In this Article Robbie Dwyer shares his approach to capturing a live band using a combination of amp modelling and analog and digital processing to keep the vibe of a band tracking together in a room while also minimising the spill.

One of the things I still believe that holds true in the studio is for the best results, get musicians to play together.

There is a lot to be gained from being in the same room, the eye contact, the communication and discussions, the sweat, and not to mention the banter. All of these things help boost the performance and overall vibe of the recording session.

Recently, I needed to record three 60’s songs, two of them being covers of 60’s classics and the other is an original, written in the style of the 60’s. It’s all for a big event that happens in September and the remit is that it MUST sound vintage.

The studio we recorded in is centered around an Apollo 16 with 3 different preamps. We had the Audient ASP800, a Focusrite 428MKII and Universal Audio’s 4-710 preamp, which has the choice of Transistor, Tube or a blend. 

To capture the essence of the 60’s sound ideally is to have everyone playing in the room with their amps and mic up a piano. However, the room is too small for this and the spill would be a complete nightmare. 

Drums

The main goal is to get that classic 60’s blown up drum sound that we’re all familiar with. The rest can potentially take care of itself (which I’ll explain later). 

Using the 4-710 pre’s in full tube mode for the drums, I chose to use the typical set-up that they would have used, which is 3 mics on the kit. For this, I used an Aston Origin on the outside of the Kick, I used a Blue Hummingbird on the snare (this is to add articulation in places) and a Thomann RM-700 as the single overhead above the kit. I also used an old AKG C414 B-ULS in omni for the Room mic. The last mic was really to give the sense of space using the EMT-140 plate and monitoring, rather than capturing it. 

The sound that was achieved sounded retro, fat and typical of the era, it also encouraged the drummer to dig in at times to push the tubes into more saturation during the fills.

A lot of these ideas had come from the Puremix Start to Finish Series with Matt Ross-Spang, when he worked with Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed. The only big difference here was the size of the studio and access to lots of great vintage gear.

Now that we have the basic sounds for the drums, the last thing I need to do is ruin it with spill from the others using their amps. To achieve this, I used a number of pieces of kit that the band could use that would make them feel comfortable and enable them to perform while being on headphones in the room together. 

Bass Guitar

Starting with the Bass. Now a DI is of course really important but it can be a bit dull listening to this all on it’s lonesome. I have recently purchased (much to the Bass players annoyance because he wants one) an Origin Effects ‘64 Black Panel’ Bass Rig. This particular pedal is based on the old Fender Bassman style amp. It does have a couple of options where you can go between the 50’s Tweed setting or the 60’s Black Panel edition. This is an all analog pedal that can be used as either a standalone amp sound (DI OUT), or it can be used as a stomp pedal to add character (AMP OUT). The pedal’s controls are initially very straightforward when using the DI out as it has a ‘Drive’ control (input), Blend (between full amp sound or DI and anywhere in between) and an Output level. The other switch enables you to either to go for that big fat tube sound, this is of course labelled as FAT, and the other option is BRIGHT, which gives you more of the great wiry note definition. Then there is the ability to adjust the EQ using Bass, Middle and Treble to dial in an awesome tone. The pedal does have in-built cab simulation too, this helps massively and it can either be on when the pedal is engaged (FX) or if you want it when the pedal is bypassed, then you need to select (FX + BYP). Again this is purely analog and doesn’t have any digital circuitry to create and change the sound. I would say that the folks at Origin have nailed this! Like with any DI, it does have the ground lift option too.

There are two small dials located under the EQ, these are the pedal’s ‘AMP OUT EQ’. Here you can adjust the LF and HF to further tune in the pedal with your Amp’s sound. There is also a switch that enables you to ‘Cut the HORN too, should you need to (as a side note, I recently used this at a gig and it was very flexible, in fact I totally removed any EQ from my Bass Rig and the 64 Black Plate sounded stonking).

The Bass player found this incredibly easy to use and dialled in a sound within 5 minutes and he even commented on the fact that it ‘felt like playing through an amp’. This is all very good when the rest of the band are playing through headphones.

Electric Guitar

With regards to the guitarist, it was very straightforward. My aim was to get him that old Fender sound, so what better way to do this than use a Kemper (Toaster edition). Kemper amps are a phenomenal tool when it comes to the studio and there are many companies who spend a great amount of time dialling in sounds to buy such as Michael Britt, Tone Junkie and STL Tones, to name but a few.

In this instance we opted for the Tonkie Junkie Fender Twin, instantly getting a starting point for the guitarist to work from and using a laptop, we just tweaked a couple of the parameters using the Rig Manager. Recently, Kemper have released Remote versions of their Rig Manager, which can be dialled in using a phone or tablet. However, it is the Kemper Stage that has the built  in Wifi, whereas older Toaster and Rack units will need a router connected to the Ethernet port on the back.

The beauty of the Kemper is not only can I get an amp sound, but I can also set up another output to give me a DI, should the need to re-amp occur.

All of the Bass and Guitar sounds went into the Focusrite 428 MKII, as there is greater control, especially for the DI’s and the Lundlahl transformers inside of it are clean but without sounding brittle.

Keyboards

Finally, for the Keyboards, I took a feed and this went into the Audient ASP800. Again, the Audient preamps are clean and enable a good solid capture of the keyboards.

What makes all of this possible though, is the flexibility of the Apollo 16. The Console application makes creating headphone mixes easily achievable for each member of the band because you can have 4 separate headphone CUE mixes. 

Another feature within the Console is the Control Room Section where you can call up each individual CUE send and monitor what they are hearing, so dialling their headphone sound becomes very quick and easy. The only thing you need to remember is to jump back to the MIX so that you can hear your version of the events in the control room.

Interfaces And Cue Mixes

As we all have known for a long time, Universal Audio Console has the ability to either record or monitor through UAD plugins. Now because this isn’t my rig, I didn’t have Ocean Way Room available. However, I wanted something that would give the musicians something to lean into and for that I used the EMT-140 plate and applied that to the AUX with a short tail, which fed into their headphones. This provided them with an air of space. Add to that, I applied another EMT-140 plate to the Room Mic of the drums and used an LA-2 for some gentle compression. This gave the drums some movement in the headphones, however, I set these to monitor, which means that while tracking, the band hears the effect but what goes into the DAW is a clean preamp sound, this enables me to use Ocean Way Rooms when I get back to mixing it.

The important part in all of this was that the musicians were all in the room together. As I said at the top of the article, eye contact and communication are vital as it helps to keep things as natural as possible. The band did play to a click because the shows are having to be timed,  but they were so locked in together, they were able to push and pull against that click.

What is also fantastic about this type of set up is the potential to be portable and go almost anywhere to do this. The key to it all is having the musicians being confident about what it is that they are doing. There are some amazing alternatives that are coming through now, you don’t need to have a Kemper, or an Origin Bass Rig, in fact a lot of DAWs have some great sounds, but what you do need to is to run with good low latency, the ability to create a good headphone mix that enables the musicians to do their thing, which is to play! 

As another side note, I used the Presonus HP60 6-channel, which can have a main mix and if your Interface has enough outs, you can send ‘More Me’ directly to each channel depending on their requirements. It also has built-in Talk Back too, which can be done using an external footswitch.

Now you have the option to build upon a fantastic performance by recording your amps in the traditional sense of using mics or by dialling in using some amazing amp modellers that are now available.

The final step for me is to make it all sound like it’s from the 1960’s so this will involve now using various plugins such as Universal Audio for their great Tape emulations and as I have mentioned before, Kush Audio as they do fantastic saturation tools.