PRODUCTION LOG- MPR4C001R~001 (1363 words)
My production group was me (JJ), Daniel, henry, ben and Thiago. Going into this project we. Knew it needed to be around 10 minutes long in full, so we decided to use a jazz artist as typically they could fill up most of the time, I know my mate who plays in a jazz ensemble at the conservatoire as well so I hit him up and asked him if they would available and he said yes. To plan out what we where going to do to I made a group chat for us to figure out timings, we later met up at the café in uni and spoke about when works and what we would record. They had a song around 6 minutes long which worked perfect so we picked a date and time to record it.
Recording a jazz ensemble works very well for a live recording because it wont be too loud such as a heavy rock or punk band so we can capture a really nice sound to work on it and refine it down. Me and henry met up to talk about how we were going to get the capture that we desired, so we spoke about which mics we would use and we had JoJo (the pianist in the band) to send us a voice memo of the song so we could hear roughly where things would sit in the mix and asked him to tell us how he would like it to sound sonically so we planned the actions we would take out in advance.
We got the jazz ensemble into the studio and got all the necessary instruments set up ready to record, we let them practice and go through the things they needed to go through. We miked up the instruments The mics we used for the drums where the DM1B for the kick drum because it’s a good solid kick mic that pics up a nice frequency and has a good mellow kick sound, we also used the SM7B for the snare top mic to get those harmonic overtones that make a snare sound fuller as well as a snare bottom mic SM57 to pick up the rattle that using a snare bottom mic picks up well. For the toms we used MD421 as well as the AKG 414s for overheads because they always bring a neutral balanced sound and have the ability to capture the complete sound. The drum mic set up wasn’t doing too much but also had enough to pick up a full sounding drum kit.
For the piano we used a pair of Neumann km 184s because they pick up an really transparent sound picking up exactly how the piano sounds with out diverting the sound from the natural tone and complex harmonics of the piano as well as having excellent transient response.
We DI’d the bass as it was a very simplistic sound that just carried the songs low end and needed no extra work.
Recording the track itself was relatively simple, once we had set up we let the band run through a few times to get levels and let them rehearsal, after they all felt comfortable and we had got the levels at a good point we let them do a few run throughs of parts to make sure they had it down as it was a long piece to do in one sitting without mistakes. Getting the recording was very quick to do and only took one studio session. There are no audible mistakes in the track or parts that would have needed to lead to recording the track again as it felt very strong and sounded good.
When it came to mixing the song we took a long time listening to the song to figure out levels and where everything wanted to sit with the piano being the main instrument and pushing that sound out forward. After listening to the base recording of the song with all the instruments with no mixing we worked where we would put everything to in the mix, not being able to use any plugin or input made it harder to keep the dynamic range in check and fix slight tweaks, so to combat that we made sure to find good levels where everything can sit without losing too much dynamic range.
For our second song and artist we picked Bens flat mate who is a solo independent pop musician called Maisie Jean. Ben suggested we use her because she studies at the uni and it would be easy to get her in and record one of the songs, as she has as an electronically recorded song with synths that she released recently and we decided it would be a good idea to do it as an overdub with a band of live musicians so she would have that recording too. Her song came around to fill up the rest of the time needed for our quota and would be a good song to record as the parts are relatively simple so we would be able to focus on the recorded sound of the song instead of focusing on having to work out tricky parts. We texted Maisie and sorted out a time to meet up and talk, we did this to sort out timings to record and get to know the artist before we recorded them.
After figuring out timings that work for everyone we got into the studio and started working on recording the overdubbed version of her song, we DI’d the bass to save time and to recorded while we were sat in the mixing room of the studio, for the guitar we recorded the amp using an SM57 and the xaudia grx ribbon mic so that we could pick up the inside and outside of the cone on the amp and use both takes tracked and panned to make the guitar feel fuller. For Maisie’s vocals we used the brauner phantom c which has exceptional high audio clarity, a natural sound and high capability to capture depth and the vocal nuance in a performance. For the drum miking we used relatively the same microphones as the live recording with the DM1B for the kick drum as it has a good mellow kick sound, we also used the SM7B for the snare top mic as well as a snare bottom mic SM57. For the toms we used MD421 as well as the AKG 414s for overheads because they always bring a neutral balanced sound and have the ability to capture the complete sound. The mic set up for all the instruments worked really well because they all picked up the clarity that the song needed to feel better sonically.
Recording took a bit of time because we wanted to get the best take we possible could, we started by recording Maisie on vocals to a guide track and mike on guitar , we than bought in Maisie again to re do vocals and had drums recorded in to. After that we recorded mike on guitar again and bass by ben. After that we had ben re record the guitar because it wasn’t sitting quite right. By the end of the recording we had a nice sounding full overdub and took away the guide track to make a live sounding version of her electronically made song.
When mixing we solo’d all the parts one by one to hear how they sounded against each other, we figured our volume levels having the drums sit in the middle with vocals quite high in the mix and bass sitting lower with guitar sounding relatively high in the mix. We went through and listened to the song a few times over and over to find out when we wanted parts to drop down or out and when we needed parts to fade in or come out.
In conclusion I believe both recordings went well and sound good as we put the time and effort into figuring out not just the song and recording and production techniques but also figure out the artist and how to make them sound the best they can.
