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TapeOpCon 2005

TapeOpCon 2005
by John McKay

I've just returned from TapeOpCon 2005 (organized by Larry Crane and Craig Shoemaker of TapeOp magazine), and I have to say it was amazing! It was in New Orleans, so we got to experience all of the fun of Bourbon Street and the French Quarter, along with the great food and historic districts, which my wife, Debbie, spent some time touring. But even more exciting, from my perspective, was the great assortment of talented engineers that were there, including people like Mitch Easter, Joe Chiccarelli, and Steve Albini.

Me with Bob Weston of Shellac

Some of the great points included:

Drum micing techniques - Joe Chiccarelli and Steve Albini each took a turn demonstrating their methods for mic'ing a drumset, including very interesting reasons for their choices. It was truly fascinating to hear them go step-by-step through their method, and to see the differences and similarities in such close detail.

Tracking - Pete Weiss and Ray Ketchum managed the basic tracking, again with some interesting info about their choices on guitar mics and bass tracking. Hearing them explain their techniques for compressing to tape (or in this case, a Radar digital multitrack), and the ways they checked phase relationships was very ear opening.

Vocal tracking - Don Zientara handled the vocal tracking, working with Steve Wynn to get the best take possible, given the time limitations. Again, hearing him talk about mic choice and placement, and his compression philosophy was very intriguing.

Mixing - Finally their were two mix sessions, with Mitch Easter putting together the best mix, given that he had only an hour and a half to do it! He pointed out the idea of spotlighting, moving the listener's attention from the bass to the vocals to the guitar solo, over the course of the song. He really "plays" the mix like an instrument, and the results were great!

There were also several very interesting panels, covering topics like analogue versus digital, running a studio versus being a freelance engineer, and why we like to record for a living.

While the panels didn't really come to any conclusions, it was informative to hear each person's opinions and reasoning. Steve Albini's approach was very honest, if a bit antagonizing to the others on the panel. His opinion that the band knows what's right, and that it's the engineer's job to help them find their way was something I agreed with.

I also attended a workshop about Mastering in the 21st Century, which introduced me to the concept (which I had never heard before) of sending "stems" to the mastering engineer. What this means is that you mix down like normal, but instead of mixing to two tracks, you mix to multiple tracks. So you might have a left channel, right channel, then the kick on its own track, and the bass on its own track. This gives the mastering engineer a bit more freedom to treat those sounds individually. Apparently, this is the wave of the future, though I suspect it may add a bit of time to the mastering process.

I also met some cool people, got to see Shellac and Steve Wynn play live, and just generally had a great time. Oh, and I won a Presonus Blue Tube mic pre! Woohoo!

UPDATE: We've all watched the destruction of hurricane Katrina, and been deeply saddened by the stories of loss along the gulf coast. If you haven't yet, please consider contributing to the Red Cross.