"
In mid-January 2011, the band moved into Henson studios with Shanks, staff engineer Martin Cooke, and engineer Paul David Hager.[7] The band would work twelve hours a day, five days a week, working on the music during the afternoon and Roth coming in to sing at night.[8] The instrumental tracks were done in three weeks, with the band playing live as they had had much rehearsal. Eddie declared that he felt relieved in relinquishing some of the production work to his son, with Wolfgang stating that "dad likes to think of me as some sort of leader now". The bassist was considered akin to a co-producer, frequently talking to Shanks, being consulted by his father on the musical direction, and developing the songs.[5][6] Along with creating new bits, such as a new breakdown on "She's the Woman" - as the original ended up used on Fair Warning's (1981) "Mean Street" - and an arrangement for "Stay Frosty" outside the acoustic introduction,[5] Wolfgang had some bass improvisations "stem[ming] from boredom" as he wanted to vary after so much rehearsing, such as the capo intro to "Chinatown".[6]
By the end of March 2011, the band had returned to finish the record at 5150 with engineer Ross Hogarth.[7] Most of the work at 5150 was for guitars and bass, as Eddie "couldn’t hear them at Henson the way I’m used to" and both him and Hogarth felt the attempts at mixing were not progressing due to sound quality. Eddie attributed this to the tape machines at Henson, stating that on that studio "everything ended up sounding like it had a sock over it", a problem that did not repeat when playing the tapes at Eddie's facility.[5] The final mix took place over a period of six weeks in the summer of 2011. Each song would be mixed for an entire day, and in the next day it would be tweaked. Hogarth declared that because the process was done at a mixing console, "we couldn’t move on to the next song until a mix had been approved by everyone and could go off the desk." Hogarth started with the drums as he considered it the most important component, and then moved forward with the bass and guitar to finish a backing track, which would be complemented with multing (hiving off different sections of a given part to different tracks) and parallel compression. Then it was finished bringing in Roth’s vocals, backing vocals, and details like ad libs, screams and solos.[7]
Hogarth aimed "to bring Ed’s guitar sound into the modern era, but maintaining all the DNA of the past." He suggested to Eddie that instead of doing again the guitar to the left speaker and the effects panned to the right, the guitar sound was split naturally instead of electronically using two guitar amplifiers place far apart. The idea was to have a guitar sound "that was wide and mono, and not digital delay-driven, and it’s what you hear on the record, with only a few overdubs — the classic Van Halen sound is not to have a rhythm guitar when he solos". A more complex structure was made for Wolfgang Van Halen's bass, as the band wanted "a bass sound that covered the whole spectrum, from high to low and clean to dirty", and up to eight microphones recorded his instrument. A multi-mic set-up was also employed for Alex Van Halen's drums, with most of the final drumming coming from overhead microphones Hogarth dubbed "press conference". Roth's vocals were all recorded at Henson, without compression.[7]
"
