Stepping back to 2010

Stepping back to 2010

Its not this just this last year i have been recording songs, in fact i was half way through recording my own little album in the summer of 2010. I Ended up with around 5-6 original songs and one cover. The recording setup was very simple and used only basic equipment. 

Instruments

Guitar wise i used a Epiphone Flying V and a cheap honer strat copy into a line 6 spider 2x12. Very little of this was a mic setup, i ran a lead straight into the mixing desk from the line out.

Some of the bass parts ( teenage kicks & all i need) was done with a bass amp and cheap zoom distortian pedal through the line out. The rest was done either through midi or i played it on my keyboard live ( Riding out til the end).

All the keyboard sounds were played on a yammah bog standard keyboard, some of which was run through my guitar amp to use the in build effects (reverb mainly ).

Drums were midi, and where pre loaded onto my Yamaha digital drum kit, before hiting playback ;)

I had only one microphone for the album, which was a behringer c1. Which i used for all vocals and the guitar solo in All i need is you. Using my brother for the vocals i built a small matress booth in my house to contain him in. I had no pop filter, and he held the microphone sat down :L

Software

For recording most the songs, i used abelton live lite. Sadly i could only have 4 tracks at a time. So after laying down the drums and rhtyum guitar i bounced out the individual tracks, before recording the next layers. what had been done already was merged into a guide track. Its worth mentioning that alot  of the reverb and delay and was done as the signal was being recorded meaning it could not be removed :(

 
Kristal DAW (windows only )

The songs where mixed and edited in audacity and some of the material was mixed in the krystal open source daw. I new very little about eq or compression. Instead i just boosted levels and panned the instrument to gain a "mix" . I splashed everything with reverb and lots of it :L. The best song in terms of audio quailty would be riding out to the end. I did some clever guitar work in the intro (listen hard)


I would like to return to the songs one day and finish that album with a host of different singers :L, but for now here are the recordings minus 2 which i may upload and include at a later date!

Future Plans For 2013!

Plans For 2013!

Happy new year to you all! 2012 saw me start my production career, from working with folk music to some proper heavy metal. Infact i recorded over songs last year :)

1 folk single

A 4 track metal ep

A 11 track grunge album

A 4 track pop ep

A 5 track cover ep

A 6 track metal ep

As well as that i auditioned for a rock band and got turned down. Built my first iphone app, and got into lots of new music!.

2013:

As of the start of this new year i auditioned for a progressive metal band called AWMR, and got accepted as there 3rd guitarist :D. It looks to be a exciting couple of months as i record the bands debut Ep as well as a few music videos.

In terms of recording projects i have a set date to record a rock band at the start of February which should be good fun! I should also be back on recording duties for Slow Down world once again. I also hope to record some of my own songs as well. 

In terms of uni work (yes poor old uni work :( ), im going to be recording some soundscapes for outdoor environments. In more geeky news i will be exploring synthesisers to build and program my own. And finally i will be making with my group a music production video / mini documentary with my band AWMR.

I will leave you with a preview of my new band! Cheers for reading :D

Slow Down World

Slow Down World

I was lucky to bag this project, as many people jumped on the advert offering there service. It just happend to be me who was first. Luckily for me i already new twig and rob from my 1st year, after being asked to drum for them. (story for another time).

I was once again in the dark with this band, as i had very little idea what style of music the band played in. Metal is a broad subject :P

So onto recording. The band had specified they wanted demos rather then a polished ep, like many others wanted to record live. Being in the smaller studio meant i only had 12 tracks. 

Set Up list.

Drums:

Kick. Ev 20 in the middle of the kick without the front skin on.

Snare: Tried many microphones here, started with a m201 didn't quite cut it, used a sm58 which also seemed to miss the marl. settled with a sm57. After playing around with position it ended up pointing directly at the center of the snare drum. I used a small senhiser condenser microphone on the bottom pointing at the center of the snare wires.

Toms: I have always been a fan of drum mic pack tom microphones. I guess they have been designed  for one purpose so it makes sense to use them. I didn't bother with the clips, i placed them on mic stands. Pointing them at the center of the toms just like the snare, though resting just above the rim.

Hihats: I have never had much luck with hihat micing, i used a small pencil condensor from the senhiser kit pointing away from the kit between the rim and center. Sadly this got knocked around when recording so ended up being unusable. 

Overheads: once again these where changed from whats in the picture to a generic spaced pair of c414s.

Note the photo was taken during set up and position of mics are not what was used.

I belive this is a later photo as more stuff seems to be plugged in. Note the position of the hi hat microphone.

Bass:

Never before i have use a microphone to record bass i normally just use a di box. Instead i used a d112 on a small ampeg bass amp with a 12' spekear. Close to the rim was where the d112 was placed. I used a di box as well and mixed the result 10:2. The d112 gave the bass so much more punch and character  though sadly there was a fair bit of bleed.

guitar:

After trying an sm57 and sm7b i swapped them out for a single neumman u87 placed between the cone and rim. This resulted in a lot of bite. The only place the original guitar recording can be heard is in "sunlight", as the other tracks were replaced using a better amp. However i do like the sound character present in sunlight.

Vocals:

In a seperate session the vocals where done. The set up was a double microphone set up. I used my fav combo of a u87 around 30cm from the singer, and a sm7b. The u87 was raised up so the singers head would be back slighlty helping him to hit the higher notes. The sm7b was lower down pointing up at the singer and was used as a reinforcement microphone.

guitar re-record:

On the second session i set about doubling the guitar takes. In reailty we just replaced the previous takes. Having the time to experiment i used 3 microphones. 

Mixing

Ok the first thing i allways do is mix drums. I spent a lot of time fiddiling here. 

Ok so we have 2 samples here, i was rather happy with the basic kick sound. The bleed for me wasent too much of problem given the fact i was recording a demo. A fair chunk of compression and a tad of eq brought the sound out a bit better

Something im not so pleased with was the snare drum, as you can both hear and see by the waveform, there is a huge amount of hi-hat bleed. Using dual compression and reducing the hi-hat mic level, i sort of brought the sound of the snare out. It doesent sounds as good here as it does when put with the rest of drums. And that leads us on too....

And the drums soloed bit mixed :)

Bass Guitar:

You will need good headphones or a good sub to benifit here, but this is the sound of the bass amp with a d112 in front of it :)

Same part again but a dry Di signal
(you can choose which sounds better :))

Electric Guitar
So on the re-record i chose to use 3 mics and blend the 3 :) here they are as solo tracks.


Single Shure sm57 in front of the speaker.



Single Akg D112 in front of the speaker.

Single Akg C414 in front of the speaker.

When double tracking not a option a good blend of mics and panned tracks can give a thicker result in my opinion.



Thats it folks! I need to add some photos to this post when i find them! And if you would like to listen to the final songs check em out at the band (slow down world) Soundcloud.

Slow Down World

The AVersions

The AVersions

Following on from the roots of reason album, the drummers partner ami asked if i would be interested in recording her band. Sadly i ran out of time to start anything before the summer but was keen to sort something for September. Keen to get going, i booked up ASAP.

The Aversions where a cover band consisting of a 4 piece playing pop/rock numbers from the 80s/90s. Being female fronted the band did a good job choosing songs to suit. We recorded-

Call me - Blondie

Kids of america - Kim Wylde

  99 red ballons - nena

crash - The Primitives

walking on sunshine - Katrina & the Waves

In terms of the cover instrumentation, i was a live take of just drums, bass , a single guitar , backing vox and lead vocals.

Set up

Drums

The kit the drummer played was very expensive and very nice sounding ( also very well tuned) so was quite pleasent too work with.

kick : Audix d6 on front

Snare: sm57 on top, earthworks er30 on bottom

 Toms:Beyer M201

Floor tom: use a d112 but had to change it for a sm58 due to mic shortage.

Over Heads: A OFTR Stereo pair of Earthwork er30s above the drummers head

I spent a bit of time fiddling with positions here. I pointed the tom mics at the center of each tom to get the most attack. The er30 on the snare was pointed in the middle of the snare wires with the top mic pointed half way between middle and rim. The d6 was just inside the kick but gave quite a bit of waffle (really need to remove all kick front skins in future.)

Its easy to see where each of the tom and snare microphones are pointing here.

 

Though slightly hard to see, the overheads can be seen above the drum kit, there over the drummers head.

Bass

DI: again! :S

Guitar

sm57 and sm7b (both shure). One on the Cone, one on the rim. (panned left and right with differnt eqs on the mix)

Backing vocals

 Spaced pair of C414s, with better singer on one pair, other 2 singers on other pair. Arrange in a cardioid figure 8 but with both in phase, if that makes sense.

You can see one the c414 pair.

Main Vox

Neumman U87 & sm7b pair :)

(note main vox was a seperate session )

Band Recording

For the recording it was all tracked live, with a scratch vocal being fed through the headphones for the musicians. It was quite a quick process :) was quite happy with the drums as a raw sound.

Vocal Recording
For most of the vocals it was hard to get a perfect take for each verse/chorus etc. So instead i punched in line by line. It was a little long winded but meant for a better vocal take. The sm7b was used for some of the louder vocals with the u87 taking most of the work.


Mixing
for a basic cover band i didn't spend an awful amount of time mixing. As it was played in live i felt the mixing should sound live. A did a few thing which i had never really tried before however. For a start i put the tom mics through a bus. This was then gated with a fairly high threshold. Adding a suitable release time, the tom mics would only be audible when the tom toms where hit, tightening up the mix.

I did some crafty editing with the vocals, as one of the punched in takes had clipped (should have realised. I took the same line for a different chorus and pasted it in place. Sadly as the band was not in click track it was out of time. Slowing the tempo of the sample put it back in place and is the result is indistinguishable.

The results







The band where

Ami mitchell - vocals

Dave Ranner - Bass & vox

Gareth - Guitar & vox

Tim Porch - drums & vox

Personal Tastes Volume 1

Personal Tastes Volume 1

Most of my blog posts have been about some of the work i have done, but i would like to share some of others peoples work that i like not because of the music but because of the production.

New Frontier - Donald Faygen

My course leader last year introduced me to this last year. Its used by audio engineers all over to test speakers and front of house systems. Its now a personal favorite of mind but is sited by Many as the best sounding recording ever made.

  6:00 - Dream Theater

A friend of mine introduced to dream theater two years ago. I can remember so clearly hearing the sound of those octobans filling the room and descending into a technical master piece! Such a punchy tight drum sound really great in my opinion. The best thing about the album is the drums are live drums unlike the previous album where mike portnoy stated it was mostly triggered. Saying this turn it fairly loud on good monitors and you can hear how gated everything is :L. So here we have 6:00 and Pull me under (from the second album) make sure to listen for the differences. 

  Am I Evil - Metallica

I love the sound of the early metal how trashy and rough it sounds. In my opinion i prefer it to a lot of the post hardcore stuff that gets released. What i love the most is the guitars there is so many doubled tracked ryhtum parts here giving it such a thick sound, Adding in a bass player that makes his bass sound like a guitar. The drums sound a bit tinny in the cymbal departement, but the rest is just brutal. 

  Welcome to the jungle - Guns n roses

A Massive fan of this band and the album. But if a track stands out its this beut. Punchy drums, dirty guitars, a deep bass and hole lot of axl rose. I love the production from start to finish on this album it cuts away the crap of a lot of the 80s metal/glam rock and returns to the classic rock roots with some bang up to date studio work. top notch

  November - Guns n roses

Sadly guns n roses slipped from there early sound for the use your illusion albums. The production here has been polished within a inch of its life. Its worth mention for just how sonically good it sounds and the epic instrumentation. A few interesting points mind, the strings are actually from a keyboard :L.

  Slave to the rhythm - Grace jones

Worth pointing out because of the drums, really great sound to em. Check out the bridge for them on there own and just listen to how massive they sound!

Thriller - Micheal Jackson

Though it needs a better link this songs sounds surprising thin when listened to on good reference monitors. Not slating the guys who worked on the album its just intresting.

All Along the watch tower - Jimmi hendrix

Listening it may not seem special in terms of production. But what makes it special that all those overdubs and strange effects panned from left to right where done by hand live. no pro tools or automation this was the 60s. Whats even better is this was done on a 4 track :O. Many takes later we have all along the watch tower.

  Fallen Angles - Black Veil Brides

Sticking with the metal i recently discovered this while watching scuzz. For modern metal it doesn't seemed to have suffered much of the brutal production but still sounds meaty. I like the punchy drums though i believe there triggered/doubled. What i like the most is how the guitars just sound live and real and are left with that under produced kinda feel.

thats it folks! Please check out these on good speakers and use better sources if you can.

Some Of My Covers

Song Of My Covers

Ok So i was on you tube this morning and remembered some of the videos i had made doing covers and various things. So here they are two guitar cover videos. Both where recorded using guitar rig 4 through a behringer fca2002 interface.

The frist song is YYZ by Rush, note the black object on the top of the fretboard is a phone camera :L

And the second song is panama by Van Halen :L (few mistakes im afraid )

Becky Farr

Becky Farr

Its fair to say this was by far the biggest project i had undertaken so far, little did i realise this at the start. It took around 6 sessions in the mounts of may and june, with me ending up finishing the mixes on my birthday!

I met Becky on gumtree after finding an advert looking for a producer. It was a bold move but i asked if i could fit the bill and provide my services for free. She was more then interested to work with me. It was clear from the moment go that the music was not in my style of work and i would need to adapt my skills to fit. 

She arrived with handfull of ideas and pages of lyrics notated against the strangest form of sheet music i had ever seen. We recorded the basic demos in the first session with just a piano and vocal mic to capture the scratch track. It was clear that we were going to have to arrange the rest of the instrumentation from the basic piano chords. 

(2 x akg c414 spaced pair, + one on the bottom of the sound board, (ie buy her feet) sadly no recordings available for this )

The Arrangements

The One You Chose

The first song we worked on was a piece written for her brothers first dance at his wedding. So slow, drawn out, love song, ballad. (you get the idea). Being a big fan of strings (o yes the strings :) ) they where dotted around the the standard ballad song structure, with a bass guitar to reinforce the piano. Playing around with the midi keyboard i added some classical guitar to end of the song to tie it up. It was easily finished and scratched tracked in that session. 

One Half Of Me

The next song was more upbeat with a more alternative pop sound. The song was rather hard to arrange with many ideas being thrown around. Once again we used strings & bass, But added some basic drum loops and i played in some guitar parts. The song was not fully arranged to the recording sessions where the guitar parts switched from electric to acoustic.

Canvas

This was the second song to be arranged completely, and we spent much time trying out different instruments and sounds. There was a great deal of experimentation with synthesisers and other ambient sounds which didn't really fit. At the time i remember listening to Michael Jackson's earth song  and hearing how the clean guitar and horn arrangements benefited such a epic song.  I tried adding some basic horn arrangements which worked wonders and made the song really stand out. 

Free

This song is rather odd. It was left to the last minute and wasent really worked on til we had recorded the other 3 songs. Never the less it was a clear creative process to add the instrumentation. The Tremolo guitar heard on the track was actually an accident but sounded so creepy it was left in the mix. The massive reverb used on the drums just added to the ambient feel on the song.

The Recording

The main element to recoding was the piano and it was 1 of only 3 acoustic instruments on the Ep. A baby grand Yamaha piano was used for the recordings in the universities center of performing arts. For the recording i used a pair of Akg c414s in a spaced arrangement 2 feet from the piano. (Note i do have a picture of this but need to locate it :S ) Being an old squash court the room was quite lively. Sadly there was quite a lot of pedal noise located in the recording. In the future im going to try using pencil condensors very close to the sound board. The piano recording was rather quite due to the interfaces i had to use (some lambada one) It seemed to have very little pre amp gain and could not boost the signal to even -20db. (nothing compression cant sort ;) 

The vocals gave me a fair bit of trouble due to tonal nature of the singers voice. I tried using a total of 4 microphones in various postions to experiment. On the recording the mic used was a Neumman U87 with some reinforcement from a Shure SM7B. I adopted a mic technique i use all the time now. I stick the u87 in Omni and turn the capsule to 60 degrees. So that the mic is just as sensitive but the blast from the singer is spread along the diaphragm. I also tried using a earthworks Er30 placed head on and a c414 over the shoulder of the singer. The earthworks worked surprisingly well but lacked tonal character being flat response microphones and also where fairly sibilance free. The c414 over the shoulder dident have enough direct sound in the mix and would probably  have worked better in a lively room.

(picture to follow)

Nothing too special on the acoustic guitar, pointed a akg c414 in figure of 8 at the 12th fret and hoped for the best. It worked but sounded quite trebly. The reason for the figure of 8 was my breathing would be directed at the microphones dead spot.

Mixing

Being vastly logic instruments and samples there was very little nasty`s too sort out. The vocals took a fair while to prefect and needed an fair amount of compression and EQ. Theres is some automated reverb in Free between pre chorus and chorus.

Conclusion

Overall working with Becky was a great experience. Being a classically trained grade 8 pianist i felt her arrangements added that special element to the songs that many pop singer songwriters miss. I also wish i had used more of beckys voice as she could pull of harmonies well and i always like the sound of vocal polyphony.