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.