Sir Needs To Mixalot

The version everyone knows goes like this. December 1970, Headley Grange, John Bonham’s brand new Ludwig kit set up at the bottom of the stairwell, and engineer Andy Johns hanging two Beyerdynamic M160s a couple of floors up. All true, but it leaves out the part Johns himself kept bringing up.

He ran the two mics through a pair of limiters (Vintage King’s write-up says they were Helios F760s in the Rolling Stones’ mobile truck) and then sent the drums through Jimmy Page’s Binson Echorec. In his MusicRadar interview he’s pretty blunt about where that lurching “ga-gack” comes from: “It was the Binson that made him sound like that.”

The song was also recorded at a different speed and slowed down afterwards, which goes a long way toward explaining why the whole track feels like it’s wading through mud. Rick Beato made a video a while back arguing the stairwell gets more credit than it deserves. His comments section did not take it well.

Why the M160? It’s a double-ribbon hypercardioid that’s been in production since 1952. The tight pattern means a pair hung high picks up the kit and the space without turning to mush, and it’s dark enough that the cymbals don’t get nasty once you start leaning on a limiter.

Trying it at home

You don’t need a stairwell. Put one mic well away from the kit (a hallway works), hit a limiter hard enough that you can hear it breathe, and print a short tape-style echo underneath. Then play slower and heavier than feels right. Johns said it himself: for the rest of it, you really need Bonzo.

Watch and read

• MusicRadar: Andy Johns on the Levee drum sound
• MusicRadar: Andy Johns on recording Led Zeppelin IV
• Vintage King: Recreating the Levee drums, with video
• Diffuser: Chad Smith and Roger Taylor play the Headley Grange stairwell
• Wikipedia: Beyerdynamic M 160

Most of the problems on a new mix have nothing to do with how the song was recorded. They’re file problems. Here’s what makes the first pass go well.

• Export every track from the same start point (bar 1, or zero) so everything lines up when it’s dropped in. Even the tambourine that only shows up in the last chorus.
• Keep the session’s sample rate. If you tracked at 48k, send 48k. 24-bit WAV or better.
• Turn off everything on your master bus. Limiters especially.
• If a plugin is part of the sound (the amp sim, the weird delay on the vocal), print it, and send a dry version too.
• Name things like a person will read them. “Gtr L crunch” beats “Audio 14_03”.
• Consolidate your comps. We don’t need all 30 takes, just the one you picked.
• Send your rough mix. It’s the most useful file in the folder, because it tells us what you’ve been hearing for the last six months.
• Write a few lines about the song. Reference tracks help. “Like this, but not that part” helps even more.

About loud roughs

If your rough has a limiter on it, the first mix back can sound smaller next to it even when it’s better. Turn them to the same level before you judge. Loudness gets set in mastering.

If you’re not sure about any of this, send what you have and ask. It’s easier to sort out before the mix starts than after.

Shure brought out the SM7 in 1973 as a broadcast mic. A decade later Bruce Swedien was using one on most of Michael Jackson’s lead vocals, including “Billie Jean” and “The Way You Make Me Feel.” He told Sound On Sound the choice raised some eyebrows at the time. He owned six of them.

The part worth stealing is less about the mic and more about the habit. Swedien said he used the same mic and the same preamp for Jackson’s vocals throughout the album. Every song was sung into one chain, so the voice sounds like the same person in the same room from the first track to the last. On a self-recorded EP, that kind of consistency usually matters more than which mic you buy.

The SM7 is on plenty of other records too. Bruce Dickinson on The Number of the Beast, Anthony Kiedis on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and Jack White’s vocals from Icky Thump on. The current model is the SM7B. Close relative, not the identical early-’80s mic.

Tracking with one

It’s a quiet mic and it needs a lot of clean gain, somewhere around 60 dB for a normal singer, which is why people pair it with a Cloudlifter or another inline booster. Sing close. It forgives a bad room better than most condensers, which is probably how podcasters found it.

Watch and read

• Sound On Sound: Bruce Swedien: Recording Michael Jackson
• MusicRadar: Swedien on the making of Thriller, track by track
• Reverb: Swedien on how he captured Jackson’s voice
• YouTube: Bruce Swedien on vocal mic placement
• Wikipedia: Shure SM7

The dolceola is a small zither with a keyboard bolted on, made by the Toledo Symphony Company between about 1903 and 1908. Fewer than fifty are thought to survive. It’s a strange, lovely thing that sounds like a piano and an autoharp having a disagreement.

For a long time it was famous for one reason. It was supposedly the instrument on Washington Phillips’ gospel sides for Columbia, cut between 1927 and 1929. Those records are gorgeous, and nearly every reissue repeated the dolceola credit.

Then in 2002 Michael Corcoran, writing for the Austin American-Statesman, started pulling at the thread, and instrument collector Gregg Miner kept going. Their conclusion: Phillips played fretless zithers he built himself, not a factory dolceola. If you want to hear the real thing on record, Paul Howard plays one on Lead Belly’s 1944 Capitol sessions, and Ry Cooder used one in the ’70s.

We like this story because it’s a good reminder. Gear credits get copied from liner note to liner note and article to article. Where we can, we link the source so you can check our work too.

Watch and read

• Gregg Miner: Michael Corcoran on Washington Phillips
• Gregg Miner: The Washington Phillips study
• Wikipedia: Dolceola

Royer released the R-121 in 1998. Back then ribbons were mostly something you found in the closet of an older studio, and the R-121 is a big part of why they came back into everyday use, especially on electric guitar.

Engineer Ross Hogarth was one of the first to pair it with a Shure SM57 on the same speaker. The 57 brings the bite, the ribbon brings the low mids and a softer top, and you blend to taste. Hogarth described his video series on it as a way to “crack the code.” Steve Genewick used the same pair on every guitar amp on Spinal Tap II, according to Mix, and Royer’s library has Slash’s Marshall miked the same way.

Getting the two mics to agree

It’s all phase. Put both mics on the same spot on the cone, with the capsules as close to lined up as you can get them. Solo both, flip the polarity on one, and keep whichever setting sounds fuller. Then move the ribbon back half an inch at a time while you listen in mono.

Two things about ribbons. The back of the mic hears as much as the front, so whatever is behind it ends up on the track. And loud is fine, but a blast of air (a kick drum port, a bass cab with no grille) is not.

Watch and read

• Royer Labs: Ross Hogarth and Tim Pierce, Recording Electric Guitar video series
• Mix: Ross Hogarth on Royer history
• Mix: Hogarth’s guitar miking videos announced
• Sweetwater InSync: Ribbon mics on electric guitar

Spectra Sonics was founded in Ogden, Utah in 1964 by William G. Dilley. It’s not where you’d guess a Memphis soul sound came from, but Spectra’s 101 preamps get described as exactly that: the sound of Stax Records. Spectra consoles also ended up at Ardent in Memphis, the Record Plant in New York, and much later at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound in Nashville.

The 610 Complimiter came out in 1969. It pairs a compressor/limiter module with 101-style make-up gain, and it’s fast. The published attack time runs from 100 nanoseconds to 2 microseconds, which is quicker than almost anything else you’re likely to plug in.

That kind of speed can be ugly in the wrong place and great in the right one. Dave Cobb has been loud about liking them. Vintage King quotes him: “I used the hell out of them on the new Jason Isbell record.” Vance Powell and Tchad Blake are fans too.

Where it works

Drum rooms, mostly. Something that grabs that quickly turns a room mic into a wall. It’s also good on bass when you want every note to sit exactly where it is.

Watch and read

• WhisperRoom / Recording Studio Rockstars: The Spectra Sonics story
• Vintage King: Spectra Sonics 610 Complimiter
• Vintage King: A short history of Spectra Sonics
• Tape Op: V610 Complimiter review

Gibson introduced the J-45 in 1942, and the nickname “The Workhorse” stuck. It’s a round-shouldered dreadnought without the huge low end of a square-shouldered Martin. What it has instead is a dry, punchy midrange that sits in front of a band without much help.

A short and very incomplete list of people who’ve played one. Woody Guthrie. Buddy Holly, whose early J-45 is in the MoPOP collection in Seattle. Bob Dylan, all over the early albums and back on a sunburst J-45 since the mid ’90s. John Lennon learned fingerpicking from Donovan in Rishikesh in 1968, on Donovan’s J-45. Elliott Smith. Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Jeff Tweedy, Phoebe Bridgers.

Recording one

Because the guitar is already mid-forward, scooping the mids to make it sound expensive usually makes it worse. Start with a small-diaphragm condenser pointed around the 12th fret, eight to twelve inches out, and add a second mic a few feet back if your room is any good. If it sounds thin, move the mic before you touch the EQ.

Watch and read

• Premier Guitar: A history of the Gibson J-45
• MoPOP: Buddy Holly’s Gibson J-45
• Wikipedia: Gibson J-45