Selecting A Vocal Preamps
I must admit that I heard differences in the various preamps, but to my untrained ear, I wasn't sure which was ?best? for our application. Wagener helped demonstrate what he was looking for in a preamp. We learned that the most important thing is to pick a preamp that is not too bright, harsh, or shrill as you can live with just about anything else. So in many cases, the fastest, brightest preamps aren't always the best choices for recording vocals. We sat down and listened to a loop of the same line over and over for each preamp until the subtle nuances of each preamp became clear.

We ended up going with the Vipre. We first considered the 1272 Neve clone but liked the clarity a little bit better with the Vipre. The difference was subtle but worth noting. Actually, based on hearing a very loudly sang chorus we were about to pick the 1272 until we heard it on the verses. The Vipre was the clear choice. So that's something you must factor in when selecting your preamps.... the different lines.

Groove Tube Wagener Video Discussing The Vipre

Wagener's Endorsement For The Vipre (Check out those pants!! Awesome)

Guitar Cable Shootout
I must admit that I've always been a cable skeptic. I never discarded the fact that cables can make a difference, I just always wondered if the price to performance ratio was really worth it. I knew that recording was a game of inches, but it seams that I'm often a mile off and spending hundreds of dollars on a cable seamed to be money spent inefficiently.

Well folks, in the guitar cable world I was dead wrong! We only compared two different cables. The difference was eye opening!!! We compared the Monster Cable rock cable and a George L cable. I'm pretty sure that there is only one George L cable model, so that makes it pretty simple to find the exact model.

The George L completely stomped the living dog crap out of the Monster Cable. It wasn't even close. It took Wagener about 1.5 seconds to get up and say ?sold?. I couldn't believe the level of clarity, depth, and fidelity that I was hearing. The difference was staggering. What makes matters even more extreme is the fact that the Monster Cable is a respected cable. In other words, it's pretty damn good. I've been using cheap crap all along and I've got a feeling that the Monster Cable would totally beat my cheap cables.

The price was a nice suprise too. I figured the George L cable (which made a bigger difference than the preamp used in my opinion) would cost over $100. Nope! I got mine for about a dollar per foot. Not bad!!

In defense of my cable skepticism, I will say that due to the electronics situation that exists in guitars, the area in between the guitar and the amp is very very sensitive. I still believe that the difference would not be nearly as noticeable in a line level situation where impedances are properly balanced. However, I'd guess we could expect nice improvements with cabling before the mic preamps (when using microphones). However, I'd guess that the cable after the preamp is a tad less critical. I don't mean to shoot down the cable notion too much, but unless your studio has all links in the chain covered, I wouldn't go hog wild on mega cabling on everything. However, in the case of guitars, the George L is a no brainer. BUY IT!

Tracking Electric Guitar
We tracked distorted electric guitar. Wagener wasn't shy about giving Jeff, the guitar player, enough gain to hit the pinch harmonics. Our R121 micing seamed to have worked out great from the day before. It was great having the modules at our disposal as well as having a second amp (an Engl) ready to go at all times which was actually set to be a little more aggressive. The power of having so many tones right there at the faders was mega huge.

There weren't many tracks of guitars done. Wagener comes from the old school and felt no need to do 30 tracks. His tones speak for themselves so who is to argue? I must admit that I certain projects that I personally do often call for extensive guitar layering. In this case, the lesson is to listen and learn from the old school guys who know what they are talking about and apply that to what you know even if you don't clone everything they say. Some lessons are mega important concepts and other points and a matter of personal taste. More than likely your 19 year old metalhead will want the sound of more than 2 guitar tracks.

Recording Clean Electric Guitars
Wagener used the exact same mics and placement for recording clean and distorted guitars. Wagener ran 5 tracks into his Sony console as was discussed in previous articles. On the console, he played with the faders until he got something that he liked. That sound was then recorded to one track. SHe did play extensively with the submix of those mics so the actual configuration was probably quite different (by using very little of one microphone and more of an another, for example). Wagener had complete control of both Royer mics (one on each side of the Randall cabinet being fed by a different module on each side), the 2 DI's off the back of the Randall cabinet, and the Sennheiser 409 on the Engl cabinet.

There is no doubt about it. When you add more stuff to your guitar tracks, you do get a bigger, fuller sound. The Royer R121s sounded great on their own. However, adding the DI's off the back of the Randall cabinets (I've never seen this feature on any other cabinet) certainly added something extra. Wagener said the DI's do everything that the sound from the mics didn't do. Very interesting. When we combined all those tracks, the tone seamed to get bigger and bigger. Of course, using the Engl amp certainly added a lot too.

Celestion G12H30
Wagener said that he was happy with the Vintage 30 Celestions, but had decided to switch his cabinets over to the G12H30. I just bought a pair of those a little over a year ago as they came extremely highly recommended from good friend of mine, Bob Glastetter, who is the guitar tone expert in my neck of the woods.

Vocal Producing
After we did a rhythm distortion track, we moved on to vocals. We had to sort of switch out of ?workshop? mode and switch to real deal recording mode. In other words, we had to watch more than participate because Wagenesr was looking to get a great performance and that simply wouldn't happen with a bunch of nerdy guys staring down Julie, the singer from Hydrogyn.

It was amazing watching Wagener produce a vocal. There is a reason there are 60,000,000+ records out there with his name! You can tell that he is 100% excited about getting the most out of the singer he is working with. His enthusiasm effected everyone in the room. He combined that with various bits of psychology to get more out the singer. Luckily, Julie was a highly skilled singer and was easy to work with. Even so, there were a few parts that she was over thinking. What did Wagener do? Easy. He skipped it. That's nothing new, we all do that. However, he made Julie sing the line before the mistake several times. (Even though he already had what he wanted on that line). Without thinking she sang through that first line (which was actually fine all along) and nailed that line she was having trouble with. It was a slight variation on the same old idea of coming back to a vocal, but it was a truly ingenious idea. Amazing!

It was nice doing the cover 18 and a Life because it illustrated just how much emotion goes into the vocal. That song was an enormous hit and I would go as far as to say that it was a perfect song from the 1988 era. When you hear an extremely talented singer with essentially perfect pitch first sing it, it's not the same at all!!! I was like.... something is missing here. This isn't even the same song. The pitches were right, but it wasn't the same song. Then we listened to the original. Sebastian is really going over the top all over the place. It's overdone from an emotions standpoint. You hear the lyrics in his voice. Wagener pushed Julie into doing the same. It was astounding the difference before and after the Wagener production.

Lead Guitar
Next up was lead guitar. Again, Michael did nothing with the microphones. He simply adjusted faders on the console, and more importantly adjusted the tone controls on the amps. His tones varied heavily to get whatever he was looking for on the leads. There were times when he turned the low end all the way down. There were times where he wanted more low end. There were times when he cranked the amps and the monitors. There were times when he didn't. He did whatever he had to go to get the tone he was looking for. We switched guitars A LOT!

WorkFlow
You may notice that this particular article jumps around all over the place. That is for a reason! In the real deal recording mode, people generally aren't locked into one instrument at a time. If a singer is feeling it, you stop what you are doing and hopefully capture a great vocal take. If the vocals are not happening, you start overdubbing layers of electric guitar or whatever. The idea is to keep it fun and exciting for everyone. So in an ideal situation, you would have your studio setup so that any one person could jump on their respective instrument and get busy. This is highly effective when actually producing a song. Sometimes recording a band in your garage who you just met 5 minutes ago is a little tougher.

As mentioned in the article, we started the morning by selecting vocal preamps. In the same room, just a few feet away, stood a large guitar rig fully mic'd and ready to go. Obviously, guitars and vocals were not done at the same time. However, we could have switched between vocals and electric guitar in a matter of seconds if necessary. If you have a chance to work this way, DO IT!

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