Track 1 – Commercial Pop Track

As for the pop track, I wasn’t present for most of the sessions due to both scheduling conflicts as well as the chosen room being studio 109 which was quite cramped with all five members of the group.

I was present for the drum tracking however in which Solomon had mentioned that he wanted quite a range of tonal options so opted to use quite a few microphones including a sub kick, inner kick, outer kick, snare top, snare bottom, toms, and overheads.

As for mixing the pop track, I wanted to make the rhythm section punchy while having quite ‘ethereal’ sounding vocals sat over the top.

Vocals:

For vocals I compressed them before adding some subtractive EQ to get rid of some resonant frequencies and harshness, while also having slight chorus on the backing vocals to seperate them from the main vocal. I also sent them through auxs for both delay and reverb, while also having automated tape delay on the lead vocal.

I also panned the backing vocals in order to make them sound massive and wide.

As for the piano I EQ’d it slightly to get rid of resonant frequencies and make it stand out and shimmer in the mix.

As for guitar, I EQ’d it to get rid of resonant frequencies and I also compressed it slightly to catch peaks.

As for bass I EQ’d it to get rid of some woofyness and boxyness while also adding some low end and high mids. I also compressed it to catch some of the peaks.

As for drums I compressed the Kick while also removing some resonant frequencies from the snare and overheads.

Track 2 – Acoustic Track:

For the acoustic track we decided to use a song that I had previously written, arranged and recorded, using the previous recording as a template to record additional instruments over as well as re-record some of the previous parts due to rhythmical errors, intonation issues or because we simply weren’t happy with the quality of capture present in the original recording.

The first thing we decided to do was re-record the main 6-string acoustic part to get it in time so that we could begin overdubbing all the additional instrumentation.

For both the 6-string and 12-string we used a combination of the WA-251 and the Scheps Omni. We wanted a mix between the Scheps and the 87 for a bridge between a modern-sounding and retro sounding recording due to the natural warmth of the tube circuitry in the 251. We had the Scheps pointed at the body for more low end and the 251 at the 12th fret for a relatively neutral yet warm sound.

After this we mic’d up the reed organ in stereo with 2 ribbon Delta 2s, as upon listening to the reed organ in the room realised that it was quite noisy and figured that a detailed condenser would pick up alot of the harsher frequencies present in the reed organ. This also made sense as we were aiming for a more ‘retro’ sounding recording as previously mentioned.

As predicted the signal was quite noisy so before it entered the DAW we rolled off quite a lot of the low end with the onboard mixer on the console.

For some added colour we also ran the signal through the Neve preamp while also enabling phantom power as the Delta 2s require phantom power to operate.

During the same session we also recorded slide guitar with the same Delta 2s for a more vintage sound.

We also experimented with placing one of the Delta 2s on the open strings of the piano in 113, hoping to capture some of the strings resonating sympatheticall with the resonator. This was semi succesful as we could hear alot of the room sound through this mic however due to us needing quite alot of gain to hear the input signal this track ended up quite noisy so I turned it down in my mix.

After this when we had the session musicians scheduled to come in we decided to utilise the session drummer and double bass player on the same day, so we had to write a chart for the drummer and bass player to follow. For the inner bass drum capture we decided on using the RE-20 pointed at a slight angle towards the beater in order to capture the click of the bass drum hitting the inner head.

We also used the DM-1B on the outer kick head to capture more of the boom and low end of the outer kick head, utilising an off-axis technique in order to minimise the proximity effect from close mic-ing. This gave us alot of flexibility with the kick sound as we were able to mix between the two signals to achieve a balanced kick sound.

To capture the snare we used an SM57 for a balanced snare sound, pointed directly at the centre of the drum head in order to have more attack.

Here we also used a AKG C414 for the room mic.

As for double bass we used a C414 aimed at the bridge of the double bass.

Due to more intonation issues with the 12-string track, we decided to re-record it again. This time with a 414 and a KM184

We also re-recorded vocals in this session.

As for mixing this track, I aimed for a very ‘open’ sound, trying to preserve as much of the original sound of the instrumentation and vox as possible, tending to stray away from overly large compression.

Drums:

For EQ’ing the drums, I started with (mostly) subtractive EQ to get rid of any resonant frequencies or some unnecessary high frequencies present within the kick mics.

As I thought the kick was sounding a bit too boomy with not much attack, I tried to shape it with some compression.

As for snare, I wanted to shape that as well and make it punch through the mix so I used the compressor on the right for that, before taming some of the peaks with the compressor on the left.

After the compression I EQ’d the snare again to have a bit more body, snap, and fizz.

For the overhead, I cut some of the woofyness around 110 Hz as it was muddying up the mix while also cutting alot of the harshness around 2-3k with a boost in the high-end to make the cymbals brighter.

Lastly I added some tube saturation to the snare track for even more colour.

I also put some plate reverb on the drum bus.

Double Bass:

I put some optical compression on the double bass to flatten it out a bit and make it act more as a drone.

Boost in the low end, cut some of the woofyness around 100Hz, cut some of the boxyness out in the 1-2kHz range, and did a low-pass to cut some of the noise from the bow.

Guitars:

As for the 12-strings I cut out some resonant frequencies and was relatively happy with the sound of the capture.

I also sent them through the guitar plate reverb to mesh them together.

For the 6-string i started with subtractive EQ again.

I also added compression to catch some of the peaks and flatten the dynamic range. I also ran this track through the guitar reverb bus.

For slide guitar I simply removed a resonant frequency and did multi stage compression again to catch peaks before sending it through the guitar reverb aux.

Reed organ:

As for the reed organ i reduced alot of the low end before running it through a tape recorder plugin for a lofi sound.

Vocals:

As for vocals I compressed it to flatten the dynamic range slightly before cutting some resonances. I also had a gain channel to automate some especially quiet parts.

Track 3 – Location Recording

As for the location recording due to scheduling clash with a rehearsal before a gig I arrived to help setup however promptly exited before any choices regarding mic placement was made.

As for mixing, I started by adjusting the levels for each of the tracks to achieve an appropriate balance. The only EQ that was done was very slight and on multiple tracks at once due to the amount of bleed present in a recording of this nature.

However, for drums I did utilise compression in order to give the snare and kick slightly more attack and presence within the mix, also boosting the low end on the kick drum.

As for bass I also compressed it to tame alot of the peaks that were coming through during the louder sections.

Unfortunately for guitar there was alot of bleed present within the capture however thats understandable due to the nature of a recording like this.

In order to widen the track I also used extensive panning.