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Intro and the Tone Pie

Lesson 8 from: Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A Bootcamp

Eyal Levi

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Lesson Info

8. Intro and the Tone Pie

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Intro to Bootcamp

13:44
2

Purpose of Pre-Production

15:54
3

Technical Side of Preproduction

11:32
4

Pre-Production: Setting Up the Tempo Map

12:05
5

Pre-Production: Importing Stems

10:10
6

Pre-Production: Click Track

15:26
7

Creating Tracking Templates

17:03
8

Intro and the Tone Pie

04:51
9

Drums - Lay of the Land

10:44
10

Bearing Edges

03:09
11

Wood Types

10:36
12

Depths and Sizes

04:00
13

Hoops

02:38
14

Sticks and Beaters

07:38
15

Drum Heads

07:30
16

Drum Tuning

1:03:54
17

Drum Mic Placement Intro

10:37
18

Basic Drum Mic Setup

53:36
19

Cymbal Mic Setup

35:24
20

Touch Up Tuning

46:55
21

Microphone Choice and Placement

40:34
22

Drum Tracking Intro

01:01
23

Getting Tones and Final Placement

34:51
24

Primary Tracking

31:54
25

Punching In and Comping Takes

20:11
26

Guitar Setup and Rhythm Tone Tracking

01:59
27

Amplifiers - Lay of the Land

10:00
28

Amplifiers & Cab Shoot Out

27:12
29

Guitar Cab Mic Choice and Placement

03:56
30

Guitar Tracking and Signal Chain

29:07
31

Finalizing Amplifier Tone

51:24
32

Guitar Mic Shootout Round Robin

05:21
33

Intro to Rhythm Tracking

07:46
34

Setting Up Guitars

15:02
35

Working with a Guitarist

05:04
36

Final Guitar Tone and Recap

04:10
37

Guitar Tracking with John

15:19
38

Guitar Tracking with Ollie

32:03
39

Final Tracking

22:08
40

Tracking Quads

33:44
41

Intro to Bass Tone

01:26
42

Bass Tone Setup

07:35
43

Bass Tone Mic Placement

16:42
44

Bass Tracking

45:08
45

Intro to Clean and Lead Tones

02:15
46

Clean Guitar Tones

34:04
47

Lead Tones

10:58
48

Vocal Setup for Tracking

11:26
49

Vocal Mic Selection and Setup

02:38
50

Vocal Mic Shootout

09:13
51

Lead Vocal Tracking

38:09
52

Writing Harmonies

07:44
53

Harmony Vocal Tracking

23:25
54

Vocal Warm Ups

11:39
55

Scream Vocal Tracking

18:56
56

Vocal Tuning and Editing Introduction

01:35
57

Vocal Tuning and Editing

29:26
58

Routing and Bussing

25:16
59

Color Coding, Labeling and Arranging Channels

17:54
60

Setting Up Parallel Compression

30:50
61

Setting Up Drum Triggers

10:41
62

Gain Staging and Trim

1:00:54
63

Drum Mixing - Subtractive EQ

25:38
64

Drum Mixing - Snare

23:00
65

Drum Mixing - Kick

11:39
66

Drum Mixing - Toms

24:47
67

Drum Mixing - Cymbals and Rooms

17:23
68

Drum Mixing Recap

08:57
69

Mixing Bass Guitar

16:26
70

Mixing Rhythm Guitars

1:16:07
71

Basic Vocal Mix

1:08:59
72

Mixing Clean and Lead Guitars

58:55
73

Mixing - Automation

43:35
74

Mastering - Interview with Joel Wanasek

31:01

Lesson Info

Intro and the Tone Pie

Welcome to day two of the metal recording boot camp. As you can see are not at CreativeLive Studios anymore. We're actually at Clear Lake Audio in LA. This is where we're actually gonna be doing the deed, and right next to me is Matt Brown. He's going to be drum-teching this session. He's actually a phenomenal drum tech. Anything that you've heard me do in the past two years, or that's come out of Audio Hammer Studios in the past two years, this guy is, in a big way, responsible for the drum tones. Also happens to be a great drummer and a great engineer, so bringing that knowledge to the table really really helps. So if I don't know an engineering trick, he definitely knows it. He's also done a lot of other stuff on his own that's pretty noteworthy. You can see it in the slide right here. So, yeah, if you ever need a great drum tech, hire this guy. So anyways, today what we're gonna be going through, is we're gonna get a lay of the land of the studio because this is a new place for me.

I've never been here before, except for yesterday when we did some set up. We're gonna take a look at the gear, what we have available, what works, what doesn't work, mic selection, all that, drum selection. We're just gonna see what's going on. And then, once we're done with that, we're gonna get straight to actually working on drums. We're gonna go through drum selection, head selection, tuning, sticks, all of the above, getting some basic tones, taking samples. From that point on, if we have time today, we'll get on to cymbals and getting the rest of a badass drum sound. Anybody that's watched CreativeLive before, watched my old drum class, or watched the Andrew Wade guitar class, which is actually really, really good, that was about the tone pie, and the idea there, is that it takes multiple things, multiple elements put together to get any one sound. So, you're trying to get a really, really good drum sound. It's not just the microphone you choose, or the preamp. Actually, I'd say it's 50% drummer right? Yeah, you know, the saying is the sound is in the hands, and that's really true of the drummer, moreso than almost any other instrument. But, that alone is not gonna do it. If you're in a-- No. Terrible room, terrible gear, terrible drums, terrible heads Yeah. All that. Doesn't matter how good the, there are some great drummers that can make everything sound good, but for this kind of context you have to have everything working together. For sure. Yeah, so we're gonna show exactly how that all works together. Luckily we have Anup Sastry here, the drummer for Monuments, and who is just a beast of a drummer. So we have the drum side of it, the drummer side of it, well taken care of. So from here on out, if we get bad drum sound, we know that it's on our end, which is always a really good thing because there's plenty of times where we've been working together, where we'll be miking up a drum kit and we know we're doing everything right, but it just doesn't sound that good. Yeah. And it's the drummer. I'll have him go in and play and hit something, and it sounds amazing. Then you have the drummer come in and play it, and it doesn't sound that good, so you know the drummer is messing it up. In this case, we have the luxury of knowing the drummer's not gonna mess it up. (laughing) Right, exactly. So if there's any engineering problems, it's gonna be on our end. But yeah, we're gonna go through the importance of the actual drums, the heads, the sticks, the mics, the pre's, and the room. And then also gonna get into the actual construction of the drum. Yeah. Like the wood types, bearing edge, and all that. So I think before anything else, we kinda need to define the goals for the session. One thing that we always do is we talk about how we want the actual drums to sound. Yeah. Yeah, I think that because Monuments is a really, really heavy band, downtune stuff, but also very, very busy, we need to take into account that the drums need to cut through giant wall of guitars. But they also need to be very, very articulate, because Anup does a lot of ghost notes, a lot of little articulations. So we need something that's gonna be very clear and punchy, but also huge. Right. So that's kind of what we're going for. Yeah.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Eyal Levi Bootcamp Bonuses
Drum Editing - HD

Ratings and Reviews

Ron
 

I'm on lesson 19! Already worth every dollar!!! Priceless insight! I have already incorporated some of the ideas (preproduction common sense stuff that I never thought of, but damn). VERY HAPPY with this course! ALWAYS LEARNING and looking forward to the next 50 (or whatever) lessons!!! Excellent course! GREAT PRODUCER/ENGINEER, GREAT DRUM TECH, and GREAT BAND!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

ceeleeme
 

I'm just part way though and I'm blown away by the quality approach Eyal takes to getting the best out of the sessions. I love how well everything is explained and Eyals calm manner is just awesome it really makes you want to listen to the gems of wisdom he offers.

Will
 

Wow is all I can say. This bootcamp goes in so much depth from tuning drums, setting up guitars, to recording and mixing. I have learned so much by participating in this bootcamp. It has taught me some new recording techniques and signal routing for my mixes. I just want to thank Eyal, Monuments, and Creative Live for taking the time to do this. It has been amazing and I will keep going back to these videos.

Student Work

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