low frequency signal, causing the compressor to “kick in”. The result may be a brief, unnatural drop in the apparent vocal level. This high-pass, or low cut, will not allow low, low frequencies to trigger compression, and in this case, prevent the unnatural drop in vocal level from a “p” or “b” blasting the mic with wind, while still letting the low frequencies to go through to tape. (or disc in this case)

Now just to reiterate, none of this stuff I write about, with recording vocals, drums or whatever, are not things I thought of, they’re not new nor are they innovative even though sometimes it might come across as though I’m having many eureka moments every time I touch a piece of gear. All these techniques are things any decent engineer would know, I’m just trying to give the reader a little insight into what goes on in the recording process and in my mind. So if you’re thinking, “wow he combined two bass signals to get his tone, or he pushed the HP button on the compressor – absolutely fucking brilliant!” I’m just another recycling donkey, just using shit me and every other professional and home recordist engineer knows as best I can to get the job done.

As I was saying, the Neumann is a great mic and since hearing how Rob’s voice sounded with it, I was pretty excited to get Steve’s voice with it. Steve told me the other day that he thinks that mic is the best sounding mic he’s ever sang into. Well that may be, but I have an EQ setting I use on his voice and that coupled with the musical sound of the Distressor compression, might just have a little more to do with it. Although I’m sure using a Neumann on vocals is a good idea. Probably 90% of every record you’ve ever heard has been sung through a Neumann U87. The problem I had with the U87 is that it costs $3000! Not exactly ny idea of a bargain and since the TLM103 is made from the U87 capsule, and this album not being a major label release, well I think the TLM103 is more than enough!

Steve told me the other day he has a few words he wants to change here and there and wanted to know if it would be a big deal to just punch him in for a word here and there – no problem we’ll do that next time he comes over.

Backup vocals are done and if it’s like a blast furnace here in Myrtle like it was today, I’ll have plenty of time between relaxing and sleeping to edit and post my notes.

Mark

I initially planned to use my red Warwick Streamer LX for most of this record but despite my best efforts, I think I’ll be using my ‘74 Rickenbacker 4001 for some tracks. It sounds great but I’ve always had to work a little to get some decent low end out of it. That’s always been the complain with Ricky’s from most people. The Warwick’s are just the opposite, I can let me amp give me the highs and the bass naturally has a nice tight low end growl that I like live.

While doing demos and writing songs at Rob’s and Steve’s I always seemed to bring my Ricky along for the ride and used it on most of the demos we did. I got used to the sound but I decided it was too thin and because of that I was going to use my red Streamer. In the mean time I had taken the bridge pickup out of it and sent it to Lindy Fralin Pickups in Richmond to get re-wound hotter which would give it more low end and re-magnetized. Yes thirty year old pickups will lose a bit of their magnetism, who knew such a thing? Anyhow it was really cheap and I had my pickup back in about two weeks. I installed it and it made a really big difference. It sounded much fuller without losing that Rick top end that I love. I was still resolved to use my nice Warwick though. So much so, I took both of my old Rick’s, but them in their cases and into the back of a closet in another room. Just so I wouldn’t be tempted to grab one in a moment of frustration.

However! I tried and tried using the Streamer. It’s what I play the most, it’s what I play live and my live rig is tailored to bring out the best in those basses, and the way the necks are on all my Streamers has a big influence on the way I play – hard to explain, it’s just REAL comfortable. While it sounded good and I love to play it, I just could not get it to sound right so that it would sit in the mix the way I wanted to. I could EQ it to death and get it close but I know from experience that drastic EQ usually is the road to ruin. Get it right at the amp, then capture it. I like to wait until I at least have some guitar scratch tracks down before working on bass tracks. Two reasons, one for the mix to make sure my sound is working, the second is so I can work around the guitars to establish bass melody. I need to know where I need to hold down the root and where I can go out on a limb and trying to use my imagination for the guitars and chord progressions just doesn’t work for me.

I duplicated my live rig in the studio, luckily I have a spare Trace Elliot AH1000-12 for this, and no matter what I did, it sounded great but not what I wanted. I ran through the usual bass recording scenarios, miking my cab and running direct through the Avalon, different mics, I tried both the Palmer and Marshall speaker simulators and various combinations of everything. Everything was an “almost” but nothing hit me right. Finally I decided to start working my way through my bass collection. I tried my Fender Jazz, my Fender Power Jazz, all my Warwick’s including the Buzzard, I even pulled out my two ancient neck-through Spector’s (those both sounded pretty good I might tune the action up a bit and use them on something) and still, great stuff but to THE one. I went so far as to put passive Duncan pickups in one of my less loved Streamers just to see if that made a difference. (All my Streamers have EMG active pickups in them)

So while I’m doing all this I had been looking around learning as much as I can about Hiwatt amps and I sent an email to a guy who runs a Hiwatt web site and asked him a bunch of questions about the Hiwatt amp I have. He wrote me back and had looked at our web site, turns out he’s from eastern PA and had played The Old Mill and The Mountain View in Hagerstown back the day. He asked why I was giving up my Trace Elliot heads. He assumed since I’m the bass player, I was going to use my Hiwatt live for bass. I hadn’t thought of using the Hiwatt for bass! Can you guess where I’m going with this? In the Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii DVD, Waters was using Hiwatt’s for his bass amps. Not a bad idea. Why not give it a shot?

I tried it out through my Trace Elliot 4×10 cab and it did sound pretty good with just a mic on it, both a D-112 and a SM57 sounded great. It was missing that some of that tight low end I get from the Trace amps though. So I was struck with another idea? Why not combine the two somehow? My Trace amps have two effects sends, on full-range and the other high-pass. I decided to send my highs to the Hiwatt and send that signal through the Palmer speaker simulator and mic the Trace cab from the Trace amp. I do a similar thing live but I use a Tech21 RBL for the highs instead. That way I can get a little distortion on my top end and my lows stay tight and focused. I turned the Hiwatt up until I just started to get the same smooth distortion on the highs I get from the RBL. I also ran my signal direct from the bass into the Avalon U5. Believe it or not it was pretty damn good but . . . just to make sure, I HAD to go get one of the Ricky’s out of the closet! I plugged in the Ricky and hallelujah! THAT is what I had in mind. I did have to boost some lows just a bit though, nothing drastic. I actually used a lot less of the miked cab than I thought I would, so it’s a mix of the three, Hiwatt on the highs through the speaker simulator, direct in through the Avalon and a little bit of the D-112 on my cab from my Trace Elliot head.

During all this I had three big problems that were solved by three nifty little pieces of equipment. The first problem was, for some reason, since I was feeding the Hiwatt from the high-pass effects send of the Trace head, I was getting an ungodly hum on the Hiwatt through the speaker simulator. I just happened to have a single EB Tech Hum-X hum eliminator plug. (pic up on the left) As you may know we have a Morley endorsement and Morley is a subsidiary of EB Tech so we get a few goodies from them as well. I powered down the Hiwatt, plugged it into the Hum-X and I could not hear even a small amount of hiss or any noise whatsoever from the Hiwatt. I figure it must have something to do with it just being an old amp and the Trace being newer. Sometimes you connect a bunch of electrical devices together and you get hum, it’s a fact of life. They were both made in England so it couldn’t be a wierd internal power handling mismatch issue. That was one problem solved my a cool gadget.

My second problem was I couldn’t tap a signal from anywhere to get me a non-amp affected signal for the direct signal into the Avalon. I have a splitter but it wasn’t working right. Morley to the rescue again. I have a little gadget called a George Lynch Tripler (the orange box in the picture strip to the left) that has one input and three outputs including a gain knob incase splitting the signal reduces the level too much for you. Splitting something once usually has minimal effect on level but splitting it three ways can drop the level noticeably, so Morley built a little active gain circuit into this thing. (I didn’t have to use it but it is there if I need it) I was really happy to have this neat little device!

The third problem I had was that since my Streamers are active EMG pickups, the output is so high that the signal coming out of the Avalon was always greater than +2dbu as shown by the steady (irritating) blue signal light on the front. Not a bad thing but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting some kind of terrible harmonic distortion that I would hear later which would wrench my guts out. There is nothing worse than doing a ton of work and realizing much later that you made a mistake on a technical issue like this. I hate to sound like a damn Morley commercial but they have some really useful devices to solve real problems. I used an EB Tech box called a Line Level Shifter. (middle box next to the orange Tripler in the pic) It converts -10dbV to +4dbu and vice versa just by plugging in. It’s auto sensing so you just have to run the signal through the right jacks which are clearly labeled depending on which way you want to go, up or down in level. So I was able to go from the bass to the Tripler, to the Trace (effects send to the Hiwatt) and to the Line Level Shifter to the Avalon all at the same time without losing any levels anywhere in the signal chain – and with no hum whatsoever. I am also using the Behringer EQ’s on my bass tracks in line. They are very transparent, a little difficult to use and the manuals really blow but I got them figured out after a while. I use them before the compressors so the frequencies I’m reducing won’t have an influence on the way the compressor works. I want the compressor to react to the EQ’d sound, not the raw amp/direct signal.

Earlier I mentioned how much I like playing the Streamers but I think the Ricky is going to work for what I need to do. What I’ve been doing before I lay down a track is get my parts together using one of my Streamers, jamming with the song for a while to see if any new melodies hit me or if I’m inspired I reach out and grab some cool bass riff while I’m playing, then I’ll switch basses and play once or twice on the Rick, then I’ll record.

Since I’m doing bass parts by myself, I have to punch myself in and out a lot to make sure I don’t suck and whatnot. The VS-2480 has a really neat auto punch in/out function that I use for myself when I record alone. All DAW’s have them nowadays so it’s nothing unusual. I have a remote pedal to use for punching in but sometimes you can hear the punch-in point even if you hit it spot on with the pedal. So what I do is use the internal auto-punch feature, line up the punch-in spot a couple of frames before one of Jimmy’s kick drums, usually on the “one” of the measure I want to punch-in to, hit record/play and start playingand when the auto punch-in point comes along, the machine punches me in flawlessly every time. It makes me sound like I can actually play my instrument and that I actually know these songs.

Here’s the signal path for the tech heads:

• Bass -> Petersen Strobostomp tuner -> Morley George Lynch Tripler (3 outputs) ->
  Channel 1 to Trace Elliot AH-1000 amp -> Speaker out to cab -> AKG D-112 mic -> Presonus MP-20 Mic pre -> Behringer DEQ2496 Ultra-Curve Pro eq dual mono mode -> Empirical Labs Distressor, 6:1, Distortion 3 mode, Attack on 2.5 Release on 2, 5-8 db of gain reduction -> VS-2480
• The high-pass effects send of the Trace Elliot -> Hiwatt bright channel, bass knob on 0 -> Palmer PDI-03 Speaker Simulator -> Presonus MP-20 Mic pre -> Behringer DEQ2496 Ultra-Curve Pro eq -> Empirical Labs Distressor, 10:1 opto mode, Attack on 3, Release on 5, gain reduction of 8-10db. (I’m slamming it a little, it sound much smoother crushing just the high end) -> VS-2480
• Channel 2 to Avalon U5 Direct box -> Presonus MP-20 Mic pre -> Behringer DEQ2496 Ultra-Curve Pro eq -> Empirical Labs Distressor, 6:1, Distortion 3 mode, Attack on 2.5 Release on 2, 5-8 db of gain reduction -> VS-2480

I then mix the highs in with the miked signal down to one track and keep the Avalon track separate, I’ll combine them later when I get closer to a done mix.

We’ve actually done lead vocals and backup vocals on all these six songs, I’ll post my notes later this week I hope. I did some very different things this time with my recording methods for the backup vocals so stay tuned I’ve got some great stuff to share.

Mark

Right, so despite all of our experiments and what I wrote in the last installment, we’ve changed a few things for recording guitar.

I decided that even though the guitar sounds we were getting were really great, I just wasn’t nailing it. It was dam close to what I heard in my head but not quite there. I tried some different mic combinations and the one I liked the best for Rob’s guitar, after all the experimentation was the SM57 in close with the Neumann TLM103 about 15 feet away at ear level. I’ll probably use a different mic in close for Dean just to make sure the two guitars are colored by different microphones in close.

Most of you know by now I’m a shameless gear head and will buy and try anything that piques my interest in my eternal quest for the ultimate sounds for bass, drums and guitar. (Hi, my name is Mark, I’m an equipment junkie. It has been 18 days since my last gear purchase . . . ) Through some selling and buying on eBay I managed to acquire two unbelievable pieces of gear. I found a ‘76 Hiwatt 100 watt DR103 amp wired by Harry Joyce himself. I was inspired by a number of things to find one. I saw a Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii DVD, which was filmed in ‘75 or something, and they had stacks and stacks of Hiwatt’s. Even the keyboard player had them piled up for his stuff. Gilmour’s guitar sounded incredible. Clean yes, but just amazing tone and sustain. I’m a fan but truthfully I bought the DVD because I had read that there are some studio shots of them recording “Dark Side of the Moon” and I wanted to eyeball the now vintage gear they used. Supposedly they had spent $500,000 building a brand new up to the minute recording studio to record that album. A ridiculous sum back then. I had also been listening to the new Green Day album and read where they used a Hiwatt mixed in with a Marshall for some of the guitar sounds. Even though that guitar sound is way over the top for me, I liked alot of elements of it and I was sure I could hear some of that Hiwatt sound in there. The thing that made me absolutely have to get one for us to use on this new album was listening to an album I had bought more than a year ago but never listened to once until I recently loaded it into my iPod. The Who re-released “Live at Leeds” in it’s entirety as the “Deluxe Edition.” They remixed AND re-mastered it as well – like The Who need to be louder right? The original “Live at Leeds” had just six songs on it, this Deluxe Edition has thirty-three and includes the entire performance of “Tommy” from that night at Leeds University in 1970. Anyhow, the guitar sound on that record is mind boggling and that’s what made me seek out an original Hiwatt.

The second thing I managed to acquire through unloading a few more pieces of scorned gear is a Marshall model 1959 100 watt Super Lead Plexi re-issue. Another fine example of classic rock guitar tone dreamland. Now some of you may turn your nose up at the re-issue and for the purists, understandably so. Some say they don’t sound much like the originals. Of course they don’t but they don’t cost as much either. HOWEVER, I found there are some things you can do to get these re-issues to sound indistinguishable from the originals. First and foremost, the output transformer should be replaced with what is known as a “Tone Clone” made specifically for these amps. These are EXACT replicas of the original transformers made for Plexi’s in 1968-69. In any tube amp, this is the most important part of the amp and has the greatest influence on your sound. It’s that last component that your guitar goes through before it leaves the amp and heads to the speakers. A cheap output transformer will make a great guitar and guitar player sound horrible. The second thing is to replace the printed circuit board and it’s components with a hand wired point-to-point board. I won’t bore you with the details as it was alot of fun to do, (see pic to the right) but the end result is an amazing “historically accurate” sounding Marshall Plexi. It sounds good even through a shitty 1×12 cabinet! This amp sounded really great before I modded it, Rob and I did a few scratch tracks with it to see how it would work in the mix and it was great even before I updated it with all the replica innards. One of the things that forced me to retrograde these components was that while changing the tubes, I noticed that one of the wires on the output transformer was worn through and could ground out on the chassis at any time. It had been replaced with a non-Marshall stock transformer and to repair it . . . well, it was just as easy to replace it. And since I had to take the board out to do that, for $80 more I could have a complete point-to-point board. So I went for it headlong. Now it’s as if Angus himself played on our album! Rob liked it so much that decided to unload his ‘82 Marshall JCM800 that he bought brand new in 1982 (now considered “vintage” – imagine that!) and get himself an all original ‘74 Marshall 100 watt Super Lead. He’s using it live and absolutely loves it. Dean is actually getting close to getting a Super Lead as well – that’s how great these things sound! It inspires people to go spend $1200 on a vintage amp just to have great guitar tone! You say you never heard one before? Yes you have! Listen to AC/DC Highway to Hell, listen to any Zeppelin song, Van Halen I & II, just about any great rock guitar sound was recorded with a Super Lead. It’s just hard to go wrong! Leave the master volume amps for the Fizz Donkeys of the world!

So back to what we recorded. Rob used the Marshall Plexi with my old Les Paul on a few songs that are flat out rockers for his sounds and we recorded scratch tracks of Dean’s parts using the Hiwatt to see how they would sound together. They mix together really well and sound fucking fantastic. For the Marshall I mostly used the SM57 mic in close on an old Marshall cab with the Neumann room mic, and for the Hiwatt I used the Trace Elliot guitar cab with an RE-20 close with the Neumann room mic and mixed to taste. For the Marshall I also mixed in a very small amount of the Palmer PDI-03 speaker simulator and used a Marshall SE-100 speaker simulator on the Hiwatt. The speaker simulators have a very distinct sound to them and I am using a different one for each guitar player so the nuances of the respective guitar sounds will stay unique and not be colored by a piece of gear that was used on the opposite guitar. The speaker simulator adds a bit of “in your face” sound that the various microphones don’t offer. It’s a nice touch and helps to keep the guitar sound from getting too dark without adding fizzy brightness to the top end.

Here is a list of the six songs we did guitars for and we did slightly different things depending on what the song called for. We have so many songs that there’s no way all of them will end up on the CD but here ya go anyhow! We just did scratches for Dean’s side but we’ll use the same setup for Dean when he comes in to do his tracks.

1. Hot on Your Heels – a mid tempo rock song with a very catchy melody. Starts with a guitar riff and we used the Marshall Plexi with the Marshal cab and my old Les Paul on Rob’s side and a ‘72 Telecaster Deluxe with the Hiwatt through Dean’s 4×12 Mesa-Boogie cab on the other.

2. Fool’s Confession – Not a slow song but close. We used a stock Stratocaster through the Hiwatt with the Trace cab for Rob’s side and the Tele through the Marshall Plexi with the Boogie cab on Dean’s scratch track. We also used an acoustic for one track that Rob played. I miked it with the Neumann at about the 12th fret and sent the direct signal through the Avalon U5 direct box. It takes some of that nasty “electric Ovation” sound away that I absolutely loathe. I mixed the mic way louder than the direct signal to give it as much openness as I could.

3. Don’t Know About Women – This is a hard heavy one so for this song on the Marshall we dimed every knob on the front and let her rip! It’s really overdriven and sounds great! Rob used the Les Paul on both his side with the Marshall Plexi/Marshall cab and also through the Hiwatt/Trace on Dean’s scratch track.

4. Big Bang Boom – Starts with a real wide sounding picking chord pattern guitar. Rob used the Tele through the Marshall Plexi/Trace cab for his sound and we used the Les Paul with the Hiwatt/Boogie cab for the other. The Trace cab is much tighter than the Marshall cab and depending on what the song calls for I’ll switch up the amp/cab combination for what I think would work in the mix for the particular song.

5. No Regrets – Nice simple song with not even a guitar solo. Starts with a guitar riff. Stratocaster through the Marshall Plexi/Marshall for this one on Rob’s side. Les Paul through the Hiwatt/Trace on the other.

6. A Thousand Thank You’s – Or for those of you from Pennsylvania, it’s “A Thousand Thank Yooze.” Just acoustic guitar, so far, I think we’ll do one electric track but it won’t be very loud in the mix. We did this one the same way as the other acoustic track. We had to do it the same as we had to return the very expensive Ovation to it’s owner as it was a loaned to me just to do these two songs.

On the Plexi we jumped the channels as is standard to do with these things. The settings on the amp are, leave Presence on 0, the bass on about 2 (except the one song where we dimed everything!), Mids on about 8, Treble on 8, Normal channel on 6, Treble channel on 7.

The Hiwatt stays fairly clean unless you really push the output section of the amp. Hiwatts have a reputation for being the loudest amps ever made. No wonder Townshend lost his hearing a bit. Luckily the cabs are fairly isolated from where we sit and record, because I have to run the volume on about 8 to get the really cranked sound I want. On 8, you cannot stand in the same room as the amp, it rips your head right off! Even thirty feet away is painful. The Normal and Bright channel are jumped like the Plexi with each channel on about 7 and the presence, mid and tone on 6 and the bass on 5. It’s really quite difficult to make a Hiwatt sound thin or like shit. Just crank up the mains and start playing “Won’t Get Fooled Again” or “Who Are You” it sounds “just like the record!”

Here’s the signal path for the tech heads:

Guitar -> Amp -> Speaker out to Palmer PDI-03 -> Speaker through to cabinet -> SM57 (or RE-20) close mic, Neumann TLM103 room mic -> both mics to separate Presonus MP-20 Mic pre’s -> Behringer Ultra-Curve Pro eq dual mono mode -> 2 Empirical Labs Distressors, 10:1 Opto mode Attack on 3 Release on 5 -> two inputs mixed to one track on VS-2480.

Palmer PDI-03 XLR out -> Presonus MP-20 mic pre -> Behringer Ultra-Curve Pro -> Drawmer compressor, 4:1 attack on 15 ms release on 500 ms -> one track on the VS-2480.
Since I know how I want these to sound and have gotten quite in touch with how everything is being mixed down, I’ve been mixing the mics down to one track on the fly and using the other track for the speaker simulator. I’ve spent a lot of time on guitar sounds I know, but we don’t care – if it ain’t worth doing right, then why bother?

I’ll be checking back soon – Mark