1st Recording | Grant Leslie

DAY1

Shure SM57 capturing the snare drum

On Tuesday we recorded in the main live studio. My group decided to record drums. With a choice of microphones between the Shure SM57, the Audix D6, the RODE NT5's and the sE Titan.
We used 3 microphones to capture the drum kit. on the snare drum we used a Shure SM57 because of its dynamic capabilities it can cope with the loud sound of a snare drum even from being mic'd close up. I pointed this towards the centre of the drum at this is where the drummer would be striking the drum. The snare and the kick drum are the most important drums and this is why we specifically closed mic'd these drums. They are used most frequently and for a good recording to sound good these drums need to be heard in the mix to hold the track together.

Audix D6 capturing the kick drum

The next microphone we chose to use was the Audix D6. This was for the kick drum. We decided to mic the kick drum because we felt it was the most important drum as well as the snare. We used the D6 because it's cardioid polar pattern which allows the microphone to capture sound directly in front of the microphone. This microphone has a good response to the bass frequencies. This is why it is used on a kick drum or a bass cabinet. I positioned this microphone directly in the centre of the mic-hole just so the whole microphone was inside the drum. I also pointed the microphone at the beater of the kick pedal. This way you capture the attack from the batter head but you still capture the resonance that the drum creates more towards the back and centre of the drum. 

The Rode NT5 overhead capturing
the whole kit

To capture the sound of the cymbals and the toms mainly as each drum wasn't individually mic'd. We used a RODE NT5 held 4 or 5 feet from the ground above the toms pointed towards the centre of the entire kit. This microphone is a condenser mic and for this reason I decided to use it to capture a wide range of frequencies which is perfect for capturing the whole kit. I found that after I heard back the recording this microphone had picked up the toms really nicely. Maybe next time I could add another NT5 and maybe have another microphone to pick up the high hats if they are not quite coming through the mix enough.

After placing the microphones and setting them up on stands we connected them to the wall box using XLR-XLR cables. The male end was connected to the wall box and the female end was plugged in to the microphone. we used 3 of these as there were 3 microphones and we conveniently plugged them into inputs 1,2 and 3 on the wall box which match up to 1, 2 and 3 on the desk in the control room.

Wall Box

Headphones

Jam-Hum headphone amp

After neatening up cables to keep the room and floor trip free we assembles the headphone play-back. For this we used the 'Jam-Hub', powered it up and placed it in a convenient place, well within the drummers reach. we then took a XLR-Jack cable and connected the wall box to the 'Jam-Hub'. We chose the input on 'R' for no particular reason. We could have chosen any of the 7 inputs and it wouldn't have made a difference. we then plugged the headphones into number 4, again we could have chosen any of the 7 headphone outputs and it wouldn't have changed anything involving the signal coming from the control room. This is because all of the 7 channels on the headphone amp all have the ability to hear all the inputs on all the outputs. Each channel has an input and an output as well as a volume control for the signal of all 7 inputs. This enables different signals to be coming through in different channels and if you have more than 1 musician they can all have a custom headphone mix with as much or as little of each input signal as they want.

The Zen Desk

Now we are all set up in the live room we can set up the computer and the desk.
The first procedure was to open a new project in Logic and save immediately. We called ourselves 'HRS'.

Now we opened 3 new Logic audio tracks and set there input to Zen1, Zen2 and Zen3 which is the channel it corresponded too on the desk.

Once this was set we needed to set an output so we could hear what we were recording back. We did this by selecting the output for each track we had set and selected mono and sent it to channel 8. We were given a choice of any channel from 1-8 but 1,2 and 3 were already taken  so we decide I choose the channel furthest away to keep things simple on the desk. 

We labelled each track with the instrument and the microphone name which means the mix engineer or whoever is going through the audio can clearly see what track holds what's sound and make his life much easier.

The RODE NT5 is a condenser microphone and requires phantom power to work. We turned down the faders before applying the 48volts.

Setting the tracks the inputs
on the Zen desk

Once logic was set we need to apply some gain to channel 1,2 and 3 and we need to check that each channel was set to the mic input. Once this was set we turned up channel 8 on the desk and I went outside to play the drums while the others got some levels. When they where happy with the levels we set up the headphones and the metronome.

To do this we went into the metronome settings and set the output too 5&6 we then turned the blue knob up on the desk which sends the signal to the returns (headphones) and any channel that has the blue knob turned up with be sent to the headphones.

When we had checked and tested the headphones to make sure they were working and the drummer could hear everything he wanted we prepared for a take.
After I had played drums I came back inside to hear what it sounded like and there was a moment or two where it was clipping so we retook the levels and did another levels check changing the gain on each track.
We listened back and everything was good.
We recorded a final take with all the drums recorded not peaking and we ended up with a good sound.

Audio channels added into
 Logic Pro

When it was time to pack up. We saved the Logic project immediately and then closed it. Then we flattened the desk turning everything back to normal. This is important because if you have microphone that have phantom power going through them, if someone was to pull the XLR out before turning everything off it could cause an electric shock and damage to the microphone. It is also a good idea to flatten the desk so anyone using after us would know for sure that everything was set back to the standard position and they wouldn't have  any problems. Then we went into the live room and packed the microphones down knowing it was safe. We coiled the cables and placed the microphones in their cases and put the mic stands away. leaving the room tidy and ready for immediate use.

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DAY2


On our second day in the studio to finish our masterpiece we were in studio 2. We decided to record piano to go with our drums that were recorded last week.

Shure SM57 inside piano

To do this we decided to use the Shure SM57 and the RODE NT5. We placed the SM57 on the inside of the piano in the centre. We thought this was the best idea as this would capture the true inside sound of the piano and give us the rich resonance of the hammers working way. This was the clearer signal that we got back in the control room.

Shure SM57 placement

We also used a second microphone the RODE NT5. This was placed over the head of the piano player to capture the room sound that the piano was creating. This can sound nice just to add a small amount of in the mix to give a natural sound of the piano that isn't directly with the hammers. This is condenser microphone an enabled us to get a nice warm sound combined with the Shure SM57 that was inside the piano.

Microphone placement for capturing piano

To connect all these cables up we used a few XLR-XLR cables to make up the distance that were away from the wall box in the other room. We did this by linking them together and connecting several together.
We then set the headphones. We powered up the Jam-Hub and connected a XLR-Jack cable to socket B return on the wall box extended with XLRs plugging the jack input into the input 'R' on the Jam-Hub the plugged a pair of headphones into channel 4 and turned up the input gain on channel 'R' and the headphone level channel 4.

Headphone amp

We were now ready to set the control room up. We firstly opened out project from last week and opened 2 new audio tracks, labelled them with the microphone name and position in comparison to the piano.
We then set these track to input 1 and 2 and set the output to mono channel 8. We then played the piano to set the levels with the gain and when we were happy with this we were ready to set up the click and the headphone returns. We went into metronome setting and set the output to 5&6. This means we then turned up the fader for these tracks as well as track 8 and the main fader all too 0. Track 1 & 2 faders were also set too 0. Now in order for the player to hear the click, the piano, the play-backs we had to turn up the the blue knob which is the returns of these signals coming into the desk. Now we were happy and ready to do a take and listen back to everything we wanted to hear. We also had the talk-back though the AUX- returns which made communication easy through this feature.

When it was time to pack up we saved the project first and for most. Then we flattened the desk so that is was ready for the next user of the studio to use and also so that it was safe to unplug microphones that had phantom power running through them. We than packed all of our microphones away carefully and coiled all the cables neatly. Our recording was complete.

Recording in process

Hedley Marks