HEVYDEVY FORUMS

I've been listening to Synchestra for a few weeks now (oops!) ,but I got my copy today (ordered from HDR).I've been reading the lyrics and the credits so when I read that Devin is responsible for the title of this thread I realized that he must be working his ass off when the time comes to get into the studio and get the album finished.I mean most metal bands use different people for production, mixing etc. My question is what do all these terms practically represent and in what order do they appear during the making of an album? I know that for Devin writing involves black coffee, some weed maybe, sitting on the stairs with a guitar plugged in the zoomy and a cassette recorder (preferably old and sturdy ). But what about the rest? I really don't know what a producer does and how is his work different from mixing or editing.I've been wondering about this for years.Can anyone help me here?

Too bad - I'd hoped some of you guys would do a great job answering this fellow. Seems no one cares.

I'd answer.. but I'm also wondering the same thing after reading

VelvetKevorkian429 wrote:I'd answer.. but I'm also wondering the same thing after reading

Ditto, I never understood what all that means.

pixillator wrote:My question is what do all these terms practically represent and in what order do they appear during the making of an album?

These are just my thoughts on it...

Well, first you write the material, although you aybe end up writing more or changing it in the studio. Then you record it, where sound engineering comes in picture too. Trying different setups etc. to get the best sound of each instrument. Ok, then you start to edit/mix it. Basic mixing includes panning (left-right in stereo) and adding effects (reverb, delay, compression) and using EQ. This is to make every instrument sound clear, so that they don't over-lap on each other (in stereo "space", or in frequencies...), and their volume levels are right.
After mixing record is mastered to make the overall sound of the record good, loud and clear. Producing? Hmmm, I think it involves parts of all of the above mentioned. Keeping the whole thing together, sort of.

I'm no professional, and I'd be happy if someone corrects me.

My understanding is that a producer is more of an overseerer, while an engineer is more of a technical guy. Editing is part of the producing/engineering process. Mixing of course takes place after production and engineering.

I guess the point is, most bands have a different guy doing each job, whereas Devin does it all himself on this record.

It is confusing, though. People throw these terms around without putting much thought into what they mean.

as far as i know a producer works to get the actual "sound" right
the mixing is getting the volume levels of all the parts nice sounding and putting cues in and things.
editing adds bit takes bit out deciding tracklisting how llong the silence between each track are (if at all) and engineering as dances... says its more technical... the right mike setup and things

or i could just fuck off

Thank you all for your answers, I think I understand better now.A sound engineer takes care of the technical aspects of the recording (getting help from the studio technicians on the hardware part of the job?) but still he gets the guidelines from the producer and the band, right? But then who is ultimately responsible for the sound of the band or the sound of an album or a specific song? Devin particulary knows how he wants his music to "sound" so he uses all these effects to get that rich ambient sound. But if we suppose that he works with a different producer, how will the outcome be any different? What changes will the producer suggest? Can he intervene and say "the guitars here need more echo", "this riff and this part of the lyrics should be left out" or "the kick drum volume should be turned up" ? I think you know what I mean. Is the band/artist or the producer responsible for the "sound" of the album?

pixillator wrote:But if we suppose that he works with a different producer, how will the outcome be any different? What changes will the producer suggest? Can he intervene and say "the guitars here need more echo", "this riff and this part of the lyrics should be left out" or "the kick drum volume should be turned up" ? I think you know what I mean. Is the band/artist or the producer responsible for the "sound" of the album?

Didn't somebody else than Devin produce or mix Physicist?

Turge wrote:

pixillator wrote:But if we suppose that he works with a different producer, how will the outcome be any different? What changes will the producer suggest? Can he intervene and say "the guitars here need more echo", "this riff and this part of the lyrics should be left out" or "the kick drum volume should be turned up" ? I think you know what I mean. Is the band/artist or the producer responsible for the "sound" of the album?

Didn't somebody else than Devin produce or mix Physicist?

About Physicist, this is what I found at hevydevy.com:

Written and Produced by Devin Townsend
Mixed by Mike Plotnikoff
Engineered by Devin Townsend, Shaun Thingvold, Paul Silviera and Matteo Caratozzolo

You are right, I didn't know that.But still Devin produced it. And didn't he want to remix Psysicist? I think Shaun Thingvold was involved with the mixing(?) of SYL's Alien and he did help Devin engineer Synchestra. Production still remains a mystery to me...

there's some professional duscussion going on in these boards, and some users seem to be into it really well.

as i can tell, the definition in this thread pretty much sums it up. the question who's responsible for the sound can't be answered that easy. i guess in pop music it's mostly the producer, whereas more progressive, serious bands often know quite well what they want to sound like. meshuggah for example seem to have a clear idea of their sound, and with devin it seems the same: he knows how to achieve his sound, and where to use which sample and so on.

i guess the producers he works with, like daniel bergstrand for example, simply know more about the technical tricks. but i can't imagine devin lets anyone influence his work too heavily. so i'd say: he's responsible for most of what we hear on his records.

In general, a Producer is also responsible for getting the best performances out of all the musicians who play on the album, ie. making sure a guitar part is played cleanly, or the vocal enunciated correctly, or whatever. He may also make decisions about which songs to record, alter arrangements of songs and tinker with getting the "right" sound for the song. This may involve making choices about different combinations of guitars and amplifiers, different microphones, different drumkits, etc. The engineer is the guy who plugs everything in and makes sure everything works before the band even arrive at the studio. They are also responsible for carrying out the suggestions of the Producer when it comes to getting different sounds and whatnot. In the studio, often it's the Producer who is the "brain" and the engineers and assistants are his "hands".

The Mixer is responsible for the overall final sound of the record. Altering the volume ond/or frequency range of each instrument in relation to the other instruments can completely change the whole sound of a song. Deciding things like fading and panning sounds. Listen to the drums in Let it Roll - they are primarily in the right speaker, and not quite as loud as, say, the drums in Hypergeek. That's something that was done during mixing. Often the Producer or the band is there at the mixing stage to help oversee the process and ensure that the sound of the record stays consistent with the Producer's vision (or the band's). Sometimes though, the mixer is left to their own devices and they do what they think is best for the song, based on a brief from either the Producer, the band, or the record company (who are more often than not paying for the whole damn thing, so they usually want to be involved).

Also, go here:

http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/mm/

and read the Mixerman Diaries. It should give you a pretty good idea of the basic roles of a Producer, a mixer and an engineer play in the studio. Plus, it's one of the most hilarious things I've read on the net for ages.

Well, I do everything there is to do with my songs, from nothingness to full songs Here's what it requires:

1) First I jam along to a metronome and make all the riffs and leads that go into the song

2) After I've got all the riffs I feel are adequate, I arrange them in a program (Nuendo for me) so that the song progresses well and the entity is solid

3) Then I record all additional guitars (double-tracking) plus any small things to the background (small lead parts)

4) After that, I start to program the drums riff by riff and copypas.. erm, assemble all the drum parts so that the entire song has drums

5) Then I listen through the song and air-drum along to it, with the aim to create those small "humanities" into the computerized drums. Fills, rolls and small details. Then I listen through the song again and again, perfecting the drums - volume swells, velocity levels etc, in order to make it sound more like a real drummer would.

6) After the drums are done, I bounce all the guitars and drums into single soundfiles (to ease off the load on the computer for the next step).

7) This is where the songs get their soul and atmosphere: FX, Programming, Synths and Keyboards (FPSK from now on). It also takes humongous amounts of resources when there's a lot of things going on. I take each riff and loop them while thinking what sort of things I could do on the FPSK. On this part I usually juggle through half a dozen programs, programming all various thingies and parts that I then import into the main tracker.

8 ) Now that I have a whole bunch of FPSK, I lay them out on the riffs for the whole song and see if I could make some variations for different parts, and what parts should/shouldn't have FPSK at specific times.

9) Now, I again listen through the song a whole lotta times, and do some minor fixes on some things.

10) Once I'm entirely happy with it (I could even publish the song, sometimes I do), I start to make all the bass parts to the song. Since I don't often make them purely follow guitar lines, this takes a surprisingly long time for a groovin' movin' mix.

11) At this point, I usually start to finalize the mix (I do most of my mixing on the fly, while writing the stuff), but here's when the final mix happens. I check all the levels and pans, and apply any additional effects etc needed.

12) Last part is doing the vocals etc, which I record at another place, so I generally finalize my songs down to the dot before this step.

Once the entire thing is done, I make one unedited copy of the song (in .wav format) and then open it in a sound editor (Sound Forge for me), and I compare the rough sound to my reference albums (albums that I think sound good), and analyze what is "wrong" - and what I need to do to make it sound better (usually done on EQ).

Sometimes at this point, I need to fix something at very basic levels, so here's where having two simultaneously updated copies of the song files come in handy (one with a bounced mix, and one with everything still on unique tracks (especially for programmed drums)).

Then once I'm 105% satisfied with the mix, It's done

Of course, since I do everything myself and with programmed stuff featured heavily, it's quite different to a normal studio session. But here's one view on the same end-result

into the voigtex: wow thanx man, I now understand why producers are considered so important to the making of an album. I wonder how Devin's music would sound if he hired other people to produce, mix, etc. Of course that would cost a lot (and I think it's one of the main reasons that Devin got involved with producing in the first place) but it would be interesting to see the outcome.

Torniojaws: man that's a lot of work!!!! But yeah, while the end resault is similar to proffesional studio recording sessions, the procedure is quite different when you do everything on your own.Btw, didn't Devin record and produced AE on his computer at his home studio(except drums I think)?

Torniojaws wrote:Well, I do everything there is to do with my songs, from nothingness to full songs Here's what it requires:

1) First I jam along to a metronome and make all the riffs and leads that go into the song

2) After I've got all the riffs I feel are adequate, I arrange them in a program (Nuendo for me) so that the song progresses well and the entity is solid

3) Then I record all additional guitars (double-tracking) plus any small things to the background (small lead parts)

4) After that, I start to program the drums riff by riff and copypas.. erm, assemble all the drum parts so that the entire song has drums

5) Then I listen through the song and air-drum along to it, with the aim to create those small "humanities" into the computerized drums. Fills, rolls and small details. Then I listen through the song again and again, perfecting the drums - volume swells, velocity levels etc, in order to make it sound more like a real drummer would.

6) After the drums are done, I bounce all the guitars and drums into single soundfiles (to ease off the load on the computer for the next step).

7) This is where the songs get their soul and atmosphere: FX, Programming, Synths and Keyboards (FPSK from now on). It also takes humongous amounts of resources when there's a lot of things going on. I take each riff and loop them while thinking what sort of things I could do on the FPSK. On this part I usually juggle through half a dozen programs, programming all various thingies and parts that I then import into the main tracker.

8 ) Now that I have a whole bunch of FPSK, I lay them out on the riffs for the whole song and see if I could make some variations for different parts, and what parts should/shouldn't have FPSK at specific times.

9) Now, I again listen through the song a whole lotta times, and do some minor fixes on some things.

10) Once I'm entirely happy with it (I could even publish the song, sometimes I do), I start to make all the bass parts to the song. Since I don't often make them purely follow guitar lines, this takes a surprisingly long time for a groovin' movin' mix.

11) At this point, I usually start to finalize the mix (I do most of my mixing on the fly, while writing the stuff), but here's when the final mix happens. I check all the levels and pans, and apply any additional effects etc needed.

12) Last part is doing the vocals etc, which I record at another place, so I generally finalize my songs down to the dot before this step.

Once the entire thing is done, I make one unedited copy of the song (in .wav format) and then open it in a sound editor (Sound Forge for me), and I compare the rough sound to my reference albums (albums that I think sound good), and analyze what is "wrong" - and what I need to do to make it sound better (usually done on EQ).

Sometimes at this point, I need to fix something at very basic levels, so here's where having two simultaneously updated copies of the song files come in handy (one with a bounced mix, and one with everything still on unique tracks (especially for programmed drums)).

Then once I'm 105% satisfied with the mix, It's done

Of course, since I do everything myself and with programmed stuff featured heavily, it's quite different to a normal studio session. But here's one view on the same end-result

Cool stuff. My process is alot simpler. I usually start with a riff or melody. Then I figure out a drum beat with my drum machine and progress from there. I mainly write all my riffs and rhythms during this process.

I usually re-record alot of the stuff later on cause I'm coming up with alot of this stuff on the spot and it can be loose sounding at first.

Once the rhythms guitars are finished, it's the bass tracks and finally the drums are tweaked a bit to fit the rhythms a little more tightly.

Then it's guitar over-dubs, effects and post EQ'ing to make certain tracks stand out better.

From what I've learnt with recording vocals: Compression is your friend. Double tracking and harmonies are very handy as is accentuating vocal parts. Reverb it very handy. And last but not least, a pop filter is a must have.

I'm still a newby at recording and stuff. But I learn as I go along.