Pro Techniques from Jay Baumgardner at NRG Recording
By Randy Alberts
Quilted satin walls and draped velvet curtains; regal cedar beams and stately
wood columns; rich-toned theater lighting and an arched Moroccan doorway
over a woven wood floor. If you didn't know the history here, you'd expect
to read about all the Academy Award-winning classic operas, symphonies,
and chamber quartets recorded at NRG Recording in North Hollywood, California.
But Limp Bizkit? Korn? Godsmack? Linkin Park? Absolutely.
Some killer orchestral tracks have indeed been recorded at this respected studio, but NRG is really better known as the place to rock in the greater L.A. basin. Even the average kid buying that first axe at Guitar Center knows that NRG is where Evanescence, Papa Roach, and Hoobastank record, and where Linkin Park made Hybrid Theory. There's a constant flow of rock's top artists basking in the laid-back NRG vibe. The house specialty is supporting new and established artists like one big family, as evidenced by an interruption in DigiZine's phone interview with NRG founder and owner, Jay Baumgardner.
"Dude, sorry, but that was Page Hamilton who just walked in. He's reforming Helmet!" says Baumgardner, who is looking forward to producing the Helmet effort himself with Hamilton. "He's amazing, and the new stuff is going to be great. And then I just got to meet Avril Lavigne. She's in one room, and right next to her in another is Melissa Etheridge mixing her new record, and in our third room Dave Fortman, who produced Evanescence, has a new band he's working with called Watership Down."
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No Doubt at NRG |
"Uh, yeah, yeah," laughs the good-humored NRG owner. "A typical day. It's awesome working here. We try to dominate, you know? In a way we sort of hand-pick the artists that work here, and find people early in their careers as artists and producers to help them out as much as we can. It's a big melting pot here. We have barbecues and parties, and the atmosphere is always casual for everyone to have fun and get together. It's all down-to-earth here."
The Days of Early 24 Bits, Cigarettes, and Sandwiches
NRG Recording was founded in 1986 in Baumgardner's house, behind the
Circus Liquor store on Burbank Blvd. Jay and his dedicated early staff
used to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the semi-infamous Circus
between classic NRG sessions in the late '80s and early '90s. Now they're
looking to put some new rooms online in a second NRG building a block
away, but Baumgartner remembers living there long before it all went
large for the studio. Pro Tools has been a vital part of that NRG picture
for the past five years.
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| Linkin Park at work |
At least NRG's analog console is still getting some good use. Given the studio's classic rock sounds of a loud cabinet or snare drum hit over-compressing analog tape, it's a little surprising the hallway has several decommissioned machines sitting around waiting for cargo. Faithfully recreating those tones in Pro Tools wasn't always easy, but that was several hardware, software, and OS updates ago.
"There's no introduction needed to Pro Tools now. The tape machines have been sitting in the hallway for two years, so that tells you it's way beyond introducing rock bands to Pro Tools here at NRG. In fact, I think we'd find it difficult to work any other way. It's beyond that now."
NRG & Pro Tools|HD: Where Drums and Guitars Go
to Rock
Baumgardner, his staff, and most every artist that's recorded at NRG
have had the chance to evaluate one or more versions of Pro Tools when
it comes to capturing the essence of rock tones. So in their opinion,
does Pro Tools|HD know how to rock?
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Limp Bizkit |
"It's an improvement all around, and especially on guitars and drums," Jay says of NRG's Pro Tools|HD 3. "With some plug-ins, I think it's even better than the sound of analog tape at this point, in some respects. My philosophy with Pro Tools is that using plug-ins isn't just an addition — I mean, it's the main thing. Pro Tools imparts no sound whatsoever, so you can give it some character and color using the plug-ins. It's sort of a straight wire without using them, so to add your colors and character you use plug-ins."
Pro Technique 1 —
Realigning direct input (DI) and amplified
bass tracks
Baumgardner offers this practical Pro Tools tip for recording
bass tracks. Often bass is recorded and mixed as a combination of the
mic'd, amplified signal along with an input that splits off and comes
directly to Pro Tools from a DI box. The trouble is, these two tracks
may not play back in perfect alignment. Enter Digidesign's Time Adjuster
plug-in.
"The two tracks are usually a little out of phase," says Baumgardner. "If there's an amp signal and a direct signal, or guitar or anything for that matter, there's a slight phase difference between the two signals. I put Time Adjuster on the DI track and kind of scrub the sample delay time back and forth until I come up with a better in-phase signal."
Once Time Adjuster has been used on the DI track to align it with the recorded amp track, the NRG staff will use the plug-in's phase switch to throw the amp track in and out of phase as well, to best adjust the two tracks together.
"You just scrub it and slide it and find the dust," he explains. "Just quickly find the null point this way and then switch the phase switch in and out until you get the most low-end signal possible from the two combined tracks."
Pro Technique 2 —
Using low-cut filters on guitar tracks
This is one of the shortest, easiest
Pro Techniques in DigiZine over the past year. But it's the simplest tips that can make the biggest
difference in making music sound good with Pro Tools — or any recording
medium, for that matter.
"Something real basic I always do on guitar tracks is that I put a low-cut filter on 'em," Baumgardner says. "Just use the basic Pro Tools EQ to filter out the subharmonic low end on guitar tracks, and it cleans up an overall rock track mix considerably. I do this myself all the time, and I tell other people to do the same. It's a very easy, handy tip for making guitar-heavy mixes sound better."