Episode 84 - Jon Castelli

Show Notes

Live with Matt Rad - Episode 84
March 1, 2022
w/ Jon Castelli - Week 69

Show notes by: Bradley Will

Jon will start doing a monthly live stream for Just For the Record’s Twitch in which he will be mixing a song live. The first session is tomorrow at noon.

Mixing Orchestral Instruments

Matt:
There is a wide spectrum of quality and styles that are possible. Whether it’s a live session recording or a MIDI orchestration.

• To get a great 2-track or stemmed orchestra recording from a proper studio is dramatically different from every other situation.

• I find it hard to get things sounding great that aren’t properly recorded.
  

Jon:
There’s nothing like the feeling you can get from a good arrangement recorded in a room.

Some composers likes Hans Zimmer or Nicholas Britell are known for stacking samples on top of their live recordings in order to get a denser sound.

Straight-up organic capture of an orchestra in a room is a certain feeling.

• Straight-up samples is another thing, which I often think sounds cheap.

• The hybrid approach (with both versions combined) seems to be where films are going these days.
  

Matt:
Even having just one person do a live overdub of their string instrument on top of your MIDI arrangement can make a huge difference in how convincing it feels.


Jon:
When I’ve recording Rob Moose’s string arrangements in my loft, I’ll use the AEA R88 stereo ribbon mic and we’ll do one pass with the players sitting in the right part of the stereo field, another take to the left of it’s pickup, and a take in the center to achieve a richer overdub on the record.


Matt:
The range above bass and below the vocal (the cello range) is important. It’s the lowest sound that you can hear on a phone speaker.

• It’s important to make sure that this range is well-represented.
  

Jon:
I tend to mix this range more organically. If you get too clean with this range the song can lose its mystery.

• I love mixing with the low-mids forward until someone complains about it. If I’ve got a signature sound, that’s a part of it.

• I might spend 30 min mixing a vocal and then three hours trying to get the low-mids and drums to sit right, and be punchy and sophisticated.

• I don’t like 808’s in that 100-150Hz range, because it sounds throaty to me.
  
  

Matt:
I’m always struggling with low-mids. The 100-350 range. I find it very challenging if the room isn’t right. I tend to over scoop it to get clarity.


Jon:
Don’t be afraid of the cello range, and don’t be afraid of the HPF to shape your sound.

When mixing records in the Max Martin/Dr. Luke maximalist pop style of the 2010s the first thing I would do is to put on choruses and de-tuners/warbling/etc to detune things and make it feel better.

• My gut reaction to all of these sounds was to mess with their intonation because it was so excessively in tune.

• A doubler plugin is never going to sound as wide as double-tracking a part with different mics, or different instruments, or different amps.

Have intention with how you stack your sounds.


Matt:
How you’re detuning your sounds and adding imperfection is an important part of pop records these days.


Jon:
(Paraphrasing Jon) If everything on a record is perfectly in-tune then a singer who is out of tune in an acceptable way may very well sound bad when contrasted against a production that’s tuned to “perfection”.

• Quite often singers have to be tuned in order to blend in with a production that’s already tuned flawlessly.

Q: Good books about music?

Jon:
Bill Evan’s biography: The Story of the Unsung Hero


Matt:
Geoff Emerick’s book about The Beatles: Here, There, and Everywhere.

Q: Kick drum in the key of the song?

Matt:
No, but maybe.

If something is wrong in your song, sometimes tuning down the kick can make it all fall into the right place.

Sometimes you’ll implement a bass part and you then need to put in a new kick that’s going to punch in different place and compliment it.


Jon:
The only example I can think of where the kick needs to be in tune may be some deep house style music.

808’s generally need to sound out-of-tune in order to sound a little uncontained. Perfectly balanced is usually not the way to go.