Theres no issue in terms of me getting a good deal with them, And the second thing is that the way they’ve got it setup, it’s very easy, they make it easy for the client.
By Jennifer Kae
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years now... I started out as a runner for a studio in 1978... and from there started engineering a lot of records.”
What are you currently working on?
“Recently, one of the high profile things I’ve been working on is I’ve been working with Jeff Lynne [leader of the Electric Light Orchestra], - And we did a lot of the George Harrison stuff that’s been coming out recently. We finished the album that he did after he passed away, called Brainwashed, and then I mixed a really important concert called the Concert For George, which was a memorial concert they did in the Royal Albert Hall in London for George a year after he died. It featured Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Tom Petty and a bunch of people. That was a really neat project, I felt very lucky to work on a project like that.”
Tom Petty’s last studio solo album was "Highway Companion", Jeff Lynne produced it while Ryan mixed and engineered it. Since that album Ryan has been working on more projects with Tom, including an upcoming documentary film about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Ryan has also re-mixed a lot of live performances along with old and new recordings. Ryan says this has been a huge yet very interesting project...
“Working with artists, making records, bands, and rock n roll, that’s what I love, and I’m recording and mixing all this stuff!”
What led you to choosing the Digidesign D-Command, and how has it improved your workflow?
“The last thing I couldn’t do in my home studio was to mix records, and I finally realized a couple years ago that Pro Tools is finally powerful enough to be able to completely mix 72 tracks inside the box. When I realized that I wanted to do stuff inside the box, then the D-Command became the logical controller for that, because it's just so tightly integrated with ProTools. The great thing about that is, I wanted t o have a system where I could be mixing something, I could send a CDR or MP3 to someone, they could listen to it at their place and then I can easily make changes to the mix.
"Since it’s all in Pro Tools, you open it up, wait for your session to load and then your mix is there. It’s just the more logical way to go rather than have a 3rdparty console to where you have to store that mix data on that console. ... I’m able to jump around to any kind of project and open it up in a minute and make a change, that is the thing that really makes a difference.”
The release of Pro Tools 7.2 made all the difference for Ryan. He speculates that it may have something to do with George Massenburg’s influence. Massenburg used to make automation for large recording consoles with moving faders and his were always the best.
“There’s a feature in Pro Tools called Trim, and what you can do, is you can write all your automation moves on any given channel, and then put that channel into trim mode. You can do an overall up or down level adjustment and you don’t have to commit to it, so you can just get your individual channels right, and then you can go back and look at your mix and bring the vocals up a little bit, bring this down a little bit and just kind of play with it until you’re happy with it, and then when you’re happy with it,then you can commit that and write that automation. That has really made a big difference, it’s made it a lot easier to do really complex mixes.”
You use Serato’s Pitch n’ Time Plug in, tell me how this has been useful for you.
Ryan on Serato Pitch 'n Time
“It’s useful because it’s the cleanest sounding of all that stuff, they’ve got the best algorithm I think, and I’m asking it to do some real drastic things… The thing I’ve really relied on it for is overall time stretching of several tracks that need to be phase coherent.
For example, the Concert For George was originally shot in England in 25fps in PAL standard frame rate, they needed to do a pull-down to get it to output to 24 frames for a movie. So basically what you’ve got to do, is you have to slow down the audio, but if you slow down the audio from 25 frames to 24 frames, it really sounds slower, the tempos get real slow especially if it’s music, the voices start sounding like Darth Vader. It’s subtle, but still you’re dealing with performers who have a very specific sonic signature, so it’s unacceptable... So we tried several different ways of doing it… [from using a hardware box] that did real-time pull-down and it sounded garbley and glitchy and awful. And then we tried some other software version of that to do the same thing and it wasn’t acceptable.
The only one that was any good was Pitch n’ Time. So we basically took the entire 5.1 mix and the stereo mix of a two hour film and pulled it down using Pitch n’ Time. It took all night for the computer to process it but when we played it back the next morning it was perfect, everything was phase aligned, it sounded great and that ended up being what we used for 35mm print for Concert For George.”
“I also did it for this new Tom Petty documentary, everything was on video, but there was one thing that was shot on film, it had to be integrated with all the other video footage, so we needed to do a .1% pull down from 30fps to 29.97 and I used Pitch n Time to do that across all my mix stems. It sounded great and it locked up perfectly. It is the highest quality of all those algorithms that are out there.”
Aside from Serato’s Pitch n Time plug in, what are your other favorite plug ins?
“I use the Massenburg EQ, for me it’s the best one. I’m a big fan of the 1176s, which is the old vintage analog limiter… Some of the Waves stuff, I like the L3 because it’s good to make things louder for clients to listen to. Audio Ease Altiverb I like a lot, I use TL Space. Mostly regular stuff,the kind of guys that I work with don’t really go for completely esoteric stuff, it just has to be really good clean sounding stuff because most of the effects are coming from the band and not from me.”
What speakers do you use and why?
“Well, I decided to go nuts and I got ATC 50’s which are just beautiful speakers, they’re just the best speakers that I’ve ever heard. I’ve got two of those and a Bag-End subwoofer. I made the decision to spare no expense for monitoring when I upgraded my studio and it’s paid off, those things are fantastic, the detail especially in the mid-range is really good.”
Name a couple of your favorite microphones.
“I like the vintage microphones. Anything that is an old tube Neumann or AKG, like C12’s and U47s. All the ‘old-timey’ microphones are my favorites. AKG D12 for kick drum. For snare and for guitars I like the Shure SM57s.”
Which Mic Pre’s do you like?
“At home I have a Demeter Tube Pre,which I really like. Any place that I go to if they have the old Neve or API Mic Pres, those are great. Once again I’m kind of old school on the pres too. The thing is my feeling is that digital definitely changed things in terms of the way it sounds. It doesn’t sound the same as analog, and a lot of people try to make stuff sound as analog as they can by using plug ins, and I go the other way, I know what digital is going do to it, so my feeling is I want to be as analog and old school as I can going into the box before I get there. Those old mic pres and those old mics just have a certain kind of sound that’s really pleasing, so I want to try and get as much as that analog sound before I hit Pro Tools, and then I stay digital from there.”
What do you like about working with Chris B. and RSPE?
Ryan on working with RSPE
“They make it very easy. Basically with them, it’s one phone call. First of all, there’s no issue in terms of me getting a good deal with them, I know I’ll get the best deal from them, so I don’t have to worry about that. And the second thing is that the way they’ve got it setup, it’s very easy, they make it easy for the client.
"In other words, if I need something I call Chris say “I need this..” “Ok dude you got it” and then it’s there the next day… It’s an easy transaction, other places it’s more convoluted... And Chris is very service-oriented, he understands sometimes when we’re out in the field we’re busy as hell and we’ve got 5 seconds to talk to somebody and then we’ve gotta plunge back into something, so he does a great job in terms of taking care of stuff.”