RESOLUTION MAGAZINE INTERVIEW may/june 2004
Julie Gardner
From Sydney to London and from stereo to multichannel, George Shilling talks to a practitioner who, armed with a laptop, has specialised in 5.1 and is now branching in to the picture side in order to offer a complete package.
Julie Gardner’s recording initiation was in Sydney at INXS’s studio where she worked for three years. When they closed down, she flew to London and carved out a niche working for EMI Studio Group at Olympic and Townhouse, with a few albums at the Manor thrown in for good measure. Projects included many albums with big name artists such as Pulp, The Cranberries and Blur. After about five years, she decided to go it alone, and engineering a project in Portugal, a roadmap of her future career was established when she equipped herself with an Apple Macintosh G4 PowerBook, recording setup. She established her own business jamDVD, specialising in 5.1 sound for DVD and a big part of the business is recording live music on location. Additional recording and mixing often takes place in her conveniently located West London base. Projects with names like Joe Jackson, Chrissie Hynde, Suede, lemar, Busted and Keane have built her strong reputation. Julie is now expanding into handling visual content for DVD and also co-writes music for several up-and-coming recording artists.
Why 5.1?
It is something I was very interested in, because I believe the whole industry is going to go into multimedia. I think record companies realise now that that’s what you have to do – the market has opened up, so everything I do, I put to the record company that I can mix in 5.1 once its recorded.
What steps did you take to get into 5.1?
There are no real guidelines or rules. I don’t really have many specific 5.1 techniques: its like – “What are your techniques for a stereo mix?” – you just do it! Everyone seems to do it very differently, some people use the centre channel and some wont, so I made it up according to what I think is correct for the job that I am doing. It’s a new format that is open to be explored. You have to sit there and think about how you want to hear it, where you would be as the listener, and then put it around you as it makes most sense. Live bands I keep mostly across the front three speakers, but in a wider circle and dance music, I can have stuff flying around everywhere. Of course the client has a lot to do with the end mixes as they have their own ideas of what they expect from a surround mix and I will accommodate this.
How do you set up to record live?
I don’t do many live recordings specifically for 5.1 mixes. I take splits from the front-of-house or monitor desk. If they’re pre inserts, EQ and faders, otherwise I have to come out of a stage-box. If the FOH desk is something like a Midas 3000, you can do a pre on everything. If I cant get a split I hare to hire BSS or XTA splitters. If I can come out of FOH I am normally located there, or sometimes I’m on stage, but you can get vibration problems there. I don’t normally put up my own mics except for audience, usually two, but I can put up four or six. My system records up to 32 channels, which is almost always enough, as we can group instruments that are not playing at the same time to the same channels. On the rare occasion when I have had to have more inputs I have taken out a completely different system, which I did recently with Lemar, using Tascams instead.
Where do you position the audience mics?
If I am using two audience mics I would put them on stage facing the audience, but for jobs I’m doing at the moment I’m using six audience mics, two onstage, two in the hall and two at the back.
Do you find the front ones make the best surround effect?
It seems to capture the audience well, because I don’t really want to hear stuff that’s coming from the PA.
And you record onto your laptop?
Yes, I record them onto hard drives - everything is FireWire. I use Logic - the studio is mostly Pro Tools,but that was not an option for me with the live setup as it required too much hardware and I needed my setup to be portable and small. The interfaces I am using are MOTU 896s.
Do you record at 96kHz?
No, 44.1 or 48, that depends on the session, because if its 32-channel input, I already push my computer quite a bit. What I’m woring on at the moment was recorded at 48.
How do you prepare for action?
I normally try and take a day to set everything up, format the drives and test everything out because you cant have problems halfway through a gig. I do that here – if I’ve got the time. I’ve had projects where the record company has called me in the morning to do a job in the afternoon, so sometimes I don’t have the time. But everyting is ready; my computer’s system folder is always renewed.
Have you had any problems that have led you to change your techniques?
Yes, once I had the drive drop out and I found that there was nothing actually wrong with the software or the disks. I believe it was the vibration from the volume of sound that made it stop, so now I pad everything. I put padding under my drives and under the computer, lots of foam and bubble wrap. Now for one-off gigs I always take out a backup system and another operator so I don’t have any problems like that. If it’s a tour gig, I always make them aware I’m not taking a backup system – they can have one if they want to, but it means another person coming out. But its not normally that important on a tour, because there’s another gig and I can record that one for free, if something happens, which it never has on a tour!
So then you bring it back here?
Yes, Paul Smith Music Studios is where I mostly work from. Paul built this place and there are other studios in the building – Blur are just down the corridor.
So you’re au fait with both Logic and Pro Tools?
Yes absolutely, I’m quite quick, but my computer that I take out live I use very basically, I don’t have any plug-ins. All the work I do is in the settings beforehand.
How do you set up for a 5.1 mix?
I don’t really use the desk very much, its just outputs, I never use the desk EQ or anything. I set it up so that I’ve got 5.1 channel outputs on the Pro Tools, as well as a fold-down stereo mix. The stereo mix I need to tweak a bit after I have finished the 5.1. I normally use the outboard gear that I have in the studio and take sounds out and record back into the Pro Tools, so that everything is instantly recallable, which is why I don’t use the desk as well.
So you’re pretty much mixing with Pro Tools?
Yeah, except the sounds are taken out to be rerecorded back in from the outboard.
Do you bring things up the desk individually?
I do if I’m doing stereo mixes, I use 24 tracks and just bring it up with the faders at zero. But for 5.1 its coming up six faders. Normally for a 5.1 mix I’ll set it up as a stereo mix to start off with, then I’ll go into 5.1. then afterwards I’ll check the stereo fold-down and probably just twiddle it a little bit to make it sound a little bit better.
So the two aren’t quite compatible?
Well they are, but one is a stereo fold-down, so I check it all the time to make sure I’m not phasing and also you have to be careful of the stuff that’s going into the rear because if you put a lot of audience in the back it could make the centre vocal sound really reverby, things like that. So I check it all the time. But if I’m giving someone a stereo and a 5.1 I would probably play with the stereo.
How long does a mix like that take?
If I’m doing a 5.1 mix people generally want to spend more time, but a lot of the stuff I’ve done has been for radio, or B-sides, so they want the whole gig mixed in one or two days, so theres no time to mess around. If you’ve got an hour gig that’s quite a lot of work to do in a day, because you do have to repair things, I replace a couple of sounds and stuff like that.
Do you have the band come here and fix things?
The band I’m working with at the moment are coming in to do vocal repairs; you have to create another spill track so you don’t notice the difference when edits go through, sending stuff to a speaker and miking it up again. Otherwise I try to do edits within the track or if they’ve got lots of takes I try to do edits from other takes.
How do you monitor 5.1?
The outputs are plugged straight to the (Genelec) sub 7070A and from there to the other speakers (Genelec 1030s) through groups. I’ve got an Audient ASP510 controller, you can solo or cut each channel and control the volume of the six outputs.
Whats your panning philosophy?
People want it different ways. If I’m doing a live band I’ll set it up like that stage but a bit wider. But I did a studio album recently in 5.1 and they wanted it like one instrument out of one speaker and one out of another, so I did that and it sounded good. I bring it in a little big so it goes to more than one. I read something recently where someone said you shouldn’t pan things madly around, but they wanted that, so you do the mix according to what the clients really wants. If they want to hear that, then do it, that’s what I think! The fold down is quite important, I do a lot of checking with that. Everything is set-up and measured properly here so when I take it to mastering there’s hardly anything they have to do. I thinks its about experimenting and seeing what works. If it doesn’t work just don’t do it! I don’t think there are great secrets.
Have you ever thought the sound image should move with the picture?
This is why I’m getting all this stuff in at the moment (30-inch Relisys LCD screen, Doremi System), because there’s three guys onstage wearing headsets, running across the stage, so I’m going to follow them.
Do you use the centre speaker a lot?
I do, but I use it specifically and pretty much for vocals.
If you’ve got reverb on the vocal, where does that appear?
Well, basically, I duplicate the vocal track and have one in the centre and one in the stereo and the reverb would be around, because it comes out of the back and the front. However, if I have more than one lead singer I use the panner going over the stereo and centre and don’t duplicate the track.
So if I soloed the centre speaker, I’d hear a dry vocal?
Yes and you’d find that on a lot of DVDs, Slipknot does exactly the same.
Do you use any surround plug-ins?
No I don’t use surround plug-ins. I haven’t really bothered yet. My plug-ins in Pro Tools are pretty basic, like the Focusrite, Lexicon, really basic because I’m using the outboard gear.
What is your mix format?
It depends what mastering wants. I’ve been working with Ray Staff, the ex-Sony mastering engineer – he’s gone to Alchemy at Centre Point, (Central London) the 29th floor. I bounce it down and give him files. But a lot of people still want it on Tascam DA98. I can give him eight SDII files, which includes the stereo mix.
What advice would you offer a 5.1 novice?
You have to be really careful with the rears, making sure its not going to have too much effect on the front, being really reverby, you need to check with you fold-down. But I think you just have to use your imagination and before you start really think about where you want to be and what you want to hear around you. Its not difficult - its like a 3D picture instead of a 2D picture. If you can do a stereo mix you can do a 5.1 mix.
And you’re getting into the visual side as well?
Absolutely, I recently made a DVD for John Martyn and found that doing visual is just another piece of software. Before, it used to be a completely different game, but now its not, people who work with audio software can work with visual software and do the whole package. I want my business to be able to take off more in the fact that it can do the whole thing.
More info on Julie’s business and studio can be found at www.jamdvd.com