Production Technology

The heart of the system at Uplift is the Mac G4 computer, we currently have a super fast dual 1.25Ghz G4 with loads of RAM. With the addition of the twin Creamware powerpulsar and the original Pulsar cards we can run an amazing 40 simultaneous channels. That is to say, not 40 tracks at once (the number of tracks is much higher, in the region of 90+), this refers to 40 actual physical inputs and outputs meaning that on the desk pretty much anything can be separated. The advantage is that in a mix, the kick or hat or anything can be tweaked, eq can be added, individual compression, effects and so on, which gives you the best of the analog days, where it had to be done that way, with the advantage of a completely digital path using the next important part of the system: the desk..

We use and love the Mackie d8b digital desk, it's got such a rock and roll feel to it because you can chuck a mix around and really get hands on yet with all the control and total recall of digital. It's an American desk so the eq sounds much better in our opinion than the japanese equivalent, and the effects are really good. The best bit is the automation where everything can be tweaked and ridden with the mix. This means that all the little changes of depth that alter focus on a track can be added really easily: it's amazing how quick you get used to hearing the amount of reverb changing so that parts come back and forward in the audio depth of field. Production techniques that you might hear on tracks by Butch Vig for Garbage are easy to achieve such as that trick where all the effects and reverbs stop at the same time, leaving the track totally dry and upfront for an arresting production moment. The cool thing is that you only have to do it once and it will always play back like that, leaving the mixer to concentrate on the next thing.

 

All this is lovely, but you need stuff to put through the mixer, and for that we use the Emagic Logic Audio Platinum Pro2 which is, of course, the best reason for owning a mac that we can think of (apart from the fact that the mac never goes wrong, never crashes, always runs perfectly, looks cool, edits video, runs photoshop, makes this website, never gets a virus and keeps its value...). You might also wonder what we do with all those 40 inputs, and the answer is that we run the rock solid Mackie HDR24/96 24 track recorder into 24 of those inputs. This is the hardest working machine and really does the business when needed: We did the Shane MacGowan live album on this machine and so it was a strange feeling dropping into record on all 24 tracks just as the band walked on stage in Dublin, but and hour and a half later it had recorded every note played, staying in record on all 24 tracks with pristine digital sound and full editing post production capabilities when we later came to mix the album. Try that with your ProTools or other computer based setup and you will be sweating for the whole gig.

 

When it comes to software plugins we currently love the whole series of instuments from Spectrasonics and we have the Atmosphere synth, Stylus percussion generator and the Trilogy bass module. There's a new version of Stylus out in the third quarter of 2004 that we can't wait to get installed: it adds the capability to use original samples and to separate the outputs, which is a current limitation of Stylus. The very fabulous Phatmatik Pro does all those jobs right now, and it's a 'go to' program for cool loop manipultaion, especially for layering tambourines and shakers with a real drum groove. Maybe the new stylus tweak has added some of its capabiltiies...

We love the new Emagic Convoluting Reverb. Word from top session drummer and Sound on Sound columnist Gavin Harrison is that he immediately sold all his reverbs, lexicons and all as soon as he heard the sound of the Emagic reverb, and now we know why, it's amazing. Also the ability to 'sample' reverb spaces is very exciting, especially round West Cork as there are a number of really good spaces in Churches and halls that have the great advantage of very quiet external noise, so you can get a really clear sample of the space. There was a great sound in the hall at a school in Buttevant in North Cork, but the best place of all would be the Musée Océanographique in Monaco: the entrance hall there is immense and has an incredible reverberation...


Latest Joy of Tech!

 

On the hardware effects front we still love the Eventide H3000 harmoniser: it's a really pro bit of kit and the sounds are just great. We use it all the time on vocals and sometimes on tracking sounds like pads and guitars. More and more processing is going internally in the software but still the H3000 has a particular sound that we need.

When it comes to microphones we are quite big fans of the microphones from Microtech Gefell Gmbh, what used to be the East German version of Neumann before the Berlin wall came down. The story was that when the wall went up the technology that goes into Neumann mics was also with their East German division which went on producing great mics for the USSR during the cold war days. We use the M930 for vocals and a pair of pencil mics for drum overheads and also acoustic guitar mics. We also have mics from Neumann, Shure, Electrovoice, AKG and others.

Preamps are from TLA with one of the original Ivory series valve preamps and a new focusrite dual preamp which is great for guitar and overhead drums. For mobile recording we also have a quadmic pro which is a great clear sound and very handy for laptop use with high quality mics. It can run from battery power or a car 12v socket so is very adaptable.

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