Opnemen & gitaar spelen doe je zo! (met @HubrechtDestine)

In aansluiting op Brams 12-delige (!) serie Drummen doe je zo plaats ik graag een samenvatting van deze blogpost, waarin gitarist Hubrecht kond doet van de wederwaardigheden van zijn band Destine, op het podium en in de studio, gebruikte hard- en software. Hij doet dat aan de hand van vragen van fans en volgers, en in het Engels. Komt-ie:

What delays did/will you use? Pedal board walk-through please! By Maurits Nienhuis on Facebook
What kind of effect pedals do you use? By @Anthea on Twitter
Hubrecht: 'In the studio we always use digital effects. All delays on the guitars come from Pro-Tools, no pedals were used while tracking. The great thing about that is, that you can adjust and change any delay or effect whenever you want. It’s really flexible. If you record parts with a certain amount or type of effect in realtime, and you change your mind later on in the process, you have to re-record the entire part. That can be pretty time consuming and frustrating. Live I use a Dunlop 95Q Cry Baby wah, a Dunlop DVP-1 volume pedal, and all delay, reverb, compression, phaser, boost, tremolo and pitch come from my TC Electronic G-System. With my G-System I can switch multiple effects like delay and pitch (for example for the intro of In Your Arms) and channels on my amp at the same time. In almost every part of our songs we use different effects and gain settings on the amp, so with this setup I can switch all of this really quick without too much tap dancing.'



Have you experienced any cases of language/cultural barrier? Inside or outside the studio? By Riekus van Montfort on Facebook (die zelf ook wel 'ns een wereldtourtje doet ;-)
'On a cultural level, not really. Maybe except for our producer James’ taste of and vision on music, in a very positive way. We’re exactly on the same page about the fact that we want our music to be powerful, catchy and have interesting and big arrangements. He really gets what we are going for. Language wise it can be difficult, we experienced that especially with the first album we recorded in America. Music is all about feeling and emotion, and it’s really hard to even express that in your own language sometimes. But because this is the second record we’re working with James it’s a lot easier now, we kind of use the same dictionary haha. And because we’ve spent so much time in America, I think we’ve lived in America for about 5 months now in total, our English improved too. But for example there was this situation where Robin was doing vocals for a song, and James told him he thought some notes were a bit ‘shaky’. Robin thought James ment that he shouldn’t use any vibrato, but James actually ment that he should sing it stronger, but with vibrato. So after a few takes Robin went into the control room and they talked about it in detail, and then found out they both meant something totally different, haha.'

Will there be a Dutch tour after the album comes out? By Cindy Knapen on Facebook
'The release show for the album will be on April 6 in Melkweg Amsterdam. We will probably play some other club shows in The Netherlands this year too, but can’t confirm anything about that yet.'

What do you guys want to achieve in 2012? By Samantha van de Ven on Facebook
'Release our new album, release our DVD ‘FOOTPRINTS: a year in the life’, play summer festivals, and play shows across Europe to promote the new album.'



Can you tell something about the outboard gear you are using? By @Hinnieboeboe on Twitter
'We use multiple microphone pre-amps, compressors and EQs. James has a rack with amazing outboard gear in his studio, and we use a lot of processing while tracking. Because James is so experienced he knows how far he can push it during tracking so you have to do a lot less processing during the mixing. Most of James’ gear is custom made. He uses a 1176 style compressor on vocals for example, and a Fairchild kind of compressor on bass. For every instrument he has different ones. And during mixing a lot of the sound comes from the SSL 4000 E board he mixes on. The channel strip EQ and compression are amazing and very typical. They are really warm an dirty.'

How much time did you spend in the studio for your first album? Are you doing something different this way around? By @Lotte_Music on Twitter
'For the first album we’ve spent about six weeks in the studio. For the second record the amount of time we’re in the studio is about the same, around six weeks too. The great thing about this album is that we knew how recording an album with a producer works. We knew how to prepare for the studio, how much we had to rehearse, what the global schedule was going to be and so on. In the recording process we didn’t change much, because we were really happy with the work flow in the studio with the first record. I only paid a little more attention to the scheduling this time, so we could avoid the 20-hour workdays in the studio at the end of the recording and mixing process, like we had the first time.'

How long does it take to record and edit one full song? By @RatedRemy on Twitter
'The average is around four days per song. Rough schedule: One day for pre-production, setting up the drums, tuning, and recording the drums. We’re extremely picky on drums because the entire song will be recorded over these drums, and drums are an important part of our music. Let’s say one day for bass and most of the electric guitars. We always record a shit load of guitars. First we do the rhythm guitars, then all the clean and crunch parts, and the lead parts. One day for acoustic guitars (takes a lot of time setting up because microphone placement and room sound are extremely important), and all keyboards, piano and synths. And one day for the lead vocals, editing vocals (going through the different takes and deciding on which parts are best) and all the backing vocals.'

Do you use a lot of samples for the drums and why or not? By @MakeLeonCount on Twitter
'We blend in samples on kick, snare and toms. We love extremely punchy, tight and powerful drum sounds, and our producer James is a genius in achieving that. Blending in samples works great, but it’s really important to make the original drum sounds as good as possible. James has incredible overhead microphones that pick up the entire drum kit and the room. If you hear those mics ‘solo’, you can’t believe a sound like that comes from just two mics. During mixing we sometimes brought the overheads up in certain parts of the songs to make the drums sound bigger and to add more of the ‘room’ sound.'

What’s your favorite song of the new album and why? By @Silencegirl on Twitter
Which song are you currently most proud of? By Pieter Zwaan on Facebook
'It’s hard to pick just one. I’m really proud of all the songs on our second album. But if I had to pick one I’d go for a song called ‘Best Kept Secret’ right now. It’s really dynamic, and some of my favorite lead guitar parts are in it. The song structure is very different from most songs, and we changed a lot of the arrangement during pre-production with James.'

What kind of amps and microphones did you use? And what did you use for strings and effects? By @borjacobs on Twitter
'We used a Bogner 4×12″ cabinet with a Shure SM57 in front of it. Really basic setup. The main amps we used were a Bad Cat 30R and a Bogner Ecstacy Classic. Guitars were a ’79 Gibson Les Paul Custom, a Tom Anderson Telecaster and a very old and rare G&L Stratocaster. James has a ton of different plugins for strings and effects, he uses a lot of Native Instruments bundles.'

That’s it! Hope my answers are clear and useful.

Dankjewel, Hubrecht!