An interview with Ritch Spence: Recording, Mixing and Co-Producing Emma King's sun-soaked, 1990s flavored album, Pocketful of Sun
Inside the making of Emma King's album, Pocketful of Sun.
Photo by David Critchley
We sat down with audio engineer, music producer, and songwriter Ritch Spence, to discuss the process of recording and co-producing his partner Emma King’s 1990s sun-soaked 1990s infused new album, Pocketful of Sun.
We discuss studio gear, vocal mics, mixing, how sometimes it can be better to use your own studio instead of a large commercial studio, working with session musicians, maintaining objectivity throughout a project, and more!
If you have ever wanted to know what it would be like to co-create an album with another person (or just create an album in general) but don't know where to start, this should help.
Eimear O Sullivan, Musicngear: Hello Ritch, thank you so much for your time, and congratulations to you and Emma on the album, it sounds amazing, I have really enjoyed listening to it. Could you describe the setup you used for recording and producing this album?
Thanks for taking the time to listen, and we’re glad you think it sounds good! Once every 6 months or so, Emma and I will sit and listen through our phone voice memos of song ideas we have written on piano, guitar, vocals, and decide which ones we both think are strong. I’ll then start building a Pro Tools session around the song idea. I’ve used Avid Pro Tools since way back when I had a Digi 002, and it's still intrinsic to our workflow as it allows us to take sessions in and out of bigger studios.
Our home studio is a hybrid setup based around Universal Audio Apollo 16 interface and plugins, running into a Rupert Neve Designs 5059 analog summing mixer, which we love for its big, open, and punchy sound. We’ve got a hardware SSL 500-Series Bus Compressor MkII for the mix, and usually keep it pretty clean when printing the mix.
For tracking, we’ve got a AMS Neve 1073LB Preampmodule 500er API and a Universal Audio 6176. We usually use the Neve into the 6176 compressor for vocals, unless we’re going for something really soulful, and then we might use the UA 610 pre.
We only have a few mics at home, so we make the most of what we’ve got!...Emma loves the Rode Classic II for vocals, and we have an AKG C414 and an old Neumann KM84, which is great for acoustic instruments. We have sometimes hired a vintage U47 for vocals, but Emma loves the Rode mic - it really seems to get the emotion of her voice.
We did drums and piano at Chairworks Studio in Castleford, which is a cool place up here in Yorkshire with an SSL desk and a big live room. A lot of the drums were by my old friend Matt Lunn (who is the drummer for Placebo now), and a few drum tracks were done by a great friend in Nashville, TN, Tony Morra, who we used to work with over there.
Musicngear: The vocals sound great, what is your advice for getting a good vocal take and maintaining that character while mixing?
Well, for this record, honestly, most of the vocals were done in one or two takes late at night.
Emma has spoken a lot in the press about our daughter, who is autistic with additional needs, and we only found time for Emma to write and read through the lyrics once, and then just blast through the song! But sometimes that’s the best way, isn’t it? She was really in the moment in the early excitement of the songs, and it’s harder to go back later and try and replicate that. In fact, we did try later with a different mic (a Manley Ref Cardioid that we were trying out) and preferred the originals, so kept them.
Mixing-wise, Emma has a very particular sound and style to her voice that I am very used to and don’t need to experiment too much. We like classic plugins such as Pultec EQ and LA-2A, plus some big, sumptuous plate reverb. With her voice, you don’t need to cover it up or double track really, just a big lead vocal and then whatever backing vocals fits. She’s also literally spot on tuning-wise, so Melodyne is rarely used, and it would only be to give the vocal a certain effect and sound in the mix.
Musicngear: The songs have a sun-soaked 1990s quality to them, which I love. What were some of your references for when you were both producing and mixing the songs?
Yeah, we are children of the 90s, I guess!
Our sound is a straight-up mix of our upbringings. In fact, you can probably hear the combination of Emma’s Dixie Chicks and Sheryl Crow alongside the R.E.M., Pearl Jam, and Counting Crows records I grew up with. Because we wanted to do a sunny Country-rock album, we were going for a pretty slick and produced sound on this one. In the past, we’ve done some live-to-tape and really raw recording sessions, but we felt a more polished sound suited these songs.
Musicngear: What was your general approach to mixing this album?
I don’t use a mix template as such, but I have a Pro Tools session with a load of Aux’s setup with my favourite reverbs and delays. I then spread the tracks from the session across the 16 channels of the Neve 5059 mixer, so Drums on 1-2, Guitars 3-4, Keys 5-6, Bass and Vocals on their own Mono channels, etc. Then I capture the mix on a final stereo track within the same PT session.
I’ve read a lot of Gearspace threads in my younger days, so although I don’t really look at tutorials and things now, I have done my time learning about parallel drum compression and all that fun stuff!
I am guilty of having nearly all the Universal Audio plugins, although I don’t tend to use a lot. Mainly it’s the SSL E Channel, Pultec, LA-2A, Studer Tape plugin, EMT 140 Plate, Lexicon 224. Soundtoys Echoboy and Fabfilter Pro Q often get a good workout too. I actually love the sound of the UAD Massenberg EQ, even if the interface needs a bit of an update.
Musicngear: For people who may not have worked with session musicians on their music before, what is the best way to go about it?
There are so many great ways online now. It could just be a matter of seeing a drummer on Instagram, going to their website and contacting them, and sending over the session. You could get drums on a track in a matter of hours, really. When we have sent things online, I usually like to make a new Pro Tools session that has all the song markers (verse, chorus, etc.) and tempo map, and then just some stereo stems of the song (demo drums, bass, guitars, vocals), so they don’t have to wade through a bunch of tracks.
In person is great, but of course could be more expensive as you will often need studio time too. Budget is a big concern for independent musicians. You could invite solo instrumentalists to a home studio and do it at your own place for a much more relaxed vibe. It can be intimidating if you’ve never met one another before to just stick someone in a live room of a large studio and all listen back without that connection of being together. I think you can often build a better camaraderie by sitting next to the session player, both with headphones on. and chatting through ideas in-between takes.
Drums are a different story where you need the space, but for solo players or singers, they often don’t enjoy the “on the clock” pressure of an official session, and you need to get them playing when they are really feeling it.
Musicngear: Maintaining objectivity while working on a project can be difficult to maintain, especially when you have been working on songs for a long time. Do you have any advice on this?
Objectivity…Emma and I are terrible at it! No, seriously, it can be very tough to live with the same songs and still keep the excitement about them fresh. Both Emma and I have always approached music from an artistic angle, and naturally, that comes with self-doubt and anxiety about the quality of your work. But I wouldn’t hide from that, I would think it more suspect if an artist was 100% convinced their work was great.
One bit of advice I would give is just to give your early demos to some trusted friends and family, and ask them to give their favourite 3 songs in order. Often, you will find a small number of songs have that certain something that people like about them. And if there’s a “likeability” to a lyric or melody or groove, nothing that you think is important technically is going to change that. So when you’re worried about a snare sound or the level of the vocal, just think – don’t worry, this is the one everyone likes…!
Thank you so much for your time! You can connect with Ritch Spence here: Instagram / Facebook
About Eimear O Sullivan
Eimear Ann O Sullivan is a multi-genre music producer, audio engineer and vocalist. After receiving a Masters in Music Technology from the CIT Cork School of Music, she went on to operate as a producer under the name Blakkheart. Her releases have received critical acclaim from Ireland's biggest music publications, such as District Magazine and Nialler9, alongside receiving heavy commercial radio airplay. She currently works in Cork recording studio Flashpoint CC. Previous clients of hers include the likes of Comedy Central’s Dragony Aunt star Candy Warhol, rapper Darce and Outsider YP. (Photo credit @Fabian Boros)
Contact Eimear O Sullivan at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com
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