Multitrack Blog

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.