CRD – Technical Skills

Technical Skills

Microphone Placement

The mic mic choice and placement was key to the overall sound of the song. We both agreed with the limited time it would be sensible to use a lot of mics. If anything went wrong we had a back-up. This decision proved invaluable when in the editing process it was discovered that we had not recorded a floor tom, even though one was set-up. By boosting the room mics and the overheads, we were able to replace the missing floor tom and EQ the track, so it was more prominent. This decision benefited the recording greatly as it put more guts back into the recording that had been lost in the editing process.

Using our notes on microphones, and their dynamic ranges we were able to make technical choices that influenced the sound of the recording. For example by using the vintage Beyer Dynamics C451E, we were able to get a sound similar to the classic rock recordings of the 70′s, the retro sound we were going for. When the track sounded too clean, we were able to add texture through the use of the overheads and the room mics.

Session Floor plan

During the recording planning it was decided that the band would play the main track live. We could have recorded each part separately, but because we had been to Troubadour and filmed the live gig. We knew that a lot of performance energy would be lost if we recorded them separately. Posing this problem to Steve he suggested that by re-amping, we would be able to record the band live as a group and still have clean audio. This would be achieved by using the Pro-tools plug in – Amp Farm which emulates various guitar amps and basses. We would then feed this sound back to the band to their headphones using headphone sends. This meant to all intensive purposes they were playing live. The only problem this left us with was the use of TDM hardware, which meant we were unable to mix guitar and bass in the Pro-tools suite. This was fine at the beginning of the editing process when we were dealing with the drum tracks, but more difficult when we started to mix the final track. Scheduling regular bookings in the recording studio eliminated this problem and we were able to mix largely without studio problems.

During this session we also recorded various harmonies of Mark, Spencer and Perin as well as re-recording both Spence’s Vocal as the original performance was for the instrument track and was only a guide vocal. Other tracks such as Mark’s guitar solo were relatively easy in set-up. Making reference copies and a full back-up of the session was so important to the final mix. As the editor and the cameraman needed to be aware of the changes to the mix. Regular backing up was performed on every session and eliminated wasting time looking for files. After the session, all the tracks were checked and double checked and a reference was taken of the inputs/output.

Amp Farm Enabled The Band To Play Together Live Without Audio Spill

Perin was Mic With A SM57

You can see use of the Egg mic and The Tremough Big Bottom A speaker in reverse, designed to pick up low frequencies.

Amp Farm Manual

The rough mixdown from the end of the session. Notice how the audio sounds very live and a little muddled.

Working With The Artists.One major challenge we faced, was diplomacy with the artists. After listening to the session bounce, it was decided that we needed to re-record several parts to make the song stronger. As producers it was our job to stop problems we could forsee that could not be fixed in the editing. Re-recording the new parts meant less worries in the editing process. The group and the band left the studio with a rough bounce to feedback with. It has to be noted though because of the academic context of the project, it was difficult to assert our roles when we wanted to do some re-takes. Using a mixture of diplomacy and  treating the band with some degree of care.