New Monday #55
Happy Monday, all.
The Pro-Tools Meter Controversy
Last week, the very accomplished Bob Horn (Muse, Lupe Fiasco, BTS, Ne-Yo, Everclear, Usher), a guy that knows his stuff, was on the AudioNerds podcast, giving away tons of tips and information — again, the guy is very accomplished — and at the ending, dropped a bombshell: Bob says that different meters on Pro-Tools have a subtle but audible effect on the overall sound.
A clip of Bob Horn dropping the bombshell...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwM_6t5ip8M&t=3289s
Of course, now there’s an online discussion with people lining up on both sides of the line either agreeing with Bob or disputing it.
Matt Weiss — another very accomplished fellow (Akon, Tory Lanez, Nicki Minaj, Becky G, Rick Ross, Ozuna), did a bunch of research, and he can hear the difference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhVgC-JcPEo
Dave Stagl — an ATMOS mixer and yet another very accomplished fellow (Jesus Culture, Lecrae, Mayday Parade, Rudy Currence, Todd Fields), did a bunch of research and doesn’t think it’s a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JbKFb-GRZs
What do I think?
1) Who cares what I think? I barely care for what I think.
2) I had a terrible experience with Pro-Tools in my younger days. Like, “Show us on the doll where Pro-Tools destroyed your session, Lukey” experience.
In Pro-Tools' defense, the year is 1991 and it is a very new product, a very young product. I was using it to crossfade two mixes into each other — this was a PT set-up that had four tracks and required a gunned-up Mac to work. It cost $6000. I got my mixes loaded and decided to do a little bit of EQ’ing (because who can resist dicking around with a finished mix just a little bit more and it will be perfect and so will my life), and when I switched the EQ on, all the sound stopped.
Ah! Audio mystery! Must investigate. So I started playing with everything, to no avail. Sound gone.
I should add that Pro-Tools was crashing more than a preschool of toddlers flying Zeros on a Kamikaze mission. Like every ten minutes, followed by a five-minute reboot. My patience was worn thin. I was angry. Hungry. Hangry. Hangry dealing with Pro-Tools. Hangrypt. I needed a Snickers or a time jump eight years into the future.
The issue was a teeny tiny black level control knob buried in the channel EQ of Pro-Tools, and the default setting was all the way down. Who would even think of designing it this way? Had I not been Hangrypt from tons of crashes, I might have noticed it in the first half hour or so. ANYWAY... I eventually discovered the knob. Turned it up. And then Pro-Tools crashed again.
ARRRGHHH!!!! Oh my GOD did I lose my temper! Very upsetting to the studio intern, who was a sweet and quiet girl from Japan named Yoshimi. Especially when I flung the damn manual out the window into the parking lot. The manual was in a three-ring binder, which burst open, its pages floating down like propaganda leaflets dropped from a plane: “Surrender. You have lost. Your leaders are lying to you. Just fly the two mixes onto the 24-track deck, back-cueing* one of them."
I did so many things wrong that day, things I would never do once I got older. One must keep one's temper and not scare the interns. Don’t fling manuals. Don’t kick over the cart the Pro-Tools system is on.
Roberta Flack
What a singer. What a musician.
Ms Flack was a child prodigy, enrolling at Howard University at fifteen to study piano, switching eventually to voice. She was discovered playing and singing jazz in DC and by fall, 1968, had a record deal with Atlantic.
She had a great career, including hit records across three decades, duets with Donny Hathaway, Peabo Bryson and Michael Jackson. She’s the first person ever to win back-to-back Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, in 1973 for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and 1974 for "Killing Me Softly With His Song."
Her debut album, First Take, was cut in one ten-hour session at Atlantic Studios in NYC— First Take is an apt title. She had a killer band, all top-notch jazz players: Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, Ray Lucas on drums. The album is an amalgamation of soul, folk tunes and jazz, with a gospel touch.
Here’s all of First Take - It is one of the great debut records. Simply smashing.
Apple Music
Spotify
YouTube
The "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" was cut in one take. Producer Joel Dorn thought it was too slow and wanted to re-record it at a faster tempo. Roberta disagreed and won the argument. The slow, gorgeous song was a sleeper hit: it didn’t do anything until Clint Eastwood used it in the film Play Misty For Me. It shot up the charts and garnered Flack’s first Grammy in 1973. In a twist, Eastwood called Flack to ask for permission to use the song. She wanted to re-record it at a faster tempo. He wouldn’t let her!
She is an ASTOUNDING singer. She’s loud, she's soft. She's always expressive. Her pitch and control are phenomenal. She effortlessly holds out notes across multiple measures with barely any breath, with a hint of vibrato and unerringly on pitch. All while playing jazz piano with a live band and a string ensemble.
Listen to "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men", you can hear her lean in and out on the microphone as her voice gets louder and quieter.
The album was probably tracked on a very early MCI console to an Ampex eight-track, and mixed on a custom console expressly built for mixing by Atlantic engineer Phil Ihle, from Spectra-Sonic pre-amps. I’m thinking that the MCI looked a bit like this, and this and this are shots of the custom mixing desk, now at Fellowship Hall Sound in Little Rick, Arkansas.
While poking around I found this, and it’s a total trip to the past! Full of ads, pictures, mic set-up diagrams, it gives a wonderful flavor of the times. Be prepared to waste some time reading! It’s awesome!
It’s been death death death the past few weeks. Next week, no deaths and something else.
Check out the Roberta Flack record. It’s seriously awesome.
Adieu for now...
Luke
* I’ll explain what Back Cueing is, in the recording studio sense of the word, next week.