RB: Yeah, I’ve built a chain that is for Daniel that
I’ve used since [2015 EP] Pilgrim’s Paradise and it’s
really not varied too much since then because we
found a sound that we love and haven’t moved
too far off of it. The one thing that I did change for
Freudian from Pilgrim’s is I’ve been using different
reverbs. I use a lot of early digital reverbs because
their sample rates are low and they’re generally
fairly warm. I find that complements his voice
pretty well. That is something I probably changed
from one to the other, but honestly, it’s been pret-
ty consistent.
PS: Other than those early digital
reverbs, if you’re willing to say, what
else is in that vocal chain?
RB: You know, I’m going to have to keep some
of the secrets, secret. To be honest, there isn’t
too much. I like to take very simple approach-
es to vocals because vocal is one thing that
if you start affecting it too much, it starts to
feel unnatural and unnatural vocals are really
uncomfortable. I find people find overly pro-
Ben Kaplan
PS: For Five Alarm Funk’s
“Widowmaker,” sonically speaking,
what kind of vibe were you and the
band going for?
BK: I guess going into it I was hearing some
kind of a ‘70s car chase or something, you know
what I mean? So from a recording standpoint,
we went to tape and we did it at The Warehouse
in Vancouver so it had anything we wanted to
use from a mic standpoint. We used the Neve
Air Custom [A6630] on that. That console itself, I
mean, you don’t have to do much on that thing;
you just push up the faders. I was just there a
couple days ago with Mother Mother and was
talking to one of the guys who is also a budding
engineer himself and he was asking about the
board. I was like, “Man, I got to tell you about
this console. You put anything through this
and you push up the faders and you’re fucking
done!” Every time I go back there I always shake
my head, like, “Wow, this thing is unbelievable.”
So that had a major role in what every-
thing sounded like. But you know, I ended up
using quite a few ribbon mics for room mics
and I even used Coles on the overheads. I didn’t
want a particularly over-the-top modern sound,
even though it’s still a modern-sounding track,
Eric Ratz
PS: For “Knocking at the Door,” was
the theatrical quality to Max Ker-
man’s vocal there in the demos?
ER: Getting some of the character stuff and the
way he sang certain lines, especially in the verse
and then in the bridge, I would say that was
done, performance-wise, in the studio. But he’s
an amazing singer, man. There wasn’t too much
cessed vocals uncomfortable, but they don’t
know why they’re uncomfortable. It’s because
everyone knows what a voice sounds like and if
you fuck with that too much, it becomes less fa-
miliar. Whereas the average person on the street
doesn’t necessarily know what a snare drum
inherently sounds like, for example, because
they haven’t analysed closely what a snare drum
sounds like. But a voice they most certainly do
know. So that is where I am almost most hesi-
tant to really bend. I always try to mix my vocals
as natural as possible, so for me less is more.
Nominated for:
“Widowmaker” by Five Alarm Funk from the album Sweat
“Speak” by Ninjaspy from the album Spüken
I think, but it’s still got a retro vibe going on. It’s
kind of crunchy and kind of saturated, which
had a lot to do with the tape and the console.
PS: For “Speak” by Ninjaspy, what
was your approach to the mix and
what was the defining characteristic
of your mix on it?
BK: That’s a good question. I can’t remember! It’s
funny, man; I don’t always have an idea of where
I’m going with these mixes. I’d like to say, “Well,
I was inspired by the blah, blah, blah,” but really,
I can’t. I just get in there and do it. With these
guys, we’ve got four different elements, including
the vocal, guitar, bass, and drums, and all four of
those elements are massively important to the
overall sound of these guys. All four of those have
to sound like a truck coming through your living
room. So really, what it came down to is – similar
to the Five Alarm thing – I’ll go over and over and
over and focus on each instrument and make
sure that one is not trampling over the other and
each one is at the forefront.
With these guys, I didn’t find it particularly
hard because there are not a lot of overdubs
going on in the sense of layers. There are not a lot
of keyboards going on and there are not a lot of
pads, like stuff clouding up the mix. It’s essentially
a power trio. So I guess when we’re talking about
approach to the mix, I guess that was the ap-
proach. You know, make it sound like three guys,
bigger than life, but still those four elements
have to be paramount and not getting lost in the
overall slick production of it all. It’s got to be raw
and it’s got to be in your face. Besides some vocal
effects in there, the rest of it is pretty dry and in
your face and that has always been the case with
those guys.
Nominated for:
“Knocking at the Door” by Arkells from the album Morning Report
“My Little RnR” by Danko Jones from the album Wild Cat
comping. I would kind of have him sing the line
and we would both kind of look at each other a
certain way, like, “Yeah, that was great. That was
the take.” We went and then touched up a few
things here and there, but we actually used some
of the stuff we did when he was doing the guide
vocals for the song.
It was pretty complicated mapping the
tune out before we started laying down any actu-
al instruments on it because there are a lot of tem-
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