DFA board

nick · Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 7:08 pm Post subject:

the credits for our LP are already very, very long so I don't see why not.

off-off-white-pyramids · Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:41 pm Post subject: sample rate

Sup' Nick,

I am curious to know if you record at 24/48 or or 24/96 seeing as how you release vinyl.

also , are you bypassing the pres on your 002 most of the time?

are you eqing thru your board mostly? didn't see any out board eq in your setup on that vice vid (or through my binoculars, i kid , i kid).

thought it was dope 2 c u recording on PT (7 or 7.4?)on the vice thing. That white hurts the eyes though and am loving PT 8 when it works. editing on protools is great these days.

thanks in advance.

Deej Smile

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off-off-white-pyramids · Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:46 pm Post subject:

oh yeah one more question if i may sir.. do you record to 1 external drive or do you spread your audio files on to 2 or more.

Peace

Deej
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The media monkeys and their junkie junkies will invite you to their plastic pantomime; throw their invites away.

nick · Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 11:24 pm Post subject:

at home we actually work at (gasp!) 16/44 because we use ADAT/lightpipe for additional i/0 and ADAT can only run at 16. Some day we'll get a big boy setup but even at half price an HD system is still totally out of reach. We record to a single external harddrive.

We have a modest collection of outboard - the most used pieces are the UA610 pres, the API 512c pre and the DBX165 compressors. EQing is done on the board. The studio we finished the record at (Gigantic) has a really amazing collection of outboard gear and working there definitely added some stuff to my shopping list (particularly an old black face Urei 1176 and an Avalon pre which I never imagined I'd want) but all my funds are currently going into gear we need to play live so no new outboard for a while...

off-off-white-pyramids · Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 3:46 pm Post subject:

unbeleivable ! 16/44 via lightpipe. i have to laugh to myself cus' i've been recording 24/48 but am thinking i want to jump up to 24 / 96 in the anticipation i will eventually release some vinyl. Also if your using plugins they obviously have more depth at a higher sample rate.i only had one firewire port on my imac but bought a Mac Pro yesterday so i can finally rest my fear of daisy chaining drives off finicky mac firewire busses... and you record at 16 / 44! your stuff sounds great , i would have never ever thought that. just goes to show great tunes and recording can circumvent gear limitations.

i'm still surprised you run your drums out to 1 stereo track! what if say,you decide the hihats are to high or low in the over all mix or your kick and bass are masking freq and you need to cut some ? or is that because of PT LE track limitation and you revert once your on an HD system?

How do you deal with PT latency. plugin? your not manually moving tracks X amount of samples are you ? i'm sure with outboard gear this can be a prob. ughh , that is the one big annoyance about PT . c'mon its' 2010! every other DAW offers delay compensation. it's a bit redonkulous.

Yeah geeked out on thith zine too . saw a neve 33609 compresser in the back ground . nasty drum bus comp . and some ace pultecs . did you use the pultecs on bass ? or neve 1081 on drums ? i realise you eq'd off your board going in but i have no idea how much tracking you did with Zane at the end . the Urei blackface is my fave compressor of all time. some sweet distortion on those things. all buttons in mode! Did you compress vox and drums with Urei? ssl 4k buss compress is no slouch either. the UA 1176 reissues are affordable but i digress. Avalon and Neve have excellent reputations as far as Pres are concerned. Still you own an API which is no slouch.Not feeling it's coloration?..

dosen't DFA have a gear locker? like you borrow Nancy and a Moog Lil' phatty and Juno come with the package ?

sorry about the length . i just saw this thread yesterday but have wondered for months how you go about it since seeing the VBS vid. your willingness to divulge your work flow is appreciated. It's not every producer who wants to invite you behind the curtain.

Thanks Nick ,

Deej
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The media monkeys and their junkie junkies will invite you to their plastic pantomime; throw their invites away.

NikSeven · dfa otaku Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 70 Location: *780*

i record 24/48 all the time via lightpipe. that must be a limitation of the converter being used , not lightpipe itself.

as for plug-in latency compensation in PT LE (which i find is rarely an actual problem i encounter with plugs i use), this plug handles the task quite well: http://www.mellowmuse.com/ATA.html
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nikki from the block

off-off-white-pyramids · Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:31 pm Post subject:

yea, thumbs up on mellomuse.

i use mellomuse too. juzz a bit of a pain to initiate it on every track and ping each time you add a track. i have been playing around with various templates but my workflow varies in PT .

irregardless , whatever manner you use , mellowmuse , digi timeadjuster (which is incorrect with the amount of samples it reports some of the time ) , or plain ol' moving a track X amount of samples , latency compensation is a pain and the ear and phaseing issues this can cause are a headache.

just wondering how tha' Ghost deals with this at home since they are on outboard.

this problem and midi editing is my guess why the rest of DFA uses Logic (not for the plug-in suite LOL). I don't mind midi editin' on PT8. it really has improved from 7.

yo Nick , can you use your dark matter heavy pull and add a thumbs up and a discoball to the Emoticons ? Laughing

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The media monkeys and their junkie junkies will invite you to their plastic pantomime; throw their invites away.

nick · Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 9:46 pm Post subject:

latency isn't much of an issue for us - I guess because we don't usually monitor through PT when we're tracking. Stuff goes through the board before the computer 90% of the time on the way in so, yeah...

no beef with Midi in PT, mainly because we use it so infrequently. But the MIDI window in 8 is a nice addition.

we did a lot of tracking with zane. We recorded Jerry on drums through the amazing 8 channels of neve 1095 he has at Gigantic. I don't usually buy the hype of neve stuff but those things sound amazing.

The vocals we rerecorded with Zane (90%) were recorded with an old AKG c12 into the avalon into the 1176. Any vocals done at home were done with our/James' trusty Neumann TLM 193 (which is also our go to snare mic) into the UA610 or maybe the API 512. We used the Urei for a lot going in - percussion overdubs, piano, etc. The pultecs were used a lot on bass and guitar and yes, the Neve 33609 was used for parallel compression on drums amongst other things. Some vocals and synths we recorded at home were done with the API 512c but we didn't use it at all with Zane. We did use the API 525 compressor for a bunch of guitar though.

Not sure what I can do about emoticons.

j$p · white belt Joined: 17 Dec 2009 Posts: 11

what studio monitors are you guys using in your home studio? i am looking to purchase a pair and was wondering what you would recommend?

also, are you using the synthesizers.com modular for the bass in your cover of "on board"? i love that sound and have been trying to make something like it, but can't get very close. any insight is very appreciated.

btw, that cover is great.

nick · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:29 am Post subject:

we have both used Tannoy Active Reveals for years. They're not awesome and have their flaws but I'm totally used to them and know all their ins and outs so whatevs. But they're pretty good for the money I think. I would definitely recommend them to someone on a budget. I would love a nice pair of fancy monitors but I'm holding out for the DFA monitors which may or may not ever happen. If I had a dime for every time James told me to "hold up" for something...

The bass on "On Board" is actually our trusty Yamaha CS15. I was about to say "yes, it is the modular"out of reflex and because I'm using it to program some bass right now, but it's just the little 'ol CS15. It's an awesome, affordable, super powerful, very slept-on little synth and it's built like a tank (I toured with it with Juan and it never so much as flinched). I actually just lent it to the dude from Passion Pit & Chris Zane so if the next PP album has some HG! sounding monosynth retardedness, you know why. Come to think of it they have our entire bag of tricks - Roland string synth, Alex's space echo and Orban spring reverb...D'oh!

j$p · white belt Joined: 17 Dec 2009 Posts: 11

hey, i was wondering what part of a song you usually write first? i know you said in an interview drums are always first, so i guess my question is what do you usually write after that? for example, on songs like i will come back, don't fear the reaper, or on board?

i am coming from more of a hip hop/sample based background (which in large part is why i'm super interested in your production style, as you have a similar background). but i am trying to learn how to put a song together instrumentation wise and feel like i always start bass first (after drums) which is probably not the best way. i know there is probably "no correct way" or "whatever works best/happens", but i am curious how you guys construct a track?

i wanted to say your advice is greatly appreciated. it has been a great help.

nick · Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 12:50 pm Post subject:

It's always different. We always start with SOME drums but sometimes they change. On "I Will Come Back" I think the drums that ended up being on the final version were the last thing we did. They were live and didnt feel tough enough so we replaced them with TR707 and I played live hats over that. That song started as a demo Alex did that, aside from the vocals, has nothing in common with the final version. It was a drum loop from a disco record, Clav and horns I think. Then we sort of remixed it - scrapped all the music and turned it into a sort of Morodery thing with a really driving 16th note bassline and from there we came up with some of the elements in the final version. "On Board" definitely started with Jerry's drums, then the ascending Prophet 600/Gavin's soundstrobe then the bass I think.

So, yeah, there's no fixed order. Our songs change so much over the course of writing that the order in which something begins is usually irrelevant - we might have a nearly full track - drums, bass, guitar, synth, whatever - and then one of us comes up with something that sends the song in a completely new direction and we scrap almost everything to write around that. Sometimes Alex has a rough idea of a chord progression and we'll record a dummy bassline and change it later. Sometimes Alex will track said chord progression on Wurli or Piano for reference and we'll get rid of it, or replace it with something else.