Pro Techniques from Soulstice

By Randy Alberts

"Everything in our studio revolves around, interfaces with, and is controlled by Pro Tools," admits San Francisco producer, engineer, and keyboardist Andy Caldwell about the Soulstice studio. A play on words meaning "the soul's highest point in the sky," Soulstice is a popular trip-hop and house band specializing in its own brand of futuristic electronic soul. Drum 'n' bass classics like "Tenderly" and "Lovely" are now club standards and regular selections on the playlists of DJ Garth, Mark Farina, Q Burns Abstract Message, and others.

"We started with Sound Tools, then Pro Tools 3, then our Digi 001, and now a Pro Tools|24 MIXplus," Caldwell continues, "and with every technology leap we've felt a huge creative leap along with it. The things I can do now with this TDM system are phenomenal, and surprisingly to me more for the increased creative abilities than the extra tracks, being able to run lots of plug-ins and having a great mixing environment."

Working together in different combinations since 1989, Gina Rene, Gabriel Rene, Andy Caldwell, and Mei-Lwun Yee came together as Soulstice in 1995 in the heart of San Francisco's SOMA (south of Market) district. Seven years of inspiration and many Pro Tools sessions later the band has since released a string of 12" singles and EPs in the late '90s, such as "Tenderly" and "Goog Organ", before releasing their 001-recorded and mixed debut album in 2001, Illusion (Om Records). Soulstice is currently working on its second full-length album with a MIXplus system.

Gabriel Rene, Gina Rene, Mei-Lwun Yee, and Andy Caldwell of Soulstice

"Gabriel just bought a Pro Tools|HD 3 system, so we've just started to scratch the surface," says Caldwell. "From what I've heard so far, the sound quality has more air to it and there's an increased spatial ability when placing things in a mix. I really like to get as much out of any platform or any technology I buy before I move up to the next step, so the HD will really have to rock because the MIXplus is a great system. But I don't know, now that I'll be working with Gabriel's HD system a lot, who knows."

Soulstice turntablist and lyricist Yee is an avid Pro Tools user, as well. He sometimes moves his scratches around to better phrase and time his moves.

"I'd like to say I can record my scratches raw into Pro Tools and have it be spot on every time, but I've done tons of edits," he says. "Using Pro Tools has changed the way I think about recording scratches and other sources, as well. Soulstice is a producer-driven group and we all compose and write in the studio, so Pro Tools has been the heart of our studio for years."

Pro Technique 1 —
Using Beat Detective to sniff out lazy MIDI tracks
The Soulstice bandmates, who have worked with MIDI since the late '80s, seem to be able to sense the slightest MIDI timing fluctuation. Even when they can't, Caldwell still makes it a daily habit to hitch up the band's MIDI kick, snare, and hi-hat parts just enough with Beat Detective to make sure. After recording those basic tracks into Pro Tools he then, working in 4- or 8-bar chunks at a time in Beat Detective, captures a selection and analyzes and conforms it to ensure his kicks, snares, and hats are syncopated but not overly tight.

"MIDI always fluctuates just a little bit, so I typically go about 30% on Beat Detective's sensitivity and do a straight conform without any swing," Caldwell explains. "I do a lot of dance music production and this makes things tight. I also experiment with anywhere from a 5- to 40-millisecond fade with a lot of parts, and to sometimes add the live feel back, I'll put the swing at 10% and experiment with adjusting the strength and sensitivity controls a bit, too. Beyond drums, I often use Beat Detective just as much for MIDI bass lines to handle timing problems. Just as with the drums, I'll add that 10% swing feel if a dance track is sounding way too rigid."

Pro Technique 2 —
Creating easy faux stereo tracks with Short Delay
Are vocal comps and guitar solos eating up your available tracks? Caldwell offers this handy quick tip for turning mono parts into faux stereo without needing to soak up an adjacent track. When track counts are getting tight, he suggests using the Pro Tools Short Delay plug-in instead of using up another track to record in stereo.

"Often I'll have a mono track I want to spread out, let's say a conga part, so instead of eating up another track with it I'll just pull up Short Delay," explains Caldwell. "It's the easiest but most useful tip I can think of that I use every day. First, I set the Mix amount on both sides in Short Delay to 50, then I set one side's delay amount to 0 and the other to the longest setting possible, which I believe is 17 milliseconds. That's just the right amount of delay to create a nice spread on the conga part and make it sound like it was recorded in stereo."

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