Studio-2-U (Business proposal)

Mixing

Mixing the track

The recording and editing process

The recording and editing process

I started tracking with the guide track, I used a minimalist microphone setup, compromising only on a Rode NT2A for vocals, placed around 6 to 10 inches in front of the artists mouth, raised up to 2 inches pointing down slightly, I ran this into channel 12 of the Audient.  I also took the unbalanced output directly from her electro-acoustic guitar unplugged it into the tie-line the studio wall box, when is arrived in Patchbay, I placed the unbalanced signal into an external D I box.  From there used a female XLR to Male TRS to patch the signal into the MPA tube preamplifier, where I applied +48 V phantom power, an impedance boost, and a high-pass filter at hundred and 120Hz.  Taking the MPA output, I patched it into the VLA analog compressor and applied some gentle compression with the ratio of 3 to 1 and high threshold. I used a moderate attack and slow release as this was just to even out the performance. From here they patched the signal into channel 13 of the Audient ASP 4816

Next, I tracked the drum, for this I used a 8 mic setup including kick snare two tom miss, a Glynn johns and an ORTF stereo mic setup.  I chose this setup as it would give me independent controls of key functions of the kit whilst still giving me natural sounding overheads with a very wide stereo spread, making it sound like you were immersed in the kit. I used the audio technical 4750 with the dynamic head as I wanted more bass response and less high end on the kick and placed it in the centre about an inch from the skin.  For the snare I went for a different possession than most which on the day sounded very good, however in the edit I noticed I had severe bleed from the kick.  I placed an SM57 at the side of the snare, 4” from the drum itself, raised about 6” then pointed at the centre of the skin, giving me a very crisp sound from the snare, less punchy than usual.  on both toms, I used a clip on Samson  QTom pointed at the rims, this was just to pick up the attack of the toms as I was planning to use the overheads for the main body and tone.  



Glynn Johns / ORFT

Following this I got Matt to track the bass, with an extremely simple setup, plug the bass jack into the instrument  jack slot on the Focusrite ISA pre, from there I applied a gentle EQ and Compression to a get a nice clean tone with smooth dynamics on the way in to speed up the mixing process later. On hearing the track as it sounds now I am considering re-amping the bass with a light bit of distortion or I may just use sans amp in protocols…

In the following session, Jonny came down to the studio to track acoustic guitar.  I placed an ORFT stereo pair in the room covering the guitar and getting a large proportion of the room noise too.  I also took a DI output from the guitar and patched it into to the MPA tube preamplifier a high pass filter at hundred and 80Hz.  I then patched into the VLA analog compressor and applied some gentle compression with the ratio of 2 to 1 and high threshold. I used a moderate attack and slow release as this was just to even out the performance.

When my string quartette let me down I decided to use MIDI strings just I had planned to with the piano, I found a score online and the worked out an arrangement on my piano at home, before recording inputting it into ProTools via the USB keyboard. I used air instruments, the default set that comes with ProTools to find a simple string sound, then exported the part as a stereo wave file before importing it back into the session and onto the desk.     

Next, I tracked the Vocals, I used a basic microphone setup of only on a Rode NT2A, placed around 6 to 10 inches in front of Shannon’s mouth, raised up to 2 inches pointing down slightly, I patched the signal into the MPA tube preamplifier, where I applied +48 V phantom power, an impedance boost, and a high-pass filter at hundred and 120Hz.  Taking the MPA output, I patched it into the VLA analog compressor and applied some compression with the ratio of 2 to 1 and high threshold. I used a moderate attack and moderate release as this was just to even out the performance.

Pre-Production

Pre-Production

So coming into the AUDIO 4400 Music production assignment, i was told to go out and find a band, and record one of their songs, As much as I don’t doubt my social skills, I decided to take a slightly different approach than the standard “Hey, I'm in uni and need a band, want some free studio time?” that seemed to be going round the class.

I found a young upcoming artist called Shannon Gillespie and asked her if she would like me to produce a professional demo track for her to help her advance in her career, she naturally said yes, I mean what young singer-songwriter would turn down a free professional track, in this crowded market young musicians need something to make them stand out. 

However, this left me a situation where I had a talent for the vocals, however, no track for the vocals to be sung to… ‘Perfect’ i thought to myself!  Having had the pleasure of working with musicians before I knew how if I booked a band to record the track, they would want to have an input to the mix and this could lead to arguments both inside the band with each member wanting their part to be the loudest and externally with disputes about the direction and flow of the track from the band to the producer (me).  So to avoid conflict I booked separate session musicians for different parts and recorded them on different days with the help of my assistant Sam Cooknell.

After a few chats to Shannon discussing her influences and aspirations, we mutually decided on a cover of a song we both knew well, Christina Perri's a thousand years.  Here is a link to Shannon performing this song at an audition last year.

https://www.facebook.com/shannonthirteen/videos/1620546138158003

After choosing the song, the first major decision I had to make was whether to record to a click track or not. The major benefits of recording to a click are that multi-tracking become significantly easier as all musicians can record at different stages of the process to the same source.  This actually makes the drum sound tighter as in time drums are already half the battle.  However, the soft and gentle flow of the track, with singer/guitar player using a lot of rubato to accentuate different phrases from the original and put her own spin on the song, combined with the musicians selected to track the remaining instruments (drums, bass, strings) were very talented musicians with the high-level professionalism and the ability. forced me to find a compromise.  I decided to go down the route of creating a guide track; this entailed the artist singing and playing at the same time to a metronome set at 138 bpm in 6/8, without any backing music.  This approach lets Shannon put around twist on the song elongating certain phrases unlike In the original however it still remains at constant beat and in time.

Next came the booking of  all of my session musicians, which is much so much easier than trying to book a band to turn up on time,  I simply rang around a group of musicians I know and have worked with in the past.   Below is the table I used to organise my sessions and keep track of when I had musicians in the studio 

As those of you who saw my session plan may have noticed, this is different to the timeline I outlined in my first submission, this is due to musicians letting me down on multiple occasions.

Wish me luck on tracking!