Recently Brent Meyer -- one-fourth of L.A. based alt-rock cum new wave band, Folio -- took some time to chat about the recording of the band's first EP. Earlier he delved into general recording talk and drums. Now he talks a little about vintage synths and a little on mixing and mastering. First off we talked about the difference from synths and the new modeled versions of the classics.

"Like many artists who use soft synths I’m of a split opinion. I think in many cases they surpass their analogue counterparts in control, routing flexibility, preprogrammed patches and general usability. What’s often (though not always) missing, however, is that OOMPH factor; or presence of moving air that analogue synths achieve so effortlessly," says Meyer. "Running soft synths into analogue world by patching through tube mic pres, etc. fixed most of this, or in any case sounds beefy, so we did as much of that as possible when outputting master takes. When writing, we tried not to get bogged down in scrolling through 400 synth patches and manipulating the top five contenders to match what we’re hearing in our heads. We saved those torturous sessions for after the parts were finalized! The blessing of soft synths is that they are so affordable relative to their hardware counterparts that we can have more of ‘em! The curse of soft synths is that they provide another means of reaching option fatigue."

The band was luck enough to work with Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. (Jellyfish, Beck, Air, Morrissey) and his "synth museum". Manning played keyboards on some of the songs.

"He performed some of the keyboards on the record -- his studio was amazing and full of authentic vintage synths. We also utilized the gamut of various software synths. Brent, who did the majority of the production on the record, would be able to impart some info to readers on what you can use at home to make a great sounding record on a minimal budget.

But even with a studio containing a dream list of analogue synths sometimes the band went the soft synth route.

"Many of the soft synth parts originally slated to be replaced with Roger’s original gear were left as is with Roger’s “blessing”. He’s quite familiar with the same soft synths we use and sings their praises in much the same manner we do--though he has the luxury of the originals pre patched into his Trident console for direct comparison," says Brent. "We figured if the emulations were good enough for him it would pass muster with everyone else listening to their 128k mp3s on $10 headphones or laptop speakers, as is so often the case; or worse, compressed even further on MySpace. Musicians would do well to remember the end user’s listening context when getting endlessly micro on the sonics of a recording. Basically, once a sound made us want to do the robot dance, we knew we were there."

Manning and Folio used the following in recording; Roland Jupiter 8, Roland Fantom X8, Roland SH-101, Oberheim Two Voice Sequential Circuits Prophet 10, Solina String Ensemble, Alesis Andromeda, Waldorf Microwave XTk (this one was Madonna’s), Yamaha CS-80.

"Given the sheer heft of his extensive collection, it’s easy to see why he has them all hardwired into his console and rarely moves them from his studio," says Meyer. "I can’t imagine the inherent headache in touring with such a configuration but I suppose Thomas Dolby had a LOT of roadies back in the day."

Some musicians new to recording think the work is all done once you finish recording. They are very shortly disabused of this notion (either that or they wind up with a crappy record). Folio had no such silly notion.

"Fortunately, I knew a great mix engineer, Brian Carrigan (Seal, No Doubt, Alanis Morrisette, Aerosmith), from a past project I’d just produced (www.chapterville.com) and we mixed at his facility, Hyperion Studios, using a Euphonics System 5 digital console and the top Pro Tools HD rig with Apogee converters and LOADS of plug ins. We used McDSP plugs a quite a lot," says Meyer. "A vintage synth collector himself, (he owns the 1969 ARP 2600 used in Close Encounters to talk to aliens), we added very few new synth parts but ran existing parts, including vocals, through some of his modular gear for filtering. Of note, we mixed about a song a month as that was all we could afford, being self-funded at the time, so we had plenty of time to polish and prep tracks for final mixing. We love the cautionary Frank Zappa adage: 'We’ll fix it in the shrink wrap.'”

Meyer also says the band knew better than to master the record themselves. You are too close to it to be objective. Some people will disagree on this but they are wrong. It is always best to have a hired set of ears. If you cannot afford it? That is a valid reason to do it yourself. Otherwise? DON'T do it yourself. Put the ego aside.

"Using another friend’s hookup, I got us into a Capitol Records mastering suite employing all manner of custom arcane tube gear and all of the sudden the tracks sounded tight, cohesive, or 'like a record',” says Meyer. "That was money well spent, and given that our only substantial expenses were mixing and mastering, we got off really cheap for the entire project."

More from the other members of Folio soon.