Aside from the scheduled posts i have spent the day recording a guitar note by note to create a sampler instrument for use in the EXS24 sampler. It was done as an uni assignment with fellow pupils David Gudge & Luke Boast.
We used a collection of 3 microphones a SM57 beta A, a Akg d112 and a Rhode nt1a. I have pictures for now but no sound samples im afraid :(
Anyway the pictures
Sounds to follow and possibly the instrument available as a download :)
After advertising my service on join my band i was soon to be greeted by a grunge band. These guys were keen to get some stuff laid down on record. Once again being on my own but not knowing any of the members i was slightly daunted about the processes. With Some thoughts of doubt about how good the band was i agreed to meet them. It turned out that the band members where at least 8 years older then me but still acted like a band in there youth. The dates where arranged, and the plan was to lay down a albums worth of material in a single session.
From hearing the demos and being a fan of nirvina it was clear that this would be as a live an album as possible, with the band in the same room. Luckily for me this was there plan all along :D
Starting at 8am on a sunday should be a crime, but trust me i needed all the time i could get. Greeting the band at little after 9 i was given 20 quid for my days expensises and met the last member of the band, Alex the bass player.
In terms of set up i had researched the methods of glyn johns the famous engineer who worked with the beatles and led zepplin. I used his overhead technique.
(note i dont own this picture it is from http://rosswilsondrmetal.wordpress.com/studio-project/)
It worked suprisingly well for picking up an even picture of the drum kit.
Drums
Kick: Akg d112 between center and rim, & sm57 on beater skin
Snare: Beyer m201 on top & sm57 on bottom
Toms: Akg clip on drum microphones (was mic short :( )
Ride: Small akg pencil from the akg drum mic pack.
Overheads: Akg c451b
The ride mic was not used in the final mix. The overhead tecnique works wonders highly recomended. Using the front skin kick microphone didn't work as inteneded it has too much click for a rock kick drum.
Guitars
Amp 1 : Sm57 on cone, Rode nt1a 8 inches away. Amp 2 : Sm57 on cone & rode nt1a on the rear of the amp. I allways like mic'in guitar amps from the back, Especially if there opened back. You get more of airy less harsh sound.
Bass
Simple di box :) Stick with the di, allways works. (At least i thought ;) )
Vocals
Sm7b and Neumann u87 mixed together in 10:3 ratio. Was dubbed later in the dead room.
Theres something about the Shure sm7b that i like for dirty vocals. It takes away a little bit of the harshness.
Set up Video
Recording
Tracking takes its time even more so when the singer isint looking at the band. However if you turn him round you can track twice as fast (FACT!). The band tracked the album in what was going to be the order on the cd (thats one way of doing it i guess :L). We recorded the first 6 songs in around 8 hours but where later mostly re recorded as the band really got into the recording once they could see each other. I aslo realised that the speaker in one amp had blown resulting a slightly nasty sound. This was later overdubbed with the original take on a sepearte amp and added more thickness. NOTE this can still be heard in stress free. The later songs where tracked very quickly around 3 per take and all the main takes where done by around 6. Leaving the singer in what is a nasty, white, completely dead room allowed him to somehow lay down all the vocals in around 2 hours with no over dubs, not bad on his part. The rhythum guitar was all doubled up on the other amp as stated before in around 50 minutes. Taking a full break for the first time since i started allowed to me clear my ears slightly of all that noise. I swear in no other job can you work for 11 hours with no break lasting more then 5 minutes. With the remaining time there was a quite number that the guitarist wanted to lay down with just him and his guitar. Lacking an acoustic guitar. i used the neuman u87 to pick up both him and the electric guitar un plugged, with a di box for volume reinforcement. Having a brain wave i sujested turning the little number into a full song. Showing the initive i got mark to show them the parts and in little under an hour the song was completed to the version heard on the cd. Intrestingly in there live video found here there is a differnet version of the song again.
Mixing
For some reason i had very little kick to work with. It lacked something. After a hell of a lot of fiddling, i finally cracked an goggled "mixing bass drum". All it needed was a gate and some more volume. Sadly the end result never contained an adequate amount of kick. (my bad!) Given the lack of time spent on sound checking the guitars suffered for it. They sounded very harsh and rough, however given the style it did allow some complementation. Bass was easy a pie: Compression, Eq, Gain. For vocals i used a short delay, a medium delay, compression and a slight bit of chorus.
I should have realised that trying to complete an album in such a short time space with my lack of expernince was never going to end that well. Looking back i cut a fair amount of corners. But i made the contacts and the band where happy. Further more i received some more money for my effort and gained dibs for the second album. I also got another band that where happy with my work enough for them to want me to record them .
There are 2 versions of the album. The one i own and the one the band own and distributed. The one i own was mastered differently as the first when slightly wrong on being burnt to cd. The band for some reason preferred the original over mine :L. The samples you can hear are from my master.
Theres something about listening to something you have recorded and falling in love with it. I listened to that cd on repeat for a week, i couldn't stop listening. I knew all the words, the guitar riffs and the drum fills. I still stick it on every now and then and listen to it from start to finish. :D
Its taking me a lot longer then i had exepcted to back date and remeber all of the material i have recorded. Any way this will be the posts coming up in the near future with some possible odds and sods thrown in.
Roots Of Reason
My first Album, was recorded in 17 hours on a single session :)
Becky Far
My first real role as a producer and arranger. Very happy with the results
Eye Scream Records
The record company i now own 20% of.
The Summer
The long and boring summer holidays :(
Im Back with the A Versions
Recording a cover band
Slow Down World
Producing a recording a ep for a local metal band !..!
And that ladys and gents brings us up to date!
Lost Drum Recording
Any way after rummaging through my itunes i found some strange drum recording I believe this was recorded around march 2012 with my friend gary. Apart from a fairly standard set up, we actually used no overheads at all. Instead i used a pair of earthwork er30s around 8 feet from the bass drum pointing at the kit just above the bass drum.
So after all the recording it was time to mix, a process that would last almost 6 weeks and ended up badly. In hein sight i should have realised the challenge required to mix such a record in the style and sound they wanted. My reluctance to apply drum triggering and auto tuning dident help the situation.
Many Hours were spent mixinghopelessly googling "How to mix metal Drums" etc etc/. It never got me anywhere. Cheap kits can never be polished up :(. I got the vocals, bass and drums to an ok standard but never got those drums right. bouncing countless demos back and forth with the band only resulted in more annoyance my end. Further more i hadent even realized, There supposed to be synths here??
Putting in over 30 hours just on one songs seemed a lot for nothing , but i was determined to sort it out. Going between pro tools and logic on more then one occasion did no justice. After Some back and forth bouncing and some criticism my end i left the mixing processes to the singer who wanted to mix it. I felt this best given the time energy i no longer had to please people. Little did i realism how much people dont appreciate the things you do.
Around mid april i asked how the mixing was going only to receive a reply stating the drums sounded so crap that they no longer wanted the recordings. :@ :@. The talk about me recording the album was dropped and little more was heard from them about the music.Adding salt to the wounds i found some more rather rude and just general assholish comments on the bands Wikipedia page. Sadly i cant find the page ( im guessing it was deleted) but i was least impressed.
It would not be the last time i crossed paths with the bandstrangely enough :S
Things i learnt
As a learning curve i learn a lot. If you offer people something free dont take the shit, in fact dont even offer it for free. People will find you given time and the contacts. If you think a professional product is going to cost you nothing or expect that from a free offer then your mistaken. I wont lie i enjoyed the recording processes, i enjoyed there music. I still like there musicbut i wont give them any respect. You couldn't pay me to work with them again.
I guess as a producer your going to work with people who your never going to get on with, its in the job title. Still theres line which i feel was crossed.
I guess its time to listen to how far i got with this mix. Its not mastered and i think it may not be the latest or last version but i still feel it deserves a listen.
Being a project that took its time i will be braking this one up into two posts. The first will deal with the recording session and the later the mixing and after events.
I discoverd this band in its infermacy when the drummer who i went to school with had asked me to "like" them. Following on from this i offered to record them once they where up and running. The dates where picked and booked and i was getting in for what would be my first solo session with just me and the band.
Starting early and schiving the days lectures we started what turned out to be a 20 hour recording session spread across 2 days.
Set up:
Drums:
Kick: EV re20 placed in the middle of the kick drum (left the skin on whoops!)
+ a sm57 on the front skin for some click
Snare: beyer m201 top & Sm57 bottom
Toms: sm57s
Hi hat: errrr cant actually remember, possibly a Earthworks sr30 or akg c451b
Overheads: or should i say front facing microphones \/ \/
Intresting note on overheads. I used a spaced pair of AKG c414s facing the kit from the front around 5 feet in the air. Esentialy if i was stood facing the kit from in front. This worked well for picking up the cymbals while reducing the sound of the snare and toms. (picked up some extra kick which was EQ' ed out) I have yet to try this again but really should as i liked it :)
Bass:
Di bix
Guitar
Line 6 pod
Trying to keep things live and full of energy and with the lack of experience i had at this point, i started out trying to record the band as a live unit. This FAILED. Instead we resorted to tracking with a click which also didn't work :L. After tricking the drummer into thinking he was practising i got a take sneakily, the rest where tracked with the garage band original demo. Having the guirist in the control room semmed to make for un comfortable session he may as well just have recorded it haha.
DISASTER!!!
Should really have learnt to save my work, pro tools crashed :( :(. Ahh well, after the break we took it was decided we should start again as we were not happy with what had been recorded.
( Luckily for me !)
Moving on...
Tracking guitars was effortless as jon the guitarist was tight as hell and nailed most takes first time round. Ben the bassist was a little slacker but got it down no real problem.
Second day!
Having finished most of the instumental tracking we packed up the kit and proceded to do vocals. From this early stage i decided scraping condensors for all those nasty growls and scream and choose a good old dynamic. Using 2 microphones again , the Shure sm57 and shure sm7b. The SM 7b was the same microphone used on thriller. I still love using this microphone for its clairty and high SPL. It just takes screams and/or dirty vocals very nicely.
Taking on the role as more of producer i began to add those little details only a studio recording could do. We recorded some glass bottles for the first number along with some cans opening ( I should add the can opening was perfect, probaly should sell the sample :L ). The second song also had some treatment with some gang vocals recorded for it in the corridor outside the studio using microphones at either end. This didn't really work despite good intentions. I tailored some of the backing screams as well to what i thought would suit as well as some minor adjustments. As one last cool effect we sampled a floor tom for reversing later (Cant even rember what for!)
Being slightly under prepared and leaving it late we still had synths to add. Leaving jon to play with pro tools and its amazing choice of synths ( ahhhmmmm) we eventually just gave up with the idea and opted for the original samples used in garage band.
Taken From Facebook
20 hours in the studio, (17 hours in the ridiculous heat before finding the fucking a/c switch) 13 Can's of monster, 4 Budweiser's, 2 Guinness's, 3/4 a bottle of Jagameister 7 liters of water, 3 meat pasty's, 1023 Gay reference's, 2 nan breads, 1 byriami, 2 bowls of rice, 1 pack of crisps, 1 ridiculous baguette that Sam made, 1 girly vegy mcdonnads burger, (eaten by mark of course ) 1 big mac, 1 mcdonalds burger, 2 dulux quater pounders, Hundreds of comments making fun of Mark, 4 cookies, 2 packs of quavers, APX 10 KM of walking, And we recorded 3 songs. :)
After my first session i was eager to jump back into recording around late February 2012. Me and a friend "alex de la pole" decided to do some experimentation recording guitar. It was decided to record one of my own songs "the air around us". In the 5 hour session we experimented high and low with all sorts of microphones using up too 5 for one guitar take :P. I also found out during this time that my cheap beringer c1 condensor is rather good :L!
Back in the cold winter months of February i and my fellow group set about recording a single as a work assignment for university. The musicas were chosen as one of the group members knew them well. They had opted to record a cover song by first aid kit called Heavy storm. As this was my first studio session i learnt a lot of the dos and donts of the studio :).
Arriving early is something i started doing on my first ever session. Its an invaluable time in which i can see what equipment i have been left with, wether pro tools has decided to be nice and i can patch the desk and set up the desk. It also helps to set up pro tools in such a fasion where each of the tracks has a sensible name ;) not track 1, track 2 , track 3 etc etc etc. (kudos to the guy who had to go through this and name it all correctly) With the session basics set up we could start mic'ing up the instruments.
As far as the microphone placement went i knew very little except what i had learnt as a live sound man. following in this i chose standard microphones and placed them in a logical fashion.
Drums:
Kick - Akg d12
Snare - 2 x sm57
Hi Hats - Akg c451B
Overheads - Akg C414B
Bass Guitar:
Di Box
The result of this when mixed was rather good giving the lack of the groups experience. I ended up recoding bass through a di box for the next 6 months. From here it went down hill :( .
To attempt to record the guitar we used a matched pair of earthworks SR 30s and a AKG c414. This would probably have worked if we had boosted the pre amps enough, but for some reason never did. To bring up the levels in the post production/mixing the audio tracked was bounced and using final cut pro the noise was removed. This removed the noise but also the upper harmonics. Lesson learnt ALWAYS SOUND CHECK LEVELS!!!
The vocals caused the most problem. Once again being new to recording we opted for 2 microphones for recording each vocal take. One would take the brunt of the vocals behind a pop filter, while the other was left to the side to pick up more room and less direct. The result was full of sibilance but ok for a first attempt. ooooooo i meant to say we used a rode NT1A (which i still hate) and a neuman u87 ( which i love :) )
Many problems arose during the session some of which i will comment on. The Bass and drum parts were taken live with guitar and vocals in the ajacent room to keep the band in time. The session would have benfited from no vocals at this point just the guitar in the live room. I now always try and do recordings live where possible. (more on this later). The origninal song has 2 tracks of vocals all the way through which was hard to match in our session and as a result was not great. Also the singer with the higher voice was left with some of the more lower parts which werent within her range.
All In all i was fairly happy with the session and eager to jump back in and improve on my mistakes. Next up in the line of works was a metal band :P
The finished Audio
Note on Copy Right & Content.
I feel i should talk about and regards to copy right before i begin sharing audio.
Any Recorded songs that are covers i will happily upload in full to sound cloud as i believe this is a showcase for the original artist and in no way damaged there music.
Any Recorded Songs that are original are shared with consent from the artist's. However any work that was recorded but not realised will be shared regardless if the work was carried out for free. All original music is shared at 30 second samples unless specified by the artist.
I will never allow the download of any music that i have been associated with through my person or blog/website.
Welcome to my new blogged based on the music that i produce. Within in this blog i will be keeping a track of all the music i have produced and details of projects that are coming up. I will include samples of the recordings and any details that im very happy with. :)
The First Few post i will be uploading will be about projects i have completed in the past (so i can keep a nice little timeline :) )
