session

Trevor Gomes recording sessions. Engineered by Brian Petersen.

Photography by Brian Petersen at www.brianapetersen.com
Email Brian Petersen for licenses regarding this image.
© 2010 Brian Petersen

Jack Joseph Puig is among the most sought-after producers and mixing engineers in the music industry.

Jack Joseph Puig is world-renowned as a producer, mixer, and engineer, blending the sounds of the past three decades to create a unique contemporary aural tapestry. As one of the industry’s most in-demand engineers, Puig has manned the controls for a veritable who’s who of major artists.

Recently, Jack Joseph Puig collaborated with Waves on The JJP Analog Legends, which features four precision-modeled plugins based on rare gear from his own studio. Here are some photos of a recent session with Jack as he explains the front and back end of the plugins.

Check out his plugins
http://www.waves.com/Content.aspx?id=7306
Read more: http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=2327#ixzz17TnrjKyH

About JJP Analog Legends

JJP Analog Legends is the result of an ongoing Waves research and development project that has lasted over 3 years.

Fairchild compressors are among the very rarest pieces of recording gear; it’s rumored that less than 50 were originally manufactured. One of the first things we discovered when testing Fairchilds is that each model sounds different. In fact, even within the same stereo module, each channel can sound and behave differently! Only a few fortunate studios in the world have multiple units, with the opportunity to compare the subtle differences between them. And so, our quest for the best sounding Fairchild led us to producer/mixing engineer Jack Joseph Puig, well-known in audio circles for his enviable collection of hard-to-find gear.

Jack loaned us his very best sounding unit, and we painstakingly analyzed and modeled its every attribute, replicating its sound and behavior to the point where the software was virtually indistinguishable from hardware. Jack was an indispensable part of the development process, greatly assisting the Waves team by testing and fine tuning the software models of his hardware, as well as contributing an extensive library of his personal presets.

So when you fire up the PuigChild, it’s almost as if you were working together with Jack Joseph Puig in Ocean Way studios. Better yet, it’s as if he loaned you a Fairchild. And not just any Fairchild; his BEST Fairchild.

Read more: http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=7665#ixzz17TpKxhKD

Among his clients:
The Rolling Stones, U2, Black Eyed Peas, Green Day, Fergie, John Mayer, Sheryl Crow, Klaxons, Panic At The Disco, Weezer, Counting Crows, Pussycat Dolls, Goo Goo Dolls, The Black Crowes, Switchfoot, No Doubt, Mary J. Blige, and more.

Puig has produced hits for the Verve Pipe (“Freshmen”) and The Black Crows (“Good Friday”), among others. Calling Ocean Way his home, Puig has spent time both as an engineer and as a producer and sees the duality as a plus when dealing with today’s Top 40 rock acts, many of whom ask him to mix their albums as well. He has also mixed albums for Hole, Collective Soul, Green Day, Mick Jagger, Lisa Loeb, and others.

Puig’s Picks

The vintage hardware modeled in the JJP Analog Legends are among the rarest, most coveted pieces in the audio world. The PuigChild 660, PuigChild 670, PuigTec EQP-1A, and PuigTec MEQ-5 are based on these acclaimed units.

About Fairchild: Among gear aficionados, the stereo Fairchild 670 is considered the most coveted of all compressors, not only because of its pristine sound, but also its rarity and price: 670s routinely go for tens of thousands of dollars on the vintage market. (They originally cost less than $1000.) With 20 vacuum tubes and 4 hand-wired transformers in a hefty 6 rack-space chassis, these hard-to-find units weigh in at a robust 65 lbs.

Designed by Estonian-born Rein Narma in the early 1950s, both the stereo 670 and its mono counterpart the Fairchild 660 use single push-pull amplification stages with extremely high control voltages. Both variable-mu limiters are unique in that they use tubes for gain reduction as well as amplification. Compression takes place directly in the audio path, rather than being routed to a separate circuit.

Prior to the 660 and 670, Narma’s Gotham Audio Developments had built consoles and components for such luminaries as Rudy Van Gelder and Les Paul. Shortly after Paul asked Narma to build a limiter, Sherman Fairchild caught wind of the project, licensed the design, and hired Narma to come onboard as the company’s chief engineer. After his stint at Fairchild, Narma relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and became vice president of Ampex, pioneers of multitrack recording equipment.
About Pultec

Custom-engineered and built by hand, the original Pultecs have long been a top choice of leading recording and mastering engineers. Pultecs are renowned for their ability to accentuate individual frequency ranges without significantly altering other frequencies.
In 1951, Gene Shenk and Ollie Summerland of Pulse Techniques Inc. introduced the first passive program equalizer, the EQP-1. Using equalization circuit designs licensed from Western Electric, the initial Pultecs suffered the gain insertion losses typical of passive filters. So, they added a gain makeup stage, using a push-pull design with multiple vacuum tubes. The result is the classic we’ve come to know as the EQP-1A.

Conceived and created for broadband equalization, the EQP-1A features four low boost/cut frequencies, three high-cut frequencies and seven HF boost points, along with a bandwidth control for shaping the high boost curve. The EQP-1A and the MEQ-5 together comprise one of the best known equalization chains in audio history.

More about Jack Joseph Puig

Jack Joseph Puig is a Grammy Award-winning music engineer and producer with a long track record of successful productions, beginning with the mid 1990′s production of Tonic. Following this breakout success, Puig went on to work with Hole, Jellyfish, The Black Crowes,^[1] John Mayer, Weezer, Fiona Apple, Green Day, The Counting Crows, No Doubt, Klaxons, Panic at the Disco, Stone Temple Pilots, U2, and many others. Puig has shared Grammy Awards with The Goo Goo Dolls, Sheryl Crow, Vanessa Carlton, John Mayer, Fergie (Black Eyed Peas), U2, and No Doubt. In 2006 Jack Joseph Puig became a E.V.P. atInterscope-Geffen-A&M Records. He has signed Klaxons and Charlotte Sometimes. As a A&R man he works with Shirley Manson, Ashlee Simpson, Klaxons, Charlotte Sometimes, The Counting Crows, Puddle of Mudd, and The Like.

Prior to his mainstream music production successes Puig rose to prominence as an engineer in the Contemporary Christian music scene of the mid-eighties. He worked mainly on Myrrh Record releases. He engineered for Christian acts sych as Amy Grant and Russ Taff. Some of the records he engineered were Grammy-award winning works such as Grant’s landmark 1985 LP Unguarded.

Partial discography

• Semisonic – Feeling Strangely Fine (1998) m
• Robbie Williams – I’ve Been Expecting You (1998) p/m
• John Hiatt – Stolen Moments (2005) e/m
• Bette Midler – Some People’s Lives (1990) m
• Jellyfish – Bellybutton (1990) e/p
• Bette Midler – For the Boys (soundtrack) (1991) m
• Jellyfish – Spilt Milk (1993) e/p/m
• The Grays – Ro Sham Bo (1994) p
• The Black Crowes – Amorica (1994) e/p/m
• Tonic – Lemon Parade (1996) e/p/m
• Weezer – Pinkerton (1996) e/m
• The Black Crowes – Three Snakes & One Charm (1996) e/p/m
• Talk Show – Talk Show (1997) m
• Big Wreck – In Loving Memory Of… (1997) m
• Hole – Celebrity Skin (1998) m
• Goo Goo Dolls – Dizzy Up The Girl (1998) p/m
• Sparklehorse – Good Morning Spider (1999) p/m
• Stone Temple Pilots – Revolution (1999) m
• The Counting Crows – This Desert Life (1999) m
• Beck – Nicotine & Gravy (1999) m
• No Doubt – Return of Saturn (2000) m
• Green Day – Warning (2000) m
• Collective Soul – Blender (2000) m
• Five For Fighting – Easy Tonight (2000) p/m
• Shelby Lynne – Bridget Jones’ Diary, original soundtrack (2001) m
• Tricky – Blowback (2001) m
• Remy Zero – The Golden Hum (2001) e/p/m
• The Rolling Stones – 40 Licks (2002) m
• Phantom Planet – The Guest (2002) m
• Sheryl Crow – C’mon C’mon (2002) m
• Vanessa Carlton – Be Not Nobody (2002) m
• Vanessa Carlton – A Thousand Miles (2002) m
• The Counting Crows – Hard Candy (2002) m
• Switchfoot – The Beautiful Letdown (2003) m
• Stereomud – Every Given Moment (2003) m
• The Ataris – So Long, Astoria (2003) m
• Stereophonics – You Gotta Go There to Come Back (2003) m
• John Mayer – Heavier Things (2003) e/p/m
• No Doubt – The Singles: 1992-2003 (2003) m
• 311 – Greatest Hits ’93-’03 (2004) m
• Sum 41 – Killer Queen(2005) e/p/m
• Aqualung – Strange and Beautiful (2005) m
• Son Volt – Retrospective 1995-2000 (2005) m
• Black Eyed Peas – Monkey Business (2005) m
• The Rolling Stones – A Bigger Bang (2005) m
• The Rolling Stones – Biggest Mistake (2005) m
• The Pussycat Dolls – PCD (2005) m
• Mary J. Blige – The Breakthrough (2005) m
• John Hiatt – Chronicles (2005) e/m
• Goo Goo Dolls – Let Love In (2006) m
• Dashboard Confessional – Dusk and Summer (2006) m
• Fergie – The Dutchess (2006) m
• The Academy Is – Santi (2007) m
• Macy Gray – Big (2007) m
• U2 – Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur (2007) p/m
• Lifehouse – Who We Are (2007) m
• Queen Latifah – Trav’lin’ Light(2007) m
• Puddle of Mudd – Psycho (2007) p/m
• Klaxons – Golden Skans radio remix (2007) m
• Eric Clapton – Complete Clapton (2007) m
• Panic at the Disco – Nine in the Afternoon (2007) m
• Charlotte Sometimes– Waves and the Both of Us (2008) p/m
• Jack Savoretti - Harder Than Easy (2009) m
• Kylie Morgan (country artist) 2010

From a string recording session at Grace EV Free for the Isaiah worship CD coming out in September.

Photography by Brian Petersen at www.brianapetersen.com
Email Brian Petersen for licenses regarding this image.
© 2010 Brian Petersen

String players on a recording session for “So Much Joy” at Grace EV Free in La Mirada.

Arrangements by William Gearhart
Engineering by Brian Petersen

Session signal path

Neumann M 149 Tube microphone
running into a Great River ME-1NV preamplifier
Digi 002 Mixer with firewire 400
Digidesign Pro Tools

Studio Projects LSD-2 stereo microphone
going into a Universal Audio 2108 preamplifier
Digi 002 Mixer with firewire 400
Digidesign Pro Tools

Neumann TLM 49 microphone
Universal Audio LA-610 Tube pre / T4 Optical Compressor
Digi 002 Mixer with firewire 400
Digidesign Pro Tools

Full size image at
“>http://www.flickr.com/photos/bpbp/4589559727/

Photography by Brian Petersen at www.brianapetersen.com
Email Brian Petersen for licenses to this image.

Nathaniel Warne on drums during a pre production session at Grace EV Free in La Mirada.

Full size at
www.brianapetersen.com
Email Brian Petersen for licenses to this image.

An electric guitar session with a Royer 121 ribbon mic on a Fender guitar amp.

It’s no doubt that the Digi 002 is now an industry standard interface and has been featured on numerous records. Its smaller size combined with the ability to portably record to pro tools makes for a win win combination. The units come in either a 3U rack mount version or a table top automated mixer version that I personally prefer. The only problem is that the stock A/D converters and the clock in the unit are not the same quality that would you hope to have on a major record using a more high end pro tools studio interface. Some companies provide modifications on the clock and the converters with the digi 002 units, but you can also do well by making these modifications yourself. I use higher end vintage mic pres and nice large diaphragm mics to compensate for the stock pres and the converters on the 002. More on the converters later, but one way to overcome the clock issue is to use a high end external master clock for your interface. Many clocks are available and widely discussed, but I have gone with the recommendation of engineers that are much more skilled and discerning than I am in the studio world. This article is a brief detail of how to use an Antelope Isochrome OCX external clock with a Digidesign Digi 002.