"Bryant Street" is the name of the new Dubtribe CD out on Jive-Electro Records and available across the country. The tracks are house, deep at times, with the Latin flavor coming in and out repeatedly. Vocals are supplied by both members of the husband/wife team - Sunshine and Moonbeam Jones.

They are currently on tour in support of the record and before they left I got a chance to ask a few questions about the production process involved in the making of the album. Here is what they had to say...

Andrew Freid
April 1999

The following interview was conducted by Andrew Freid in March 1999:

Was there much pre-production or did the recording process include composition and pre-production?

Sunshine: Yeah, it was all pre-production really. First of all, we lost album three to a hard drive crash in 1996, we then set about rewriting the music. This wasn't too inspiring, so we started on the live set all over again from scratch. The development of the material took about 2 years to get straight, weeding out the bad tunes and the temporary stuff. Then we began to actually work the set on tour and at parties. This took another 6 months. The actual recording of the music took about 4 months. The takes went quickly and the post production was minimal because we knew the music so well by the time we set about actually capturing the music on tape. The main effort was spent in performing the stuff live and consolidating the ideas ahead of time.

What format was the album recorded in?

Sunshine: 100% digital. We used our ProTools 24 system to record and mix everything.

What major gear was analog?

Sunshine: Well, many of the sources for the music were live playing. I played the bass, the Rhodes, the drums, congas and we sang, also a lot of other musicians sat in on the album too so all of this was analogue... Naturally a lot of the effects and machines used to produce the sounds were analogue, like the RE-201 and 301, the TR-909, TB-303 and so forth, the mixing console we used for tracking was also analogue (Oram Pro Series 8 Console) but the entire tracking, processing and mixing were digital.

Were sounds recorded live or sampled or both?

Sunshine: We didn't use a sampler at all in the making of the album. Live, we use samplers to replay our live playing, so for the album we actually canned all the old samples and replayed everything directly into ProTools. I think it was letting go of the "live" and other studio arrangements of the songs that actually allowed us to finally capture what makes these songs so special in concert actually. Live there's a sound system and people in the room, this has a serious impact on the way it all comes together. So dropping all that and starting over gave us fresh ears allowed us to be a lot more creative and take the music even further.

How were vocals recorded and with what mic/preamp combination?

Sunshine: In a few different ways: for Moonbeam's soprano we used the AKG Solid Tube, a fine mic with a really really warm tube coloration. It gave her voice a really good buffer in the highs and a bit of added strength around 500 - 1k. We used the preamps on the Oram console, not my first choice. The pre's were really transparent. Ordinarily that might be desirable, but for Moonbeam's very high and very powerful voice, we needed to get it under control without compromising the performance. You can't tell a talented and very emotional performer to "be a little quieter, but keep all that enthusiasm OK?" so we tried a few different things. We patched the input through a Summit DCL 200 compressor, also really warm and subtle. For Moonbeam's voice this was perfect, a minimum of additional coloration, but just enough leveling to keep it below 0db.

For my voice I used the Neuman U87A. I found it to be really really flat and dull. The dry playback was not the greatest, but since I have a very throaty and deep voice it worked well. Additional processing was used to get a slightly more contrasty result afterward. We used a combination of TDM EQs (Focusrite and the amazing new D-Spider from DuY) and the ACP -88's compression to level and buff up the finished comps.

Moonbeam: We also checked out the Joe Meek mic preamp and that was OK. All in all, we need to get a serious mic pre!

What sequencing environment was used?

Sunshine: What little was actually pre sequenced in the end was all done in studio vision pro 4.0. It handles arrangement better I think than any other Mac based sequencer I've used. BUT, there are some pretty serious issues to be addressed over at opcode. They've really lost the plot. The tech support refused to answer my questions and basically denied there being any problems. sad. I've since switched to CuBase for light stuff and logic for more serious projects.

Moonbeam: Yeah, in fact, we did sequence several songs from the album in CuBase VST... just for midi sequencing, though. It has a much nicer song arrangement interface.

Which plug-ins did you find most useful and why?

Sunshine: Actually, the most useful feature of the ProTools 888/24 turned out to be the insert feature. We used more outboard gear than we had expected, but being able to track the effects using inserts on the interface was a real treat. Being so accustomed to live on the fly mixing it was a little weird at first, but after a while I found the effects tracks to be takes just like vocals or drumming, very cool. The plugs we did use a lot were Steinberg's Magneto, wow! What a plug. And then basic stuff, like the 4 and 6 band Focusrite EQ and compressor and GRM makes a great 360 degree auto pan that was really amazing. But we didn't really use a lot of delay or chorus or that sort of thing in the digital domain. I thought we would, but there just not there yet plugin-wise, at least when offered the real thing as an alternative.

Moonbeam: No... the delays and choruses in TDM are not all that. We did use the Lexicon plug on a couple of things, but, all in all, weren't too impressed. The Digidesign delay was the most useful, as well as the chorus and the Opcode Filter Audio Suite plug was quite good, too! I'd have to say that more often than not the software FX fell short. I think the more important thing we learned in this process is that you can't do an entire project in any one way. By this I mean that the integration of both analogue recording techniques with digital technology sounds the best. Our outboard FX and compressors really saved us.

Was any of the percussion recorded live? What kind of mics/preamps?

Sunshine: I treated the percussion more liberally. All of it was recorded live apart from one tune (breeze... I just couldn't outplay the SP-1200) we hooked up a lot of different mic's to track the percussion. Standard dynamic mics were used to catch ambient sounds at a distance and I used the U87 in figure 8 to grab conga and tumba. We used the pre's on the console and took it really casually. Most of the refining was done later in ProTools. We compressed and eq'ed digitally to get the best overall shape for the song. But the tracking was approached as fun. We tried to get the essence of the drummer or group of drummers and concerned ourselves more with the vibe.

Moonbeam: We also used our live mics, the Sennheiser and Audix on bongo, shakers and other live percussion.

What consoles were used for recording and mixing?

Sunshine: Tracking was the Oram 8 with a 32channel frame, and the mixing was all done in ProTools.

What monitors were used?

Sunshine: Well, people laugh, but we have the KRK 6000's and the Companion Sub. They just sound great to us.

What environment was the album mixed down in?

Sunshine: We mixed in the same room we tracked in and it was all done in ProTools.

Where was the album mastered? Using what hardware/software?

Sunshine: We mastered at our favorite place, Rodger Sibel at SAE in Arizona. The first mastering was done at Frankfurt-Wayne in New York and we hated it; very squished and messed with. This is not slander for FW, they're great at what they do. I think having a 24bit digital master really didn't need any more digital processing whereas Rodger has a 100% analogue setup and does it all by ear, a track at a time. He allowed a much more natural and complementary tone to emerge from the seriously tweaked digital masters we sent him.

What computers were used?

Sunshine: Only one: the Macintosh 9600/350 using OS8.1

What major problems were encountered and how were they overcome?

Sunshine: The biggest and just about only real problem encountered was in being patient. You can really get lost and forget your real job in a digital situation. The ability to reference things in such a minute and specific way is great, but it's very easy to lose sight of the whole project, or even the whole song. So we did a lot of things several times. Stepping away and then returning was the method at the end of the day. This may seem like common practice to some, but we're so used to live on the fly mixing that we ordinarily work a mix for a few days without stopping, quit for 24 hours and then do the real deal, because mixing is so much of the songwriting in an electronic setting. With ProTools, there was just more going on and more control over more things than we ever really thought possible. So it took longer and the learning curve was very high.

Overall, how smoothly did everything go?

Sunshine: Once the lessons were learned, I think it went very nicely. No fighting, no ongoing resentments. Really great!

What kind of rig will be used for the live album tour?

Sunshine: Same as before. Live is such an entirely different experience that we divorce ourselves from the studio setting completely when we tour or play live. Everything goes, the arrangements, the sources, the plethora of tone modules all out the window. For a live set, you have to forget your precious arrangements and feel the crowd. and setting limits forces you to be more creative anyway, so it better this way for the show. The rig is on the web site. check that out for the details.

What were the greatest lessons you have learned from this process?

Sunshine: Be careful what you ask for, you may get it!

Moonbeam: And, I'd have to say again that working with digital is too much of a good thing. I would not record everything to pro tools and then mix again in protools. I would better balance the worlds of analogue and digital tracks.

Dubtribe's album, Bryant Street is out now at all major record stores. For bio and tour info go to their Web site at:

http://www.imperialdub.com

Dubtribe, located in San Francisco, is comprised of Sunshine and Moonbeam Jones, Co-owners of Imperial Dub Recordings, a label focusing on the deep house groove.