Month: November 2014

James Woodliffe had his turn in front of the mic this week, as we were recording the vocal track for the mix. Ross was in charge of Pro Tools, Adam was on the desk, and Alex and James Glenister acted as the engineers, setting up the mics we would be using this session. All of these had pop filters, to reduce the pop produced from any plosives. The mics were as follows:

• A Shure SM57. Another versatile mic. Its frequency response is quite similar to that of the SM58, a very affordable mic, which has a boost in the high mids where vocals tend to lie. There are no other settings to list.
• An Electro-Voice RE-20. This is a large diaphragm dynamic mic, and interestingly enough has no proximity effect, so is very popular for vocalists and broadcasters as a result. Alex and James G set this up with the Low Shelf setting switched on.
• An AKG 414. A staple mic, very versatile and good for vocals. We had previously used this mic for James’ guide vocals, which sounded very good, if a little rough, though that could be excused somewhat. This was set up in cardioid, with a bass roll off enabled at 160Hz.

With the desk zeroed and the Pro Tools session set up, we prepared to test the mics. Luke told us that finding the best mic for a singer’s voice was of the utmost importance for both the outcome of the track, and for the performance of the singer. Taking the time to find the best mic for a singer’s voice lets them know that you care about their performance, which can help to set them at ease.

The SM57 was the first mic we tested. On its own, the mic sounded very good. The sibilance in James’ voice was strong, and it sounded full and well rounded. The next mic was the RE-20, which has a very flat frequency response. This was very uniform and clear, but I felt like it lacked some of the strength that the SM57 had. We then tested the 414, which sounded alright, but I felt it was rather airy, and the appearance of a proximity effect was noticeable. This mic did possess more strength and punch than the RE–20 though. After these tests, I thought that the SM57 was the better mic, however, we then had James sing over the rest of the track, and there were a few points where the SM57 produced some overly high tones, which cut through the rest of the song. We eventually came to the conclusion that the flat, clear response of the RE-20 was the best fit, and so chose this mic to record with.

The first take was very good, though there were some slip ups, namely with the second chorus and the final vocal section at the end of the song. These were both fixed easily with the use of a pre-roll of 8 seconds. We re-recorded the second chorus twice and then finished off the session by redoing the final vocals.

I thought that the final line before the solo was a little quiet, and so may consider boosting that section in my individual mix. The guitar was also at odds with the vocals sometimes, so I think I’ll tone those down too. Overall though, the session was a great success, and the vocals sounded excellent.

We successfully recorded the guitar tracks this week, which Adam provided. He went into the live room to set up his guitar and sort out the amp to get the sound he wanted. Callum was on the desk and James Glenister was in charge of Pro Tools. I had had roles in the last two recording sessions, so for this I let others have a go. Alex and Clem were the engineers, and they helped mic up Adam in the live lounge. The mics we used are listed below:

• An sE2200aii Room Mic. We set this up far away from Adam and his amp, and set its polar pattern to Omni-directional, in order to better capture the sound of the room. We also turned on the Low Shelf EQ on the mic, helping to eliminate some of the unwanted lower frequencies.

• Two Shure SM57s, both positioned facing the amp. Alex and Clem positioned one right in the centre of the speaker, and the other on the edge. This makes for a different pickup. Playback mic at the edge sounded fuzzier, while the centre mic sounded crisp and clearer. As the mics are so close together they are in phase, so we reversed the phase on one of the mics and got a good balance of the two sounds.

Callum and James zeroed the desk and set up the necessary tracks in Pro Tools, and then we went into the live room to look at and photograph the mic set up. We disagreed somewhat with Adam’s choice of amp sound, but after some tweaking we arrived at something we all felt sounded decent. The room mic sounded nice when levelled, but the SM57s picked up quite a bit of unwanted low frequencies, so we used the Shelving EQ found on the desk to remove the frequencies below 50Hz.

The actual takes were done rather quickly. I was placed in charge of Talkback, and so relayed what Luke, and those on the desk and PC wanted done back to Adam.

We had some issues with a section of the song where a guitar fill is done, which we felt was putting Adam off his next chord slightly, so James Woodliffe went and talked to him and we agreed to drop it when recording the double-track. We had decided to double-track the guitar and vocals before, in order to give us more freedom when mixing the song individually. We also needed to re-record a couple of sections where Adam messed up slightly, but re-recording went smoothly, and we gave him plenty of time to get back into the song with 8 seconds of pre-roll.

This week I was in charge of Pro Tools, and we were recording bass. It’s rather easy to mess up bass, so Luke told us to try and maintain a balanced level across all notes of the fret board. Compression is also used a lot when tracking bass, as it can help steady the dynamic nature of the instrument. We ended up using three channels for bass recording; two mics, and also DI. The mics we used were:

• An AKG 414B, a very dynamic condenser mic. We had previously used this to track drum overheads, but it produced a decent range of tone, capturing more mids than the other mic we used.
• An Audix D112, the same mic we used to record the kick drum when drum tracking. Designed to record low frequencies, this captured them perfectly, but lost some of the mids that the bass produced.

James Woodliffe and Callum set up the mics, I was taking care of Pro Tools, and Olie was on the desk. I began by opening up the previous weeks work, and added three new channels in the mix window, two for the mics, and one for the DI. I then colour coded these, and after the mics were installed, Olie had me give the AKG 48V, as it is a condenser mic and requires external power. He was having trouble reaching the far knobs, due to his leg. The DI box was then plugged in, the bass connected to the box, and then the box connected to both the amp in the dead room, as well as the connection in the control room. At this point I knew which channels we would be using, so allocated the tracks I had made their relevant channels and adjusted levels for Pro Tools.

We played with the outputs from both mics, and in the end couldn’t decide which one we preferred unanimously, so stuck with both and said people could choose themselves when they came to individual mixes.

When we were ready to record I armed all the tracks, but the first time it didn’t record Ross at all. This was due to “Input Monitoring” not being clicked, so after I did that everything worked smoothly. The first recording Ross messed up the timing at the solo section, so we re-recorded just that section, giving him a pre-roll of three seconds. There was also a slight error in the final verse, where I had stopped the recording abruptly, where I should have let the bass ring out until it stopped naturally, and then stopped recording. We fixed both of these with the final recording, and finished up with plenty of time to spare.

When discussing which song we would choose to cover, we wanted to find a song that was nice and simple in its structure, which would enable us to mess around with it a bit more, and do some interesting things with other instruments. For these reasons, we settled on ” Jenny Don’t Be Hasty”, by Paolo Nutini.

Our first week of instrument recording began with drum tracking, and my role this week was providing guide guitar to help keep Clementine in time with the song. James Woodliffe provided guide vocals, Olie Michalitsianos took care of all things Pro Tools, and James Glenister was on the desk itself. We began with Luke going over the multitude of microphones he had brought to the session. Most were held inside a drum mic set that Media Loans provides, which contains all the mics necessary for drum tracking. Luke also brought some others that we switched out with some of the drum set mics. The set up is as follows:

• For the right and left overhead; two AKG 414s used in cardioid. These were placed above the drum kit, both equidistant from the snare drum, to ensure that sound from both left and right was balanced.
• For the top of the snare drum we used a Shure SM57. This has a frequency response that favours electric guitars and snares, and so can be used in both snare top and snare bottom if necessary. It has a cardioid polar pattern, and is quite selective, so won’t pick up the hi-hat that sits right next to the snare.
• For the bottom of the snare drum an Audix i5 was used, for pretty much the same reasons as above with the SM57. It has a good frequency response, won’t pick up the hi-hat, and both microphones can handle an awful lot of SPLs, a must when recording this close to drums.
• For the kick drum we used an Audix D112. This mic is basically designed for kick drums, with a frequency response perfect for low end.
• For the toms [rack and floor], we used Audix D2s. They are nice and discrete, and come with clips to attach to the toms. They are also quite selective as their polar pattern is super cardioid, and so they don’t pick up much sound other than the toms they are on.

Ross and Adam acted as sound tech this week, and I assisted them in setting up the drum set as Clem wanted it, and then mounting microphones in their designated places. I set up my guitar, and Ross miced up the amp with another SM57. James used an AKG 414 for his vocals, as it is a nice bright mic that picks up a lot of high end.

During this time, Olie set up the Pro Tools session using the 24in24out template. He then labelled all the channels we were using for drums, guide vocals and guitar, and also added a click track that we eventually deleted, as it threw us off. He then colour coded the channels, and also made sure to pan the overhead channels left and right respectively, in the mix window.

James, on the desk, had the task of setting levels for all the inputs, so for each input adjusted gain, and then set levels in Pro Tools, working with Olie for this. At one point, we reversed the phase on one of the snare mics, which made it sound a lot better, as the two mics had previously been out of phase with one another.

Actually recording the track didn’t take long at all, and I think we nailed it on the second or third try.