American engineer and producer Rich Costey has been a prominent figure in the rock recording industry since the late 90s after his talents caught the attention of multi Grammy award winning producer Rick Rubin in 1999. Costey has a wide-range of recording and production credits across a plethora of genres; from the commercially accessible alternative rock of Foo Fighters, to the edgy rap metal of Rage Against the Machine as well as the experimental sounds of Muse and the heavy, groovy stoner rock of Mastodon. He is known for his use of reliable and sonically honest ATC monitors as well as a compartmentalised approach to mixing and has become widely-sought among a multitude of artists.
In this blog, I will be looking at some of Costey’s mixing techniques and approaches towards tackling drums, bass and guitars in a rock mix, with specific reference to his work on the Foo Fighters record Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace.
Drums:
One of the interesting things that Costey does with drum mixing is instead of simultaneously putting the entire kit through a compressor, he tends to prefer applying separate compressors to the individual parts of the kit and then blending this back in with the natural, uncompressed kit. In terms of EQ on Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, the Quad 8 310s with a heavy mid-range boost was the system of choice for Costey as he favoured the more resonant sound that it offered. He also mentions in the Sound on Sound article “Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: Rich Costey” the concept of fader riding which essentially involves adjusting volume, gain and other controls on the fly to suit the direction of the mix dynamically. In the Foo Fighters track “The Pretender”, he used this technique to push the drums forward and add ferocity to fit with the heavily accented verse.
Bass:
Costey often turns to sidechain compression (a sub-effect of compression whereby the compressor level on one track is controlled by the volume of another) to achieve brightness and clarity in the bass tone. He says that his mixed bass tracks usually are uncomfortably harsh to listen to on their own, but in the context of an entire mix, the high-end boost given by the heavy blend of sidechain compression allows the bass to cut through.
Guitars:
Once again, the technique of riding the fader comes up and is commonplace in Costey’s guitar mixing process, this time used to allow certain melodic parts to shine through, either by boosting output levels to elevate the chosen parts or by adjusting EQ settings to allow important frequencies to push through and be heard. For bands with multiple guitar players, he also uses panning and parallel processing to achieve separation and distinction between two or more guitar parts. He tends to pan more melodic guitar parts to sit just inside hard-panned rhythm guitars and sets up slightly different EQ settings for different players to establish a sense of individuality for different guitar parts while making sure that they still fit together well in the context of the entire mix.
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