Re Amping the Guitars for Gangs

The re Amping of the guitars was completed with ease as once the amp and wiring was set up the re-recording was flown through. Up to this point they had been the best band to work with as the two band members were always punctual always eager to do the best job they could with in the allotted time knowing that severe time limits were in place due to recording times. In this session the recording was done in the blue room, the equipment used was
Amp: Blackstar 100 Series 1
Cab: Laney Cub 2 x 12

Mic1:Neumann TLM 103
Mic2:Rode Nt3

For this the guitarist sat in the recording room and set up the required tone, then we re-recorded all the parts which was a simple quick job that improved the sound quality substantially.

House track update 3

The editing of the track is pretty much finished. Now the only major focus is producing the track. The first thing to be done is set up three busses, one for reverb, one for a mophed type affect and one for delay. The various parts were then automated to the busses. some of the tracks had this affect on them, with several being left to have the affects only on the channels. The vocals were edited to alter their tempos to fit the track.

Recording the Drums for Gangs

The tracking of the drums was easily completed the drummer had a simple set up and the genre does not require overproduction so for this standard miking set ups were used:

Kick:AKG D112
Snare:Shure SM57 on top and Sm58 on the bottom
Hi-hat: Blue Baby Bottle
Tom:AKG C518m
Tom:AKG C518m
Glyn Johns overheads :2 x Akg C414s

The reason for the Glyn Johns method for the overheads, was it had been recommended by a fellow course mate and it was a technique that had not been used before.
The set up and level setting was easy for the drummer which allowed for plenty of takes of the track making sure that the recordings were a good quality and the performance was as near perfect as it could have been.

Band Unreliabilities

The studio was booked out for four hours to record the Drums for the Elessar track however the band called off last minute as the performer didnt know the parts, so we will be reorganizing that particular session.

Work outside of recording so far.

So far in the recording process after each recording session the audio files are take from the primary recording medium which is Pro Tools to logic as that is the format that I run at home enabling me to do much of the editing between sessions without having to keep taking time up in the studios.

This includes all the editing of the audio files, however for the finalised mixing I will do that on a range of speakers through a range of applications.

Begining of the post production

Due to popularity of the studios in Markeaton, and the time constraints being faced with I thought it best to bring the completed tracks home and do the majority of the editing fixing and mixing process at home then take it into the studios and finish it off there, to save time and to improve the work output.

This has enabled all the prep work to be done on the tracks while waiting for the parts to be finished which is a major time saver as rather than having five tracks that all need mixing each track just needs a smaller amount of time at the end.

Recording of the second band (Gangs)

The second band we recorded was a post-rock duo that had just started out midway through the second year and were in the process of looking for a bassist, however they had written some songs and wanted to get an EP organised and released so they could begin to get a following, so this was a good arrangement for both me and the band.

To begin with we recorded the guitars in in unusual turn of events as there songs were based on improvisations and the drummer worked of the guitarists knowledge of the songs to play them. Initially we just recorded the guitar by DI, the other alternative being, recording the band live however without a bass player it would have been a little unusual. The reason the guitar was DI'd was partially for us so that we could re amp the guitar parts but also due to that fact that it gave more creative freedom for the band to add effects to develop the sound that they were after. By the end of this session all the guitars were tracked and the bass had been completed.

Recording Bass

due to the nature of how we were recording the track this came next, however it wasnt as simple as it first appeared. The bass player said he like a lot of low end in the recording with more rumble than high end, which while recording presumed he meant he wanted it post production, however upon re listening to the track recorded I realized he'd knocked all the treble off by his pickup and tone set up. which although what he wanted it was unusable and barely a tone so, we recorded it with a cleaner set up and used this one instead while just adding some reamping.

Microphone set up

Recording of the metal band Elessar

Unusually when multi tracking recording of the guitars was undertaken first, due to the bands drummers work commitments and my availability. The recording was initially started in the biggest studio in Markeaton st with baffles used infront and behind the quitar cabinet, to reduce the chance of indirect reflected signals being recorded. The cab was a 4 X 12, so using multiple mics on either side of the cab was not an issue, which meant more room and more time could be taken setting them up. Initally the set up was a AKG 414 about 30 cms away from the centre of the driver on axis. A Neumman U87 next to the cab just off centre. A Shure SM57 off Axis on the driver and a Blue Baby Bottle off axis about 15 cms away from the driver. The desired tone was then found and the recording began.

For the purpose of continuity throughout the recordings the same tone and set up was used for both tracks. So the recording process meant that each guitar part was recording for one guitarist on both tracks.
Between these tracks Chris and I swapped seats as to who was at the control surface and recording each track so the work load was specific to the person.

After recording both tracks for one guitarist we then finished and moved rooms to a smaller room to continue recording the second guitarist, upon starting the recording, with only two mics the Rode NT3 and AKG we realised the tone we had and quality of recording was much better than that of the previous recording session. So we went about re recording both guitar parts and the extra guitar parts the band wanted changing the tone in between all of the different parts. By the end of this recording session all of the guitars were finished recording and edited to the different one channel parts, ready for mixing and the other Instruments.