Live Recording
Pre-Production:
Kai brought forward a three-piece band to record for the live recording segment of this project. It is a slow ballad made up of drums, piano and vocals. This did cause a challenge because it is hard to separate drums and piano when mixing, however we all felt that the rawness of the track suited well to the live recording.
Recording:
To record the piano, we used a spaced pair of AKG 414s. We set them 20cm above the strings and angled them away from the drums on the cardioid setting. This positioning, and the use of condenser mics, meant we got a nice full piano sound while minimizing bleed from the drums. We also used another 414 as a room mic, set on cardioid and positioned around 3 feet from the lid. This picked up the ambience and helps to blend things together in the background to create a more consistent sound.
For the drums we used a fairly simple mic set up. We used an AKG D112 for the kick in and an Audix D6 for the kick out. This pair made sure we captured the punchy low end as well as the clicky, warm higher frequencies. We used a Shure SM57 on the snare which captured a nice crunchy sound and 2 Octavia M-012-01 mics as overheads. The overheads were pointed towards the snare and positioned about a meter and a half from the kit. This gave the drums a wide sound while maintaining detail.
Although we angled the mics on the piano to combat bleed, we went the extra step by using the 113 recording studio. Its large space worked in our favor. Having the Vocalist record in a booth meant there was less bleed to worry about, giving a cleaner and more detailed sound to the whole track.
On the day of recording, Louis arrived early and got the microphones and other necessary equipment. Kai, who knew the musicians, warmly welcomed them and made sure they were settled in while Louis miked up the drum kit and me and Josiah set up the desk and pro tools session.
Project Management:
We carefully prepared everything before the recording session since we only had two hours. Louis arriving early was a big help and reduced our stress. We encountered a minor problem with one of the headphones in the vocal booth that wasn’t receiving a signal, but we quickly fixed it at the patch bay. Since we hadn’t heard the song before, it took us a few tries to find a tempo that the band felt was right. We had spare equipment which helped solve issues quickly, like if an XLR wasn’t working, we could just swap it for a spare one easily. One challenge we didn’t anticipate was how to communicate with the musicians. We hadn’t arranged for any talkback channels, and since the vocalist was in a different room from the drummer and pianist, it made communication difficult. We had to depend on the pianist giving us a thumbs up to gauge how things were going.
Overdub Recording
Pre-Production:
Louis found a first year pop band who were conveniently looking to record songs for an assignment they have. This meant we could kill two birds with one stone. Louis showed us a recording he took of them, and we all really liked it. They played well together and sounded good. They wanted to record a cover of “Don’t Let Me Down” by the Beatles except in 6/8 which we thought sounded very good. Annoyingly, only the drummer, one of the guitarists and the vocalist showed up. Thankfully though, the guitarist stepped in and was able to play both guitar parts and bass parts.
We organized the session by considering the instruments we needed to record: guitar, vocals, drums, and bass. The drums were clearly going to be the biggest challenge, and our main goal was to achieve a solid, tight drum recording. We chose to record the band together while focusing on getting a great drum performance. We also asked our tutor for his suggestions on how to set up the drums and followed his recommendations. We also considered how many XLR cables and headphones we would need.
Recording:
For this recording we used this equipment:
Drums-
Drum pack + 2x 414s as overheads
D112 kick in (from drum pack) (with padding inside kick drum)
Audix D6 kick out (6cm away silver side on)
Snare-
Sennheiser ND441 snare top
SM57 (from drum pack) snare bottom
Hi-hat-
Octavia MK01201 (condenser in drum pack)
Toms-
2x Sennheiser E604s
Bass-
DI
Guitars-
DI x2
Vocals-
SM7B
To record the drums, we used an AKG D112 for kick in, and an Audix D6 for kick out for the same reasons as the last recording. We used a Shure SM57 for both snare top and bottom. Recording both the top and bottom of the snare helps to craft a very good snare sound, capturing the snappiness of the top of the snare and the wider rattling high frequencies of the springs on the bottom. We were originally going to use a Sennheiser MD 441 for the snare top but after not receiving any signal from it and trying everything we could, we switched it to an SM57. To help reduce the unpleasant ring we were picking up from the snare, we asked the drummer to deaden the sound with his wallet and it helped make the snare sound a lot better.
We used an Octavia M-012-01 for the hi-hat, miked quite close to capture a tighter sound. For the toms we used 2 Sennheiser MD421s. Although the toms were not much in this track, these mics helped capture their detail and made it so we can have a stereo tom roll which makes the drums sound more ear catching. We used 2 AKG C414s for the overheads. We positioned them as a spaced pair roughly a meter from the kit. Using these condensers on cardioid mode helped capture a wide sound while maintaining detail. We carefully measured the distance between the mics and the snare to make sure we didn’t face any phase issues.
To record vocals, we used a Shure SM7B. We used the preamp attachment to boost the levels, and the singer added a pop filter to further reduce sibilance. We recorded both the lead vocals and backing vocals like this but overdubbed the backing vocals as they were originally sung by the guitarist. We DI’d the Bass because it was easiest and had a nice tone. We fed the guitar into a DI so the other band members could play along with guitar to make it easier. We then overdubbed the guitars using a cab and the SM57’s from the snare. This allowed the guitarist to dial in their preferred tone and bring some crunchy distortion to the track. Each member was recorded in a separate space in 104. We had the singer in the vocal booth, the drummer in the main room and the guitarist in the control room playing for the band until it was time to properly record, for which we recorded him in the main room.
Project Management:
We planned everything out previously but had to work around the fact that the band were missing members. This was hard but the 3 hours we had to record worked in our favor, giving us time to work around problems. Josiah arrived early and got all the equipment we needed. When me and Louis arrived, we helped Josiah unpack everything and set the microphones up. While we did this, Kai started setting up the desk and the pro tools session. Since I am a drummer, I decided to take the lead when setting up the drum kit. We had organized a track sheet beforehand to save the hassle and confusion of which mics route where and so on. Josiah set up the vocalist’s microphone, making sure it was a good height for him. Although we had planned to do multiple headphone mixes, we only ended up doing one because of the missing band members. The only people that needed a headphone mix were the vocalist and the drummer. This saved a lot of time and worked well.
Photos:
