Clockwise from lower left: Donald Waller, Maurice Waller, Joe Waller, Bill Waller, Graham Waller.
Five Sons of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Waller Are Servicemen
The Record is glad to present in its Service Men’s Corner this week another group of five fine young men, all brothers, now in the service of their country.
These are sons of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Waller of Fentress. An interesting and significant…
Hi Graham. Tell us a little bit about yourself, who are you and what do you do?
I am a recording / mix engineer and record producer based in Kent, UK. I’ve been working professionally in music for nearly 10 years mainly in the Rock and Metal genres though I do enjoy all forms of music and indeed working with it.
In 2009 I went freelance and established www.grahamwaller.com, which allows me to offer online mixing and mastering services work with artists and engineers across the world exchanging both music and ideas.
The job has taken me all over the UK, Europe and the US and I hope it does for many years to come.
How did you get into music and production?
Well truth be told I always wanted to join the RAF and due to a number of reasons I decided not to pursue this career. My second choice in my mind was to try and get into music and from playing in bands in school I went to Ranscombe Studios in Rochester Kent to make an album with the band I was in at the time “Fusion” (now Freedom Cage). Being there and working with the studio owner and engineer Jim Riley was an eye opening and rewarding experience, which sparked an interest, which I’m happy to now call my job.
I went to Mid Kent College and completed a music technology course (I now teach on the course at the college, funny how things come full circle). Jim took me under his wing during this time and recruited me as his “coffee bitch” and it was another game changer for me, learning the fine art of analogue recording as Ranscombe is an all analogue setup. This grounding I cant thank Jim enough for and following that I have continued to develop and work in various studio environments ever since.
Who has been your favourite artist to work with?
I’ve had many great sessions and there have been several acts that I have enjoyed working with but if you held a gun to my head and forced me to pick one, I would probably say In Arcanium. They are an ambient prog rock trio that always pushes me in terms of production and its both a stressful and rewarding experience that I find myself enjoying more and more every time they come back in.
You mainly work in metal and rock. Any tips on metal or rock production?
Many! Probably too many to list but if I had to pick a couple then I would say that the heart of any rock or metal production has got to be the drums. Get that right and the rest will fall into place. First off I would insist that anyone serious about the production WILL use a click track. Accuracy in this genre is key and getting everyone (yes vocals too) to work with a click will allow this and editing should it be required to happen. Work with the band and come up with a comfortable tempo map to use and the right click sound for the drummer to use. Happy drummers make better drum tracks so an annoying click will wind them up.
The other thing to watch out for on any production but particularly rock and metal is phase. Most of the production techniques call for multiple micing techniques and watching this is key to that big powerful sound.
What's your stance on triggered drums in metal music? Necessary?
Well I do use them. I started out skeptical but the more I worked with the genre the more I realized how useful they are. What I don’t like to hear is overly triggered machine gun style stuff. I do see its place in the genre but I try and steer away from it purely as I don’t enjoy the sound. I use them to enhance an existing drum sound as an additional texture in a mix. I believe that a well recorded great sounding kit is 90% of the drum tone and the final 10% are appropriately chosen triggers to enhance them and get them to sit right in the mix should they be needed.
What gear is currently exciting you?
Well many people will tell you I suffer from chronic G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome though some bands will agree with the literal word on some sessions ;)). So reading reviews and listening to my demos is part of my routine.
My sights are set on the Torpedo Live from Two Note at the moment. Love the premise and feature set of that unit allowing you to use real guitar heads in the front end and using its load box and software, create cab simulations. It will help get a consistent tone across recordings especially if there is some time between sessions though some engineers will be shouting at this point saying “what’s wrong with session notes and photos?” well with the majority of my work being freelance, the option of taking that studio setup with me and be able to track seemingly anywhere with the same sound is very exciting.
You own an Audient MiCO, what made you buy the MiCO?
Well I’ve always been interested in Audient products but it was love at first listen when I went to The Parlour Recording studios for the first time last year with Bury The Hatchet and heard their ASP8024 and the pres and EQ were spectacular. I needed some of that in my everyday workflow so I bought the MICO as an option to have some of that ASP magic on my productions where it was needed. The additional features of HMX for making DI’s do what I want and the vari-phase for lining up duel miced stuff for reasons I mentioned earlier were the icing on the cake. Its on every production I do now.
How are you finding it? What's your favourite use for it?
I love it, just love it. I use it mainly for guitars, bass DI and vocals. It just has the clarity and warmth balance right so seemingly anything I put though there sounds great. I would say my favorite use for it is guitars though as I can dial in the phase just right with vari-phase and have two great sounding mics on a cab to give that “wall of sound” tone I love.
Any interesting/funny production or band stories you care to share with us?
I’ve had many, but I would say one that sticks with me was one of those moments when the phrase “a little knowledge is dangerous” came into play. I was working with a band in the studio and the vocalist wasn’t having a good time lets just put it that way. He came into the control room to listen to some playback and it was out of tune no question about it. Now this was in the early days of my career when I was still at Ranscombe and working on tape with lots of outboard (great times J) but he was convinced that I had put one of my “boxes” on it to make him sound bad and that his voice wasn’t that out of tune ever. He was deadly serious and I was in a panic thinking they were going to walk out. Then I remembered something my lecturer Bill at Mid Kent taught me which was the use of the all important DFA channel (Does F**k All) and it was honestly the only thing I could think of to appease him. So I apologised and pressed a couple of switches and unplugged a couple of spare patch cables that were in the patchbay and said “so sorry about that man, it should be better now”. He then proceeded to tell me how much of a joker I was and how I shouldn’t do that to him and he went in and did an equally out of tune take, came back to listen and was happy!
