Robert Plant – Band of Joy

Used for the lead vocals on Band of Joy (2010), as stated by tracking and mixing engineer in this Mike Poole in this December 2010 Sound on Sound article.

Poole was organised enough for this interview to supply a copy of his assistant Gordon Hammond's input chain sheet, reproduced on the left. Rather than explain each detail, Poole elaborated on some of the less usual aspects of his setup, for instance the Avantone BV1 on Robert Plant's vocals, which went through a Telefunken V76 and then an Inner Tube Audio Atomic Squeezebox compressor. Poole: "We tried a few mics on Robert, but the Avantone was definitely the best?sounding. It gave us the picture that wanted of his vocals. I had only used that mic a little bit before, and it has definitely become a go?to mic for me. It is very good at tracking sibilance, although after the vocal had gone through a compressor or two by the time I mixed, I had to do quite a bit of detailed work on 'esses' and mouth noises and so on. The Atomic Squeezebox is also fairly non?standard, but it is a really good compressor. It reminds me a bit of the Summit Audio stereo compressor; it has the same feel but is a little bit more transparent. For the sound image we were after it was great. It also allowed me to put a highly dynamic performance on tape without the compression being audible. I always monitored through an [Urei] 1178, which was part of the mix path, and which gave the coloration we wanted to hear."

Used for the lead vocals on Band of Joy (2010), as stated by tracking and mixing engineer in this Mike Poole in this December 2010 Sound on Sound article.

Poole was organised enough for this interview to supply a copy of his assistant Gordon Hammond's input chain sheet, reproduced on the left. Rather than explain each detail, Poole elaborated on some of the less usual aspects of his setup, for instance the Avantone BV1 on Robert Plant's vocals, which went through a Telefunken V76 and then an Inner Tube Audio Atomic Squeezebox compressor. Poole: "We tried a few mics on Robert, but the Avantone was definitely the best?sounding. It gave us the picture that wanted of his vocals. I had only used that mic a little bit before, and it has definitely become a go?to mic for me. It is very good at tracking sibilance, although after the vocal had gone through a compressor or two by the time I mixed, I had to do quite a bit of detailed work on 'esses' and mouth noises and so on. The Atomic Squeezebox is also fairly non?standard, but it is a really good compressor. It reminds me a bit of the Summit Audio stereo compressor; it has the same feel but is a little bit more transparent. For the sound image we were after it was great. It also allowed me to put a highly dynamic performance on tape without the compression being audible. I always monitored through an [Urei] 1178, which was part of the mix path, and which gave the coloration we wanted to hear."

Used for the lead vocals on Band of Joy (2010), as stated by tracking and mixing engineer in this Mike Poole in this December 2010 Sound on Sound article.

Poole was organised enough for this interview to supply a copy of his assistant Gordon Hammond's input chain sheet, reproduced on the left. Rather than explain each detail, Poole elaborated on some of the less usual aspects of his setup, for instance the Avantone BV1 on Robert Plant's vocals, which went through a Telefunken V76 and then an Inner Tube Audio Atomic Squeezebox compressor. Poole: "We tried a few mics on Robert, but the Avantone was definitely the best?sounding. It gave us the picture that wanted of his vocals. I had only used that mic a little bit before, and it has definitely become a go?to mic for me. It is very good at tracking sibilance, although after the vocal had gone through a compressor or two by the time I mixed, I had to do quite a bit of detailed work on 'esses' and mouth noises and so on. The Atomic Squeezebox is also fairly non?standard, but it is a really good compressor. It reminds me a bit of the Summit Audio stereo compressor; it has the same feel but is a little bit more transparent. For the sound image we were after it was great. It also allowed me to put a highly dynamic performance on tape without the compression being audible. I always monitored through an [Urei] 1178, which was part of the mix path, and which gave the coloration we wanted to hear."