Well, i'm back again with the second part of my work on 2012 Plan B's, Ill Manors.
"Lets get loud" and straight to sound craf.
At the Edge Recording Studio, Plan B made a 5 day sessions before the release of the record. They were - as per Studio's blog entry - the final touches:
I've contacted Jon Delf and sent him a few questions about those sessions. Jon got me Mark Winterburn, one of the engineers who worked on the sessions to answer me. To both a big Thank You.
Bellow you can find some more stories behind this record creation and even one about using a different microphone at one of the record finest tunes. Hope you like it :)
(Mark Winterburn - Sound Engineer)
KING_LEER (KL):
Can you
tell us where in time your work relation with Plan B started? How and when was
the approach for the Ill Manors project?
MARK WINTERBURN (MW):
I worked on
ill Manors for 5 days at the start of June 2012, when Ben came to Edge Studios.
The bulk of the album was already finished apart from vocals on 2 tracks and
another track that was recorded and mixed from scratch.
KL:
As per your
blog entry, it was a 5 session in your studio. How's Ben's method as a
producer? Does he seeks for outside inputs or he has the hole thing planned and
goes directly to his goal?
MW:
Ben works
fast and is very precise about what he wants, relying on little input from
others. He pays particular attention to vocals and there was a lot of comping
takes to get the best possible results. The attention to detail was incredible,
working right down to the smallest of edits and tiny uses of automation that,
when done, made a huge difference to the feel of the vocal. Although he was just
as comfortable leaving me to edit takes on my own and listened to other
people's opinions.
KL:
I always
ask a kind of tutorial question since this article is also about learning about
a craft and what's behind a record like this one. So, as you were editing and
recording at Edge, there were guitar parts that was recorded in London and sent
online to you. How is that work sent? Is it downloaded from a server?
Specifically, how do you keep the digital quality when dealing with those
files, is it through a special software? Probably the readers think that some
sound quality can be lost this way. Help us out learning how it's done.
MW:
In the case
of ill Manors files were constantly being swapped between various studios in
London and Edge. Everything we tracked was sent to the either Al Shux or
Labrinth to hear and then, when approved, to Ben's engineers to mix into the
original sessions. Obviously sending MP3s is out of the question so files are
consolidated in Pro Tools and uploaded to an online file-sharing server. This
method of sending files doesn't result in any loss of quality as the sample
rate, BIT-depth and file format (WAV, AIFF etc.) remain the same.
KL:
Share with
us an interesting moment that occurred on this sessions.
MW:
When
recording the track 'Great Day For A Murder' which was recorded in full at
Edge, Ben used an SM58 in the control room to record the vocals. On the other
tracks he had been on a Neumann M147 in a vocal booth so seeing the performance
close-up was a great experience, and seeing visually how much energy went into
the takes was fantastic as he was really giving it his all, and I think you can
hear that on the album.
KL:
One last
question – a general one about running and studio and the craft within:
If you were
at a school talking to kids that were about to decide their future careers what
would you tell them why they should follow a sound engineer degree?
MW:
THE END
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