first year multi-track recording Blog

For my mix I started by leveling everything at 0, then I started with the main vocals seeing thought they are the main focus point in the song, after that I moved on to the acoustic guitar because I felt as if, if I was able to make these two things work together so I could get a sence of feeling with the song only using them I was on the right path to making my mix sound good, after that I finished the other acoustic guitar tracks and then I balanced the bass, I decided to keep both the DI and the mic as I felt they complimented each other and gave the bass the punchy tone it needed within the song ,not so much it would kill everything but just enough so it would cut through without drowning out everything else, after this I moved on to the drums which for me took the longest as I just couldn’t seem to find the right mix I’d either get the drums to sound loud enough but it would then start clipping or it would just be too quite and the drums would have the emphasis they needed within the track so I ended up lowering everything in the track not so much that would I had already done was just ruined but enough that the drums weren’t clipping all the time, after this I moved on to the lead guitar which in my opinion needed to be louder than the other guitar and the main focus point when there were no vocals as I believe that it then replaces the vocals and needs to stand out above everything else in the track then after this I moved on to the backing vocals I stuggled a fair amount with these because I noticed that the live room vocals are not equal as sam is very quiet in the first chorus but sum what louder in the second so trying to find a nice balanced mix between them where they didn’t just seem so out of place was rarther difficult.

After I managed to get everything balaned I started to add compression on to certain tracks such as the dead room backing vocals, the kick,snare and floor tom, I felt as if these needed compression the most, the dead room backing vocals needed compression because there ws single note each time that would just hit you in the face each time it came up, the kick snare and tom I felt needed compression to help make them a little punchyer and more prominant in the song.I continued to then pan certain instruments to the left such as two of the four acoustic guitars, one of the overheads and live room vocals, as for the other two guitars I panned them fully right along with the over overhead and the other backing vocal, as for adding effects I tried to add as little as possible because personally I prefer things to sound live and as close to the actual thing as possible so I added as little effects as I could, however I did add a EQ3 1 band to the kick, snare and the floor tome because I felt that the compression did alot with taking most of the high end off but they just weren’t punchy enough I also added reverb to the main vocals to bring the voice a bit and I added a instrument insert onto the lead guitar because it sounded to clean and not very crunchy.

This session was completley left to us to sort out our own time manegment and how we were going to set everything up, so in this session we decided to record acoustic guitar and add backing vocals, we set up two sets of AKG414 mic’s one in the live room and the other set in the dead room, we decided not to use a DI for the acoustic but just to souly use the audio that was captured by the mic’s themselves. after recording the acoustic guitar we recorded the backing by having myself in the dead room and Sam Cook in the live room everyone else in the control room set our levels and sorted out the fold back for us both individually by using both fold back A and B.

In this session I was feeling really confident that I was able to set up and record everything that was needed today, although I didn’t get to use the mixing board this session felt as if I performed my role in the control room compitantly.

I was unable to attend this session however recording vocals is somewhat straight forward using our experiance from the last few weeks, I would place the singer in the dead room and I would use a condenser mic as they are perfect for capturing vocals on and I would of chosen the dead room because we would capture a clearer sound of the vocals and it makes it easier to add any effects in the mix.

We tracked guitars this week in the live room and the dead room, the concept was pretty much the same as the bass the only difference is that the bass has a different db range.

We only decided on using a mic for the lead guitar and we used some slight distortion on the amp it’s self so we don’t have to minipulate it so much when we start mixing the tack, we used a SM57 to capture the live sound of the amp.

Personally this session I feel as if I am becoming for confident within the studio as I’m feeling more and more relaxed around the equiptment and using different pieces of the equiptment.

next week vocals.

we recorded bass in the live room for this session because we wanted to give the bass a room type feel as it needed to punchy and clearly heard in the track,

We duel tracked the bass by recording with a AKG D112 microphone  and with a DI box so we had something to fall back on if we didn’t like/want to use the sound from the actual amp.The main reason for a DI box is to convert a unbalanced instrument signal into a low balanced mic signal which allowed us to simultaneously record a ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ version of the same track.

After we set up the bass we then built a basic drum kit playback mix for both the control room and live room for our bassist  to listen to so he could play bass to the song competently and we could record a good first take, For this session communication between the musician and the crew was crucial as there was a fair bit of tampering with the EQ on the desk as we needed shaun to play continuelsy so we could achieve the correct sound through the AKG D112.

While recoring bass I feel as if I’ve made progress since our last session as I had more of a hands on approach this week as I used the desk a lot more than I did last week, I feel as if I’m starting to become more familiar with the desk although I dont think I am am ready to be let loose and try and record a whole band but I am definetly becoming more comfortable in the contol room.

next week we will be recording guitar(s).