Mixing Lz Celebration Day Options

[PosterBoy]

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan13/articles/it-0113.htm

Some of the Plugins used




Some of the other info

Guitars: Waves PS1 Spreader, Trillium Lane TL Space, Sound Toys Echo Boy, Waves H-Delay, Helios Type 69 EQ, desk compression, Cranesong Phoenix Dark Essence.

Different guitar reverbs and delays were used at various points during the set.

“There were two double tracks and a mono guitar track. The latter may have contained some of the fixes, like on ‘In My Time Of Dying’, Jimmy’s high ‘E’ string had gotten stuck under one of the screws on his pick-up and that was causing problems.
He did not make a big thing of the finger problem, by the way, even though it meant that he certainly had to reach within himself to pull out something special. He did that brilliantly.

The double tracks were just different mics on Jimmy’s live rig [a 30W Orange head on a 4x12 cabinet, also going into Engl and Marshall stacks], and I added automated plug-in EQs on several of the tracks. Sometimes these EQs were simply bypassed. I also used the Waves Spreader, and the Trillium Lane TL Space for reverb, and sometimes I put some slap delays on his solos, using the Sound Toys Echo Boy or the Waves H-Delay, to give the solos a different space and push them a bit more to the front.

The main piece of outboard I used on the guitars was the Helios Type 69 EQ, which had the same setting for the entire concert.

Alan Moulder: “As well as the hardware Helios modules used on Jimmy’s guitar, plug-in EQs were used and automated throughout the set, as Jimmy used different guitars which all had different tonal qualities. Here, Waves’ Pultec and Helios emulations were used.”

"I didn’t really add compression to the guitars, though I did engage the SSL channel compressor, just because I like to run things through it. It seems to give things a bit more body. The 12-string had the Cranesong Dark Essence to give it some analogue-like glue and add some harmonics. I had a different Helios setting for the 12-string, to add more zing.”

Moulder was not given a specific brief for his mix, which meant that he had remarkably free rein, as long as his work pleased Jimmy Page. “I didn’t really have a vision for how I wanted to approach the sound,” explains Moulder, “other than that I tried to make it sound like I imagined it did on the night. Unfortunately, I had not been there, but we also had the FOH board mix, and both mixes gave a pretty good impression.

During an initial conversation, the band members told me that they’d had a discussion before the show during which they had decided not to approach things like they had in the ’70s, ie. not do the rambling versions of the songs with long solos, but to stick more faithfully to the recordings. You could say that this was a more modern approach. I think I was trying to do the same thing, which was to recreate the feeling of the records that we all know, and make it sound up-to-date in the 21st Century.

“I’d already had a hint of, certainly, John Paul Jones liking to be up-to-date when I worked with Them Crooked Vultures. [Guitarist/singer] Josh Homme had all these ideas about John Paul playing through vintage gear, but when the latter turned up, he had state-of-the-art basses and bass amplifiers with him. Josh asked him whether he didn’t want to play through the vintage amplifiers that he had brought, and John said, ‘No, I don’t! Bass amplifiers in those days were rubbish, and they’re much better today, so I’ll use these!’

John Paul keeps up with everything, and he’s a great programmer, and he comes in with a very modern approach. Robert is also very current, and although Jimmy had some vintage gear, the way he puts his sounds together also was not particularly retro.

“In the end, the source material dictated how I went about doing the mix, and this was not only a matter of the sounds, but also the images. We mixed to picture, so we may have subconsciously been affected by the way Dick edited the movie. He mentioned the Shine A Light movie [Martin Scorsese’s 2008 Rolling Stones concert film mixed from the camera perspective by Bob Clearmountain, as described in SOS February 2009: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb0...s/it_0209.htm], and stressed the idea of making sure that you could hear whatever was in the picture.

So if you see Jason hitting a tom, you should be able to hear that. We did do that, though probably a bit more subliminal than in the case of Shine A Light. Unlike for that movie, my CD and DVD stereo mixes are the same.

We went a bit more for that idea in the 5.1 mixes — for example, if Jimmy moved across the stage with his guitar, we’d also move the guitar sound slightly across the sound image. But again, I didn’t really think about it too much. Having been obsessed with the band in my teenage years, I simply tried to make the material I received sound and feel the way I thought it should to me, as a fan.”

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This post has been edited by PosterBoy: Dec 20 2012, 07:11 PM