SJH Music Production: Roots Of Reason

Roots Of Reason

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