Rockabilly - any advice?

[AnthonyMF]

Hey guys,

So I've got my first gig tracking/mixing a rockabilly band coming up soonish. I've always listened to a fair bit of that type of stuff, especially the cramps & stray cats, plus more modern stuff. But I'm wondering if anyone here knows any little pearls of wisdom, or unexpected pieces of advice to offer.

I'm hearing lots of slap delays, lots of spring reverbs, sometimes it sounds like the drums are going through a delay as well, then a reverb. I'm also noticing not much low or high end on kick drums, mostly mids, really gelling with the bass without dominating it. Really bright snare drums, and guitars that don't always have a very defined low end. Plus a little distortion on the vox. No double tracked guitars, minimal panning, and mostly mono drums. But all the reverbs are stereo and wide!

Have I missed anything?

I'm pretty much going for a live jam with the band (With h'phones for DI bass & control room vox), setting them up in a huge room, mic'ing everything and setting up a couple of heavily compressed room mics to capture a picture of the whole band. I'm also planning on tracking as close to a mixed sound as possible, using every bit of EQ & compression I can.

The other thing I'm thinking, is it worth bringing a spring reverb down to the studio and having them hear that in the mix too? It's not too big. And sure I could use a plugin... but a spring is a spring! I guess I can't decide if they might feel more inspired with the real thing than a plugin. I don't know why but it's a gut feeling.

Cheers,
Anth

[Kurt]

Do they have an upright bass or an electric? If it's an upright make sure there's way more top end than any sane person would want in a bass. It should "tick" with every note. I hate it, the rockabilly guys love it.

Ticky bass
Boxy horrible kicks
Big woody snares with no tops
Jangly god-awful guitars

A lot of rockabilly I've heard seems to take the basic formula an turn it into a caricature or itself. I must admit the only stuff I've heard since the eighties (when I had a schoolboy crush on a girl who was into The Cramps) is local bands. Maybe there's a strong D.I.Y. ethic that makes local stuff a bit OTT?

[Alistair]

On the ticky double bass thing- I know a lot of guys have little pickups in the neck of the bass just to capture the slap sound- might be worth taking a DI from that or having an SDC or something little right up on the neck. I don't know what sort of sound these guys are chasing, but if they aren't too loud (or playing electric bass), mic the bass for a more natural sound instead of DI'ing it. In my opinion, apart from the fact they are great players, that's one of the reasons Stray Cats groove hard when 99% of other rockabilly/rock and roll bands don't- the bass and drums naturally fall around each other, both as percussion instruments. The modern bands seem to have this very amplified/electric bass sound that sounds like a big woofy electric bass with rimshots all over it- too out of control.

Agree with the caricature thing- it's not really my favourite genre, but I've checked out a bit of it and most of the bands do very little for me. The ones that are good are great though!

[jkhuri44]

^ feel free to post good rockabilly here.

interested in hearing what people think is good, its something i've found hard to get into

[The Tasmanian]

Alistair is spot on you must mic the fingers.
Get a good DI - and get a mic on the amp - with these 3 things you are covered.
But without the finger mike - you'll be pushing shit uphill in the mix.

[AnthonyMF]

Actually we're planning to use a Hoffner. I was thinking I might reamp it after the fact, I'm just a little worried about getting too much bass spill in everything else.

I took a peak at Reverend Horton Heat as a prime example of everything NOT to do. Ugh.

With all this good advice I kinda wish we were using a double bass now, I haven't recorded one for about 5 years..

The band gave me Rock this Town by stray cats as their main idea of how they want the production to sound, except of course with a Hoffner instead of double bass. Maybe I should actually try and mic the actual bass? They're pretty loud acoustically, and we'll have gobos up, and then maybe key a gate on it with the DI, so it only opens for the attack, then mix real low.

Oh and the drummer doesn't rimshot, which is great for the genre. I'm bringing a nice 13x6.5 for him to use, tuned low. I might see if I can grab some thicker snare wires for it. Plus we're borrowing another drummers custom built 20" kick drum, which he uses in his jazz kit so it should be punchy.

[jkhuri44]

here's something i found from reaper while looking at reaper stuff on their forum

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=82909

[Hookemeister]

Hi Anthony

The most important thing is to make these guys feel comfortable, especially if they haven't been in a studio before.

So, if they haven't been in a studio before, here's my advice:

1. Get them to setup like they're doing a gig... be careful not to physically separate them too much.

2. Minimal amount of mics... nothing creates more pressure on a studio newbie drummer than the site of a dozen mics all over his kit. You could do it with just a mic on the kick and well placed overheads.
Remember, each mic is like a microscope on his performance as far as he's concerned. Plus the more mics you've got on everything, the longer it's going to take before you can record anything, just more time for them to think about the situation they're in and that's not a good thing.

3. Try and record the vocal live with a 58 or similar. If nerves get to the singer when he has to go into the studio on his own and redo it, you might end up using that live take.

4. Don't worry too much about spill. It's all about the performance. Remember it's rockabilly, not over produced homogenised pop music.

5. Tell them to run thru a couple of songs and make sure you're in record. My experience with the inexperienced is usually the first or second take will capture it... after that they start thinking about it and things go downhill quickly.

6. Praise them... tell them how good they're sounding... don't put any pressure on them, make it a fun experience.

Get them to give you a few of their favourite rockabilly tracks that indicate the sound they're after and then spend a bit of time analysing those tracks. Try and get a fix on what makes up that sound. Listen to the vocal effect and give the singer a bit of that in his cans.

Not too much EQ when you're tracking... same goes for compression.

Oh yeah... you have fun too.

Greg

[Linear]

Ticky bass
Boxy horrible kicks
Big woody snares with no tops
Jangly god-awful guitars

... sounds to me like you're describing metal ;-)

except replace 'jangly' with 'buzzy'

Chris

[Kurt]

Touche!

Ticky bass
Boxy horrible kicks
Big woody snares with no tops
Jangly god-awful guitars

... sounds to me like you're describing metal ;-)

except replace 'jangly' with 'buzzy'

Chris

[Djembe]

Listen to this bass sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-93IpcUxNg

[The Tasmanian]

One more thing that is great for getting an even top end on the bass:
After you have recorded the bass - use a couple of de essers over the finger mic to get control of certain frequencies - compress the finger mic to make it sit nice and not jump all over the place with levels.
One de esser looks for the slap/thwack - and the other is set for higher metalic string frequencies
Waves C1 with sc does this job really well
And a limiter after this is sometimes needed as a final weapon to hold it in place