Come with me as we give the Universal Audio Apollo a shootout at Utopia Parkway studio. My Avalon 737 was at the factory so we decided to give George’s Apollo a shot at being the mic pre of choice. We set up a couple of different channel strips to see which input path would give us the best signal for my Telefunken C-12 and my voice on my song “Thump Thump Thump”. It was down to a Neve with an LA2A and a 610 with an 1176.
[sarcasm]It’s riveting. So riveting. Especially if you’ve never been in a recording studio.[/sarcasm] Recording isn’t always the fun and games that people think it is. We do actually spend time figuring out exactly what the best course of recording a sound is. Time consuming comes to mind. Office managers determining a project’s work path is probably the best analogy. After that the real work begins. Laying down the musical parts.
Universal Audio Apollo Mic Pre
Thump Thump Thump recording
Testing mic pre’s.
Testing the Apollo mic pre. Okay Universal Audio.
I lie awake in the middle of the night.
Channel strip two. Well it’s actually one, but I flipped them around.
Well… we’re. It’s the second take on the channel strip on the Apollo.
There’s a push and a pull.
I lie awake in the middle of the night
There’s a push and a pull. As the gears begin to grind.
You know what? That, the 610 sounds more… rock-and-roll. If I was to put a… it has more “ah! to it” more ah.
There’s more meat to it.
That how, that’s how I would describe it.
It’s got more protein, more girth to it. Okay whereas the neve LA2A has a bit more of a refined thin thing.
Yes it’s interesting, I guess there’s a difference in the models. Cause it’s basically the same mic going through 2 different model emulations and they do sound different. Yeah. They are so hard core. I mean really truly. More hard core than most companies are. They want their stuff to be right. and they just really won’t stop until they are.
It’s the 610 76 that wins.
Okay, to give us the meat.
To get the song to ether.
Come with me inside RA Audio studios as we set up a Taylor Guitar’s K4 EQ. Here’s an outtake from the recording of my upcoming single called “Till We Meet Again” as Robert Navarro and I go through the pre-production of my Taylor 615ce. The amazing thing is that it didn’t take a very long time to plug in the guitar, plug in the K4, wire it to the pre-amp. Of course Robert and I spent a bit of time listening to several settings then proceeded to make a few minor tweaks. Then it was off the race, or rather off to the recording track.
One of the things an artist will discuss during the recording is how they will go about singing a breakdown. Which is exactly where I’m about to take you in the following video. George Leger III (co-producer), Jesse Stern (co-writer) and I take a moment to figure out the correct way for me to be singing the breakdown in Till We Meet Again. Jesse takes charge to give a mental picture of an example that should give the right vibe.