I had a blast hanging out with Eddie Kramer this week. He is on a small tour sponsored by Waves and Logic. He is a super nice guy with amazing stories to tell.
It is always interesting to hear how different people get the "big break". He said that when Hendrix was to come to the studio where he worked,(then unknown) the manager said "oh, you do all that weird music, you do the session", and a legendary team was born.
Some of photos we saw of him with Jimmy Page at the console and members of the Stones etc..were super cool.
Eddie also did something really neat; he brought in a recent Logic session from a band he recorded at Abby Road. (BTW, he records to Analog and then transfers to Logic) He walked us through virtually every track and talked about the mics and plugins he used, talked about why he used them and showed us the settings on each plug! Talk about a Master Class! He really likes using plugins and uses them extensively. He favored the Waves SSL and the Jack Joseph Puig plugs and achieved a hard hitting, fat and sometimes gritty tone with them. In terms of mixing, he likes to get different "colors" or "textures" together as he goes so that he is not faced with 80 tracks of "blank page" so to speak. You might call his approach "mixing as you go". Here is an example of an ancillary mixing concept that Eddie talked about; The bass guitar-he would use various treatments on the DI and then various treatments on the mic'ed signal. And then let's say...he had a room mic that he had compressed as a 3rd color. Then, when he gets to the mixing phase, it is just a matter of adding appropriate amounts of these colors together to achieve the desired sound. I really related to this approach as it one that I have always used. The trick is you are committing to a sound as you go. Of course depending on your workflow, many things can be undone but the more you work this way, the more your ears get tuned in to what works and the easier the final mix will be.
Next, Eddie had the guitar player from a band he'd been working with record some tracks on the spot. (using Waves GTR3 and PRS interface) It was fun and added excitement to the evening having him laying down rhythm and lead tracks as we watched. He did a fantastic job on the Rock/Blues track. (Does anyone remember his name??)
Eddie's final words of advice were "Up is Louder!" (did I mention he was hilarious?)
Jonathan
It is always interesting to hear how different people get the "big break". He said that when Hendrix was to come to the studio where he worked,(then unknown) the manager said "oh, you do all that weird music, you do the session", and a legendary team was born.
Some of photos we saw of him with Jimmy Page at the console and members of the Stones etc..were super cool.
Eddie also did something really neat; he brought in a recent Logic session from a band he recorded at Abby Road. (BTW, he records to Analog and then transfers to Logic) He walked us through virtually every track and talked about the mics and plugins he used, talked about why he used them and showed us the settings on each plug! Talk about a Master Class! He really likes using plugins and uses them extensively. He favored the Waves SSL and the Jack Joseph Puig plugs and achieved a hard hitting, fat and sometimes gritty tone with them. In terms of mixing, he likes to get different "colors" or "textures" together as he goes so that he is not faced with 80 tracks of "blank page" so to speak. You might call his approach "mixing as you go". Here is an example of an ancillary mixing concept that Eddie talked about; The bass guitar-he would use various treatments on the DI and then various treatments on the mic'ed signal. And then let's say...he had a room mic that he had compressed as a 3rd color. Then, when he gets to the mixing phase, it is just a matter of adding appropriate amounts of these colors together to achieve the desired sound. I really related to this approach as it one that I have always used. The trick is you are committing to a sound as you go. Of course depending on your workflow, many things can be undone but the more you work this way, the more your ears get tuned in to what works and the easier the final mix will be.
Next, Eddie had the guitar player from a band he'd been working with record some tracks on the spot. (using Waves GTR3 and PRS interface) It was fun and added excitement to the evening having him laying down rhythm and lead tracks as we watched. He did a fantastic job on the Rock/Blues track. (Does anyone remember his name??)
Eddie's final words of advice were "Up is Louder!" (did I mention he was hilarious?)
Jonathan
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