In this exclusive LUNA session, watch producer Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Cold War Kids) harness UAD plug-ins and API Console Emulation inside LUNA Recording System on the track, “Mission” from Moon Taxi. Get “inside the mix” and learn how King uses the Ampex^® ATR‑102 and Studer^® A800 Tape Extensions to fatten drum tracks, add weight to vocals, and more. Plus, King offers tips and tricks for quickly getting album‑ready sounds using API Console Emulation.

Watch How the Mix Was Made

Credits

“Mission” was originally written and composed by Michael James, Ryan Busbee, Spencer Thomson, Tom Putnam, Trevor Terndrup, and Wes Bailey. Production, engineering, and mixing by Jacquire King. Mastering by Emily Lazar.

Trevor Terndrup: Lead Vocals, Guitar, Claps
Spencer Thomson: Guitar, Programming, Claps
Wes Bailey: B3, Moog, Claps
Tom Putnam: Bass Guitar, Claps
Tyler Ritter: Drums, Congas, Claps
Amber Woodhouse: Background Vocals, Saxophone, Claps

Billie Eilish and her producer/co-writer/brother Finneas O’Connell began turning the world upside down in 2015 with the track “Ocean Eyes,” recorded in a small LA bedroom when Billie was just 14 years old. Four years later, the duo’s debut full-length album would go on to amass five hit singles including the #1 Billboard smash “Bad Guy.”

Eilish’s haunting, languid vocal performances — harkening Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, and Amy Winehouse — owe in no small part to the production prowess of mix engineer Rob Kinelski. We caught up with him at his studio in Los Angeles to learn how he used a single UAD Satellite and stockpile of UAD plug-ins to help craft melancholic, hook‑filled hits.

Rob Kinelski has mixed hits for Common, DJ Khaled, Eminem, and dozens more.

Tell me how you, Billie, and Finneas work together.

Finn just has great ears. He knows how to record with barely any training, and the way he captures and manipulates sounds is really thoughtful. Billie is well-tuned to his process as well.

Billie and Finn’s stems are pretty dialed by the time they get to me. Everything is pre-compressed and pre-panned, so I load it into Pro Tools and filter tracks through my routing and summing system. I might do a few surgical things, then drop anything that isn’t needed once I have a template.

You said that you’re almost embarrassed by how little you need to do to their mixes, but seeing your routing and buses, that seems like an understatement.

Most of the natural magic is on their end — my job is to help them finish, keep things cohesive, and address any problems that may arise. Sometimes that means not fixing the problems, if you know what I mean. Sometimes you have to let that energy breathe.

The question I ask myself is, “How can I be of service to the songs?” I do everything I can to make what they create even better, but it’s not about putting my own stamp on things. That’s not my role. I know mixers who do the opposite, but that’s not my approach.

You’ve been a Universal Audio devotee for quite some time. What drew you to UAD plug-ins?

We’re spoiled now, but I remember when UAD plug-ins first came around, everyone was buzzing about the idea that UA had a Fairchild plug-in that actually sounded like a Fairchild. I recall being in a studio, A/B'ing the UAD version against a hardware unit and all of us being like, “Holy shit — it's almost identical.” We did a blindfold test and a lot of people picked the UAD plug-in over the real one!

So from the get-go, UAD plug-ins have been a part of my workflow. They’ve made mixing in-the-box not such a “bad word” anymore.

Like a lot of people, I’m impressed with the space and ambience in the mixes. The tracks are dry, but there’s still this openness and stereo width.

When it comes to the soundscapes, imaging, and reverb and delay on Billie’s records, you’ve got to credit Finn for most of it. But for example, if something is fairly wide in their mix, I might just push it out a little more, or make things the tiniest bit out-of-phase — tricks to expand the stereo field and make the mix more interesting — or even a little weird.

What plug-ins do you use to add that space?

The AMS RMX-16 Expanded Digital Reverb — especially the classic Non-Lin2 preset. It adds a small-room energy to things like snare drums or claps — elements that you don’t necessarily want to sound “reverby” but just more three-dimensional. It's an old-school ‘80s technique.

Another favorite of mine is the Sonnox Oxford Inflator, which I use on virtually all my background vocals. I don't hit it too hard, and it’s pretty subtle, but it adds harmonic color to backing vocals and makes them pop and open up.

Those stacked background vocals are a notable feature of Billie’s music. It sounds like an effect in and of itself. What was the inspiration?

For me, the goal is to create movement, and avoid letting things just sit for too long. If you mix modern music too safe, it can come out boring and linear. You don’t ever want your mix to come out sounding like a bunch of repeating loops. Stuff needs to happen. Making those background vocals really pronounced is just one way to do that.

I engineered Beyonce’s B’Day album, and I clearly remember how the great Jason Goldstein made the background vocals sound massive. They just jumped out of the speakers.

And it works with other genres too. I’ve worked with Grammy‑winning songwriters like Andrea Martin and Makeba Riddick, and we did similar things with stacked background vocals to create interest in the mix.

I understand you’re fond of the Ampex ATR-102 Mastering Tape plug-in. What are your settings?

Yeah, I like to run that on my mix bus with 456 ½-inch tape, +6 calibration at 30 ips. And I always turn the noise off.

And what’s this about using the Thermionic Culture Vulture on the mix bus? Bold stroke!

Oh, yeah. That’s a go-to! Here’s how it went down. I was working on a mix and just thought, “How can I get more color on this?” So I impulsively threw the Culture Vulture in there on its default setting. Then I bypassed it. Then I turned it on again. Then I bypassed it . . . [Laughs]. Finally, I turned it on again and I’ve just left it there ever since!

I really wish I could give you some intelligent, well-thought-out explanation about what it’s doing to the odd harmonics or whatever, but I can’t. I just knew it sounded good, and part of me was like, “I bet nobody’s really doing that.”

Kinelski at work with some of his favorite UAD tools, including the Neve 1073, Thermionic Culture Vulture, and the Ampex ATR‑102.

Is your mix bus chain fully in-the-box, or do you weave in hardware processors?

It’s changed quite a bit, but here’s the basic idea. I start with the Ampex ATR-102 Mastering Tape plug-in, then go into the Thermionic Culture Vulture plug-in. From there, I used to feed into the Dangerous BAX EQ, but I’ll confess: I’ve switched my mix bus EQ to the Fearn VT-5 EQ Dual-Channel outboard EQ. I mean, it costs over $10,000, so it’s not like I’m going to let it sit around, right?

Let’s talk about guitar tones. What does a typical plug-in chain look like?

I use the Harrison 32C SE Channel EQ on almost all my electric guitars. It allows me to boost the midrange without the harshness that often goes along with it. For acoustic guitars, I always seem to turn to the Teletronix LA-3A Classic Audio Leveler plug-in to smooth out transients and help them sit in the mix.

Do you have any go-to plug-ins for drums?

Lately, I’ve been using the Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor for live drums. What I love about that plug-in is the Mix function, which works like a good parallel compressor, but without any worries about phasing.

How do you keep Billie’s vocals so present, despite her ‘whispery’ delivery?

I wasn’t feeling the way most modern in-the-box vocals were sounding. I wanted Billie’s voice to sound clear, present, and exciting. So what would I use to do that in a traditional studio? A Neve 1073!

With the Neve 1073 Preamp and EQ plug-in, I typically roll off a little low-end and maybe bump up some low mids around 200Hz. Then I’ll use the High-Band Shelf knob to play with the brightness.

There is surely some magic going on with Billie and Finneas’ music. What do you think they’ve tapped into?

I think the magic that’s going on starts with the two of them being entirely authentic to themselves. They don't think about genre, or even care about it really. And I think that's true for a lot of their generation. They just don't care about those divisions. Since I love making albums, I used to get upset by the notion that the “playlist is killing the album.” Even if that’s true, the playlist might be killing the genre — and maybe that’s a good thing!

— James Rotondi

In this exclusive LUNA Session, we go deep inside a track by Southern California indie rock band Cold War Kids. Learn how producer/engineer Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, Bad Religion) used API Vision Console Emulation on the track “Scandalized” and get pro tips and insight on using the first ever authentic end-to-end analog console emulation.

Rewatch how the song came together

From making beats and playing in bands, to stints as a runner and assistant at Paramount Recording, to full‑fledged engineer status with some of the biggest names in hip-hop — Tyler the Creator, Solange, Mac Miller, and Frank Ocean — producer/engineer Vic Wainstein has risen through the ranks by sheer determination and self‑application.

On Tyler, the Creator’s Grammy‑winning album, Igor, Wainstein dug deep into his bag of tricks to fulfill Tyler’s vision. Here, learn how Wainstein leaned on UAD plug‑ins and Apollo interfaces to bring the album to fruition.

Igor is not a "traditional" hip‑hop album. At times, it sounds like a hip-hop take on a Brian Wilson‑produced Beach Boys record.

Tyler described it in a recent interview as sounding like Pusha T and Stevie Wonder got together — hard-ass 808 beats with lots of chords.

Tyler’s records tend to push the edges of what is commercially acceptable in rap, and I think some people just can’t comprehend what he’s trying to achieve — especially other rappers. Their attitude is, “Tyler’s kinda weird. Why is he playing all those pretty chords over this hard music?” But I think Tyler has always trusted that at some point, it would make sense.

Even when we started working together, I had to learn to view rap music through his lens. But when he started trying to put all these new sounds into one album, I got onboard. What’s the worst that can happen? The science experiment blows up in our face — but at least we’ll still feel something.

These days, artists often record parts by themselves in DAWs that they're comfortable with. How do you navigate those waters?

Everything I work on ends up in Pro Tools. But Tyler’s a Logic Pro guy, so the creative process starts there. We did all our production in that environment, then imported the tracks to Pro Tools. With Mac Miller, for example, we would start in Ableton. So I’ve had to acclimate myself to different artist’s workflow, and as a result, I’m pretty fluent in multiple DAWs.

At this point, I’ve got a potent three-point attack any time I need to step into a room with a new artist. “You know Ableton Live?” Gotcha. “Logic?” Gotcha. “You good with Pro Tools?” I gotcha there, too. I’d recommend any engineer try to familiarize themselves with more than one DAW. It’s certainly helped me.

I understand you used Apollos and the Console app as a simple way to render files from one DAW to another.

Yes. We started by bouncing tracks from Logic to Pro Tools, but to Tyler’s ear — and he’s very specific about the way things sit in the sonic landscape — the bounces didn’t sound right. The fidelity of the 808s was taking a hit, and the more abrasive synths just weren’t cutting through. We tried every option to bounce tracks, but just kept hitting roadblocks.

I've had experience with Apollo interfaces, but the light bulb didn’t go on until we were doing some tracks with A$AP Rocky, and his engineer Hector Delgado said, “Bro, all you have to do is get a couple of Apollos, and then you can dump all the tracks at once, directly into Pro Tools.” So we did, and it worked.

Can you explain how you set that up in Console?

I built an I/O template in Console, and made sure that each channel coming out of Logic was sent to its own dedicated track in Pro Tools. In the past, I’d bounce AIFF files from Logic to Pro Tools, and then use UAD plug-ins to process those files — but this gave me a whole new handle on transferring tracks and stems.

I realized I could use all those killer UAD plug‑ins on individual tracks on the way into Pro Tools, and commit the processing as it was being printed. Plus, when it came time to send tracks to the mixer, Neal Pogue, the sounds were completely dialed and ready to go.

The bottom end on Igor sounds killer. How do you make space for it with all of the dense, complex arrangements?

I got turned onto sub-harmonic processors back in 2015 when Mick Guzuaski mixed part of Tyler’s Cherry Bomb album, which I’d engineered. Maintaining fidelity of 808s is a huge challenge — I can’t tell you how much people struggle with giving those the right amount of space in a mix. But using the Little Labs VOG plug‑in makes so much sense. It became one of our miracle drugs for the 808, because it's perfect for tightening those bass frequencies and adding detail.

Also, the Empirical Labs Fatso Jr and Sr is a real treat, especially on kick drums and snares. Generally, I would tweak an Empirical Labs Distressor to move in a similar way, but the Fatso really made our kick drums cut through, and remain super present among the whimsical menagerie of instruments we piled on top — it helped the beats not get lost in the sauce.

Any secret weapons for drum or mix buses?

The Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor came in handy a number of times. I could put that thing on everything, but I especially like it on the mix bus while I work. I pop it in and out often, so I know how things change when they hit it, but you have to be aware of what it’s doing because there are so many parameters. You don’t want to find out after you’ve tracked a bunch of stuff, that you weren’t really hearing the source accurately.

I also like the SSL G‑Master Buss Compressor on the mix bus. The SSL boards are the first recording desks that I really got familiar with. Paramount had every SSL except for the K series, so I learned on the SSL E‑Series, J‑Series, and the G‑Plus. At the end of a recording day, having to sum stuff together, I got used to having that iconic SSL Quad Compressor on deck.

The truth is that drums in rap just don’t have many hard peaks, so with compression, it’s more about finding ways to glue things together and use your compressor’s output gain to make up for the gain loss, or just to level up your signal for the next set of EQs and compressors.

The vocals on the record are wild, and I suspect that many of the weird “character” voices are Tyler himself.

Well, we did have an ensemble cast — Kanye West, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, Solange, and Jerrod Carmichael. But yes, the majority of those random, weird vocals were Tyler.

He usually lays down reference tracks for guest rappers or singers that he has in mind, be it Charlie Wilson from the Gap Band, Wanya Morris from Boyz II Men, or Cee‑Lo Green. He’s been doing that since his days with Odd Future, and I think he was inspired to push it even further with Igor. On some occasions, we ended up liking his “sound‑alike” versions better than the guest singers he was trying to emulate.

What's your plug-in chain for vocals?

A typical vocal chain would look like this: Neve 1073 Preamp & EQ Collection, 610‑A, or API Vision Strip preamp. Then a Pultec EQP‑1A or FabFilter Pro‑Q 3 EQ. And for compressors, a Rev A “Bluestripe” 1176 or Fairchild 660.

I used the SPL Vitalizer MK2‑T on a lot of the pitched vocals, and it even found its way onto the grand piano sounds, which needed a little enhancement and richness. For saturation and harmonic distortion, I love the Thermionic Culture Vulture — it’s a potent tool for carving out those aggressive synth sounds you hear all through Igor.

Did you and Tyler have any sonic references for Igor?

If you want a good reference for our creative direction on this record, listen to those late-’70s/early‑’80s punk rock records — with those aggressive walls of guitars that everything else had to fight through — that’s how we treated the synths. For that, the Culture Vulture was a godsend. I also leaned on the MXR Flanger/Doubler and the Studio D Chorus.

What advice do you have for up-and-coming producers and engineers?

Every song or mix provides obstacles that you’ve got to contend with on the spot. Many young engineers I talk to employ the "set‑it‑and‑forget‑it" approach. But my experience has taught me that every set of problems in a mix is unique, and requires its own unique solution.

Also, trust your ears. That’s become something of a lost art. When you have everything so dialed, and to a certain spec, you risk not relying on your ears. Don’t ever let that happen.

In this LUNA Session, get an exclusive inside look at Louis Cato's magical track, “Everyman.” See how producer Fab Dupont (Shakira, David Crosby) and Cato used LUNA to build the song track-by-track to realize their "purpose-built" production. Watch as they record together virtually, solo individual tracks, comp vocals, divulge UAD plug-ins chains, and give you detailed, musical insight and production inspiration to use in your next LUNA session.

Rewatch how the song came together

The Birth of "Everyman"

Recording Drums and Bass

Tracking Guitars

Capturing Lead Vocals

Comping Lead and Background Vocals

Tweaking Backgrounds, Percussion, and Synths

Crafting a Rough Mix

Adding Spitfire Strings

Creating the Final Mix Walkthrough

LUNA Session Launch

Even among the grand technocrat class of top engineers, recording, mixing, and mastering ace Richard Dodd (George Harrrison, Travelling Wilburys, Tom Petty) is counted as an especially encyclopedic mind. As the man at the mixing and engineering helm of records as diverse as Carl Douglas’ 70s‑smash “Kung Fu Fighting,” Clannad’s “Theme From Harry’s Game,” and Tom Petty’s acclaimed album Wildflowers — for which Dodd won a Grammy award, his first of five, for Best Engineer — Dodd's ear is fairly unerring.

With his bird’s‑eye view on four decades of changes in music technology, Dodd is the perfect man to unpack the secrets of his own workhorse presets for the UAD Ampex ATR‑102 Mastering Tape Recorder plug‑in, a much-loved modern tool which he played a role in developing and refining. Here, Dodd unpacks the key elements of his “468 15IPS” preset.

What were you going for with your Ampex ATR‑102 Tape Machine preset, “486 15IPS?”

I wanted as little compression as possible, and simply more of the color and warmth of the tape, rather than that sort of limiting and compression effect that the tape will give if you push it hard. In general, 1" tape doesn’t do any of the things that people expect from tape. But you can still get that warm EQ curve without any clipping.

You have the "Noise" and "Crosstalk" functions off. Why?

This preset is all about just the color of the machine and the tape, without the dynamic properties, or any cloudiness or noise. "Crosstalk" is off because it basically narrows the stereo image, and if I wanted my stereo field to be narrower, I would make it narrower. And of course, noise is noise! The sound of tape is wonderful, yes, but the hiss generally isn't, especially on quieter material.

Why do you have "Repro" control more or less all the way up?

By sending the maximum signal to the "Repro" head, I’m able to reduce the dynamic influence of the tape and avoid any clipping whatsoever. So I can leave the dynamics as natural as possible. The input level is much more sober, a bit like what you’d call “under-recording,” which you wouldn’t do on the real tape machine because you’d get too much noise. I have a choice on the UAD Ampex ATR‑102 plug‑in. So I turn it off.

The preset just acts as a coloring device for my mix or any source. I’ve got the color of the transformers and I’ve got the color of the tape and that’s it. By keeping Repro at 10, you’ve got a signal where the dynamic of the source is less affected by the plug‑in.

You’ve chosen “CCIR” for the Emphasis EQ, rather than "NAB."

Those EQs were basically noise reduction systems. They were meant to optimize the sound of the tape, given a standard program source, so basically, on the lower speeds, it would try to emphasize the high‑end going to tape, and reduce it on the way back — keeping in mind that the lower speeds were greater for low-end frequency response. The "CCIR" setting gives you the option of simply making it less noisy at 15IPS. In this case the CCIR ‘model’ sounded better.

I confess, I'm a bit mystified by what the "Bias" control really means in the context of a tape machine like the ATR‑102. And yet, I suspect it’s a powerful function. How should one think of it?

Bias, on a real tape machine, is a constant high frequency being recorded, and we’re really talking high. Around 100kHz. Now, that is there while you’re recording in order to "excite" the magnetic tape's particles and electrons. To get them moving, if you will, so when you tell them where to go, they’re already up, exercised, and stretched ready to go.

This is not a white‑paper explanation, obviously, so you’ve got this very high-frequency energy there, created by the machine, and specific to tape, and it gets the tape ready to record something.

Now, each tape has a different level of how much of that bias frequency is needed to optimize its readiness. And the speed of the tape also affects how much bias is required. A slower tape speed is going to require more, for example, and a higher speed is going to need less, or vice‑versa in some cases. So you get that particular tape and tape speed optimized to be ready, everyone is lined up and ready to start the race, they’ve all got their knee down and the same type of shoes; you can then line the machine up in terms of the frequency: 10k, 1k, just to make it flat.

Now, if you suddenly adjust that bias, everything else you’ve put into place is going to be wrong. If you now take that bias and turn it counter‑clockwise, for instance, you’re “under‑biasing” the tape.

How can you use the "Bias" control on different sources, say, a snare drum or guitar?

On a snare drum, for example, you can lower, or “under-bias” to create an effect like you’re loosening the snares, giving it some "fizz" as it comes to life.

If you go too far, however, you’ll get a lot of distortion and a thin crappy sound. On the other hand, if you start at the normal bias setting, and then go clockwise with the Bias control, the exact opposite happens, and your snare becomes richer, less bright, warmer, and thicker.

That’s something you might find really useful on a poorly recorded electric guitar, which needs some more “reality.” If you try to warm up an electric guitar by rolling off high end, say 10kHz, it doesn’t really do anything, because that frequency doesn’t really exist on an electric guitar. But by using the "Bias" control on the ATR 102 plug in, it’s almost like you’ve moved the mic on the speaker for that EQ tweak. It’s fantastic.

In essence, bias is a constant that is required to make a given thing optimal. If you’re changing this key factor that makes a device optimal or “ready,” the landscape changes. Remember our runners at the starting line, all optimized and wearing the same cleats and in the same position? You change the bias, you’ve just changed the length of everyone’s spikes, or put them in different starting positions, or even changed the surface they’re running on. Same runners — your source sounds — but you’ve completely changed the race.

Now, it's possible — but generally undesirable — to do this with real tape. But with the Ampex ATR 102 plug-in, you can even automate changes to the "Bias" control in real time! I mean, who does that, right? But now you can. Again, UAD has made the impossible, possible. Brilliant.

On his latest full-length original release, BOY, Grammy-winning producer RAC (André Allen Anjos) pays homage to the spirit and sonics of his childhood in 1980s Portugal. To that end, the bossa- nova-schooled guitarist and producer tethered old-school ‘80s synth, chorused guitar, and TR-808 drum sounds of his youth to an eclectic mix of vocalists including Jamie Liddell, LeyeT, Emerson Leif, and more.

Using a liberal amount of UA gear — including an Apollo x8, two Apollo 16s, an Apollo Twin, and a 2‑610 Dual Channel Preamplifier hardware — Anjos has crafted what he calls “an album with a concept and a theme, that you listen to all the way through. That’s the kind of record that impacted me as a 15‑year‑old, and I hope I’m able to pass that torch to another 15‑year‑old today.”

Your music seems driven by melodic figures, often played on guitar, rather than beats.

Typically, I’ll hear a melody in my head, perhaps something I’ve heard somewhere along the way, and I try to bring that into what I'm writing now.

All the melodies on BOY are ones that somehow took me back to my age of musical discovery and innocence in Portugal. I discovered this when I was five or six songs into the album, because I didn’t start out with any particular direction. But it quickly became apparent that my childhood in Portugal was the underlying theme of the record.

Your vocal sounds are extremely present, even though they have space on them. With so many different vocalists all flying tracks remotely, how do you keep the sound consistent?

Yeah, getting vocal tracks from the singers, I’m a bit at the mercy of how they record themselves or get tracked. But when I travel, I bring an Arrow interface with me, and it’s amazing for tracking vocals remotely.

What do you do with a vocal track once you have it in hand?

I usually start by adding a bit of Neve 1073 EQ at the individual track level, just to get the high end somewhere in the spectrum of what I want. I really like the high end on the 1073 EQs.

If I need to do any “maintenance” to the vocal track I use Antares Auto‑Tune Realtime Advanced, but I try not to use too much, as I’m really not looking to make it sound robotic. Then I’ll use a bit of dbx 160 Compressor on a parallel channel, just to get it in the rough range of where I want it.

How do you process your vocal sub groups?

I like to use the Eiosis AirEQ plug-in, which feeds into the SSL G Buss Compressor, where my settings are pretty subtle: maybe a 2:1 ratio on the SSL, and I’ll mess with the Threshold to get it right. It’s just about nudging the needle at this point, and that’s true for how I use compression across the board. Just a nudge every time.

From there, the vocal group goes into the Sonnox Oxford Inflator, which I’m only using at, like 20-30%, and I don’t set it to Clip at all. I like it to be very clean going through the Inflator. I’ll frequently add a little bit of Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor Compressor, too.

We'll talk about guitar stuff later. But first, tell me how you create the amazing, consistent low end on all of your records.

It's consistent because I work off a template, and it’s a framework that I’ve built over many, many years. So in some ways, the drums and bass are all pre-mixed to some degree. Having a template is super valuable, and I recommend it to everyone. I mean, part of this just comes from the huge amount of remixing I do. I’m on constant deadlines, so anything that helps me speed up my process is a good thing.

Can you describe your template?

There are group tracks for every single instrument type already pre-made by me. Levels are more or less adjusted, with a good amount of parallel compression in place. So for every instrument group, there’s pretty much a sub-mix in place, so that when I go to do my final mix, I don’t have to completely reinvent the wheel — it’s more or less there.

Do you have EQs setup in this template?

Well, the key is just using EQ to give everything space in the mix, right? And the way I do that is through filtering. It’s not that complicated. I mean, yes, the kick is pretty subby, but that’s its space — it's the only thing in that really low range, from say, 20Hz to 400Hz.

The bass instruments may have a little bit of overlap with the kick, sure, but all the midrange instruments like synths or guitars are only going to live in the low-to-high midrange. I want to leave a ton of room for the vocal.

So basically, every instrument has to have its place, and the vocal occupies a big part of it.

Exactly. If you listen to my records, you’ll hear that nothing — no hi-hats, cymbals — is happening in that higher frequency range except for the vocals. This approach allows for a lot of separation. A lot of mixers have a tendency to want to open up hi-hats really wide, but I like controlling them.

There’s a warmth to the kicks, snares, and basses.

I always group the kick and snare together, and then I add a little bit of parallel distortion. In fact, I have a lot of distortion on nearly everything, and I think that’s where I get a bit of grit on the recordings.

Why do you use the distortion in a parallel channel?

Using distortion on drums, you risk losing all the dynamics, and that’s the wisdom of doing it on a parallel channel. I don’t want to lose the punchy low mids on the snare, and that’s the first thing to go when you put distortion directly on a snare and it gets too crunchy. I typically use the Raw Distortion stompbox plug-in to add the right amount of grit.

Do you also use parallel compression?

Yes. The way I deal with compression on the bass and drums especially, are lots of small increments of parallel compression at consecutive stages, from channel to sends to sub-groups to master bus.

Back to the guitar. You use it a lot on BOY.

The guitar is the easiest way for me to bring the melodies that I hear in my head into the physical world. And if it sounds good played on guitar, I’ll just keep it. So much of the creating process is truly improvisational, trying a lot of ideas, messing around, and seeing what sticks.

The guitar’s central role as the album’s theme instrument was an emergent thing for me, and I actually wrote plenty of ideas on synths, but as I got into it, it all just felt better on guitar.

The guitar sounds are great! What is your recipe?

I only use one guitar, a Gibson SG I’ve had since I was a kid. It’s a guitar I know and love and it’s been with me forever. I may run a BOSS CE-2 Chorus or a couple of MoogerFooger pedals, but generally not a lot of effects before the amps.

My amps are all heads, no cabinets and I use a Fender Deluxe Reverb and Princeton Reverb, a Roland JC-120, and Vox AC-4 and an AC-15. All of these heads are sent into an Ampeg System Selector, which lets me select which amp I want to send to OX Amp Top Box.

Do you use the OX app for different tones?

I don’t really use the mic, cabinet, and speaker modeling in OX. Instead, I simply use its attenuator to bring the volume down about 30dB , and send the signal to a Rivera Silent Sister 1x12 iso cab loaded with a Celestion G12T‑75. I can position the two interior mics and get a really clean recording. Then the signal goes into either an API 512C lunchbox preamp or a Chandler TG‑2 500 Series preamp.

Once the guitar sound gets to Apollo's Console app, I like using the filters on the Neve 88RS Channel Strip to filter out a little bit of low end and shape the sound a bit. I may also use a touch of Fairchild 670 Tube Limiter if I want a more compressed tone.

Once you hit your DAW, what do you do to the guitar?

I’ll use some subtle parallel compression like we talked about earlier. And I almost always double the same part twice to give it that stereo feel, although as a general rule I always prefer mono signals.

I don't particularly like very "wide" recordings. Sometimes with stereo signals you lose a lot of presence in the center of the stereo field. I just want it right in front of me. I would rather pan several mono sources to create a stereo feel.

I like to process the guitars with plug-ins like the MXR Flanger/Doubler the Brigade Chorus Pedal, and the Raw Distortion if I’m going to add distortion.

Tell me a bit about what plug-ins live on your mix bus.

There are a few things, but it centers around the API 2500 Bus Compressor. I used to have the hardware version, but I got tired of the routing issues and the noise I would often get, so I use the UAD plug-in now and it’s sick. I actually A/B’d it with my hardware 2500 so I could copy my hardware settings as closely as possible, and it sounded amazing.

What are your settings on the API 2500 plug-in?

The threshold is set to 0, which is where I like things to hit. Attack is super low, around .03. The Ratio is set to 3. It could be higher, but keep in mind this is the final glue, but not the final limiter. And the Release is .5, and I’ll mess with the Variable release if I need to.

The Knee is hard, the Thrust is Normal. The Tone Type is Feedback/Old. I’m not using the Link. And I crank the Make-Up Gain until it hits my Limiter, which is just one of the built-in Ableton Limiters. This is just for using while I record and mix, to make things congeal, a baseline “glue,” if you will. For mastering, though, I work a lot with Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound. Mastering is not really my skill set, and Joe is incredible!

I know you've been working with LUNA Recording System recently. What are your thoughts?

I didn't think I'd be looking at a new DAW in 2020, but LUNA is such a breath of fresh air. Switching DAW's is a big undertaking, but there's a ton of features with LUNA here that I could see finding a place in many people's workflows. I really love the Ravel grand piano and Moog Minimoog LUNA Instruments and Neve Summing. It works seamlessly with Apollo too, which makes my life so much easier. I love to see a company with such a rich history at the cutting edge of recorded music.

Butch Walker’s production and songwriting resumé is not only impressive, it's extensive. A quick snapshot of the Georgia native’s work over the last 15 years include producing and co-writing with Taylor Swift (on perhaps her most rocking record, 2012’s Red), in addition to Pink, Gavin DeGraw, Harry Connick, Jr., Fall Out Boy, Weezer, The Struts, and Train.

But Walker is an equally prolific artist in his own right, with nearly a dozen albums since 2002’s deft Left of Self-Centered, all of which display Walker’s fierce guitar playing, power-pop writing gifts, and broad production palette. More recently, he has been busy on new albums by Jewel, The Wallflowers, and Green Day’s latest LP, Father of All..., which sees Walker escorting Billie Joe and the boys through some of the garage-y, glam-approved territory. Here Walker details how Apollo, UAD, and OX Amp Top Box helped deliver one of Green Day's most ambitious records yet.

How did you come to produce the latest Green Day album?

Ultimately, I think the band was ready for a change. For a decade they’d basically been producing their own records. I know what that’s like. I produce my own records myself, and it can be one big rabbit hole you go down, using the same tricks and the same techniques over and over again.

You forget how to get out of your own way, and you don’t know how to explore new territory, because no one's helping you map the way there.

The new Green Day album features a lot of glam and garage rock influence. Was this conscious?

Billie and I both share a deep affinity for ' 70s glam rock and punk rock, but Green Day have never been able to explore the glam side of that equation on record.

I share a lot of the same influences as the Green Day guys. So as we started talking about the project, Billie (Jo Armstrong ) was sending me rough demos, and I noticed that there were a lot of sonic experiments already happening at that point in the process.

When he first sent me the demo for “Oh, Yeah,” he had put the sample of Joan Jett's version of "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)," in there, and I don’t know if he was even that excited about that one, but I told him, "No, man, that’s the jam." So we made that one of the songs that acts as the blueprint for the sound of the whole record.

You used multiple Apollo X interfaces and UAD plug-ins for the Green Day album. What was the typical setup?

Generally, I used the Helios Type 69 Preamp & EQ and API 550A and 560A EQ plug-ins across all Console input channels. This allows me to get the EQ right when tracking. I’m really not into “flat” recording, where you put off EQ decisions for later.

Why is that?

Because you’re responding in the moment, and those early decisions are going to help tell you where the mix needs to go later on.

Keep in mind that I’ve also got an early-'70s Quad 8 2082 20-input outboard console in my Los Angeles studio where we recorded the Green Day album, and though I don’t use their EQs much, every input goes through the onboard preamps — which I think are among the best you’ll ever hear—before going into Apollo Console.

However, I’m changing my Los Angeles studio to just the two Apollo x8ps. That means, of course, I’ll have sixteen channels of Unison mic preamps, which is as much as I need.

With two Apollo x8ps, I can make a record that sounds as good as anything I’ve ever done. I can make records soup-to-nuts on that setup.

The guitar sounds are noticeably different on this Green Day record. Gone are the huge walls of stacked rhythm guitars, and instead there are more single-tracked parts.

Billie loves to stack guitars and he makes it sound great. I did it the same way for years, too, so I get it. And we even did some of that on this record.

But one of the things I talked with him about was that quality you hear on a lot of older records — Rolling Stones records are a good example. You’ve got Keith on one side of the stereo field — just one track of him — and Ron Wood or Mick Taylor on the other side.

Doing that, you get this really nice syncopation between the parts and even the tone. The guitars almost become this third thing with the two of them playing together.

It’s a sound that even hearkens back to '50s jazz, where each instrument bounces off the other ones and creates an entire feeling, without multiple tracks of any one instrument.

You tracked a lot of the guitars with OX Amp Top Box, right?

Yes. I think the OX Amp Top Box is one of the smartest, most useful pieces of gear to come out in a very long time.

I had all my amp heads, and a bunch of Billie’s, stacked up alongside each other, with color-coded speaker cables coming out of the speaker outs so we always knew which head was being plugged into OX at any given time.

Then I’ve got a few OX Amp Top Box RIG presets in the OX app — microphone and cabinet and room combinations—that are designed to complement the sounds of my different amps, whether those are Marshalls, Fenders, or whatever.

Now, in addition to OX, I’ve got two 2x12 cabinets miked up with nice real mics. But halfway through the album, I just got to a point where I thought, “I can’t tell which of these sounds are ‘real,’ and which aren’t.”

At no point did anyone think to say, “Hey, is that an OX sound or a miked cab?” Never. The sounds were totally inspiring, so you go with it.

How did you record Mike Dirnt’s bass? It sounds different than every other Green Day album.

Yeah! That’s partly because I had him play my Fender Mustang bass with flatwounds on it. I said, “Let’s play a short-scale bass, so we can get into some of this cool ’60s and ‘70s garage and glam stuff that we all really love.”

Mike’s bass was going through the UAD Ampeg B-15N Bass Amplifier plug-in, and I saved a bunch of different presets for those sounds per song, because I wanted the bass sound to change throughout each song — sometimes going real wooly, sometimes going brighter, etc.

What UAD plug-ins do you like on your master bus?

Well, I should preface this with, I am in no way a mix engineer. I like other people to mix my records. I don’t like spending four hours working on a kick drum sound.

I hand off the mixes to someone else, and for this Green Day album, that guy is Tchad Blake. Green Day's longtime engineer Chris Dugan also mixed a couple songs. Chris is so good, I’m having him work on some of my other projects as well, including the new Jewel and Wallflowers records.

That being said, my mix bus chain is generally the SSL 4000 G Buss Compressor, Pultec EQP-1A, because the top end around 10 KhZ is killer, and it never gets harsh, and the very bottom, around 60 Hz just sounds great, too.

Then I’ll add the UAD Pultec MEQ-5 if I want to add a little overall midrange bump in the area around 1.5 kHz, just to give it more chest.

From there, the Brainworx bx_digital V3 for overall tone shaping. It also has a M/S control for tweaking the stereo image that sounds great, if you don’t abuse it. Just give it about ten percent. It makes the field sound wider without any sort of "fake" stereo imaging.

Finally, I’ll often use the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor — the big mack-daddy. It sounds great. And it’s not rocket science. I’ll set it to a good, loud mastering preset, and tweak a bit from there.

I just really like the way it grabs the notes and transients, and pulls those levels up without destroying the dynamics. That’s just to get the level right up to zero.

Do you ever use any magnetic tape plug-ins?

Sometimes I sub out the Shadow Hills for the UAD Ampex ATR-102 Mastering Tape Recorder using ½-inch tape, especially if I’m really going for that distinctive color that tape has. I can even get a sort of cassette-sounding quality out of it, which is really cool.

Lastly, tell me a little about your experience Beta testing UA’s new LUNA. What are some of your first impressions?

Luna Recording System is incredible, and it’s going to encourage a lot of people to migrate away from their current DAWs. The thing I can’t stand about recording with Pro Tools, and I’m not afraid to say it, is that it’s just too slow for processing many of the things that many of today’s artists take totally for granted.

Now, this may not happen on the more organic records I’m making, but if I’m working with a laptop producer who uses Ableton Live, they’ll ask me, “Hey, can you change the key of the song real quick.” Or, “Could you make the song five BPM slower?” I’m like, “Excuse me? I think you’re going to have to go out for a long lunch — that’s going to take three hours!”

So yeah, LUNA Recording System is the sh*t!

Creator of a musical language that breathes with glowing EDM synths, gurgling guitars, pliant backbeats, and almost prog-rock electric bass, Tycho, (aka Scott Hansen) has restlessly but diligently evolved since its 2006 debut, Past is Prologue. With a live band that challenges all assumptions about where live instrumentation and electronic/DJ methods collide, and a killer three-album run culminating with the Grammy-nominated, Epoch, Tycho continues to reinvent on his latest, Weather, a vocal-centric album, featuring singer/songwriter Hannah Cottrell (aka Saint Sinner).

A crucial cog in this creative streak is producer Count Eldridge, who started working with Tycho on 2011's Dive. From pioneering sides with DJ Shadow, Radiohead, New Order, Blackalicious, and more, Eldridge's arrangement and mixing acumen are legendary. Here, the two discuss how they harness UAD plug-ins and Apollo audio interfaces for their DSP‑defying soundscapes.

Count, what was your introduction to Tycho?

Eldridge: I started working with Tycho strictly out of a love for the music. I went to see Scott play when he was virtually unknown, was really impressed by what I heard, and I wanted to help him realize his vision, whether that was recording, mixing, or producing.

Hansen: When I met Count, I was writing and recording a lot of stuff, but I didn’t quite have the skills or perspective to fully realize what I was hearing — largely because of my technical limitations. Count came up to me at a show, was really encouraging, and explained that he was a mix engineer, and it’s been a great relationship.

Why did you guys hit it off so well?

Hansen: Because Count and I have a really similar working style, and we’re both plug-in/computer guys. We have a workflow where I don’t even have to leave my house anymore. [Laughs.] Count even designed the acoustic treatment in my studio so he can just mix there. I used to take my entire computer over to his house!

Sounds like a cool flow between the composer and mixer/producer — perhaps even blurring those lines a bit?

Eldridge: Well, the way we work is not the traditional process of recording everything and then moving on to the mixing stage. We’re always in a state of mixing as Scott records and writes the material. Every few weeks or so I’ll come over and spend a few days mixing what he’s composed and recorded, getting them mixed well enough. Then, Scott can decide what needs to be added or subtracted, and how the piece is evolving.

Why do you think this type of workflow works so well for you two?

Eldridge: Partly because this type of music is very much about the mix — you’re dealing with lots of textures and soundscapes, so how they’re balanced is half the battle. With Weather, we left a lot more space — not only in the arrangements but in the mixes — because of the vocals. It was tricky, but not as tricky as his previous albums, which were the most challenging records I’ve ever mixed.

As opposed to other Tycho albums, Weather features vocals as a dominant texture. Why?

Eldridge: This was the right time to do a vocal album. Because after making three mostly instrumental albums that all kind of fit together like a kind of trilogy, there was a completion of a cycle there, and we both thought, "This is the time to do something new." And it felt great that the previous album, Epoch was nominated for a Grammy. That sort of punctuated the moment for us, as if to say, now is when we have a license to do this.

Hansen: The goal with this record was definitely to feature one vocalist, and one voice, and let that be the story. I did not want to go the usual electronic route of having a bunch of guest vocalists. I wanted a unified sound, and I wanted a very bold statement that would be entirely different from any other Tycho record.

Talk a bit about the vocals, and the challenge of incorporating them in Tycho's dense tunes..

Hansen: Count really carved out a ton of space so the vocal could "pop." Originally, I had the vocals mixed way down, more like an instrument, which is sort of how I’m used to treating them. But he really stressed, “If this is truly vocal music, you can’t hide the vocals!”

Hannah’s voice and her layering of harmonies is a huge part of why it sounds so distinctive. Each of those vocal performances are a good six to twelve layers deep, with separate tracks panned at different volumes, and with different effects.

Eldridge: Also, my advice to him as a producer was, make sure to leave space for the lead vocal — and not just from a sonic or mixing standpoint — but in terms of the arrangements. Try and intentionally hold back on introducing melodies from the synths, especially, so that the vocalist could occupy that space, and really own that role.

Writing this album was an exercise in restraint for Scott. Writing instrumental music, you naturally want to fill those holes. But by leaving space in the track, he was able to look for a vocalist who really fit the material he was writing and who could live in that open space.

As a mixer, did you find it challenging finding room for the vocals?

Eldridge: Yes. Tycho songs are dense and full of resonating tones and atmospheres. So the sounds don’t hit and then go away, they stay and they have these very peaky resonances, and are often driven and distorted with preamps. In other words, they’re fairly full-frequency, so there’s a lot of overlap with the other sounds that one needs to contend with in the mix. I mean, at times there are seven synths all playing at the same time with similar frequencies, so I need to get very surgical and carve out a space for everything.

What do you use for ultra-surgical tone shaping?

Eldridge: The UAD Sonnox Oxford Dynamic EQ is something I use a ton. I use that on every mix, and it’s essential because of that overlap and masking that can take place with all the synths competing for space. There’s often frequency sweeping going on, the synths are arpeggiating, so the frequencies are both broad and always changing. That means I can’t simply use a traditional, static EQ, because the effect doesn’t want to be so linear.

If I have a synth that’s a bit too bright in parts, well, I may still want it to be generally bright — I just don’t want it to get into those harsher sounds when the filter fully opens up. So, I’m going to use the Sonnox Oxford Dynamic EQ, which is just going to engage right where that synth opens up and gets really bright, and just give it a little high-end dip and contain it. I end up using that term a lot: “We’ve got to contain this unruly synth sound!”

Do you use tone-shaping tools for adding color?

Eldridge: One of our favorites for that is the Neve 1073 Preamp & EQ plug-in. I love the low-end response and the saturation that it gives kick drums and drums in general. The 1073 plug-in is also great for driving the crap out of synthesizers — just turn the input up and the output down and engage the EQ. We like to boost the mids on synths and bass a lot, and the Neve is just a great starting place for that.

Also, I use the Chandler Limited Curve Bender Mastering EQ on vocals, guitars, and synths — sources that I really want to push some high frequencies that would sound harsh with almost any other plug-in. Sure, you can use it subtly, and it sounds terrific, but when you really push it, those high frequencies start to saturate in a really pleasing way.

Scott, you tracked Hannah's lead vocals on Weather. What was your signal chain?

Hansen: I used a hardware Neve 1076 preamp with an AEA R44C ribbon mic for most of the backing parts, and a Neumann U87 Ai for the lead vocals because it cuts a little more than the darker sounding ribbon mic.

Also, from the Neve preamp I went into the 1176 compressor section of the UA 6176 Vintage Channel Strip on all of the lead vocals. We also used the AMS RMX16 Expanded Digital Reverb to help shape the space around the vocal at mixdown.

Which UAD plug-ins seem to come up again and again as essential to the Tycho sound?

Hansen: I use the 1176 Classic Limiter Collection plug-in on so many different sources — I love the character it gives. Likewise, I use the Studer A800 Multichannel Tape Recorder on individual instrument tracks, and the Ampex ATR-102 Mastering Tape Recorder is often on drums, synths, and the master bus.

You play a lot of guitar live. What are you using?

Hansen: I’ve switched from the Kemper Profiler to plugging into my Apollo Twin and using the UAD Marshall Silver Jubilee 2555 plug-in. The Kemper always sounded like a record, but the Marshall Silver Jubilee plug-in is more faithful to the raw, unprocessed sound that comes out of a Marshall.

You use Apollo in the studio and live, correct?

Hansen: Yes. ln the studio, I use a UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt and an Apollo Twin interface. I also use that same Twin live as a front-end for all my guitar processing. For the live show, we also use three Apollo x8p units along with a UAD-2 Live Rack at front-of-house. I was using an Apollo 16 for live shows for quite a while, which just had line ins, and it didn’t have Unison preamps, so this time around I decided to get the three Apollo x8p interfaces so I could take advantage of all those preamps.

Describe how you use Apollo and UAD-2 Live Rack.

Hansen: There’s basically two systems on stage: there’s my system, with a computer right next to me, which you might call the development world, which is the test zone for new concepts and new technology, and then there’s the FOH production side. We basically took what I had happening with the Apollo 16 and ported that mainly over to my system, which is processing the bass and the guitar stuff 100% with UAD plug-ins in the Console app; that then goes to Ableton Live, again onstage with me, for all the guitar and bass insert processing.

Now, all the drums are going through their own Apollo x8p and Live Rack onstage before they even get to front-of-house, too. At front-of-house, the Live Rack is dealing with vocals, master bus, drum bus, all the bus stuff. It sounds complicated, but actually, after being able to put the time into developing it, this Apollo/UAD-2 Live Rack system really feels like an instrument to us, rather than just a “tool.”

In this debut LUNA Session, get an exclusive inside look at Cass McCombs' transcendent song “The Wine of Lebanon.” See how multi Grammy-winning producer/engineer Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings of Leon) used LUNA to garner larger-than-life sounds on McCombs' stunning composition — solo individual tracks, see Unison technology and plug-in chains in action, and get detailed, professional insight to use in your next LUNA session.

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