Where do we go from here? UP: The Sound Part 2 - 3D EQ

The 3D album

As the producer of 'Where do we go from here? UP' I want to present these eleven moments to you, as the listener, in the most real way as possible. I want you to be be-able to feel the moment in the room just as it was and to feel where the narrators connection to song is coming from.

Ultimately I only have two speakers or a set of headphones to present these moments to you with.

This is where a large portion of my time went. Most things that I originally did came off as a manipulation and sounded too "good".

So I went back to basics.

I started with the "band in the room" takes and removed all overdubs for the first stage of mixing.

Creating the 3D space

First of I would start with the Vocals and the Piano.

I would have my recorded vocal track and it would start off sounding very flat. How on earth would I get this to sound like it was here in this room, in that very moment? The reason it did not by default is as I said in my previous entry - because the studio is so small the microphone(s) on every instrument had to be very very close thus stripping any space or room from the recording.

Keep in mind I also could not create anything that sounded manipulated. I needed to get it to sound like the reality if what it was, what it truly was before the limitations of the studio had stripped it of it's true beauty.

Through much trail and error It ended being a combination of things.

In the stereo field I only have what is in-between 100% Left and 100% Right, plus the perceived closeness to the listener as low end (BASS) and farther away from the listener as thinner top end (treble) - to work with.

This is how our ears work to so I knew that in theory it would be possible.

EQ - Removing Microphones

I started with EQ. EQ = High, middle and low frequencies.

Because every instrument had been recorded close, they were all very bassy. Generally things that are closer have more bottom end (Bass) and get thinner with more top end (Treble) the further away they are.

Imagine some one whispering in your ear, it is quite "breathy" and bassy in tone - much like a night club from the outside, but don't confuse that with the fact that they are whispering close and a night club is loud and you are far away from it, that is volume not EQ.

Things can be quiet and bassy but can also be loud but thin. The difference between this is what the relationship that EQ has with space.

So by removing some bottom end from the vocal it would appear to get further away - but because this is a real recording I could not do it too much before it would sound manipulated - I just needed to remove what the microphone had put there. Basically trying to remove the microphone so that you can actually hear my voice as though you were here in the room with me naturally.

This was a hugely complex undertaking and took some highly skilled work and effort and countless hours to get the right mix of, because not only did I have to do this with the Vocals but also with Drums (snare, overheads, cymbals, bass drum), Bass, Acoustic Guitars and Pianos.

Then after individually doing the EQ on the instruments to not only stay true to themselves, to remove to microphones but also to (just within EQ) to create the space around them individually and then in comparison to each other.

This left me with still a flat 2D recording but I had put the space that was originally in the room between the musicians back in - in terms of EQ.