Keith Cleversley and His Pea Brain

I know, many will call this blasphemy. Many may even argue until the cows come home (and then some) about how this is impossible, how there’s no way digital will ever rival the sound of analog, especially digital representations of vintage analog gear that may actually sound more authentic than their analog vintage gear counterparts. And, some might claim I have no idea what I’m talking about, which is exactly the reason I’ve included examples from some of the best ears in the industry.

I’m also from the analog side of the tracks; i didn’t want to move away from film in my camera, but realized it didn’t change the way I took photos; it only made it easier to get the photos i saw in my mind into tangible form, and it was no different than when I finally gave in an bought a Pro Tools system Listening test after objective listening test, I’m afraid there’s now no return for me other than the occasional melancholy and sentimentality over not having all those real-life analog knobs to tweak.

So, we have the means and the technology to precisely measure, at every frequency (especially in the narrow range of human hearing) in the audio spectrum, how any analog piece of gear affects a sound signal that is applied to it. And what these measurements have revealed, is that the any analog audio device affects the signal in a way that is mathematical, making it replicable and repeatable, regardless of the frequency of the signal that is being applied to it, and regardless of the complexity of the signal.

Wow.

Even when people hear this, I think they don’t fully comprehend what this means for sound. This means that no analog piece of processing equipment today is out of the reach of anyone anymore. All of the fancy studio with more money than they knew what to do with, could buy up all the vintage boxes to impress their clients, to fatten up sounds, and offer a unique sound on records that only these elite studios could provide.

But now, digital can accurately predict the future through precise algorithms that exactly match the characteristics of some of the most beloved analog gear of all time, reliably, without endless service calls or capacitor replacement, and with far more flexibility and options, including the ability to have an LA-2A on every track of your mix if you wish.

To explain more clearly, let’s take one of the most famous, as well as the simplest piece of vintage studio gear that is found in numerous top studios around the world; the LA-2A compressor. It has 2 knobs on it; an INPUT and an OUTPUT. The higher the input knob, the most compression that gets applied to the incoming signal, and the OUTPUT…well, it controls the output level of that signal.

Simple, right? So, Teletronix (UA) took the very best-tuned, highest performing units they could find, and tweaked them to be exactly at factory specs, and also took a few extra “street” models as well for comparison. It turns out that no matter signal was applied, a mathematically replicable result at the output occurred every single time. And, what they also found out, was that matching the output characteristics so precisely was far easier and far more predictable than anyone had ever imagined.

Shortly after this discovery, a workable plug-in was developed and then some highly critical and respected ears were played a wide range of audio material through the authentic analog LA-2A, and it’s digital counterpart.

Sadly for many, in as much as we want to believe that there are “essences” or “nuances” or “high harmonics” or that the analog gear gives this “overstuffed couches lined with silvery clouds” sound that digital could never match, or a “certain something that’s difficult to explain.”  Well, none of the critical ears placed in front of the authentic analog piece and the digital version could tell the difference. The percentage of correctly choosing the analog LA-2A was exactly 50%, which amounts to; you guessed it; nothing more than guessing.

So, let’s take this many steps further and see what Waves Engineers started to do when they hooked up with SSL. To faithfully recreate the extraordinary SSL sound, Waves engineers spent more than a year analyzing and modeling the distinctive sonic characteristics of SL 4000 factory reference consoles and components provided by Solid State Logic themselves. They created extensive modeling algorithms that, just like every other piece of analog gear tested, showed repeatable, predictable, and programmable changes that the SSL was making to the sound, regardless of input source.

Then followed up with extensive testing, it was found that the Waves SSL 4000 plug-ins sounded virtually identical to their hardware counterparts, and when the best ears in the business were called in to find the fake, none were able to do so with more than 50% accuracy again.

This has been proven over and over again, and the technology is so “commonplace” now that almost any plug-in or equipment manufacturer has access to this technology and can apply it to their products. I keep telling people that the future is now, and if this doesn’t convince anyone it is, I don’t know what will.

The biggest battle for me is getting over the psychological barrier to this new way of thinking about recording. I made so many records I adore on my Amek “big”, from the Flaming Lips to Mercury Rev to HUM and many others, and now that we made the very difficult aesthetic decision to replace it with a far superior Matrix console from SSL, it took a long time to feel like it was a proper studio, since the aesthetic of that giant, room-filling console was no longer there. And I know it’s the same with bands that come in: Rather than going “Wow!” when they enter the Control Room, they look at the Matrix and wonder if they’re in the right place.

It then takes some explaining as to how this console is vastly more powerful, sounds vastly superior, and is so much more of a tool to make the sounds in all our heads into a tangible reality than anything else I’ve ever worked with. It not only seamlessly ties together my favorite analog bits of my studio (like my Shadow Hills QUAD GAMA preamps), but it routes and automates everything down to plug-ins that can now be intuitively controlled by knobs again, and even keeps track sheets of each project in a simple, easily accessible place as well.

It’s No Longer About the Gear

When tracks come out sounding digital: I hate to say it, but it’s not because of the technology, it’s because of the humans using the technology. I’ve proven this time and time again in my recording sessions as well as my mastering sessions. When the psychological component of staring at giant knobs being turned on a big silver box with VU’s on it is removed from the equation, no one yet, has been able to reliably tell the difference between an entire live take recorded onto my JH-24, and that same take simultaneously recorded onto my Pro Tools HD3 Accel system, with my McDSP analog channel applied either on every individual channel, or on the Master Fader of the stereo output.

This, to me, is beyond incredible. My JH-24, which was such a revered part of my studio, and has so many great alternative bands’ music passing through it is now just a giant effects box that rarely gets used. Even when we do use it, because even though our ears tell us differently, our hearts want to record onto analog, we track the main take on it, and then transfer it to Pro Tools.

Which leads me to something that I always adore about all of this technology. For a while, only those who could afford fancy studios with collections of vintage gear and finely-tuned gear could get that ‘sound’; that elusive black magic something that will make good records sound great, acting as the “glue” that holds it all together.

But, technology has come full circle, and since this kind of sound is now available to everyone, engineers and producers have to rely on their vision, their imagination, and their ears to guide them to great sounding records again. Digital does not make records sound digital anymore, and keeping entire sessions in the digital realm can often make digital recordings sound even more analog than analog recordings, especially since every piece of vintage gear in my plug-in collection will never need tubes replaced, it will never need new capacitors, it will never add strange intermittent noises, and so on. Yes, those things may add to the “character” of those pieces of vintage gear, but I now have the option to add that bias noise virtually, or to run my virtual tape machine at +4, or +6, or +9 long after the fact, without any degradation to the original sound, and infinite tweak ability to my heart’s content.

Plug-ins will never turn dirt to gold, but properly applied in creative and musical ways, they can be tools more powerful than I imagined possible, extending my palette of sounds and colors way beyond my stack of analog compressors, old keyboards, vintage reverbs, and all that other stuff I couldn’t, just a few years ago, ever imagine living without.

On the album I produced with HUM titled “You’d Prefer an Astronaut”, their guitar sounds were inexorably linked to amazing guitar playing, drop-tuned guitars, and super lush chords. I think of my addition of some saturated tracks, a few carefully-choen mics, and a couple big speakers was only that; an addition to what were already great guitar sounds. HUM wanted to get the fattest guitar sounds they’d ever heard on a record, so our mission was clear from the beginning.

Since they originally came to my (newly-opened) studio to simply re-mix an album that they had already completed, this turned out to be an extremely tall order. The money left from their recording budget from RCA was $35,000.00 (out of $100,000.00), and they didn’t think they could do anything other than pay for some mixing sessions, but after listening to the tracks they had recorded elsewhere, there was only one option:

Since this would be only my second full-length record I had ever produced on my own (with The Flaming Lips and ‘Transmissions from the Satellite Heart’ being my first), and since anyone paying me at all to make a record with HUM was a novel concept, I told the label that I would record an entirely new record for that kind of money. I had just opened my studio; The Playground, and was excited to have my first recording at the studio be with a band I adored. By the way; The Flaming Lips paid me $5,000.00 an no points to engineer and produce ‘Transmissions from the Satellite’ heart over the course of an 8-week period. (They said to take it or leave it becuase I “didn’t have a leg to stand on” when we started discussing engineering and production fees.)

So, I took the entire budget and bought an MCI JH-24 (the same machine we used for ‘Transmissions from the Satellite Heart’), and financed an Amek ‘Big’ mixing console with the rest. Knowing what little I did about HUM, I knew that there would be no way that I could make this record without automation, and the Amek ‘big’ actually has Total Recall automation…something that, in hindsight, was one of the best investments I ever made.

Whenever recording with the Flaming Lips, we used human hands and lots of tape, charts, and notes for each song. See the ‘Flaming Lips and Automation’ article for that story.

Anyway, HUM quickly got to setting up more gear than I’d ever seen a band use. The drummer (Brian St. Pere) had a double kick drum and a drum cage, shrouded in cymbal, after cymbal, after cymbal. The guitars both required ½ of a recording wall each, while the bass player set up his dual Ampeg SVG rig in what I thought was a large vocal booth.

Both guitarists in HUM (Matt Talbott and Tim Lash) liked Mesa Boogie amps and Gibson Les Paul guitars. I also had an 2 old Ampeg Bass Cabinets with a single 12′ speaker in each, as well as two unlikely, but amazing guitar mics. One was a mic I discovered out on the road; a Sennheiser 409 (now a 609), and the other; a studio accident; an Audio Technica 4033, as well as the occasional Shure SM58.

Each Mesa Boogie rig got 2 mics each, with no external compressors whatsoever. The Sennheiser 409 has a similar sound to the Shure SM57, but fuller, with much less midrange harshness, as well as a much fatter bottom and a far smoother top. Not only did these mics sound good, but they are one of the sturdiest mics I’ve ever used. And, for some reason, when they’re properly phase-aligned and mixed together with the Audio Technica 4033, the sound is massive, with little EQ and no external compression.

The 4033 has almost a 180 degree pickup pattern with an overly bright sound, so I always found little use for it for anything other than a room mic or as an occasional vocal mic. But when it’s partnered with a 409, an amazing thing happens: All of the midranges that the 409 captures so smoothly, fit perfectly into the low and high scoop of the 4033. Everywhere that the 4033 is brittle, the 409 smoothes out the sound, and what you get is a basis of the HUM guitar sound.

Also, I used the single 12′ Ampeg speaker for both Tim and Matt as a nice fat bottom that would also sit hard left and right, far out of the way of the bass guitar and kick drum, but providing necessary support for sounds that had a LOT to compete with. The mic on those were also single AKG 414′s. (The D112 sound was too fat and we wanted the kick drum to have its own unique mic and sounds anyway.)

But, that’s only part of the story: What HUM did on almost every track on the record is triple-track their guitar tracks. One of the most amazing things about Tim Lash was his ability to exactly duplicate his performance, no matter how complex. Matt Talbott was able to do the same thing, but never with the fluidity and grace that Tim was able to do it with.

As soon as they got a performance that they were happy with, they immediately recorded a 2nd and a 3rd track of guitars. I would then take two sets of those guitar tracks and pan the 4033 mics hard left and hard right, and then pan the 409 tracks at about 8:00 and 4:00. When there was a 3rd track (which wasn’t always), I would pan both mics together, with one at 9:00 and the other at 3:00.

Now we were getting somewhere!

And this method only provided the ‘bed’ tracks for many many many more guitar tracks to come. Almost every guitar part that wasn’t arranged in advance was multi-tracked, utilizing all 3 mics each time, adding to the lushness and the wash of ultra-thick guitar sounds that HUM is famous for.

People often ask if the 2′ 24-track machine or the 2′ 16-track machine we were using made a noticeable difference on the guitar sounds as well. After doing test after test after test, we all unanimously decided that the saturated sound of the MCI JH-24 was actually smoother and more desirable than the sound of the 3M M-79. Part of the reason for this may be because we had so many guitar tracks, but we tried every combination we could think of, spending an entire 2 days on guitar sounds and possibilities alone, and what we ended up with was no EQ, no external compressors, and the crunchy sound of highly saturated 2′ tape.