Production Log
Recording Session 1
Thursday 10th October - Drum Recording
Today I brought both Scott and Stefan into the studios to record the drums. We had a discussion first of all about how the kit would be set up, gain staging was completed then we got started. Each microphone was set and ready for the artist arriving and the session was created with the implementation of the guide track that Scott requested be played through his headphones as he played. I did also include a click at the 150 tempo for the track, however Scott asked if I could switch it off during recording as it was less help as initially expected. The guide track would work much better for him to remain on time during takes. I had initially planned to record each element within the project through the outboard units immediately, however I made the decision capture the recordings unprocessed and planned to process them on seperate studio bookings, this would provide much larger scale of time to work on mixing. This was mainly due to the lack of time I had to record the artists as their availability was strictly limited to specific dates and this plan was much better in the long run regarding the completion of the project.
Thursday 17th October - Drum comping
I booked time in the studio booths to spend comping the drum recordings taken last week. There were a couple of instances where elastic audio was used to tighten the drums up and ensure the recordings were all on time and sounding crisp. This was accomplished well and prepared the session for the guitar and bass on Friday 18th October.
Recording Session 2
Friday 18th October - Guitar and Bass recordings
Due to the limited availability of both artists, I booked SSL1 for the 12 string acoustic guitar recordings and made sure to leave enough time to capture some bass takes. In the process of recording guitar, rather than recording it through the original plan with a spaced pair of two AKG C414 and given that the project aim is to replicate a live performance, I made the decision to plug the 12 string acoustic directly into a DI Box and into the session. Several takes from Stefan were captured and gave me plenty of material to compile together for the final mix. After each guitar take was recorded, I plugged the Bass guitar into a Thermonic Culture Rooster Preamp and routed to the session having it be the DI in order for Scott to play along to the track in the studio with the session in front of him made him feel much more comfortable in performing. Three takes were more than enough to take forward to the mixing stage.
Wednesday 23rd October - Guitar and Bass comping
I spent time at home working on the track ensuring that everything was sounding neat, crisp and ready to bring to the next recording session. There were a few instances the guitar track required elastic audio to blend better with the rest of the elements within the project. The next stage will be the process of recording electric guitar and vocals if we have the time, taking place on Friday the 1st of November.
Recording Session 2
Friday 1st November - Electric Guitar (rhythm)
Time was spent today recording several takes of electric guitar. The first 3 takes were with an AKG C414 placed directly in front and around half a meter away from the diaphragm of a Fender Hotrod Deville amplifier with a Shure SM-57 placed facing slightly off axis more towards the edge of the amp. The next takes were with both microphones swapping positions from their previous states with the C414 brought about another quarter of a meter back from the amp to capture some natural reverberation. The Fender Hotrod amp was used with a Treble setting of 8, a Bass setting of 3 and the Mid setting was at 5. During the recording session, composer and rhythm guitarist Stefan requested that distortion be added to the guitar for the final section of the track and bussed through the headphones, so I chose to overdrive the gains and lower the faders on the desk to prevent peaking on the session. This was at first an experimental process, so that the performer would be able hear how the overdrive distortion would sound along with the rest of the track. However the recording sounded great and worked perfect for it's purpose.
For the second half of the day, I requested Stefan return to the studio and plug the guitar through the DI on The Rooster. After adjusting the settings to give the guitar more attitude and changing input and output levels appropriately, a few takes were captured with as clean a sound as possible. Seperate tracks were created for each of these processes so that the cleaner recordings could potentially be manipulated to blend with the track after being patched through a Culture Vulture at the mixing stage, as this will most likely be the preferred method to reach the desired distortion. With some extra studio time to play with, we managed to capture a colourful melody addition to the session before the recording session ended, which I plan to place at several sections to match up with the melodica recordings within the session to add even more character to the track. More than enough material was captured in today's session to take with me to the mixing stage starting next week on the 8th of November.
Recording with the microphones facing the amp
Session photos during the recording of the clean DI guitar
Saturday 2nd November - Electric Guitar comping
I spent several hours comping the captures of electric guitar and making an informed decision on which takes were to be used in the track. Out of all recordings I decided to go along with the DI recording, giving me plenty of options to work with at the mixing stage. I have deactivated the amp recordings and hidden them from the session for now however once the rest of the mix has been brought together. This way, should I desire to reintegrate them into the track once all other elements are introduced and things begin to fall into place, I have the option to do so. The melody recordings were placed across the session at desired sections where the melodica recordings were to be added.
Thursday 7th November - Mixing Session 1
Today I spent my time mixing with the outboard equipment on the SSL desk, starting with the bass track. This was patched through an Emperical Labs Distressor and printed back into a newly created track within the session with a distortion setting of 2 and a ratio of 10:1 for a harder compression whilst maintaining smooth transients. A high pass filter was used to remove the undesirable low end rumble from the recording and a cut of -2db at around 1.5khz to leave extra room for the higher frequency elements within the track.
After listening to the comparisons of both bass tracks when the session had ended I decided that I would require to put the bass track printed back through the distressor again to add some extra distortion rather than going with my initial plans to patch through the Culture Vulture as the dirtortion provided by the CV would be much too intense for the tracks genre.
Emperical Labs Distressor processing the bass track.
EQ being applied through the SSL console.
Thursday 14th November - Mixing Session 2
Today I booked the studio with the intentions of applying compression and EQ to each of the drum recordings. All of these were patched from the ProTools session, routed into the desk and then patched through the Emperical Labs Distressor due to the wide range of parameters available on the unit, EQ applied and then reprinted back into ProTools. Each track were mixed as follows;
KickIn
The high filter knob on the desk was turned all the way down to 1.5khz to remove all unwanted bleed from the other drums in the recording, and a low filter with a boost of 3db at around 100hz to boost the boom in the kick. This was also patched through the distress with a 2:1 ratio for light compression and extra gain on the output setting to ensure no level was lost in the process.
KickOut
The EQ on the KickOut was similar to the KickIn in that it mostly had settings to assist in the removal of bleed from the other drums, however one notable difference in parameters was that a boost of around 2db at 200hz was applied to enhance the sound of the beater hitting off the drum within this recording. I decided to use the Distressor ratio set at 1:1 to keep as authentic a sound as possible to blend with the compressed mix of the KickIn.
SnareTop & SnareBottom
A high pass filter was applied to remove the bleed from the kick drum and leave plenty room for the bass. A boost of around 3db at 5khz was added to enhance the snap from the snare whilst cutting -2db with a short bell curve EQ at the range of around 250khz to remove the unwanted 'boxiness' sound from the drum. A slow attack and ratio of 2:1 was set on the Distressor for a light compression with the input at 8 and output at 4 to add character to the drum. The exact same settings were placed on the SnareBottom track given that the microphone choice of a Sontronic pair and their placement was beneficial in the capture of the desired sound.
RackTom
A high pass filter was placed on the track at 80hz to remove as much kick bleed as possible whilst retaining the consistency of the low end from the tom hits. High end of the drum was boosted with a sharp bell at around 1.5khz to enhance the impact of the hits on the drum. The distressor was set with British Mode 1:1 to give the drum an aggressive sound due to there only being a few hits on the drum, bringing out the hits more and preventing then from getting lost in the mix.
FloorTom
For the FloorTom track, a boost at around 600hz to enhance the floor tom and a high filter turned all the way down to remove as much bleed from the ride, hats and cymbals as possible. Since there was only one or two hits on the floor tom, most of the clip was cut so these were the only parameters required for the track. Very strong compression with a fast attack was applied through the distressor with a ratio of 20:1.
OHL & OHR (both OH set with same parameters)
The overheads were to be used as the primary source of high end frequency content, therefore a high pass filter was placed at 120hz to prevent conflict and allow the kick tracks to adhere to their intentions. A large bell curve was used to boost the hats at around 5khz by 1db and British mode was once again utilised and set with a attack of 1 on the Distressor to add fast acting and aggressive compression to the cymbal hits and the main fader on the tracks were lowered to provide a naturally balanced blend of the drum mix.
RoomMic Mixing (to enhance high end dynamics)
After working on the rest of the drum mix, the RoomMic was turned down significantly to avoid having the dynamics and reverberation of the room conflict with the clarity of the drum mix. However, EQ was applied in to enhance the high end further alongside the OH tracks. A high filter boost of around 2.5db to enhance the high end and airiness of the kit was applied and a cut of around -4db at 1khz was required to remove the undesirable ringing noise from the ride. British mode was also used on the Distressor for this recording for an aggressive compression.
With an hour to spare I decided to redo the bass track to add the extra distortion planned after the previous mixing session, as well as cutting some of the energy at around 80hz to prevent the bass and kick tracks from competing with one another for room in the mix. For the bass redo, I cut frequency range by 3db at around 80hz to remove some conflicting with kick drum. With the British mode on the Distressor for the new bass track print, a satisfactory distortion was added into the recording and turned out much fitter for the purpose of the genre and the transient slaps were much cleaner due to the removal of the kick and bass confliction.
Overall the drum mix turned out well, however after this mixing session I made the creative decision that I wanted to add to my initial plans and create both a 'Studio Mix' as well as the 'Live Recreation' mix. This was mostly due to the fact that I wanted to utilise each process that was undertaken on the day, such as using the room mic to provide that sense of depth and space.
Recording Session 3
Friday 15th November - Melodica and Vocal recordings
Today I booked the audient with the intentions of recording both the vocals and melodica tracks. Using a Shure SM57 for the melodica, with it being pointed directly at the melodica speaker placed between the legs of the performer. Since this was quite an obscure instrument that I had no experience in recording before, I positioned the microphone by wearing the headphones in the live room whilst having Stefan play to ensure the desired sonic were being picked up. Several takes were captured to get this just right to match well with the melody track of the electric guitar.
For the lead vocals, a Neumann U87 with a cardioid setting, a pop shield and a reflection filter was used with the microphone placed facing as close to the corner of the room as possible without making the performer uncomfortable. This was the same process for the backing vocals, given how successful the sound captured for the original lead vocal track turned out. At several sections of the recording, Stefan had trouble singing the lyrics in the manner he desired, so I had him record as many takes as he liked on numerous playlists within the session, with different accents to get it right, providing me with a substantial amount of material to take to the final mixing stages of the project.
The process of recording the Melodica.
The vocal recording part of the session.
Friday 22nd November - Mixing Session 3
The goal for todays session was to have all guitar elements compressed and appropriate EQ applied. For the melody guitar I decided to patch it through the TC Electronics M300 rather than the Eclipse due to their being more relevant presets for the recordings purpose. The acoustic guitar had some harshness at the Low Mid frequency range so EQ with a medium sized bell curve at around 250hz was applied to remedy this. Lead guitar had a 2db boost at 900Hz to enhance the palm mutes as well as a high pass filter at around 70hz to remove any rumble and leave extra space for the more important elements within that range such as the kick and bass balanced to blend within the mix.
Thursday 28th November - Mixing Session 4
During todays session, lead vocals were patched through the MC77 and crushed with all ratios pressed down. The print was recorded, the fader turned down and layered with the original lead vocal track to create a parallel compression effect. Original lead vocals was patched through M2000 and 'subtle slap' preset was used to create a stereo width delay track to layer alongside the other tracks already mixed, however in the end, this particular print was not ideal for the final mix although it was useful to learn the sounds of the presets for the later session I had planned to route each track through for the 'Live Replication' version. After the parallel compression tracks were layered together, EQ was then used to boost the body of the vocals as i felt the initial mixed tracks were slightly too bright. Some EQ was also applied to remove some instances of sibilance within the vocals. After these changes were added the track was patched through the MC77 once again to reprint the new parameters with some extra compression to add more character to the original lead vocal track. In the evening I attended a live event for another project and brought the Zoom H1-N binaural microphone with me and captured several recordings of the crowd before and after sets from the performers and these were to be implemented within the live replication mix on the final day of the mixing process.
Friday 13th December - Final Mixing session (Live Replication)
Today was the final mixing session and the goals and aims were route the entire mix (elements of the studio mix and fresh recordings blended together for as authentic a final product as possible) through an M3000 reverb unit and toggle through the presets to decide when an accurate representation of a venue was portrayed. To accomplish this, each track I desired to print into the session was patched into the outboard unit, then rerouted back into the FX sends mix bus into the HDX inputs, this way was more beneficial to the intended purpose as I had easy control over the wet and dry levels on the desk. The binaural recordings of the audience from the live event I attended on the 28th were then implemented and placed appropriately through the mix to provide an even more immersive sense of a live performance and overall the final product worked exceptionally well. After both the studio mix and live replication mix were complete, I included a limiter and used the YouLean Loudness Meter 2 plugin to ensure all loudness levels met industry standards for streaming sites such as YouTube, iTunes and Spotify. The track has now been released by the artist via Distrokid and will hit the streaming apps within the next 7 days. Next step is to edit and produce a video for the track to be released on YouTube.
The 'Studio version' track has since been released on Distrokid.
Reflections
My overview for this project is that it was incredibly enjoyable from start to finish. Working solely through the mixing desk for all processing provided me with much easier control over each parameter applied. The audio return when patching recordings from the ProTools session through the outboard units are greatly superior to that of previous projects where I have relied entirely on working with plugins, and the only time plugins were required for these sessions was at the final stage when mastering for release. I do have slight regrets in not capturing an unplugged recording of the acoustic guitar for the mix as this could have given me much more opportunities for manipulation of the tracks overall finished sound and the final vocal track could have turned out better with more experience in mixing vocal tracks, however I am very happy with the final product as were the artists who have even went on to release the track on streaming apps and giving me producer credits. Gaining experience in recording new instruments such as the melodica prompted me to do some extensive research to come up with a plan on how to capture a great recording, but in the end I made my own creative decisions within the space and positioned the spot mic appropriately to reach the desired sound true to the tracks genre. I believe my original plan was executed to an adequate extent with the added bonus of being able to produce an extra 'Studio version'. For my next studio project, I would like to make an attempt to go a step further and do the final master though outboard gear instead of plugins.
A Cat And Backflip - Lost (Studio Version)
A Cat And Backflip - Lost (Live Replication) *Best experienced through headphones*