Colin Richardson's Bu!let for my Valentine guitar settings

Colin Richardson gives the guitar settings for Welch band Bullet for my Valentine's debut album.

"Co-produced with Andy Sneap on the Bullet for my Valentine album The Poison, the track was called Hit the Floor

Here is the Bullet guitar chain ESP guitar with EMG 81 into a Maxon overdrive then into Andy's 5150, cab wise a Mesa Boogie with slanted front , Mic's 57 and 421 into Neve 1073 mic pre's with no EQ
Peavey 5150 settings
Rhythm channel
pre amp 6.5
Bass 6
mid 2
treble 5.5
post gain 3
resonance 7
presense 8

Cheers guy's."

#28Dec 16, 2006

Source: Colin Richardson on the Andy Sneap forum at http://www.ultimatemetal.com

Colin Richardson's EQ tips for rhythm guitars

Colin Richardson posted a quick summary of his EQ tips for rhythm guitars on the Andy Sneap forum.

Gear mentioned in his comments:

• Massenburg GML 8200 EQ

See the EQ tips page for a summary of frequencies.

"I usually find when mixing that i nearly always put a stereo Massenberg GML 8200 EQ across the rhythm guitars, if the sound has been recorded cleanly ie no strange fizz or bottom end boom, then the same type of frequencies tend to be boosted on most of my mixes. Frequency wise it's usually around 8-10 khz for the air 4-6 khz for the bite area, usually 1.5 khz for the in-your-face effect, 400hz for the note of the guitar and around 70-100 hz to pick out the weight of the cab.

The boost amount just depends on what has been recorded, just turn it till it sounds good. This method has worked on many albums i have worked on including Heartwork Carcass, Burn my eyes Machine Head, Chimaira self titled, Bullet for my valentine; The Poison.
  

There are no set rules for where you boost or choose frequencies on any instrument, but nearly all the time i will add a bit of 70-100hz in there on rhythm guitars , you find that you need it if you EQ the piss out of the other areas of the guitar sound!

I was talking about a guitar sound that had maybe been tracked a bit bland and needed digging out, to make it come alive,so yes these frequencies get boosted, if the guitar has been recorded quite piercing or with a boom on it, then sure cut offending areas, the Tom Lord Alge method works best just turn it till it sounds good, i suppose the art is having a complete vision where you want to go, its just learning by your mistakes

Q/Would you say that when you EQ, do you do it in order to make the guitars sound better, or is it more to make them cut through the other instruments? 

A/bit of both, firstly to make the guitars sound exciting to you, and also if you'v got some rocking kick and snare samples EQ'd with the real drums and compression going you have got to bring the guitars and bass up to the same excitement level, if the guitars have been tracked well then it's just a touch up, but if someone has screwed them up (not myself) ! then it's just a case of playing around with EQ to make them sound exciting, first with themselves, and then to sit with the kick , snare overheads and bass."

#1Oct 5, 2006

Andy Sneap's Amon Amarth Deceiver of the Gods drum tracking

Andy tells us how he tracked the Amon Amarth's "Deceiver of the Gods" drums.Stuff he's referring to:

• Sennheiser MD421: Dynamic microphone
• Heil Sound PR30: Dynamic Large Diaphragm Microphone
• B-Band UKKO-T: Drum Preamp
• Overtone Labs TBS-001 Tune-Bot: Studio Drum Tuner
• Neumann KM 86: Multipattern condenser microphone 
• Jens Bogren: Producer (of last album)

"The band really wanted a more natural feel to everything this time. As far as the toms go, its the usual 421's on racks, Heil PL30 on the 18" (because I'd ran out of 421's, but it sounded great so I've just got some more) and I also had some of those ukko transducers inside the toms which are blended quite low, but they add a cool cut to the top (they sound very hollow on their own but are great to trigger from).
The best thing for the toms tho was the tunebot, getting them properly in tune just makes them sit right and cut through, I can't recommend that little device enough.
Its also the first time I tried recording drums at the back end of my live room with the far room mic'ed with an old neumann KM86. I don't know why I hadn't tried this before but I was loving the room mic and I think it helps the vibe, especially on the slower stuff. I think Jen's stuff is great but I think it was really important to try a new approach and not worry too much on how things sounded on previous records."

Andy Sneap, Apr 14, 2013

Killswitch Engage album "Disarm the Descent" mixed and mastered by Andy Sneap

Produced by Adam Dutkiewicz, Andy mixed and mastered the album and it was released in 2013. Here's what he said about the guitar and vocals mixing. My comments in square brackets []

"I did run all clean vocals through Dolby A and Distressor for extra Muttness.

The guitars are Fuchs (, or that's what I was told) [Mantis probably]. The only way I can describe them is grainy, I wouldn't say scratchy, but its a more open gain....if that makes sense. Maybe a tad better for more open ringy riffs for my taste but the band were dead set on wanting to use their tone which I'm fine with.
The Dolby unit was actually Biffs [Biff Byford - Andy is a huge Saxon fan],  its a Dolby A 361, I'd not tried that old trick before but heard about it and thought I'd give it a shot so re-recorded all melodic vocs through that and the distressor."

Part 1 of the studio documentary showing the tracking.

Colin Richardson's vocal production on Bullet for my Valentine

One of Colin Richardson's rare internet forum appearances. This time regarding the Welch band Bullet for my Valentine and probably talking about their first album "The Poison". Pretty sure he meant  an Eventide H3000 btw.

"The effects used on the vocals were double tracking all vocals manually whether it be clean, heavy or harmony's, an eventide H300 [sic] was used on all vocals with a tiny chorus effect also a short delay somewhere between 200 ms and 300 ms . This was definitely the treatment on the voice as I produced and mixed the album."

Mar 26, 2007
Source: Colin Richardson on the Andy Sneap forum at http://www.ultimatemetal.com

A new beginning - same old same

Noise 101 started in a different time and a different form many moons ago when I discovered that top Metal Producer Andy Sneap was generous enough with his time to answer rwcordrec questions on the .....metal forum.
Being a fan of order and function, I decided to compile this wisdom, initially to help with my own recordings and also to help others.  This became the Noise 101 Wiki.
Many years later I stopped paying for the domain name and hosting as other priorities took over, but fellow recording fans had copied my compilation and posted in various forums. This again started to become fragmented and many more pearls of wisdom had been shared by Sneap and others.

A good friend told me that Noise 101 was still spoken about on the popular music production forums, so it was time to resurrect it, keeping the order and discipline from the original wiki....