Recording Session Plan - Grant

This is the plan for my recording session.

These are my choice of microphones.

4 x Shure SM58 - X4

3 x Shure SM57 - X3

2 x Audix D6 - X2

1 x Sennheiser MD421 - X1

1 x SeElectronics Titan - X1

2 x Rode NT5 - X2

1 x Shure SM7b - X1

4 x DI boxes (passive &/or active) X2

2 x BeyerDynamic DT100 headphones - X2

1 x Jamhub headphone mixer/amp X1

I have 16 channels to choose from and this is how I am going to allocate my channels.

We have 1 hour to set up and 1 hour to record.

We are in studio 2. This means one person will need to be on headphones to communicate to the control room to make sure that everything in the live room is fully set up.

We are recording 

Drums

Bass Guitar

Electric Guitar

4X Female Vocals

This is how we are going to allocate the 16 channels.

1. KICK - Audix D6

This will be placed inside the kick drum pointed at the beater to get the extra attack from the kick drum and to be able to hear it over the rest of the band.

1. KICK INSIDE - Sub Kick

The sub kick is there to pick up the lower bass frequencies that the D6 will not capture inside the drum. This will be possitioned flat against the resonant head of the kick drum with about a 2 or 3 inch gap. 

1. SNR TOP - SM5
2. SNR Bottom - SM57

These microphones on the snare drum are to capture as much of the snare sound as possible over the sound of the band.

The top of the snare drum has the resonance and the tone of the drum shell where as the microphone underneath will have the crack and pop of the snares below. I combination of these two will really make a nice sound that will cut through the mix and hopefully be a clear snare sound.

1. RACK TOM - SM57

I have decided to use the Sm57 on the high tom mainly because of microphones available but also because it doesn't need to have a perfect sound because the whole kit will be captured by the overheads but this is just so if we need to hear a drum fill or solo a little clearer we can turn tho microphone up with out turning anything else up too much. This SM57 being a dynamic microphone will do a great job and its frequency range is good and will capture this drum well.

1. FLR TOM - SENNHEISER MD421

I have saved the MD421 for the floor tom because I think that it will capture the low end of the floor tom perfectly and will also have a nice punch to it. Same goes for this as for the high tom, I can turn this up in need be for a fill is the overheads don't capture it too well. This mic has a great frequency response to low end and will sound great on this drum.

1. OHL - RODE NT5
2. OHR - RODE NT5

I have chosen these microphones for the over heads because I don't have any C414's. Now I think about it I think the 414's would have probably capture too much of the who band and not just the drums. The NT5's will capture the whole kit slightly more directional and give a great tone across the whole kit. I think I will position these microphones fairly low because I don't want to get loads of the other instruments in through this microphone. This will give more problems when mixing.

1. BASS - DI

I have decided to only DI the Bass because It needs to be solid sounding and if it was just to mic'd you would get too much room noise. I need to be sure that I am going to get a full sounding bass signal to fit in my track because if its too weak then it could really spoil the whole track.

1. E.GTR DI
2. E.GTR MIC - Audix D6

I have decided to DI the guitar as well as use a mic because the microphone is going to get the tines that I really want from the guitar where as the DI can give me a clean signal that If i need to turn up the guitar without turning everything else up I can use the DI signal to do so.

1. VOX 1 - SM58
2. VOX 2 - SM58
3. VOX 3 - SM58
4. VOX 4 - SM58

I have decided to use the dynamic Shure SM58 microphones on the vocals because there is going to be so much join on in one go that If i was to use a condenser you would just hear way to much of the other instruments and not enough vocals. These microphones will help to pick up just vocals.

1. ROOM MIC - sE Titan

Finally I have decided to use the sE Titan to capture the room sound and hopefully get a little natural reverb and ambience that I can slip into the mix to give it a live sounding feel. These guys are all playing together, although its a audio recording it would be nice to capture the whole sound together and this condenser is big and perfect for the job. If I don't like it I can always delete it too. 

MONITORING

The 2 pairs if headphones will be worn by the drummer and vocalist if need be. The drummer needs to hear the click and be able to keep everyone in time and tight. If a singer wants to wear a pair of headphones so they can hear the guitar to keep in tune and to help the others keep in tune and in time because they may not to able to hear themselves too well over the rest of the band.

This is my signal flow diagram.

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THE SESSION


When I arrived for the session I was the only engineer. None of my team had showed up. This was very annoying since I had to do everything myself. I guess in the industry this could always happen, the more professional you get the more money there is involved so its less likely your main engineers or producers wouldn't turn up because its probably in their interest to be there as well as everyone else's.


When I came to choosing my microphones there were a few changes from what I had originally planned. My original Microphone list looked like this:

4 x Shure SM58

3 x Shure SM57

2 x Audix D6

1 x Sennheiser MD421

1 x SeElectronics Titan
2 x Rode NT5

1 x Shure SM7b

2 x DI boxes (passive &/or active)

But I could only use these microphones on the day:

4 x Shure SM58

3 x Shure SM57

1 x Audix D6

1 x Sennheiser MD421

1 x SeElectronics Titan
2 x Rode NT5

1 x Shure SM7b

2 x DI boxes (passive &/or active)

1 x AKG D12

Once I had completely finished setting up the microphones and all the inputs I was ready to get into the studio just before the band arrived. I was set up ready for drums, electric guitar, bass guitar, 4 female vox.

The band I was supposed to record didn't all show up and this caused major disruption to my set up. I had to think fast and work with what I had already set up in order to record and finish the session on time. If I was to over run in a professional paying studio I would cost record labels a lot of money they didn't plan on spending.

I was confronted with a band that consisted of drums, acoustic guitar and 3 female vocals. My main problem was recording the acoustic guitar with the drums in the same room. There was going to be a lot of bleed. I used the sE titan that I planned to use as a room microphone on the acoustic guitar placed pointing between the sound hole and the 15 fret to maximise the volume from the guitar.
I then used all the drum microphones that I already had set up.
And for the main box and backing box i used shire SM58's because they are a dynamic microphone and will pick up less on the room noise.

This is the microphone set up I actually ending up using:

3 x Shure SM58

2 x Shure SM57

1 x Sennheiser MD421

1 x SeElectronics Titan
2 x Rode NT5

1 x AKG D12

Picture of my set up below...

I found that I still had a lot of bleed from the drums into the sE titan on the acoustic guitar that I had to put a shield over the titan to help eliminate some of the bleed from the drums. I also put the titan in cardioid polar pattern to that it was only picking up in the direction that I needed which helped minimise bleed.




















When I was getting my levels and sound checking I found that all the vocals were popping a little on the 'P' and 'B' sounds. I corrected this by adding pop shields to all of the vocal microphones and the problem went away immediately.

I set up headphone mixes just for the drummer and Fleur who was playing acoustic guitar and singing lead vocals.
This was very easily controlled back in the control room because I could give them the exact mixes that they wanted so they could perform well.

Another change I had to make was to the backing vocals. Although they were dynamic microphones they still picked up loads of the drums because they were originally facing them I had to face them away from the drum to minimise the bleed. This didn't work so well but in the mix you can't tell.

I have learned many things from doing this recording session. Firstly its a lot more difficult to do it by yourself. The second one is the band are not always reliable and you need to have plans and set ups fixed in places and know that everyone is happy with it. I have also learned that the plan will change because of reasons that you can't always plan for so you just need to know your gear and your techniques so you can adapt to whatever you need. I think I have also learned that you need to be professional always and make good judgments on what needs to happen and when and how. Solving problems faster than others create problems will always help as well in the studio environment.