Track 1 (Guitar-based band production)
During the first session on this track, we brought in the entire band at once, as this would be the best way to get a performance from them, being able to react to each other’s parts as they would if they were onstage. The studio had a big enough live room to make this possible. We set up the drums at the back of the live room, with plenty of separation between them and the guitars. Having them apart like this also made it easier to cable manage, as the drums and guitars could be sent into different wall boxes. The vocalist was in the control room with us, which meant we had to be careful with feedback from the monitors, which thankfully wasn’t too big of an issue for us. All of the guitars were sent through DIs and into GoldMike Preamps to be reamped later on so we could get even better isolation between parts.
Unfortunately, in all our planning for this initial session, we neglected to record to a click, which made coming back to the track and editing it much more complicated. After struggling with this for a while, we decided on re-recording all of the parts again to a click. Instead of recording the whole band together, the second session was spent entirely focused on recording drums to a tempo-synced demo the band had put together. We started with the drums as they were crucial to get right for the rest of the band.
After the drums, we overdubbed the guitars and vocals. For this session, we used an SM7B for the vocals, and sent the guitars through the GoldMike again. We still weren’t too happy with the results from this session, so we organized a dedicated session with only Mike, the lead vocalist, to really get the performance nailed down. Thankfully, Finlay, who was in our studio group, had lots of great experience with vocals and was able to coach Mike through the entire process, verse by verse, focusing on each word to ensure that the performance was as good as it could possibly be. This session was also a chance to try out lots of different mics and techniques. We ended up using a mid/side pair alongside a room mic for a sense of space.
Recording the bass part was comparatively much easier as the Bassist, Arthur, was in our studio group, which gave us lots of opportunities to get it done. After this, we went back and had a session dedicated to recording all the guitars. This time we set up all 3 guitarists in the live room at once, once again through a DI and into the GoldMike for reamping later. This got us the best results and was the final piece we needed to put the entire track together.
Once we had everything together, we were able to begin the reamping process. For the guitars, we used both Octava MK-319s and Shure SM-57s, and used Fender Twin Reverbs and Roland Jazz Choruses, as this would give us options to choose from while making our final mixes. The Bass Amp we used was very useful, as it had a dedicated subwoofer that could have a dedicated mic to capture some extra low end.
During the recording process, we fed each of the parts through a compressor, which made the mixing process easier when the time came. When mixing the vocals, I leaned heavily on reverb and delay for most of the song before turning the plugins off at the end to add additional impact. The plugins I used for this were all stock logic ones. I started with Space Designer, which has a reverse reverb function. When combined with a delay, it brings an ethereal, dreamlike quality to the mix.
While recording drums, we set up close mics for the kick, snare, toms, hats and ride, I opted to remove the hats and ride tracks from the mix, as there was lots of bleed from other parts of the kit that made the overall mix sound much less clear, and the overheads did a good job of picking up the cymbals, so not much of value was lost here. The rest of the drums were pretty simple. I added an EQ to each channel and routed them to a bus where I would add reverb. I also decided to use an Overdrive plugin here to add a little bit of saturation and dirt to the mix.
Mixing the guitars was a time consuming process, as there were 5 different parts that all needed to come across in the mix. I wanted Guitar 1 to come across as the biggest in the mix, as it plays all the way through and provides the song with an element of consistency. I used most of the parts we recorded for this, including the DI, which I added lots of overdrive to, creating a contrast to the rest of the channels, which were left mostly clean. For the guitar’s room mics, I added a tremolo to each one so that it would sound like the amp is moving left and right, which adds to the dreamlike consistency of the vocals. I also fed some of the guitar into a new bus with reverb and fuzz, which creates a very distinct sound.
Track 2 Live in the studio (jazz/folk ensemble)
Recording for the jazz mix was much simpler than the rock track, in part due to having a much smaller band to work with, comprising of just a piano, drums and a bass. For the drums, we used mics on the kick in and out, snare top and bottom as well as the rack tom, floor tom, hi hats and overheads. For the piano we used a pair of Neumann KM-184s in stereo and a Warm Audio 251 as a mono mic. The bass was captured using a AKG 414 and a Schoeps CMC5U.
All of the production on this track was done entirely on the desk and the rack-mounted gear in the studio, only using Logic for playback and recording the final mix. The mix was very simple, mostly just using the parametric EQ on the desk and the Drawmer DL241 and 1968 Compressors.
Track 3 Remix track
This track gave me a lot of freedom to create the music I wanted. My idea here was to make use of my Yamaha TG-33. My main inspiration was Angelo Badalamenti’s score from Twin Peaks (1989), particularly the Main Theme and Laura Palmer’s Theme. These tracks relied heavily on FM synthesizers, which were advanced for the time, but now create a dated, yet nostalgic feeling.
I also included my own guitar and bass playing on the track, to make it more expressive and less rigid, as all of the synth parts were programmed rather than played on a keyboard. The bass and guitar were recorded through a DI and then I used Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig plugin to get the tone I wanted. I also added a chorus effect on the guitar to help it stand out a bit more.
