1

HOW WE MADE A
STUDIO GRADE ALBUM
FOR $190
DRUGSTORE FANATICS
recording
What's Born in the Basement

Written by Daniel Brecher

Art by Read
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INTRODUCTION
If you've been living under a rock for the past ten years you would
probably need to know that technology has advanced to a point
where us musicians can now capture our music at professional studio
quality in our own homes. It is not a given that it will turn out the way
you imagined, it just means that all that stands between you and your
desired result is your imagination and your understanding of the tools
at hand.

Technology has also advanced to a point where music is distributed

freely online, a notion that has crippled the record industry and has
critically diminished the amount of funding an artist might get these
days to record his/her music, which leaves destiny in our own hands.
I'm also going to say that, from my experience, even if you have the
funds to enlist the services of a producer and professional studio it will
not guarantee the final result you are aiming for, and so in any case
you should have some skill and understanding of how things work in
order to maintain partial control of the process.

I'll be getting into a great deal of technical detail in this book which I
always hoped I'd be able to read in regards to albums I grew up on
and wondered how they were created, and I will share the frustration
and emotional baggage that was involved in the process as well.

DO NOT DELUDE YOURSELF!!!

Some have approached me asking "if it only cost you $190 to make
your album, have I been ripped off for paying thousands of dollars for
mine?"

Like everything in life, there's always a trade off. The hours we've
spent working on this music, producing it, recording it, editing it,
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mixing it, making mistakes, not to mention the chops we've gotten
from doing this over the years prior to this project, could easily
amount to thousands of dollars if we had to hire someone to do it for
us. And of course, let us not forget good friends who lent us
equipment and gave their time when needed. I think that that is a key
ingredient in a rich creative world.
If you're willing to dive into it and trade the money for time (a lot of
time) there is virtually no limit to where you can go.

THE STUDIO
For those of you unfamiliar with Drugstore Fanatics, it is an artistic,
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musical entity stemming from the initial collaboration of two artists,

drummer Aviv Cohen, and myself, Daniel Brecher, on a number of
songs which we released independently on the album "What's Born in
the Basement".

Now,
I'm going to assume that you have a basic home studio setup with a
few toys laying around. I will go through our setup, but of course, you
should work with whatever you have because it's all in your ears and
fingers anyway.

The "Project Studio" we used to record this album was in fact the two
rooms in my parents' basement which me and my trusty partner Tal U

Aviram took over and turned into a recording space over the years.
U

The large rectangular room, which was about 21'X8', was used as the
live room. It had concrete walls with a disgusting bouncy echo to them
which we treated with a few 3'X3' foam plates (cheap ones) to
deaden it. It also had a deep carpet which was pretty nice. The only
thing we couldn't (and didn't really try to) fix was this bass frequency
floating around.
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The "control room" used to be a family TV type lounge (we took care
of that) about 13'X13' in size. It had book shelves, a couch and a
carpet and so it was acoustically dry. Our computer setup changed
frequently but consisted mainly of a PC (yes, Windows, I Know) with
Pro Tools LE and a Digi 002 Rack. Since Tal was beta testing for a
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few software companies we had a shit load of plug-ins to play with.

For monitors we used Event PS6 and Yamaha NS10s with a NAD
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amplifier. We also had a decent collection of mics which I'll go

through later, a Universal Audio LA-610 Preamp/Compressor and
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two Empirical Labs Distressor Compressors.

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I think a good preamp and good outboard compressor can go a long

way in getting a warmer musical tone, but I've heard good results
without such outboard. Like I said, it's all in your ears and fingers.

To link the two rooms we got a 16 line Klotz multi-cable and ran it
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through a hole in the wall. It ran 13 XLR lines and 2 stereo headphone
extensions (the last one was used to transfer the telephone landline
from the live room to the control room). We did all the soldering
ourselves, a skill I recommend picking up to any DIY Man/Woman.

THE BACKDROP
Aviv and I had been working on these songs for a few years prior to
the recording of the album in parallel to other things we were part of.
We'd try to meet up every week and work on ideas. I'd come to
Aviv's parents' basement where his drums were setup in a really
small, seriously acoustically treated room (so his parents won't suffer
his bashing). The room had a cool sound to it. I'd bring a laptop, an
M-Box, a guitar or bass and some mics and we'd play. Usually I'd
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have a general idea and he'd come up with a groove and maybe an
extension to that idea. We would record that groove to a click in Pro
Tools with a kick and overhead mic and I'd take it home with me.
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Since we had no band, it was very important to us to find a way to

realize these musical ideas and see if they work in real life. I tried
recording guitars to his drum tracks with a small amp I had laying
around but found that the crappy sound was uninspiring and the
hassle of setting and micing it up again and again was getting on my
nerves.
It was then that I started using Native Instruments Guitar Rig amp/fx
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simulator software that allowed me to produce great bass and guitar

tones.
It was pretty cool since I could program different sounds for different
parts and really emulate a full on studio recording situation. I could
recall presets I liked for other songs and I could always go back to the
same sound when I wanted to fix or change something.

This really got the sketches to a new level because it was really
working online all the time. We would record the kick and overhead,
move them around if we needed, we'd throw some snare samples
where the snare was in the overhead track, record bass and guitars,
keyboards and vocals and really create a demo that sounded more
like the finished album than a band rehearsing. This provided huge
insight as to how the songs would sound in the end and what needed
to be fixed. AND A LOT NEEDED TO BE FIXED.

This all seems fun and easy when I tell it like that, but it was hell in
itself. Some songs would pan out quickly, but most would be tinkered
with forever, cutting this part, changing the time on that part, adding
this, deleting that. Every few weeks I'd go over the list and see the
amount of unfinished vs. finished songs and want to die.

The song Lonely Winter was a long time in the making and I think you
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can hear it. It's got a lot of parts, a lot of tracks, layers of sound and
it's not that I don't enjoy the end result, but we messed around with it
for a long time. I later noticed that the songs written closer to the end
of the writing process came together a lot quicker in every aspect. I
think it was because they didn't have time to accumulate sentimental
value and the decisions regarding them were a lot colder (and we
probably got better at the craft).
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I'd wake up early in the morning with these horrible thoughts of "how
can I make an album if I can't write good songs. And if I can't write
good songs and this album won't be kick ass how can I stand behind
it and push it, and maybe I should think of a plan B for my life's
dream". I swear to God, there's a time early in the morning when
your mind lets its guard down and the evil spirits find their way in and
totally mess with your head. I'm sure I'm not the only one aware of
that.

But as with all crises, this one also had an expiration date, and we
eventually found ourselves with a full simulation of the album in hand.

I seriously recommend this method. It's a good way to be prepared

and focused on capturing the performances and sounds during a
recording, eliminating any chance of finding out that something in the
arrangement doesn't work. The last thing you want to do is waste
precious time especially if you're paying for it.

THE RECORDING
DRUMS
I recall when it was about time to record the material, Aviv and I sat
down to discuss the different aspects. Since it was all done at home
and we weren't under any budget/time limitations, we wanted to
really take it easy. It was decided that we'd hit the drums at 4pm and
carry on 'till about 8pm.

We cleared up the live room as best we could, stuffing all movable

items into the living room and hauling down the drum gear. We used
Aviv's 80s vintage 8 ply maple shell Pearl drum kit. It had a 20" kick,
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10", 12", 14" toms and a 16" floor tom. He only used two toms on
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his set so we recorded with the 10" and 12". On the song Pace U

Protection we wanted a bigger tom sound so he used the 12" and

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14".

For snares we had two options, both provided by our good friend Nir U

Nakav, the colossal drummer of the brutal metal band Salem. One
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was the classic Ludwig snare - Black Beauty, and the other was a
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Pearl Vinnie Paul Signature Snare Drum which was so deep and loud
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it felt as if the top head and the snares were a few feet apart from
each other. I had my doubts about that one.

The first thing we did on the setup day was replace all the drum heads
(top and bottom). We chose to put Coated Emperor heads on the tom
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tops, Clear Ambassador heads on the toms and snare bottom, Coated
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Powerstroke 4 heads on the snare tops and a Clear Powerstroke 3 on

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the kick with nothing in it apart from a thin blanket laying on the kick
floor lightly touching the back and front heads. Of course we got
backups for all drum heads (and a good deal on the price).

Drum head total: $115

As for cymbals, we had a nice amount to choose from, once again

courtesy of our good friend Nir Nakav. I believe we ended up
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recording a Zildjian 14" K Custom Dark HiHat, 20" Istanbul ride,

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Sabian 15" AAX Studio Crash, Sabian 18" HHX Legacy Crash, and
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another Sabian 18" crash of some kind. There was also a weird crash
with holes in it and a China, but you'll have to check out the videos to U U

see what they were because I can't remember.

I don't know what Aviv did with those drums. He claimed he didn't
know anything about drum tuning, but by the time he was done they
resonated as if the room was four times larger than it was. No gaffing
tape or muffling of any kind.
A lot of people I know just go for it, but replacing the heads and
taking the time to tune the drums will seriously upgrade your drum
sound, and that will make your drummer play better.
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To mic the drums we had a nice selection to work with. Inside the kick
we used a Shure SM7b which I got with vocals in mind. It has a fatter
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punchy SM58 thing going on although it didn't get that wideness I

was hoping to get in that position. Today I'd probably use the Shure U

Beta 91 if I could get it. It has that kick shape all ready to go. At the
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kick hole we put an AKG D112 which added roominess and width.
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Around the kit we used some Beyerdynamic mics provided once again
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by Nir Nakav, God bless his soul. For toms and snare top we used the
M 201 TG which sounded similar to the SM57 but we liked it better.
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For the HiHat we used the Opus 83 and for the overheads we used a
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pair of MC 910 I believe, which really gave a fresh crystal clear

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sound as opposed to the usual muddy overhead tone we would get

with our pair of AKG C2000B in that room. The snare bottom got one
of the AKG C2000B, and for the ride we used a cheap Behringer
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condenser Tal was carrying around in his bag.

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To record the room we used a Mid-Side technique with an AKG

C2000B and an AKG C 414 B-XLS. Mid-Side, for those of you who
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haven't heard of it, is a recording technique used to capture a stereo

image from one central point in the room. It's great if you have a
small room and don't want to get phase problems or a narrow stereo
image. You can read more about it here. U U

The drum room mics are one of the most important parts in the drum
sound. It adds a live wild feel to the drums and provides glue to the
whole kit.
Our room mics, unfortunately, were right under the AC, but
surprisingly the drum level was so high that you couldn't hear it.

To extend our Digi 002 from 8 inputs to 16, we barrowed a converter

from Tal's friend, Nando. I think it was by Creamware. That gave us
an extra 8 inputs. For preamps, the inside kick and snare top went
through two old Neve broadcast console channel strips (barrowed
from our good friend Alon Lotringer) that were a lot more slammin'
than anything we had around. The outer kick mic ran through our UA U

LA610 and the rest were scattered through the Digi 002 pres and
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through a cheap "Spirit" mixer we had.

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Once it was all rolling we started monitoring the sources. Normally

you would run your tracks through a mixer (a real good one) and
then EQ and compress in order to record exactly what you wanted to
hear, but since the only hardware EQs we had were the ones on the
Neve strips, we had to work "within the box". Fortunately for us,
Waves had released their SSL bundle, which in my mind is a drum
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digital-revolution, and we had a chance to use them. So with all

tracks armed and plug-ins inserted, Aviv started bashing away as we
figured out what the hell we were getting.

My initial intent was to capture a full thick source, a chunk of sound

that I could later carve and shape as I pleased. We were really into
dark, low mid oriented mixes and. As I recall, references like NIN-The U

Collector and Sevendust-Shine were playing through the monitors

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constantly as we shaped the plug-in EQs and compressors on the

tracks to see if we were in the right direction.

The first thing we noticed was that the Vinnie Paul signature snare
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sounded great, a true miracle that hit that SSL channel compressor like
in all those songs I grew up on. And it was so loud that we managed
to gate away the HH from the snare track in a significant way - True
Snare Freedom. We tuned the bottom snares aiming for that ocean,
misty spray heard on that Audioslave track Revelations as opposed to
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the "grt grt" sound we would normally get. I think we ended up

recording the bottom snare mic through a Distressor just to squash it a
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bit and bring out that wash and overtone.

The kick mics had a nice roomy feel with good bottom, not as punchy
as I'd hoped, but you work with what you have. The toms responded
well and so did all the cymbal mics. The room mics were dry, as
expected, but gave a good wide image to work with.

Since the room was small and not well treated, all the sources had
extra bottom and low mids that needed to be dealt with through EQ.
It's the price you pay for recording in that kind of environment, but I
still insist that with a bit of imagination you can turn it all around, and
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with the Indie sound on the rise you might even be on to something
new (cynical laugh).

So now that everything was setup, the drums sounded good, Aviv was
getting a good headphone mix and we were ready to hit the Rec
button……………………………….we saved the session, prayed that
it would sound the same tomorrow and called it a day in order to
start fresh the next day.

I'm sorry, but I don't remember the exact order of the songs we
recorded. I know that Bullet and You Got the Ball were probably the
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first to be laid down. Aviv had an order of his own, whatever he felt
like doing on that day at that time. Since the sound was good and we
both knew the parts, all we had to do was capture good
performances.
Some songs like Hangman and Shifter had a solid drum part to them
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and so we just made sure we got a few good takes and some different
fills. Other songs like Lonely Winter, Pace Protection and the end of
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The Bear March had a more free style attitude to them. Every other
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day we'd add a new playlist to them. We'd also change around some
drums. We ended up using the Black Beauty snare on Lonely Winter
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and The Distance. On the first part of The Bear March Aviv chose to
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use his Pearl Piccolo snare. Sometimes we had a vision of what we

wanted to use before we even hear it, and that's cool. Having fun
messing around with ideas keeps you on your toes, especially if
you’re the one sitting down pushing the Rec and Stop buttons all day.

To track the acoustic ending part of Ever Since we moved the whole
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kit up to the kitchen to get that wet ambiance. We miced it with the
Shure SM7b in the kick (I regret not using the D112) and the same
mics for the snare, ride, hat, and overhead. We placed the two
C2000b mics in the living room but the overheads where wet enough
and the room mics were wet beyond use.

Aside from tracking some percussion later on, it took us a week to

track the drums for the whole album and we were very happy.
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Once you're done recording the drums, it's time to edit the drum
tracks. Since mixing the song is the holy grail of the whole creation
and where the final artistic color and shape of the song is sculpted, I
had no intention of leaving any technical issues to that stage in order
to have total freedom to paint away.

Editing drums has both an artistic aspect and a technical "dirty-work"

side. We started listening to the takes, marking the ones we liked, the
ones that sounded better, the ones that had a great attitude and feel.
We noted the best fills we had, the fills we wanted to change and so
forth. The objective is to find the best performances of each part in the
song in all the takes and composite them onto one track. In the end
you should be left with one MOFO drum track!!!

Sounds simple. Keep in mind that drums are a very moody animal.
Each day they sound slightly different. You tune them but it'll probably
change the next hour. You learn that sometimes the best parts don't
mesh together, they might not sound the same and you don't want
your drums to change tone in mid verse. Sometimes the take with the
best attitude isn't the take with the best sound. It's all about choices
and compromise, and we made judgment calls left and right. That
was the artistic part.

Next up is the dirty work. Listening to the composite takes, replacing

any faulty snare hits with good ones, fixing any unwanted snare/kick
flams, moving to place any wondering off time drum strokes, cleaning
up the tom tracks where they aren't playing to eliminate their constant
rumble without using a gate.
On a song like Hangman that has a steady feel surrounded by
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programmed percussion, it was decided that the drums would be

quantized using the Pro-Tools Music plug-in Beat Detective (a very
good skill to have under your DIY Man/Woman belt).

To think that way back before Pro-Tools took over, Randy Staub talked
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about editing the same way only by cutting and taping physical 2"
tape on the Metallica documentary "A Year and a Half in the Life of".
U U U U

I sure am glad we didn't have to do that.

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A WORD ON EDITING. I've participated in several debates

regarding track editing. I've met artists that believe that a recording
should reflect the true live nature and performance of a band, but the
only thing I want to reflect when producing a song is the true nature
and vision in my mind, and as close as I can get to that the happier I'll
be. Your song has probably originated from a performance situation
and that will obviously be reflected, but don't let the limitations of real
life/real time execution stop you from achieving the ideal in your
head.
Having said that, it's very easy to get into over editing mode, and a
lot of the small nitpicky edits you spend time on may not even be
heard when all the tracks are playing. None the less, mastering the
editing tools available may significantly upgrade your creation
especially when competing in today's music environment.

It took and additional month to get the drum tracks all comped, fixed
and ready the way we wanted them to be in order to move on. Like I
said in the beginning, it's a trade off. You have to put in the time if
you don't want to spend the money, but at least you have control and
you don't have to complain about anyone taking your cash and
leaving you with a lousy result. And to tell you the truth I don't think
that anyone would give your music the amount of love you would give
it even if you paid them really well.

THE BASS
I know a lot of musicians like to get their drums & bass recorded at the
same time in order to capture that "live feel", but since we were
aware of the editing going to be done on the drums it seemed
pointless to capture something that would be erased later on and
would just result in more work. Not to mention the extra input lines
and space you would need to accommodate the two instruments.

The bass I was using throughout the whole sketching stage was a Jazz
Bass replica guitar by a manufacturer that I do not care to name. It
wasn't the best of basses but it had a cool punkish Duff McKagan vibe
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to it and I dug it. Since we were messing around with low tunings and
different string gauges and I didn't want to ask anyone for their bass
knowing I might ruin their "precious setup", we decided to go with it.
We did however get an additional Yamaha BB1000S active bass
from our good friend Alon Shulman of the alternative band Noble
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Brats. U

We rented out an Ampeg SVT Pro 3 plus an Ampeg SVT 610 Cabinet
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and set it up in the live room.

Bass amp & cab rent: $75

The bass signal was split into three paths: 1. Into the SVT miced with
the AKG 414 and the Shure SM7b, 2. Direct into the Digi 002, 3. Into
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a 50W Peavy Express 112 combo guitar amp which I set to a mildly
driven Tool type sound miced with a Shure SM57.
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As expected, the room was muddy and tough. We spent a while

getting a good sound out of the amps and adjusting the phasing
between the sources, and we got it in the end.

It took us a day to set up and track the whole album. It was fun. I love
playing bass and sure wish I was the bass player in my band. We
went through the songs tracking with both newly strung basses. In the
end, apart from Lonely Winter, we pretty much went with my Jazz
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Bass replica throughout the whole album.

Editing the bass was a quick process as well. It consisted of going

over the tracks, choosing and comping the best takes, listening for any
weird noises at points of punch and edits, and gluing crucial notes to
the kick when necessary.

THE GUITARS
By now you've probably noticed that a lot of the expenses in the
making of this album were cut down due to friends helping out. Use
the people around you. Musicians are a tight community and most of
them will be happy to lend a hand or a mic to help you create
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something new provided you too will be there when asked. Especially
these days when the rules are bent and nobody knows exactly in
which direction the music community is headed, we should stick
together. There are enough music consumers to justify all of our
existence (maybe).

When recording the electric guitars, I decided to start with the drive
parts on the album. I used my two trusty Les Paul Standard and
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Custom which at that period of time were equipped with active EMG
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pickups in the bridge position and a Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro

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pickup in the neck position.

My good friend Ran Darom of the bands Chooka and Pemalhe had
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just come into possession of a few Boogie amps that he was renting
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out, and I confiscated his Dual Rectifier Head and Cabinet that had
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this gorgeous red bronco vinyl finish. I placed the cab in the "live
room" and the head next to me in the control.

To mic the cab I used an SM57, a 414, an SM7b and a C2000B

which I used as a room mic.
I had no intention of loading up on tracks, so I routed all the mics to
individual auxiliary tracks in Pro Tools and summed them up to a
single audio track.

I did however record a separate track that came directly out of the
amp head and straight into the Digi 002 at high gain. That gave a
sick sizzly tone which I incorporated in the overall guitar sound.

I messed around with the options on the Dual Rectifier and after
finding something I liked and adjusting the balance between the
microphones I started recording the rhythm parts.

This didn't take very long. As I mentioned before, we already knew

what we were going to play from the demoing stages, so it was all
about capturing the parts with the right sound. I played with the mic
balance before each new part as I saw fit and recorded.
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Next up were the lead parts on which I used a similar tone as I did for
the rhythm sounds. I did try and mess around a bit. On Lonely Winter U U

I added my Rat pedal before the amp. When you put two distortion
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devices one after the other and hit them both you get a heavily
saturated sound that feedbacks every time you stop playing. I was
digging what was going on in the chorus part of NIN's – The U

Collector and I was going for that chaotic feel. You can hear it
U

popping out just before the outro bit on the song and of course at the
very end where I got this endless sustain with the drives and Wha U U

pedal which I haven't yet managed to recreate.

The lead on Pace Protection saw an interesting use of my home made

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Talk Box which I built out of a horn driver I found somewhere. I

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hooked up the horn driver to the Rectifier instead of the cab, I hooked
up the cab to my Boogie F-50 for an amp drive tone and I still had
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that ill direct tone coming from the Rectifier directly into the system.

To record the cleaner parts I took Ran Darom's Lone Star amp and U U

miced it with an SM57 and a 414. I was pretty happy with the
Duncan neck pickups on my guitars for the clean but I was looking for
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a real rich, fat and warm bridge tone that I wasn't getting from my
EMGs. I started swapping my bridge pickups with whatever I had
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laying around (I used to change my pickups every now and then and I
had a small collection). I found that my Les Paul Custom original
Gibson 498T bridge pickup sounded awesome on my Les Paul
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Standard and gave a tone close to what I had in my head. Turns out it
even had a killer beefy drive tone and I've been playing that pick ever
since.

Since the Lone Star was a combo amp, I had to go back and forth to
tune the sound and place the mics. The clean tone demanded a lot
more attention and each part had its own dedicated sound.
I would also use the effects I had in the demo sessions and put them
on the tracks and that way I could really hear the end result without
committing to it.
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There are a few acoustic guitar parts on the record. For those I
borrowed a great sounding old Martin acoustic from Tal's friend Eyal
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Sagie. We also borrowed once again the two Neve channel strips we
used on the drums as well as a Neuman KM 184 from our friend Alon
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Lotringer.
We miced the acoustic with the KM 184 and the AKG 414 through U U

the two Neve strips as well as plugging the acoustic straight into the
LA610 for a direct tone that added more mid range.

We recorded the acoustic in the live living room ambience, listening to

the song A Stranger by A Perfect Circle as we played with the micing
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to try and achieve a similar tone. I was pretty amazed by that guitar
tone at that time. As I've read, they recorded those acoustic in a hotel
bathroom, which comes to show that with the right minimal setup you
can get quality tone anywhere you go.

THE VOCALS
I was obviously dreading this stage. I do not consider myself a singer
but I do sing and over time I have learned how to get the sounds I was
going for.

It would be a crime not to recommend a certain vocal instructor by the

name of Mark Baxter, whose website is just a phenomenal treasure
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for vocalist's all around. You should especially check out his Free U

Lessons page where you can find helpful articles he's written
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addressing all aspects of singing.

The vocal recording process was a pretty intimate one. The chain
consisted of my Shure SM7b set to flat going through my Universal
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Audio LA610 channel strip with a few db cut at 70 Hz and about 4 to

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7 db of reduction on the mild compression setting when hitting hard,

into my Mbox 2 connected to my laptop. The whole rig was set up in
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the live room for "comfortable solo use".

The SM7b is probably the cheapest studio grade vocal microphone

you'll find. It's a dynamic mic that produces a warm, fat tone that can
be molded into a variety of shapes. I'd definitely prefer that mic or
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even a simple SM58 to any cheap condenser microphone that might

cost you four to ten times more.
Getting the vocals down, I recorded about three to six takes per song
and sat to build a composite track of the best performances. Once that
was done I went through Melodyne to fix any tuning issues I'd have
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with the takes. Only then would I go in to record the background

vocals.

PIANO & KEYBOARDS

To record the piano parts we went to our good friend Alon Lotringer's
studio. He only had this simple upright but I was determined to get a
good recording of it. I think we ended up micing the piano with the
AKG 414 and the Neuman KM 184 from the back with a Mid-Side
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technique and maybe another KM 184 from the front, by the pedals.

It produced a decent sound that got heavily treated in the mixing

stage.

A large amount of the programming on the album was taken from the
demos themselves. As I've said before, the demos were a fairly good
emulation of the album itself and a lot of the programming fit right in
with the new tracks.

We did however enlist the artistic help of friends around us. Working
on this album alone for a long while, it was refreshing bringing
outsiders in from time to time.

One cool guest was Tom Darom, also of the bands Chooka andU U

Pemalhe. We set out to program some sounds for Shifter and she
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brought her Virus B synth. We re-recorded some old parts as well as

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new ideas.

Ido Sternberg of the duo Catastropie (viewer discretion advised) also

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lent a hand in designing great disturbing sounds on the track

Hegannd.
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THE MIX
I'll try to illustrate the frustration and HELL of this stage since this was
the longest and the most emotionally tense period in the creation of
the album.

Coming into mixing, I prepared the tracks as neatly as possible in

order to have maximum fun and creative flow. Throughout the
listening stages I've already devised what I was going to do, how I
was going to do it, what samples I would be using, bla bla bla…

First mix was a total boomy, muddy, flat disaster!!!

Looking back I can see that apart from the lack in mixing experience,
which needs practice like any other skill, I had a huge misconception
as to how my speakers should sound.
I'm sure that this reason alone is what gaps a lot of musicians' vision
from the end result they're getting in home studios.

Obviously when you're going for a full sonic experience you want that
big low end, warm mids and crisp highs. Turns out that working for 5
years with my 6" speakers hasn't taught me that their low end is
subtle, and their sub frequencies are a nuance. Their low mid is
scooped, and they are fairly bright. It took me a while to realize how
my NS10s would flush out any low mid exaggeration.

Each song I'd try to do a little different and I'd always be

disappointed. At some point I even started mixing in my bedroom on
my 8" Jensen speakers. My theory was that since I listened to music a
lot on that system it would be easier for me to achieve my vision, and
that helped to some extent, but the experience was far blurry than
working on monitor speakers.

It took me seven mixes and a few depressing months to finally say,

hey, why steer towards some vision? Just go with what you got. And
 19

that's when everything changed. That's when the songs started to

resemble mixes.
At this point I'll get into what I used in the process.

For the drums I relied heavily on the Waves SSL plug-ins. They're
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great because they have everything you need in one unit: A good EQ
section and a great slammin' dynamic section. I did add a sample on
the snare drum to increase width and size, although the snare was so
responsive, you really mostly hear the original snare. In order to get
the ghost notes up I placed samples of ghost notes we recorded along
the snare track (a nasty task). That gave me the freedom to boost the
notes without boosting the actual snare track with all that was in it.

At this stage I also added an ambient kick sample and probably one
more sample for better definition and punch. I may have run the kick
tracks through the Distressor compressors during different experiment
phases, but I don't think that it did anything significant.

The toms needed no samples, and worked well with the SSL channel.

The room mics had an interesting process to them. The room mic
tracks gave a full image but, as I described, the room was dry and
boomy and the tone was very uninspiring. What I did was put a TL U

Space Reverb on the room master and balanced it out with an EQ to

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make it sound like a natural drum room track I would expect to hear
from drums recorded in a good live room. Once I had that I ran
through the Distressor Compressors set to NUKE mode to get that
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Bonham style sound which really livened up the drum set and added
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that wild factor. This phase was crucial in getting the drums to come
alive and find their place in the mix.

On the drum master track I worked with a wonderful FREE VST plug-in
called CamelCrusher. This plug-in has a distortion, filter, compressor,
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and master/mix section and does what it does amazingly well. I used
it to smash the drums a bit to get them grainy and fat.
 20

All four tracks of the Bass were slammed hard through the Distressor
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Compressor with about 10 to 12 db of reduction for an even and

U

steady performance (this compressor really does its job transparently).

To EQ the bass I really liked the SSL EQ plug-in.

After a lot of fooling around I found that a simple EQ on the SSL U U

channel put the drive guitars in a very good place. With the clean
tracks, however, I experimented a lot more going through the LA610 U U

and the Distressor, playing with compression settings as well as

cutting off the low end as needed. Once I got the best I could get out
of the outboard, I completed the imaging with more SSL channel plug-
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ins. The same goes for the acoustic guitars.

I also used some creative tricks for my own amusement. I've heard of
this method to get "radio vocals" used by the producers Flood and
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Alan Moulder. They would play the vocal track through headphones
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and tape the headphones over an SM57 mic. Now, obviously there
are easier ways to get that kind of tone without the hassle these days,
but I had some trouble getting the slide acoustic guitar on the song
Ever Since to sound honky. After running the acoustic through an amp
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simulator I applied this method and it seemed to put it in place.

To mix the vocals I ran them through the outboard chain with a certain
preset I devised. The objective was to have the LA610 Pre-Amp
section saturate as much as possible without clipping while cutting off
a fair amount of low end just before hitting the LA610 compressor on
its Limit mode to get about 6 db of gain reduction at peak vocal level.
With the vocals firmly gripped by the LA610, they would then run
through the Distressor compressor adding a neurotic, hyper ventilating
feel that would pump the vocals and keep them in your face at all
times. "In the box" I would add a De-Esser and start EQing till I was
satisfied.

However, even brutal compression won't get everything in your face

and the next step was to ride the vocal's volume automation and bring
every word to level.
 21

I treated the lead guitars in a similar fashion. After all, they do act like
lead vocals and I did want the same characteristics regarding their
dynamic presence.

Apart from the reverb on the room mic tracks and a short gated
reverb on the snare, I tried to avoid using reverbs as much as I could.
I find that a well designed delay goes a long way in terms of sound,
warmth and dimension.

On the master track I had an SSL bus compressor pumping the mix
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which I inserted after getting the basic tracks sounding the way I
wanted them. There's an interesting interview with Mixing Guru Andy
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Wallace were he discusses his use of the SSL bus compressor.

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ELK
OK. So at this point I mixed all the songs and they sounded good, but
I knew that they could sound better, I just didn't know how to get them
to do that. On top of that, I was losing objectivity. I had worked too
long on these songs and I needed the opinion of someone I could
trust. Tal was all too subjective, as he admitted, and he recommended
I seek the opinion of ELK.

ELK (a.k.a Eyal Leon Katzav) is one of the top producers and mixers in
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the Israeli music industry. He is quite known for producing alternative

artists, as well as top selling radio friendly artists. He was also a good
friend of Tal Aviram, and through him we got to know each other. ELK
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had a truly great mixing room at his house (also in his basement) and
I would come hang out when Tal came to do some work. ELK and I
had long discussions about production and sound and we shared
similar taste in music. Soon enough I found myself collaborating with
them both and so it seemed appropriate that I would approach him
with such a project of my own.

As we listened to the songs in his well treated studio on his PMC

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speakers he pointed out where the parts were too loose, where the
vocals weren't outgoing enough, etc. In general he questioned the
credibility of the mix.
 22

The first thing he did was to break the mix into stems and spread them
throughout his Neve summing mixer for extra character.
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As we worked through the songs, I could see a pattern evolving in his

approach to fixing my mixing deficiencies. To better the kick which
lacked some definition he added another sample. Because his room
was tuned and his speakers had good low end response we could
easily zoom in on what was missing. He fine tuned the snare and
vocals and really got them to pop out.

Another thing we did throughout the mixes was sending the vocals
and bass through his Yamaha SPX processor set to a custom stereo
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flange preset which added some chorus to the bass and widened up
the vocals.

Most importantly, in my mind, was ELK's approach to overall mix

compression, and as a compression addict myself, I was game for
anything. On top of the SSL bus compressor I had brought in with the
sessions, ELK worked with a series of limiters to tighten up the mix.
The trick was to find that sweet spot where the mix got tight but didn't
sound too squashed (to our ears), and soon enough this behavior
started to sound familiar and similar to music I loved.

From there on the process was creative. We'd play with the tracks
trying to find their ideal place in the image, all the while going back
and forth through the mixes applying any notes we had written while
listening to songs we've worked on in the car and iPod.

Note: What’s cool about the iPod is that a very large percentage of
the music listening community uses one, so if you get your mix to
sound great on your iPod you've won half the battle.

THE MASTERING
The mastering process is the final stage in which you produce a
master. I'm assuming the definition of "master" has changed over the
 23

years, but it's still the final tape/file/CD that goes to reproduction. The
mastering process is the objective inspection of fresh ears that will
adjust or enhance your mixes to sound better in the real world.
Don't be fooled by thinking that the mastering engineer can make a
crappy mix sound awesome. But he can upgrade a kickass mix.

Here is where we kind of cheated. I know I state that we made this

album for $190. We technically only spent money on buying drum
heads and renting a bass amp for this recording specifically. We
relied on the setup and gear already in our possession, gear we took
from friends, hundreds of our own work hours, and of course precious
time and musicianship lent to us by colleagues. I'm sure that the
majority of you have all of the above.

But…

Since we didn't really spend a lot on the creation of the album, and
we were all extremely satisfied with the results, we thought it would be
cool to treat ourselves to a big time mastering engineer, which is
probably the only high end process an average independent artist can
afford these days.

Tom Baker has worked on a lot of albums I loved. He's mastered Nine
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Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral through With Teeth and Sevendust's
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Animosity to name a few, all albums with a dark fat sound and big
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low mid presence and warmth. This appealed to us as we too were

going for that low mid focus. And besides, just to get some creative
process off of those records and on to ours was pretty exciting.

Tom delivered exactly as expected: boosted warm low mids and nice
mix compression that preserved the overall punch. Everything really
opened up and the songs felt upgraded which is all you could want
from the mastering process.
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FINAL NOTE
So there you have it, our whole journey through the creation of our
album 'What's Born in the Basement' recorded in our own minimal
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home studio. In the end, as Tal says, your creation will only match
your own standards, and if they're high you can get good results.

I hope I gave enough information in this book. Feel free to contact us

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with any questions. We'll be happy to answer.

Our album, as you know, is available for Free Download on our

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website www.drugstorefanatics.com
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Enjoy it.

Daniel Brecher
Drugstore Fanatics