What a incredible day at Blackbird in Nashville! Yesterday, Joe Carrell joined us for our Produce Like A Professional masterclass, the place we tracked three songs with some unbelievable Nashville session gamers.
Spending a day recording with musicians of this calibre is a superb studying expertise. You get to listen to how the performances, instrument sounds and recording choices come collectively to serve the songs. With Blackbird’s Studio D and its lovely API console because the setting, we had loads to get enthusiastic about!
After the masterclass, Joe sat down with us for some rapid-fire questions on recording, mixing and dealing with artists. His solutions cowl all the things from selecting preamps and creating separation to understanding when to cease tweaking a combination.
How does Joe Carrell create separation, depth and dimension in a dense combine?
Joe begins with steadiness and panning, then makes use of EQ to assist devices discover their place. An instrument may want much less low-mid info to make room for one thing else, or just a little extra assault to develop into clearer.
Certainly one of his favorite strategies is to make use of several types of EQ throughout the combo.
A Neve, an API and an SSL can every carry a unique character to a sound. Even while you make the same enhance on the identical frequency, the circuits can provide that enhance a unique high quality.
For Joe, that selection may also help devices stand aside. If two components occupy related frequency ranges, altering the kind of EQ on one could give it a personality that makes it simpler to tell apart.
Think about the sound of the EQ itself alongside the frequency and quantity of enhance or lower.
Does Joe desire analogue {hardware} or digital plugins?
Joe believes {hardware} could make a distinction, however he has moved past the analogue-versus-digital debate. He’s blissful working solely within the field, with analogue gear or with a hybrid setup.
His precedence is making the chosen instruments work for the music.
What issues enormously to him is constant acquire staging. Throughout recording, he thinks about the place every analogue machine sounds greatest. Generally which means working round its candy spot. Generally it means pushing a transformer or tube just a little tougher for further weight and color.
He carries that strategy via his particular person tracks, teams and stereo bus.
When an analogue-modelled plugin provides a calibration setting, Joe chooses a reference akin to −18 dBFS = 0 VU, so its working degree matches his wider workflow. That may be a calibration reference, slightly than a requirement for each sign to peak at −18 dBFS.
The goal is predictable behaviour as audio strikes between {hardware} and plugins.
How does he know when a manufacturing or combine is completed?
Joe’s first reply is that it’s completed as a result of it’s 5 o’clock!
His extra critical reply begins with recognising how straightforward it’s to overproduce a music. Many people know the sensation: another guitar half, another synth layer, another overdub and maybe all the things will lastly come collectively.
Usually, eradicating a few of these layers is what permits the music to work.
When mixing, Joe will get the primary technical choices into place, then takes his consideration away from the display screen. He may shut his eyes or use his Mac’s Sizzling Corners characteristic to carry up a shifting picture that hides the meters, faders and plugins.
Then he listens as a listener.
Is the story connecting? Does the groove make him transfer? Is he feeling the emotion, or is one thing distracting him?
As soon as the music attracts him in and nothing retains pulling his consideration in the direction of an issue, he is able to end. He needs the music to succeed in the listener with out being weakened by countless changes.
How does Joe select microphones, preamps and recording chains?
Expertise offers Joe a reliable start line. Acquainted mixtures develop into requirements as a result of they work, akin to a Shure SM57 on a guitar cupboard or the highest of a snare drum.
From there, he considers the character the music wants.
For a brilliant piano that wants a darker sound, he may select a tube preamp that softens the highest finish, akin to a Common Audio 610.
For bass, he may flip to a Neve 1073, driving its enter for harmonic richness whereas controlling the output degree. That character may also help the bass converse within the combine.
A vocal that wants a clear presentation may lead him in the direction of an SSL 9K-style preamp. A vocal that wants grit may profit from a extra vibrant circuit, pushed just a little tougher.
Mic selection and placement stay central, however Joe additionally treats the preamp and its working degree as artistic choices. He needs to maneuver the recording in the direction of the meant sound from the start.
How does he perceive an artist’s sonic id?
Joe begins by listening to the artist, each in dialog and thru their demos.
The best way somebody sings or performs can reveal an incredible deal about their musical course. References are additionally helpful, supplied everybody understands precisely what the artist likes about them.
An artist may identify a document because the sound they need, whereas truly referring to 1 specific element, akin to its snare drum.
Joe asks questions early to uncover these specifics. Is it the guitar tone? The drum efficiency? The quantity of reverb? The instrumentation or general vitality?
These conversations additionally assist him select musicians.
After years of working in Nashville, Joe is aware of the strengths and pure tendencies of many native session gamers. For the Americana materials with an nearly Western affect that he described from the day’s session, he knew which drummer and electrical guitarist would go well with the course.
His recommendation applies wherever you’re employed: get to know the musicians round you and perceive what every can carry to an artist’s music.
What does Joe do first when opening a combination session?
Achieve staging comes first.
Joe’s template contains compression decisions set as much as reply in methods he understands. Bringing the incoming audio to his established working ranges helps these processors react predictably and permits him to work shortly.
He then builds a static steadiness with the entire band, utilizing ranges and panning to ascertain how the music matches collectively.
That context comes earlier than detailed choices about particular person sounds. He needs to listen to what the drums, guitars and vocals must do throughout the association.
Drums usually develop into the subsequent focus, however the music determines the order. If an acoustic guitar or piano is the driving drive, he could construct round that instrument as a substitute.
A outstanding acoustic guitar may want loads of physique. The identical instrument in a supporting function may want much less low-frequency weight to depart room for different components.
How has his mixing workflow developed?
Joe credit rising confidence in his instruments and choices.
If he is aware of a supply wants the behaviour of an 1176, an LA-3A or a variable-mu compressor, he can select shortly and preserve shifting. He doesn’t need to spend the session auditioning countless alternate options from his plugin folder, which he jokingly calls his “dumpster”.
That confidence helps him attain a powerful preliminary combine extra shortly, leaving recent ears and a spotlight for the creative work.
Results, automation and small adjustments in emphasis are the place he feels a mixer’s persona turns into particularly clear. These ending choices assist construct the connection between the mixer, artist and producer.
His purpose is to reach at that stage with sufficient vitality to listen to what the music nonetheless wants.
And a very powerful query: milk or darkish chocolate?
Darkish chocolate.
Joe considers it superior in each means and is ready to stake his status on it! We are going to depart you to resolve whether or not that’s his most convincing reply of the day.
Watch the Full Dialog
An enormous thanks to Joe for becoming a member of our Produce Like A Professional masterclass, to the fantastic Nashville session gamers and to everybody who shared the day with us at Blackbird. Monitoring three songs collectively was a incredible alternative to be taught via making music.
Be part of Us at AES Nashville!
After such a incredible Produce Like A Professional masterclass at Blackbird, we’re excited to maintain the conversations going at AES Present Nashville, from 30 October to 1 November 2026 on the Gaylord Opryland Resort! (aes.org)
In case you love recording, mixing and making music, come and be part of us. AES is a superb alternative to satisfy fellow engineers, producers and musicians, discover gear and choose up concepts you’ll be able to carry again to your personal periods.
You should use our free code AESN26PRO at checkout while you register.
Register for AES Nashville right here and enter AESN26PRO at checkout.
We’d like to see you there! Come and say hey, inform us what you might be engaged on and spend a while with this glorious audio group.
