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Billy Brinkworth
Method 1 – Live Band
Pre Production (Rock band):
For our live recording, we worked with a band which contained drums, bass, lead guitar and rhythm guitar. The band recorded an original song in the genre of rock. The organisation around this was simple as one of the people in my group was in the band so it was a set group to work with. This also meant they did not need practice as they already new the song that we would record.
We made a list of mics that we wanted to use and how we wanted the band to be positioned in 113. Details can be seen below for the rock band recording.
We decided to use room 113 as it was a room we were all comfortable with using as we had used it previously in other sessions. It is also larger than some of the studios in the conservatoire which makes sense with recording the live project. We decided that the drums would be placed at the back of the room. This would make it easier to plug in all the XLRs that the drum kit would need. We put the bass in the centre/right of the room and the lead guitar next to the bass. This again made sense as it would mean they would have their own wall box to plug the XLRs into. The rhythm guitar was placed in centre/left section of the room. We did this because it meant that Nick (the lead guitarist) had space for his selection of effect pedals. When setting up we made a list of the channels to make sure there was no confusion when testing for sound in the control room. Talkback mics were added to ensure that the people in the control room could hear what the instrumentalists were saying and the other way round. This meant that we could have clear communication between takes.
Recording (Rock band):
For the recording we decided on the mics by either someone in the group having an opinion on what mic would work for the type of music that we were trying to record or simply being recommended by someone on the desk. We used two mics for the snare including two SM57s for snare top and snare side. On the toms we used C414s, and ribbon mics left and right for the overheads. For lead guitar we used a Halo Mic and SM57 and for rhythm guitar we used a SM57 and RE20. We used SM57s on both guitars as we felt that this would stand out better in the mix as it emphasizes the harsher, more aggressive frequencies that we need when recording a rock song. We D’Id the bass and used the Dr Sub mic as this helped bring the more lower frequencies out in the bass that we wanted. The mic had to be moved several times as it would not sound the way we felt was right. To improve this sound we moved the mic lower to the amp which helped the sound of the bass massively. We originally wanted to record vocals along with this live recording however, we faced a issues (too much bleed) so we decided to take out the vocals entirely.
Pre- Production (Jazz Band):
Previously in this project we recorded a jazz band. The band played a jazz cover of the song “Low” by Flo Rida. A member of our group found the band and sent the group a video and said that they were able to record.
Recording (Jazz Band):
The mics we used in this session for the kick in was a boundary mic, snare was an SM57, Toms were MD421s and the overheads were schoeps small diaphragm condensers. The mics for lead vocal were the JV V67 and backing vocal were two SM7Bs. For practicality, we simply DI’d the bass and keys. During the recording we noticed that they were not the most experienced musicians as some had very little practice playing their instrument. As a group we tried to support the band by giving simple feedback kindly to hope for a better outcome when recording. A more specific example would include the bassist never using a bass before. We gave her tips that could include not slapping the bass as her hand would tap the cabling creating a harsh sound in the recording.
For the mixing part we simply balanced the levels of each session.
Project management (Both):
We originally recorded the first jazz group on the 15th of November and recorded the rock band on the 4th of December. We spent the first hour setting up for the rock band as we made sure to have an hour before the instrumentalists got there to set up microphones. We learnt this from recording the jazz band as they were in the room when we were setting up and this caused a few issues including too much noise. This ultimately meant that it took longer to set up because it was harder to communicate between members of our group. In both recordings I took the role of cable management. I was not the only one but feel as though in both recordings this was one of my main contributions. I was also involved in the setting up of the mics in both recordings. For the rock recording both me and Flyn were in the control room, in charge of recording and making sure everything sounded as it should. This was also important as this was good for my communication skills as this way of communicating was new to me.
Method 2 – Overdub Production
Pre-production:
For the overdub project we recorded a cover of “A little Prayer” by Aretha Franklin. For these recordings we intended on recording drums, guitar, bass and piano. This song was intended to be played by Christian’s band and with a separate pianist to play the piano part of the song. We made a brief plan on what needed to be recorded. We then stem-split the original song into separate tracks so that we could clearly hear how the different instruments should sound. There were some types of hand claps and thigh taps that they accompanied the snare with.
Recording:
For the recording process, we started with drums. We decided to do this for multiple different reasons including this should make it easier for the other instrumentalists to play along to and that Christian (the drummer) was in our group ready to record. We decided to use the Glyn John recording technique as it is a fast way of setting up mics for a drum kit. We also chose to record in the Glyn John style as this would fit the sound of the Aretha Franklin song as this was a popular way of recording Motown drums in the 60s. For the kick in we used the Audix d6 and for the kick out we used the DM1B. We used a Schoeps Omni above the snare and then another by the floor tom. For hand claps and thigh taps we used the overhead mics. When we recorded the drums, we played them next to the stem split song and it fit both in how the drums were played and sounded due to the recording. We simply Di’d the bass in the control room. We thought this would save time and would be easier to communicate with the bassist. This also meant that he could listen to his recordings in the room with us and hear what he had to change in the recording. We wanted to do this recording in an efficient way as we were expecting a pianist to come and record. Unfortunately, the pianist did not come to record.
My Role:
For this project my role was to again set up the mics specifically the for the drums. I was again not the only person, but I would say that this was my important part in helping the group. I also did attempt to find people to record and organise around, but this fell through on multiple occasions. The pianist I tried to get to record, could not and several guitarists I asked were unable to record.
Project Management:
Although we managed to record drums, hand claps, thigh taps and bass before the 4th of December, we were unable to get piano and guitar recorded in time before the holidays. Upon reflection, we should have tried to start recording the overdub project sooner than we did. A large issue we faced was spending time thinking we could record a group when in fact it did not happen to plan. An example could include an entire band not showing up and cancelling on the day when we had been planning for over a week. Another could include recording a group that were not up to the standard of professionalism that we were expecting as they were not conservatoire musicians and did not have lots of experience playing the instrument that they were using. As I mentioned before we also had a pianist not show up to a recording. This meant we could not record enough for one live project recording and instead had to spend time doing two recordings. This left less time to record the overdub section of the project. The fact that we also had the holidays with people leaving early, it meant that there were not many people around to record for the parts we needed.
However, we were able to get a member of our group (Ramirez) to record guitar from home. Ramirez was also able to get piano recorded as well. Thus, finishing what we need to record for the overdub project with a total of 4 instruments recorded before the 8th of December.
