Pro Techniques from Brad Wood

By Randy Alberts

	Brad Wood

Most engineers bring coffee, a newspaper, and maybe a laptop to their sessions. Brad Wood brings a fully rigged studio to his, including enough chairs, lamps, couches, rugs, pencils, and soundproofing to open a medium-sized facility.

"I usually rent a house and spruce the place up before I move in," says Wood, an experienced producer/engineer who did just that for a new Bangles record in a Beverly Hills mansion. "It's a great way to record a band. I have my Apple and a Pro Tools system, a big keyboard rack, lots of mics and stands, two dozen Oriental rugs, and more in a bunch of flight cases. We might be in a house for four months or more, so I rent some great furniture, bring lots of sound proofing and even stock up on office supplies. And, if the cases are moved in at noon, I can have the whole studio up and running by three o'clock."

Home on the Range
Whether working from home, tracking in a foyer, or mixing in L.A.'s top studios, Wood is rarely more than eight feet from a Pro Tools session. His Pro Tools-mixed credits include Better Than Ezra's "Early In The Morning" single, Susanna Hoffs for Austin Powers' Goldmember, and selected tracks from Doll Revolution, the Bangles' new record. The Chicago-born Wood cut his audio teeth working with Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Veruca Salt, and credits "cheap rates and lots of work" in the 1980s for his dexterity in a studio today.

"Nothing like sheer repetition to work out all the engineering kinks," he laughs during some rare downtime between projects. Wood is taking the month off to re-tool his studio, take a look at Pro Tools|HD, and tend to his ARP 2600, VCS3 "Putney," and the rest of his large vintage synth collection. He's trying to defocus as his traveling rig's lease is about to end, but Wood's recent Pro Tools|HD recording experience at a vocal session has him more than a little distracted.

"I was recording Susannah Hoff's vocals at Record Plant for Austin Powers' Goldmember and we wanted to see what all this HD and 192 kHz talk was about," recalls Wood. "So we stopped and decided to track and play something back at 192 — and I mean, man, Digidesign really nailed it. Great Word Clock aspect and sample rate conversion, and the 192 kHz stuff is just unbelievable! It makes me think now about how much subconscious rationalizing we do every day for what we're listening to."

"I set the crossfade parameter between 25 and 40 Hz and bring detune back 5 to 10 cents to create a less robotic and more natural-sounding vocoder effect," Wood explains. "I also adjust the mix amount to between 20% and 35% and set the keyboard to latch."

Wood says Bruno users can choose the tonic, or base note, of a song as a drone note and sing along with that to get ideas, or add a fifth above or below the tonic and do the same. He typically creates a MIDI track in Pro Tools and selects Bruno as the track's output, selects a MIDI keyboard as input/controller, hits record, and starts playing along with the vocalist; but Wood also likes giving the vocalist a five-minute break while he Bruno-fies the scratch vocal track for more ideas.

"I don't always use the Bruno effect in the final mix, but it's amazing how a little bit of harmonic movement and input can really affect a track and a singer's approach to the song."

Pro Technique 2 —
Automating filter sweeps for The Bangles
One of Wood's favorite plug-ins is the GRM Tools Band Pass Filter, one he used to manually create a filter sweep on a new Bangles single. The intro to "Ride the Ride" features a slowly evolving, rising filter sweep that changes gradually over a 4-bar section. After first selecting the plug-in on the master fader (multi-channel in stereo) and selecting Link to move the left and right channels in unison, he hits the spacebar and moves the potentiometer until the desired effect is achieved.

"I'll practice a few times to get the right feel for the sweep before automating the move," says Wood. "Then I'll click on the Auto button to bring up the automation page and highlight all the parameters, and then I'll click Add. I bring up my Automation Enable window and arm the GRM plug-in, put the track into Auto Write, and move the potentiometer to where I want the effect to start."

Wood then hits the spacebar and makes his moves. If he likes what he hears on playback, he'll then fine-tune his automated filter sweep moves in the edit window. In the case of the Bangles' "Ride the Ride," only the right center frequency and right bandwidth parameters were affected since the left channel was linked to the right.

"Finally, using the grabber in Slip mode you can sculpt smoother or more dramatic moves," concludes Wood. "Or, in Grid mode (8th- or 16th-notes), you can make some pretty intense rhythmic changes in time with the music. Then, if everything sounds fine, I'll bus the output to a new track and record the results."

Brad Wood is managed by Nettwerk Productions.

www.nettwerk.com