inside track

Paul Tingen

n his fifth decade as a top‑level engineer, mixer and producer, Mark I Needham could be forgiven for being a bit of a traditionalist. Instead he’s an early adopter, who has eagerly embraced digital innovation. For example, he was not only one of the first to get Slate Digital’s Raven MTX touchscreen DAW controller, but he even asked the company to build him a custom dual‑screen version. Acquiring the Dual Raven was the culmination of Needham’s gradual move from working in analogue to working entirely in the box, which began in 2004. He recalls: “As the sound of digital and of plug‑ins got better and better, I had to ask myself: this UAD EQP1A plug‑in sounds just as good as the two EQP1As I have in my rack, so why am I paying for maintenance on those and trying to do recalls on them? The maintenance of a large format console and outboard, and the AC to keep everything cool, is a big expense. “I initially got pushback from some labels because I was switching to in‑the‑box, but to me it seemed like everything was heading that way. I was fully in the box by 2010, because, with bands and labels expecting six or seven recalls, the instant recall capacity became paramount. For decades I used an SSL G console, and I can count on my hands the Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: amount of times a recall sounded exactly the same. Instead, it usually needed an Mark Needham hour and a half of re‑patching, and then another hour of tweaking, to get everything stalwarts sounding exactly the same as before.” Today Needham mixes about 400 songs and Christine McVie have enjoyed long musical a year, and frequently works on 10 projects in a single day — sessions that may contain careers — as has their engineer, mixer and 200‑plus tracks with 10 plug‑ins per track. co‑producer Mark Needham. This work ethic is aided by a daily rhythm that involves getting up a 4am and starting work at 5am. Needham was called in as an engineer, feature three co‑produced by Buckingham Where It All Began co‑mixer and co‑producer when work and Mitchell Froom, five co‑produced Among his many other big‑name clients began on the album in 2014, at Studio D by Buckingham and Needham and Mark Needham has worked with Lindsey at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles, the two produced by Buckingham alone. Buckingham since the late 1990s, and mixed same place where the band had recorded Needham takes the behind‑the‑scenes Fleetwood Mac’s last full‑length album, Say their classic Tusk album in 1979. After two story from the top… You Will (2003), as well as the band’s Live months of reportedly successful recording “We recorded maybe eight or nine In Boston (2004). After singer/keyboardist sessions, the band went on their On With songs four years ago, at the Village Christine McVie returned to the fold in The Show world tour for a year, and work Recorder. After they came back from tour 2014, there was talk of a new Fleetwood on the album recommenced two years we picked up where we had left off to Mac album, but in the end, this ambition later, at the end of 2016, again at Studio wrap these songs up and record a few transformed into a 40‑minute long album D. Final mixdowns were conducted by additional songs. Before embarking on this simply called Lindsey Buckingham/Christine Buckingham and Needham at the Village project four years ago, Lindsey had worked McVie, on which all Fleetwood Mac Recorder and at Red Oak Studios. The 10 on three tracks with Mitchell Froom, and members appear, apart from . songs that ended up on the final album these were pretty advanced, and it was just

120 September 2017 / www.soundonsound.com ‘Feel About You’ Written by Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie Produced by Lindsey Buckingham & Mark Needham

the songs work and keep the flow of what we were doing.” Vintage & Modern Throughout the entire project, Buckingham in particular had a very specific vision for the sound and production for the album, combining a classic Fleetwood Mac‑inspired sound with more modern influences. The balance tilted towards the latter after the idea of turning the project into a Fleetwood Mac album was abandoned. Needham: “I didn’t really have to reference the sound of the Fleetwood Mac albums of the past, because it’s what the players bring to the table. What mic I put on Mick Fleetwood’s kick drum or on Lindsey’s guitar does not define what they sound like. Mick’s drum sound and John [McVie]’s bass sound are so distinctive. Part of their thing is the way the two of them land on the beat together. This is different from probably any other rhythm Photo: Mark V Lord section out there, and were definitely trying to stay true to that. Mark Needham at his custom Slate Dual Raven control surface. “Recording in the Village Studio D was a nod to the past, but we mixed entirely a matter of redoing vocals, maybe making recorded all songs apart from the ones in the box, and then restricted ourselves a few small arrangement changes and in done with Mitchell from scratch, usually to only using a single SSL Channel Strip general just some additional production. with everyone playing live in the studio, plug‑in on most tracks during the mix, plus We recorded the rest of the songs from and then spent a lot of time going back just a few other plug‑ins, to come up with scratch. They usually came in with a pretty to the demos and comparing things a sound and approach similar to the 1980s, solid direction. Lindsey had recorded and sometimes finding that the demos when I was working on an SSL desk and demos for many of the songs, and there sounded better! We recorded through the had maybe 10 compressors behind me in also were demos done by Christine, who Neve 88R desk that was in the room, and a rack, so you needed to really think how had sent them over to Lindsey to work on kept printing mixes at each stage, so we you allocated your resources. Normally them. He came up with various concepts could always refer back to what we had I have far more plug‑ins going on, but we for them. done on a particular day in a particular really wanted to keep this approach, as if “Lindsey really is the constant thread month of a particular year. There was a lot we were working on a console, from the through all of this, keeping it all organised of referencing back and forth, and many time we were recording to the mix, and so and coming up with ideas, and we collective arrangement decisions were we also established panning and EQ and just melded everything together. We fretted over, just trying out how to make levels during the recording sessions. At the

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Photo: Mark V Lord Red Oak Studios

Mark Needham’s Red Oak Studios control room is a huge space, with DeMideo from Wally Heider’s in San Francisco, during the time I had wood panels everywhere, comfortable furniture, and large French doors a studio up in that city. The angle of those API consoles was quite a bit overlooking a local park in Hollywood. In true 21st Century fashion, the steeper than that of normal consoles, and I really liked the sound of that. audio equipment occupies just a small part of it. There are a couple of The Raven matches that angle, and so the reflections from the speakers ATC SCM45 speakers with an ATC SCM0.1/15 sub, an Avid S6 M10 have the same feel. 8‑5 control surface, three Avid HD I/O interfaces, four Lavry Blue 4496 “I monitor through the same set of speakers, my ATCs, 13‑14 hours D‑A converters, an Apogee Rosetta 200 A‑D/D‑A converter, an Antelope a day. I used to change between various speakers, but in the end I found Isochrone OCX master clock, no fewer than four UAD Octo DSP cards, that more distracting. I know exactly how these ATCs sound, and that and a few recording bits and pieces, like Fairchild, GML and Daking mic gives me a lot more consistency from song to song and between projects. pres, plus EAR 660 and Urei Silverface 1178 limiter/compressors. Above In the past I would go out and check mixes in the car and in other places, all, though, it’s his custom dual Slate Raven controllers that catch the eye. but today I work on so many different projects on any given day, having “When I first saw the first Raven,” Needman recalls, “I loved the the same speakers gives me a consistent perspective. If I throw in too resolution of the screens and I saw that the layout would be really many variables it just confuses my ears. I also have a studio in Nashville, comfortable for me to work on. I find that it makes my workflow a lot and it has almost exactly the same setup. To maintain my workflow, the easier and faster. Also, the problem with [sound] reflections isn’t as strong most important things to duplicate in both studios are my monitoring, the with these screens. One of my first big‑format consoles was an API Raven console, and the acoustics.”

same time, when the decision was made to classic hardware. “On the drums I used an C12 in omni position in that. turn this into a Lindsey and Christine album, a combination of a Shure Beta 97 on the “The bass had a combination of DI it freed us up to use more experimental inside of the kick, and a [Neumann] TLM170 and a Neumann U67 on the Ampeg B15 recording methods, which we would not on the outside, as well as a Moon Mic as amp, plus a [Yamaha] NS10 as a sub. have done if it had turned into a Fleetwood a sub mic. The snare had a Shure SM57 Electric guitars also were recorded DI, with Mac album. So some of the tracks have underneath and a Heil PR22 vocal mic at a Neumann U67 on the amplifiers. I tend to a regular live drum kit, and some others the top. It’s white with a gold pop filter, use dynamic microphones on the electric have 90 tracks of drums with all sorts of and I started using that as a snare top mic guitar cabinets, but for Lindsey I wanted stuff, like loops of Mick’s live playing. five years ago, and I really like it. It’s got something a little higher quality for the Overall they got a little outside their great front‑to‑back rejection, and it gives crispness and extra top end, especially for comfort zone of being a band recording live me a nice big, fat, pop. The toms were all his clean stuff. Lindsey’s acoustic guitars in the studio.” Sennheiser MD421s, and I had AKG C12 were recorded with a Sanken CU41 and as overheads, and a Neumann KM84 on a DI. The main keyboard used during Popping Snare the hi‑hat. There were three room mics — live tracking was a Hammond B3, which Most of Mark Needham’s mic choices were two AKG C12s and an AEA ribbon in the I recorded with a Shure SM7 on the bottom tried and tested, and were tracked through middle. The studio has an echo chamber and two [Neumann] U87s, and then just the Village Recorder’s Neve 88R and some right behind where the drums sat, and I had a stereo DI on the keys.

122 September 2017 / www.soundonsound.com “I also used the Sanken CU41 on both With its two main participants busy touring in Lindsey and Christine’s vocals. They sound Fleetwood Mac, the Lindsey Buckingham/Christine fantastic, and have great front‑to‑back McVie album was nearly four years in the making. rejection. Especially if I am recording with a microphone right in front of the speaker, and the singer has no headphones, I’ll go for the Sankens. I first used them on ’s vocals on ‘’, which he sang in front of the speakers, and I now own several. The 41s also are great acoustic guitar microphones and great piano mics. They are very versatile. I also sometimes used the Manley Reference Gold mic on vocals. The signal chains during the recordings were a combination of Neve 1073s and 1081 on the drums and bass mics, 1073s on the vocals, and I also had an LA2A on the vocals and a Urei 1176 on the bass guitar. Everything else went through the Neve 88R. I use its compressors during playback, but other than that I am not doing much compression at all.” mixes in the box. “All volume rides and possible. Of course, it does not quite work Reference Library treatments and effects were done in the out like that, because sometimes when you During the recordings, Needham would box. I had a bunch of faders that I was using want to turn something up, it’s easier to just be monitoring through the Neve desk at on the desk to return to Pro Tools, but I was reach for a fader. As I already mentioned, the Village Recorder, while creating rough trying to keep those as close to unity as we printed reference mixes all the time.

www.soundonsound.com / September 2017 123 inside track Mark Needham • Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie

Given that the project was This composite screen capture spread over such a long shows the full Pro Tools Edit time, being able to go back window for ‘Feel About You’, to various reference mixes with the exception of the aux and was very important.” master tracks at the bottom. At some stage towards the end of 2016, Needham and Buckingham switched over to the final mixing stage. Needham: “For the convenience of Lindsey and the others, we initially mixed at the Village Recorder, where I set up an interim studio that duplicates my own room here, with another custom Dual Raven and the same ATC monitors. The entire mix process took about two weeks. I did a lot of preparation at my own studio, and towards the end Lindsey and I finished off the mixes here as well. I function a bit more like the mix engineer and he like the artist/producer. He has great ears and comes up with very specific ideas on EQ and panning that are really unusual, but that work well. He likes odd panning, for example, really segmenting things off. An example are the background vocals in ‘Feel About You’, which alternate between hard left and hard right, rather than being spread across the stereo spectrum. He is big on that, and it sounds cool. “My preparation work for these mixes consisted of transforming the recording template to some degree to what normally would be my mix template, while trying to remain true to what we have been listening to from the monitoring section of the console. We had set up a tracking template during the recording sessions, which hopefully covered every recording situation we would encounter. I ended up staying with this tracking template all the way through, also for the mixes. In the end, I still had busses for things like aux returns, drums, bass, guitars and so on in the session, which I don’t normally do. We’d already set a direction for panning and placement and filtering and kept that right until the end. There were a few tunes on which Lindsey wanted to get into some different arrangements while mixing. There was one track that had eight different bridges, for example. He brought in a guitar and we recorded a new guitar and new vocals, trying to get a bridge that he was happy with.” Good Feelings The final Pro Tools session for ‘Feel About You’ is 189 tracks large. These are, from top to bottom, 44 drums and percussion tracks, five bass tracks (brown), 26 guitar tracks (green and blue), 14 keyboard tracks (purple, brown, orange and blue), five lead vocal tracks (light blue), 76 backing vocal tracks (including a striking pattern of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from 114‑137), the 10 bus tracks Needham says he doesn’t normally have in his session (dark green), two master tracks, four mix print tracks, and another two master tracks with EQ that adjusts for the room Needham is listening in. This breakdown includes the aux effect tracks that are located right underneath the tracks they are affecting, or in this case, effecting. Drums “The drums on this track are constructed by having Mick play specific parts, and me then cutting and looping these together to come up with something that has more of

124 September 2017 / www.soundonsound.com a modern feeling. Some of the songs were played live all the way through, but this is a song in which we did a lot of cutting, adding in some different sounds, different kick drum hits, and different effects, all to bring in the more modern elements. Normally I would be doing parallel bus compression on the drums, but we are trying not to over‑compress things. “As I also mentioned earlier, as a general rule, and all the way across, I was trying to stay with just one plug‑in, the Waves SSL Channel, to try to stay with the sound of a console, instead of the modern approach, which involves using multitudes of plug‑ins. We were trying to find a middle ground between a more traditional sound and being modern to some degree. “For example, the intro for this song was kind of constructed. We tried several different intros, and in the end constructed one with two kick loops (1‑2) and I added a snare (15). Then, track 3 is a 909 sample which I added, playing four to the floor softly in the background, and track 4 adds a kick drum accent, recorded with the NS10 mic and distorted a little bit, and I moved that slightly so it’s on the offbeat between beat 3 and 4 in the bar. You will find that a lot of Lindsay’s material, and a lot of Fleetwood Mac’s output, has soft things going on underneath that you don’t even consciously hear, but that create a subtle background pulse. It might be somebody tapping a hand on a couch. In fact, there are a lot of couches on these tracks! “Tracks 5‑9 are kick loops that go throughout the track, 10‑11 are left and right overhead loops, and 12‑14 are LCR room loops. All these tracks have the Waves SSL Channel. I might have started with a kick preset as a starting point, but the settings can be wildly different for each track. Five of these kick tracks also have the Sonnox Envolution, adding a little bit more attack, and cutting some sustain. The kick drum accent track has the Softube Abbey Road RS127 plug-in, adding 4dB at 2.7kHz, for some more attack. “The rest of the drum tracks, 15‑30, including snare, overhead, room, chamber and hats, also all each have only the Waves SSL Channel on them. Tracks 31‑39 are claps, and a few of them have the Waves Joemeek EQ, which was something I added during tracking. I switched it out to an SSL Channel plug‑in, and then listened to one of my early ref mixes, and decided that I liked the Joe Meek better. There are no sends on the drum tracks. All reverb and ambience comes from the room mics. There are some greyed‑out HP5960 and HP57 sends, which are headphones sends. Tracks 43‑44 contain a small cocktail kit that we set up as a second drum set, doing some fills. The tom was a little out of tune with the bass, it was one of these things that made the bottom end warble a little bit, so I just tuned that 18cts flatter with the Waves Sound Shifter, which fixed the problem.” Bass “Track 45 is the DI bass, and I am duplicating that to tracks 46‑48, and am using a UAD SVT on that. I cut the bass tracks up in different sections, to get the sound to change throughout the song, with the choruses sounding a bit more aggressive. Track 49 is the bass cabinet mic, and I actually ended up running that through the UAD B15

www.soundonsound.com / September 2017 125 inside track Mark Needham • Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie

In a bid to recreate the experience and sound of mixing on a hardware console, Mark Needham relied mainly on the Waves SSL E channel plug‑in. For a few sources, however, other plug‑ins were also used, as here on the bass guitar.

for a more modern vocal sound here. The chain for all main lead vocal tracks starts with the FabFilter Pro‑DS de‑esser, set really wide, just barely hitting the vocal, then a Waves CLA 1176 set to medium attack with a super‑fast release, then the UAD Precision De‑esser set quite a bit tighter than the Pro‑DS. After that amp simulator, which gave me a bit more our latency low. During mixing we tried there’s the Waves SSL Channel, and finally clarity in the top end. I’m also using the more expensive‑sounding reverbs, but then the UAD LA2A set very soft overall, taking FabFilter Pro‑MB multiband compressor decided that the D‑Verb’s sound worked. off half a dB max. I use a combination of on all bass tracks, to take out some of the All plug‑ins are just tools in a box, and two de‑essers because it allows me to get finger noise, and keep the bottom end in the D‑Verb has a very unique, identifiable more de‑essing done without it sounding control. There’s about 3dB of compression sound. I also have the SoundToys EchoBoy like it’s being de‑essed. I also like using the from 180Hz down, just where it starts to on the guitars in the middle eight, and combination of two compressors, and find get a little woofy. I am using a UAD 560 on a send to track 75, which was a UAD EMT a sweet spot between the two. The lead track 49 as well, pulling out a little 500Hz 140 plate, because we went for a bigger vocal doubles are filtered out pretty hard on and in the 2kHz range.” effect in that section.” the bottom end. “Lindsey’s chorus vocal has the same Guitars Vocals plug‑ins, apart from the FabFilter, and “The guitars start at track 50, with the “Tracks 90‑91 are Christine’s lead vocal, with there definitely are different EQs and middle eight guitars on tracks 61‑70 and a double and an aux track (92), with a UAD compression levels on these. All Lindsey’s the end vamp guitars on tracks 71‑74. All EMT 140 plate reverb. Tracks 93‑94 are vocals have a send to an Altiverb aux tracks again have the Waves SSL Channel, Lindsey’s lead vocal, also with a double, and (101), on a Cello Chamber setting. Tracks and there also are several instances of the 95‑96 are his chorus lead vocals. Yes, there 102‑113 contain the post‑chorus vocals of Avid D‑Verb. I put them on during tracking, are a lot of plug‑ins on these tracks! This is the song, and they have a Bus 23‑24 send not using anything fancy in an effort to keep how I usually do vocals, because I’m going that’s going to another aux (146) with the Altiverb Cello Chamber, but set to a different level. The send to bus 23‑24 is muted on the rest of the backing vocals, 114‑145, because we decided in the end to dry these up completely. I like having slightly different combinations of reverbs between the verses, chorus and bridge. I enjoy the feel of the space changing a little bit between different sections and parts.

Mark Needham achieved a ‘modern’ lead vocal sound through extensive plug‑in processing.

126 September 2017 / www.soundonsound.com The bottom section of the Pro Tools Edit window shows various reference mixes that were re‑recorded into the session, as well as the fade‑out and group gain rides.

“The backing vocals from 116 have ‘Didrik’ in the comments section, because I used a Didrik De Geer mic to record these. I have a friend up in San Francisco who has eight of them, and I borrowed a couple for this session. It’s a kind of super‑fancy C12 that is used for orchestral recordings, but I like it on vocals. The vocals on tracks 114‑145 have this sharp panning a reverb that we experimented with, but we mixed in at the Village Recorder, and my where one set of tracks is panned sharp ended up muting it. All these group tracks room in Nashville. right and the response is panned far left.” go to my mix bus, which is track 180, which “To unpack all that a bit more, my stereo has my mix bus chain, and that then gets bus chain on track 180 consists of the UAD Groups & Master Bus sent to two Master Fader tracks, 181 and Shadow Hills Mastering compressor, UAD “Tracks 171‑180 are the groups from the 182, which each have the UAD Precision SSL G channel, UAD Precision K‑Stereo original tracking sessions. All the drums Maximizer on them, one at +6dB and the Ambience Recovery, to spread things out through the drum bus, all the bass tracks other at +0. These get printed on tracks a bit more when going from verse to chorus, through the bass bus, and so on. I don’t 183‑184. Finally, tracks 187‑189 have three UAD Maag EQ4 — I like to add a bit of sub normally do this any more, but in the days different instances of the Sonarworks studio with that — the UAD Precision Multiband, when I was mixing on an SSL I always had calibration plug‑in, to calibrate for playback the UAD Chandler Curve Bender and the eight subgroups like this. Track 71 has in my Los Angeles room, the room we UAD Oxford Limiter. I use a combination of a few different compressors, each of which is very slight and subtle. It’s a combination The Mark Needham Story that I use often, and it is about getting the A long time before Mark Needham had earned Mahal — I was so nervous! The song ‘Wicked balance between all the different things. The his 11 Grammy Award nominations and had Game’ by Chris Isaak [1990, and produced Precision Multiband tightens up the bottom scored major successes in his work with the by Erik Jacobsen], was probably the first song end a little bit in some of the sections. , , Chris Isaak, Blondie, Bruce I engineered and mixed that became big across VariMu is in limiting mode, but hits the Hornsby, , Imagine Dragons and the US. The Killers’ album [2004] loudest section with only a quarter or a half many others, he was a kid growing up playing was another breakthrough. The album’s main a decibel. There are things that I have come guitar and drums and fascinated by music single, ‘Mr Brightside’, has become a classic. equipment. “I had a room full of amplifiers I developed that band and helped sign them to up with over the years and that I like the and pieced‑together tape recorders and things . I’ve been into developing artists sound of. The Oxford Limiter is maybe only like that. I moved to San Francisco, and in for a long time, and also helped sign Imagine coming down on some very top peaks. My 1972 I started building my own studio, which Dragons to Interscope in 2011. master bus chain is usually a little bit more had an Altec 4:2 mixer, and I read the audio “In the days when I started, you recorded involved than this. Normally there would be encyclopaedia front to back three times. I built and mixed all the albums you mixed on. In a couple more things in there. everything myself in my first studios. My the ’90s I started to focus more on mixing partner and I built our own console and even and by the time I moved to Los Angeles “I have the master faders after my our own 24‑track. We’d bought an old two‑inch around 2000 I was still doing some recording master bus, so my master fader rides video recorder for $500 at a junk store and spent and production and artist development, but are not affecting how it hits the UAD a couple of months turning that into a 24‑track spent most of my time mixing. When I first Maximizer. I print my reference mixes at +6, tape recorder! came to LA, I leased a room at a studio called and I send the +0 to mastering, which in “I always figured things out on my own — Cornerstone. I was still on a console at that this case was done by Stephen Marcussen. I never worked as an assistant in a big studio. point, and working with Fleetwood Mac’s It’s probably how I came up with my different Say You Will, and developing the Killers and I leave the entire loudness issue to him. This methods of doing stuff! Though I did learn a couple of other bands. After I finished up the is not an album that we mixed or mastered from working with some well‑known people Killers and the Fleetwood Mac projects I found extremely loud. If Stephen can make it 10 in the Bay Area in the 1970s, like Fred Catero an old mansion here in Hollywood, and created percent better, then great.” and Erik Jacobsen. I had several moments my former studio in it, the Ballroom. Today, Given Mark Needham’s track record, that you can call breakthroughs in my career. I work in Red Oak Studios, which is in my Los Marcussen may have found it hard to I worked on my first major label album with Taj Angeles home.” improve his mixes by 10 percent!

www.soundonsound.com / September 2017 127 Mix with the best!

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This article was originally published in Sound On Sound magazine, September 2017 edition

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