Producer Spotlight: Andrew Scheps
Andrew Scheps is a Grammy-Award winning Engineer and Producer and has worked with a range of Artists including: Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Hozier, Adele, Beyoncé and Lana Del Rey to name a few. Scheps’ style of recording and mixing is one that has set him apart from other Producers and Engineers in the Industry and is one that has inspired the way I think about certain aspects of recording and mixing in the studio.
Recording
An interesting recording technique that Scheps will often use is Live Re-Amping on the Drums. In this technique he will use a standard 6-8 close mic setup on the drums and he will bus these close mic tracks to the to one single track which will then be re-amped through an Amplifier. In this case he uses a Roland Keyboard amp as it has a very flat Frequency response so there is no accidental coloration of the sound. After feeding the close-mics into the amplifier, he then Records the driven amplifier using a vintage RCA Large Diaphragm condenser set approximately 12ft above, facing towards the amp in the room. This way this mic captures the full sound of the room. This technique is used as an overdub technique and is blended in with the original drum track and adds an interesting, driven, live sounding element to the drums.
Mixing Techniques
Scheps has quite an interesting approach to mixing, as he is an engineer that had started off working largely with Tape and Neve recording consoles in earlier albums he worked on. More recently he has become more inclined to work in the box when mixing. He stated that he finds it easier and more efficient working in the box and it enables him to be mixing several projects at the same time, not only that but he states that mixing in the box can often sound the same if not better for some things. Another technique used by Scheps is his use of Parallel compression. Often in his mixes from the very start he will use a large amount of in-direct compression. In doing this a technique he uses is, to store the compressors in a template on an aux-track, this way he can audition different compressors in various signal orders to see which react best to what he is using them for.
Cans on for a listening list:
Hozier: “Sedated”
RHCP: “Brendan’s Death Song”
Lana Del Rey: “Paradise”
Audioslave: “Cochise”