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DW NORTON

DW Norton is fast making a name for himself as a producer and engineer, particularly since scoring an ARIA nomination for Superheist’s A Dignified Rage single. Recent recording projects include his new band Walk The Earth and the new Mindsnare album. James O’Toole spoke with DW about his take on digital home recording.

O’Toole: What made you get into recording in the first place?

DW Norton: I started with a four track, a drum machine and a guitar. I did the Superheist demo in 1992 at Backbeach and the owner Mark offered me a job as an engineer. I was thrown in the deep end and eventually I got to the point where I was producing albums for other bands.

O’Toole: What’s your home set up at the moment?

DW Norton: A 1ghz Macintosh G4 running OS X 10.3.2 and Pro Tools 6.4. I have some NHT Pro powered 6" monitors and a pair of Sennheiser HD580 headphones, another very important tool. You want a few different environments to listen to your mixes. When you’re finishing a CD throw it in the home stereo, the car stereo and when it’s sounding good in all those different environments you know you’re on the right track. I think it is very important with home recording to aim to mix it in a studio on an analogue desk. The colour an analogue desk will give it is the icing on the cake.

O’Toole: What are the key points in getting a good quality home recording?

DW Norton: It’s all about whether the instrument and the recording path are good, starting with the microphone and the mic preamp. They’re the three fundamental elements of a good recording. For the Walk The Earth album we hired G & L mic preamps, some API lunchbox mic preamps, Distressor compressors, Sennheiser MD421 microphones for the toms, a Beyer Dynamic M88 kick drum microphone, Shure SM57s for the snare and some AKG C3000s as overheads and it sounds like it was recorded in a very expensive studio.

O’Toole: How do you get a good guitar sound?

DW Norton: The guitar and the amp are paramount for the sound. If the original source sound isn’t right it’s never going to be right. Don’t rely on making it sound the way you want with Pro Tools or whatever you’re using. Use one microphone or you’ll run into phase problems. I’ve discovered an excellent guitar DI called a Cab Tone and I don’t use a microphone at all. It works for me because I’m doing heavy, upfront guitars ninety percent of the time and it gives the true amp signal.

O’Toole: How about recording bass?

DW Norton: I take a DI from the back of the bass amp and I’ll also mic the bass cabinet, because with bass you’re relying a lot on the air movement of the cabinet to get the bottom end.

O’Toole: And vocals?

DW Norton: I use a good microphone, I have an AKG3000. I chose that over a Rode valve mic, it’s a bit more zippy in the mid range and top end, especially with aggressive vocals which I deal with most of the time. Again, use a good mic preamp and compressor.

For information on DW check out www.dwnorton.com