Ken On Earth - Part V - and other adventures

So, its been a hot minute since I've been able to resume the Man On Earth project. I got swamped for a bit with some big mix projects as well as that Legend-ary sample recreation, and a few other things, but i resumed things tonight.

Actually, today, overall was an incredibly productive and creative day. I had one of my go-to co-writers, We'll give her the code named "Candice", as well as one of my co-producer/writers, code named "CB", come out today and do some writing with me. Let me just say............ OH MY GOD! We wrote a HIT today. a F'ing hit and a half. woah.

And this is a different hit than the one i finished the other day and mentioned in my blog. And anyone who knows me knows how infrequently i use the word "Hit" and how high i set the bar when saying that. I must be in the zone right now, and it helps alot when you surround yourself with other incredibly talented people. Talented people who are secure in their own abilities can often vibe really well together, feed off of each others ideas, and create something far better than either of them could have done on their own. thats one reason i work with talented co-writers. I know the value of what i bring to the table and i acknowledge the value of what they bring to the table. Man, my team is fierce.

OK, back to Man On Earth. I cut lead vocals tonight for two songs, and really managed to successfully push lead singer, Steve Nathan, well beyond how well i've heard him sing in the past. I think the next vocal session is going to be even better, i feel it, and i think he senses it too. We're definitely onto something special with the Man On Earth project. OK, i have to go sleep for 3 hours before i get to wake up tomorrow and do it all again. I'd better get going.

-Ken

PS. I'm pretty dissapointed that nobody has posted any comments on the microphone shootout. I really thought there were gonna be a ton of posts from students, musicians, and young engineers wanting to be a part of it and gain some knowledge. You all must be better recording engineers than i am. :-)

Microphone Shootout - Prelude

So, in addition to the multitude of other things i perpetually have going on, I decided to spend some good quality time checking out different mic's in my cabinet, and how they sound on certain things. I started with a kick drum, partly because they are difficult to record REALLY well, and partly because they demand a microphone that can take very high sound pressure levels. I recorded the kick in several configurations (with both heads on, with only one head on, mic's inside the shell, outside the shell, etc... I've come up with some very enlightening and interesting conclusions so far. I think tomorrow I'm going to go to Guitar Center and buy a bunch more mic's, try em out, and keep the one(s) i like the best (if any are better than my current choices) and add all results to the shootout list.

So, as this blog title eludes to, this post is only a prelude to the mic shootout, I'll be (hopefully) posting all of my results, along with audio clips, in the next few days, so you can hear for yourself. I'll also probably be doing a similar mic shootout on snare drum, and maybe even toms, hats, and cymbals.

Here's my charge to you the reader and hopefully participant in this shootout.

What mic(s) would you like me to test out? Please suggest a mic that might have a prayer of sounding good on a kick or snare, as well as have the ability to take the sound pressure levels. Dont be shy. If you'd like me to check out a mic and you really dont know if it'll be good, just post anonymously so nobody knows it was you :-) This is a chance for everyone to learn. If i already knew what all the results would be, i wouldn't be doing this.

Are there any specific "other requests" any of you would like me to try? Maybe a specific drum head or mic placement? Be SPECIFIC if you reply, but come on, now's your chance. You ask, and if i can, I'll try it, and I'll blog about it.

I'm using a Pearl Masters Studio drum kit with Birch shells, and my snare's will be a DW brass, and a Fibes snare. I'm running all of the mic's in the kickdrum shootout thru my Avalon 737 with no EQ or compression. and once i've picked my favorites, I'll probably do a mic pre shootout with my favorite mic(s) and configurations so i can really hone in on what sounds the absolute best.

Thanks for your input

-Ken

REMIX Hotel NYC - RECAP

Its been a long weekend, but a very good one. I've gotten some mixing done, and some production & songwriting finished, and i think i may have produced a hit. More on that later.

Friday at the REMIX Hotel NYC, I did a Mix Engineers panel which was moderated by Hank Shocklee (Producer of Public Enemy, former A&R at MCA Records, and a storied music industry career which is still going very strong). Also on the panel were Phil Painson and Dave O'Donnell, both guys have pretty sick resumes, and it was really an honor to sit next to the three of them on a panel. So, the panel went really well, we fielded a ton of questions from audience members and attempted as much as we could to offer our tips, tricks, insights, experience, etc.... on mixing, recording, production, you name it. We had some great questions and hopefully we offered some informative answers. I think it went well. I also got a few chances to plug my speaker endorser, Event. I've said it many times and I'll say it again. I endorse Event Speakers. I endorse Event because i had eventually worked on so many hit records using their speakers, that i figured it was about time they began endorsing me for it. I've used Events about 7 years and been an endorsee for about 1 year. I used to use the Event 20/20 Bas speakers, which i loved, but they recently sent me some Studio Precision 8's to check out and I've since fallen in love with those. They sound great and have tons of power.

Saturday I was the Apple VIP (that was flattering). I did a big presentation, clinic, Q&A kind of a thing for Apple, mostly about Logic Audio (which is my main tool of choice for everything, mixing, production, recording, programming, songwriting, all of it is done in Logic Audio. So, speaking about my experience with Logic in front of a big crowd was effortless, and they all seemed to respond really well (if you were there, and your reading this now, post a comment and give everyone an independent take on how it went). I got a ton of questions and afterwards had several people tell me they were new Logic converts. Thats always good to hear. i dont officially endorse Apple products, but thats what i use, and they asked me to be their VIP for the day. Kinda hard to say no to that. Kinda flattering to be asked. Kinda fun to do the event.

I hope i get asked again next year.

-Ken Lewis

Friday - REMIX Hotel NYC - i'm on panels

So, for anyone anywhere near the NYC area on Friday or Saturday, (or Sunday), you should really be attending the REMIX Magazine event "REMIX Hotel NYC". Check out details on the REMIX Website REMIX Magazine

I have been invited to speak on a Mix Engineer's Panel on Friday at 4:45pm. It should be a good one, LOTS of talented engineers on the panel. On Saturday, I'll be the Apple / Logic VIP doing my own Logic clinic/forum/discussion, etc... whatever you wanna call it. Thats on Saturday at 6:45pm to 7:45pm. Among other Logic topics, I'll be bringing a session i did from a Grammy nominated album and breaking down what i did, and how i did it. Should be really cool, i hope.

Anyway, if you are in the area, come to the event. Its FREE to the public and going on all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 1293 Broadway, 9th floor (at 33rd street), at the School of Audio Engineering. Lots of manufacturers will be there, lots of very down to earth, approachable industry types doing panels and hanging out. Its a great event. Be there!! And if you see me, come say hello.

-Ken Lewis


indieTunes.com

MTV - TRL for Jeannie Ortega

For all of you who think success happens overnight, here's a little success story in the making that you can help me with!!!

Almost exactly one year ago, I was mixing seven songs for a new artist signed to Hollywood Records named Jeannie Ortega. We finished the album in August 2005. A successful major label career takes time and planning. Hollywood Records has steadily been ramping up promotion on Jeannie, putting her out on tour, etc.... Recently she her first single "Crowded" (which i did not mix) was a Top Ten song on New York City's Z100, a very influential Hot 100 station, and Jeannie was the Free Download of the Week on itunes a couple weeks ago. She's also opening the Rhianna tour this summer. Lots of good buzz.

Well, I was just talking to the VP of A&R at Hollywood (just mixed a single for him for the Cheetah Girls), and he tells me that Jeannie Ortega was #10 on MTV TRL today!!!! Holy Crap!!!! This girl is on her way.

So, please help Jeannie, and by doing so, you'll be helping my career too, as i live and die by my credits, and this credit could shape up to be a very good one for me. I'd appreciate your help.

I've made it easy for you, just click here, find her name and submit your vote.......

Vote For Jeannie!!!

Now, if you are not yet a TRL member, it takes about ten seconds to join, then you can vote, i just did it. Its easy. And tell your friends!

Thanks for helping me and Jeannie, hopefully you'll be hearing alot of her in the future, and I'm pretty sure i'll have a single or two on the album as well. Stay tuned!

-Ken Lewis

Sample Recreation time again

I'm currently knee deep in a sample recreation for a fairly Legend-ary artist. Sample recreation is far and away the most difficult work i could ever imagine doing. It is the most tedious, the most time consuming, the most specialized, often the most frustrating, and I happen to be very good at it. Kanye West once in a crowded room annointed me "The Ripley's Believe It Or Not of Sample Recreation". Thats one of the highest compliments of my career.

Recreating a sample, let alone an old soul sample like this one, is quite often a Pandora's Box in that the closer you think your getting the more clearly you hear how far away you still are. Its a series of baby steps, subtly refining little parts, touching up other little parts, recording, re-recording, re-recording again, and again, and again. i've so far recut the same guitar part 4 times and i think its getting really close, now i'm cutting the piano again for the third time, but after hearing it back, I'm switching microphones, switching mic position, and changing EQ. Once i think i've got the raw piano recording as close as that process will get me, I'll probably spend another few hours fine tuning the equalization, levels, compression, ambience. ugh. All told, I'll spend dozens of hours working on this thing. probably 3 to 5 dozen hours, Oh yeah, and its only 2 bars of music.

There are so many obstacles to overcome when trying to EXACTLY match the sound of a vintage record. Keep in mind what exactly your attempting to recreate. 1) A List session players who usually had amazing instruments and amplifiers 2) all vintage recording gear, recorded to analog tape and probably mastered directly to vinyl 3) unquantized performances, which need to be matched because their performances give that sample its feel and vibe as much as anything else sonically.

Now fortunately for me, I have one of the most vast and well rounded collections of sounds and samples on Earth. When you do sample recreation fore the guys i do, you invest HEAVILY in sounds. That investment also comes in very handy when i'm doing my own productions. But often, I'm using mostly live instruments. This sample has live drums, bass, piano, shaker, cymbal, flute, and several guitars. I found sampled drums that, with alot of manipulation, are working very well, but i played the shaker part live (about 50 times trying several different shakers), i'm using all live guitars thru my Madison amps, live piano, live bass, sampled flute and sampled cymbal. You can imagine how many variables can be present in recreating a guitar tone - type of guitar, type of strings, thickness of your pick, how hard you pick each individual string, picking downstrokes or upstrokes, which pickup to use, how to set the amp, how to mic the amp, what pedals to use. The combinations are almost endless. Fortunately, i have alot of guitars, pedals and patience. I'm getting close with this thing and I'm going for perfect. Wish me luck.

-Ken Lewis

Really Beautiful Things

I've blogged about my cousin Bo before. The boy has just been all over the world and I'm insanely jealous of his travels and adventures, but i am awestruck with his photography talent. I think one day we'll be seeing his work in National Geographic or Discovery Channel, or wherever there's an outlet for this level of talent. He just updated his website with a bunch of new photo's i hadn't seen, and I think i must have said "Oh My God" about 30 times looking at all the new photos.

Word of note. In a world when almost nothing you see or hear anymore isnt manipluated to the N'th degree, Bo's photo's have not been retouched, recolored, photoshop'd or altered in any way. He's self taught. He shoots to film, not digital. And (i'm guessing) the way he gets alot of those amazing shots is by using different lens exposure times and different types of film stock. Bo, if your reading this, post a comment and give us a quick rundown of how you capture these images.

Anyway, check him out at the link below, and hey, those photo's are for sale as prints, so help a fellow artist and buy one. I think I'm going to scoop one up myself.

BoPhoto.org

-Ken Lewis

Masaya Wada - Mix Description

I'm mixing an album right now for Japanese Major Label (AVEX) artist "Masaya Wada". (you know my site is translated into Japanese now, click on the little japanese flag icon on my main page, pretty cool!) Masaya is a pop singer who sings partly japanese and partly english, and his english is excellent. So are his songs. Kinda reminds me a bit of George Michael, like pop with an R&B edge. I'm also producing a song for him, i should be mixing that this week. So i just finished mixing a song called "Back To You", here's a quick run down of some of what i did with the mix.

Here's the instrumentation.......
Kick, 2 Snares, Clap, 2 hi hats, shaker, conga, two acoustic guitars (main drive of the song), rhodes, strings (hooks), bassline, chimes, Lead vocal, layered hook background vocals. The song is kind of a ballad, a little reminicient of that recent remake of "More Than Words".

Everything was separated out into individual mono or stereo stems, the hats, shaker and congas were grouped to a stem, BV's were on a stem, snares and clap were grouped to a mono out. The rest had their own dedicated mono or stereo outs, out of the Apogee DA16x into the 16 inputs of the SPL Mix Dream. The kick was on Mix Dream 1 with a Lang PEQ2 program Equalizer across it boosting 60Hz (i also used a plugin called "Big Bottom" on it). The Lang is alot like a Pultec only better and more versatile. Yep, i said it. I love the ability to use my outboard gear when i mix, so i'm not just mixing "in the box". I've done alot of in the box mixing, and I'm a fan, but i gotta say, mixing in the configuration i am now sounds like mixing on a full blown SSL console again, only the recalls take 10 minutes instead of 2 hours. I'd call my setup Hybrid Mixing, or maybe Best of Both Worlds mixing, which it really is.
I did a bunch of stuff with the snares and clap. The clap wen thru an outboard Yamaha SPX90 set on "Pitch Change C" which kind of spread the clap out a bit, and one of the snares went into 2 different Lexicon 960 reverbs, reverbs were set to different halls. 960#1 was panned hard left, 960 #2 was panned hard right (this is kind of a Dave Pensado trick) and the snare fed both for just a splash of depth. I used both of these 960's on the Acoustic guitars more heavily. The left guitar feeding the left 960, and the right guitar feeding the right 960, guitars also panned hard left/right. The guitars were also on their own stem, and on the stem output i used a Cranesong Pheonix plugin and for outboard i used Neumann PEV mastering EQ's on both guitars, boosting at 1k and 10k. These guitars, in addition to feeding Lex 960 #1 and 960 #2, were also feeding my EMT 140 Plate reverb (yes a real one), and i ran the send thru a pre delay of 80 milliseconds. The guitars didnt sound soaking wet with verb, but it gave them a nice depth and importance in the mix as they are the main melodic instruments of the song.
I squashed the bassline with a plugin limiter and boosted a little midrange with a plugin EQ (it had almost no midrange and was barely audible in small speakers, so i had to boost some mids. I also ran the bassline thru my Roland Dimm D, which is this cool spacializing box, kind of like a chorus, but nothing like a chorus.
The rhodes just got some midrange boost around 1.3K, and i pulled a bit of mids out of the strings and boosted real high so they'd sit above the vocals in the chorus.
I used the Lex 960#3 as kind of a small room that just gave a bit of depth to the hi hats, and 960 #4 went on the Lead Vocal, i dont remember what the original patch was, but it sounds pretty sweet on Masaya, i also used some delay thruout, and a big noticable delay in the bridge on his LV. The Soundtoys Echoboy is a really good delay plugin. Between that and the Echo Farm, delays are covered. I did too much to the lead vocal to include in this blog, but i think it came out sounding amazing. Usually i'll use the outboard GML Equalizer on lead vocals (it is an incredible EQ), but i was so happy with the lead vocal sound that the GML stayed unused. It helps that they used a good mic, the vocal was recorded well, maybe a bit bright on the tip top, but it came out great mixed. The backgrounds in the hooks got some of the same treatment as the lead vocals effects wise, but in a different way. Oh, i also split out the lead vocal onto 3 different tracks and eq'd/compressed it 3 different ways for different sections of the song. It still sounds like one consistent voice (it would not have if i didnt split it).
Across the mix buss i used the Sontec Mastering Equalizer, that thing sounds amazing, what a difference.

One of the hardest parts of this mix was getting the kick and bassline to work together. The bass was real subby and when the kick sounded good on its own, the bassline would just swallow up the low end of the kick and make it sound small, so i spent alot of time working out eq's and balances until they both sounded right. I spent the most time in the mix on the vocals (this is almost always the case with any mix). Vocals are SO IMPORTANT. I hear so many mixes where the beat sounds amazing but the music sounds better than the vocal. Making sure the beat sounds hot is definitely very important, but conveying the SONG is the most important thing, and the voice is going to lead the way, this song especially. I put the vocals into the mix fairly early on, untreated except for some real basics, and kind of low, just so i could remember sonically where to leave space for them, and so i could formulate how i was going to treat them. I dont really think when i mix, this is all feel stuff, but putting it into blog words, it kinda sounds more like a real concious thing, its not, its 80% vibe and 20% more vibe. Anyay, it all came together really nicely and sounds like a finished record to me. I hope Masaya thinks so. He's loved the other mixes so far, and I've loved mixing this album, its gonna be a good one.

-Ken Lewis

PS. is anybody out there actually getting anything from these mix description and session description posts? If so, please drop me a comment. Its alot of work to write these things up, so if its not having an impact, I'll find other things to write about. I'm trying occasionally to make sure i write some techie kinda stuff for the people who like that kinda stuff. Drop me some comments. Do it.

One of My Biggest Regrets is.......

I'll get to that, but first, I must tell you about my evening. Do you know who Regina Spektor is? If your answer is "no", you are truly missing out on something special. www.reginaspektor.com

I scored tickets to a private concert tonight featuring Regina Spektor, at an amazing venue called the Angel Orensanz Center For the Arts in New York City. Its an old Synagogue built in 1849, now a converted hall for concerts and events. This hall has possibly the coolest vibe of any place I've veer seen a concert. Maybe the ancient church in Prague that i saw a string section perform "might" have been cooler, but the string section was so out of tune that it killed any charm the venue lent. Conversely, Regina sings nearly pitch perfect and with such expressive charisma that you cannot help but be completely drawn in to every word, and this setting enhanced the vibe of the night. I took a picture of the venue with my camera phone, but i cannot figure out how the heck to get the picture out of my phone (how i make all my mixing gear work is a complete mystery). Anyway, here's a pic from the venue's website. Imagine it with chairs and Regina playing a grand piano.



Anyway, Regina has a new album coming out in 2 weeks, you should definitely check it out, as well as her other works. She's unique and captivating. I've known Regina, well kind of, since long before she was signed. A good friend of mine called me one day and said "Ken you have got to hear this girl" and i went to a show and was blown away. I spoke with her after that show for a long time and we talked about the possibility of having me produce a song for her and just see how it came out. She was up for it, I was up for it, but somehow it just never materialized. I cant remember the specifics, but i think it got postponed, then put off, and she had out of town shows and well, it never happened. I even had my baby grand piano completely overhauled so it would sound and play amazing when she got to my studio. She never played it, but if you listen to Kanye West's song "Family Business", thats the piano (or actually on my home page, the clip of Noah Levi, thats my piano too. Its beautiful and has its own charisma.) Anyway, next time i saw Regina, she was working with a couple other guys on parts of what would become her last album "Soviet Kitcsh".

I don't like to chase people to work with them. I treat my clients like gold, but i really dont chase people for work. I figure I'm very good at what i do, and there are other people that do what i do that are very good as well. I've never got a shortage of work, so if you want to work with someone else, my feelings arent going to get hurt. If you want to work with me, I'll work my ass off to make sure that the end result sounds amazing. HOWEVER.........

One of my biggest regrets of my entire career is that i did not pursue Regina Spektor more persistently and make sure we at least tried one song together. I think it would have been magic. It was just one of those things that never came together. I am very glad though that she went on to get signed and I will always be a big fan of her and her music. If i ever get asked in an interview "if you could work with any artist, who would it be?" the answer would be Regina Spektor.

-Ken Lewis