EP Project Write Up

TRACK 1 - JIM

TRACK 2 - THE COLOURS

TRACK 3 - DONE WAITING

TRACK 4 - CALL ME OLD FASHIONED

TRACK 5 - YOU NEED TO GET IN MORE

TRACK 6 - PROWL

RECORDING

TRACK 1 - JIM

Equipment

Drum Microphones

KICK INSIDE - D112

KICK OUTSIDE - AUDIX D6
SNARE TOP - SHURE SM57

SNARE TOP#2 - SHURE SM7
SNARE BOTTOM - SHURE SM57
RACK TOM - SENNHEISER 421 
FLOOR TOM - SENNHEISER 421
HI HATS - RODE NT5
OVERHEADS PAIR - RODE NT55
ROOM PAIR - AKG 414

KICK INSIDE - D112

I chose the D112 for its great response to the low frequencies. I preferred the sound of this microphone on the inside of the drum because although it has a great low end response it also picks up the click and attack of the beater hitting the head which combines really nicely with the second microphone I have in the outside of the drum. Between the two these microphones form a really strong and rich thumping kick sound which is what I wanted for this song.

KICK OUTSIDE - AUDIX D6

I decided to put the Audix D6 on the outside because I have found that this microphone is much better at capturing the punch of the kick drum and the fullness that I was looking for. I placed the the microphone about 2 inches away from the skin so I would capture enough air and resonance from the whole drum. By moving the microphone towards the edge of the drum I was able to keep away some of the sound of the beater. By having these two microphone on the kick it allows me to be able to mix the two and get a really great full sounding kick that has lots of punch and lots of definition on the attack.

SNARE TOP - SHURE SM57

I decided to use two microphone on the top of the snare to capture the tones of the warm deep snare I was using. This microphone is perfect for a snare which is why I've used it. The SM57 has a great overall response to the high mids but is also a very flat response from 800 - 12,000 Hz. This microphone is a very versatile mic and has been known to be able to be used on almost anything. I wanted to combine this with something else to capture the top of the snare because of the type of snare I was using was deep and I wanted the punch and body as well as the crack which I got from micing the bottom. 

SNARE TOP#2 - SHURE SM7

I also decided to add a Shure SM7 to the top of the snare because although these two microphones are quite similar I wanted to use the SM7 to capture the body of the snare. The SM7 has a great shield and I found it was a great way to capture a slightly different tone of the body of the snare. I could have used another dynamic like the Shure PG56 but I waned to use something that was a dynamic but also has a large diaphragm. Another option was the RE20 but I found this was impractical to use on the snare.


SNARE BOTTOM - SHURE SM57

For the bottom of the snare I decided to use another SM57 to capture the crackle of the snares themselves. I always find that pointing the microphone towards the middle of the snare captures the most 'crack'. There is the chance that by using the same microphone on the top and bottom of the snare you can get phase issues but you can fix this by inverting the polarity in Logic. TOMS - SENNHEISER 421 

For the toms I decided to go with the Sennheiser 421's. These microphones have a brilliant low frequency response which is why they are great for bass amps, guitar amps. They give a really great warm tone that was perfect for the tom sound I was looking for. Positioned towards the centre of the drum capturing the attack of the stick as well as the response of the drum. I try to point the top microphones away from the kick and snare as much as possible as the amount of bleed can be lessoned. The cymbals are always captured in these microphones but you can try and minimise the bleed with the position.


HI HATS - RODE NT5

I usually mic the hats just for safe keeping. Very often I don't even use them but depending on the track that is being recorded and the type of playing will determine how and when I mic the hats. In this case there wasn't much sophisticated hi hats playing where particular notes needed to be heard so I went with the underneath position to capture the overall sizzle of the cymbals and less of the stick work. I decided to go for the NT5 because its a condenser microphone and because it has such flat frequency response it gave a very accurate sound for the hi hats.


OVERHEADS PAIR - RODE NT55

I decided to go with the Rode NT55. These microphones are a great stereo pair and great for overheads because they captures the shimmer of the cymbals that I wanted and was looking for. I was using room microphones as well so I didn't wasn't these over heads to get to much of a overall sound of the kit, more of the cymbals as the song includes a lot of cymbal sections. I positioned the microphones quite low to capture the cymbals and less room sound.


ROOM PAIR - AKG 414

As I used the overheads to focus on the cymbals I used two AKG 414's to capture a clean room sound. I like get a few room mics because I find that I can put it in the mix just underneath just to add some punch and body to the kit. I went for the 414's because I wanted to use a stereo pair and something very clean an accurate that did have too much character. This was I can mix it how I want with out it effecting the main tone of the drums. I positioned at a 45 degree angle from each other facing the kick drum about 2 meters from the drums.

Photo from 'Signature Sound Recording Studio'

Recording the Drums

When setting up the recording I made sure the drums at first were all in place ready for the drummer and set how he likes it. Then I made sure that they were tuned and that the drummer was happy with how they were sounding before I began to place any microphones. Once he was all set up I began to place my microphones how I wanted and the referred back to how they sounded.

Once all the microphones were in place it was time to set the gain levels which it very important applying phantom power to all the necessary microphones as well. 

All my tracks were appropriately labeled in Logic.

When we were ready to record I decided the best and fastest way was to record in comps. This meant that we would be able to run takes back to back.


When setting up the headphone mix for the musician it was easy to assign different things to send to the performer so he could hear enough of himself compared to the track. We had full control over this on the desk.

GUITARS

When recording the bass and guitars I decided to use a different method for this song. Unlike before I used microphones to record a amplifier.

For this song I decided to record the guitars direct into a Saffire Pro 40 interface capturing just the instrument signal which I can later on manipulate with guitar amp plugins emulating amps, and pedals to achieve the desired sound. This is a different approach to not necessarily a better way. When recording it means you can focus more on getting the perfect take rather than the perfect tone which you can worry about later using plugins.

While recording the sound that you get from a direct instrument signal in very clean and nothing like the tone that we want to end with. To help the musician play along with the song and really get the feel of the song I put and preset on the channel while we recorded so that the guitar sound was close enough to help the musician play along with a similar tone to what it will sound like later. When playing the takes back it also gives us an idea of how its all coming together.





TRACK 2 - COLOURS

Drum Microphones (Tracks 2-6)

SHURE SM57 (SNARE BOTTOM + HI-HATS)

NEUMANN KM 184 (STEREO PAIR - OVERHEADS + BACKING VOCALS)

NEUMANN U87 (VOCALS)

SONTRONICS DELTA RIBBON (GUITARS)
SENNHEISER MD421 (TOMS + KICK OUTSIDE)
ELECTROVICE RE20 (BASS DRUM INSIDE)
SENNHEISER E835 (SNARE TOP)

DRUM MICROPHONES

I chose to mic the drums with 9 microphones. 

Kick x2

Snare x2

Tom 1

Tom 2

OH Ride

OH Hats

Hi Hat

I started with electrovice RE20 inside the kick drum with the front skin on. We found that we wernt capturing enough punch from the drum that we would quite like. We tried opening up the bass drum by taking the front head off. The elecrovice RE20 has a great low end because of it's large diaphragm. After this we still wernt completely happy with the sound so we added a Sennheiser MD421 sitting just outside the kick drum pointed towards the edge. We also added the front skin back again. We added the microphone on the outside just so we could mix in some more attack from the kick drum if we liked.

On the snare we used a Sennheiser E835 on the top. We tried this opposed to a standard sm57 because we found that the sharp high end suited the sound that we wanted for the music we were recording. This also gives a well defined stick definition which sound really really sharp and accurate.

To accompany this we added a shure sm57 to the bottom to capture the crack and raw snare sound that adds to the sound of a snare drum to keep it defined well in the mix. Sometimes without micing the bottom of the snare drum you can loose some definition in the loud parts of the song as well as when you are playing lots of notes together.

For the toms we used a the Sennheiser MD42. These have a nice response to the low end which is why they are good for bass guitar and toms. The toms sounded really great as we positioned them at the edge pointing towards the centre. We also tried to keep them pointed away from the kick drum as well to minimise bleed. We were happy with the toms almost right away as they gave a really punchy and low warm tone with great attack as well. The drum heads were brand new as well which contributed to the great sound.

The overheads were the Neumann KM 184's stereo pair. These were positioned over the far crash and the hi hat side. These have a great response to high end and give a great shimmer to the cymbals. These microphones have also been used a lot for close micing cymbals because of the great response to a whole drum kit as well as enhancing the cymbals so well. I use fairly large cymbals which tend to make a low trashy sound, these microphones helped to brighten them and when I come to the mix later it will help enhance the shimmer to give it its own space in the mix.

Finally we used a SM57 on the hi hats just to capture the ghost notes of the hats which might not cut through when mixing. This was a perfect microphone because the dynamic prevents to much bleed this means you can define the notes much clearer. We started my positioning the microphone underneath pointed straight up. After sound checking this came off a little harsh and lost some of the tight sound that we wanted. This also got in the way of my playing. We moved it to the behind the hats pointed at the middle. This really captured the high snaps of the opening and closing of the hi hats.

Bass Guitar (Tracks 2-6)

For the bass we used a Sontronics Delta ribbon microphone. This is a phantom powered ribbon microphone. This was the first microphone we tried and we got an amazing tone from it almost immediately.

We also decided to DI the bass amp which was an Ampeg bass amp which has a great tone as well as the attack with warm tones as well. As we mic'd the amp and DI the amp as well is meant we had the attack from the DI sound which was really really punchy but as well we had the bass tones from the microphone. This was a really good way to get the bass sound as when blended together it makes a really nice bass sound that will sit great in the mix.

We had the microphone placed right in the centre of the cone about 1 foot away and pointed slightly down towards the edge of the cone to get some of the high end sounds.

Guitars (Tracks 2-6)

The guitars were recorded through a Marshall amp with a RE20 and SM57. We tried many microphone before we can to the conclusion that these were best.

We also tried a AKG C414, Sontronics Delta ribbon microphone and a couple of Rode condensers, the NT1 and the NT5 as well as a Neumann TLM 102. All these condenser microphones despite their incredible frequency response and warm distinct tone, we decided to stick with the RE20 and the SM57 because the SM57 have us such a precise tone that we were looking for but we found when combined with the large diagram dynamic of the RE20 the smoothness yet slight compressed sound was perfect for the tone we were looking for.

We placed the RE20 microphone almost directly in the centre of the speaker of the amplifier pointing up, this gave us the warmest tone across the speaker. This then left us to put the 57 towards the edge of the speaker to pick up the harsher tone that we wanted towards the outside of the speaker on the amp as this was where we found our best sound.

During the process of guitars we decided to try a few different amplifiers, guitar settings, pedals and guitars to make sure we found the perfect guitar sound for each part of the song. The guitars are quite a big part in the sound of this song so we wanted to make sure they were punch and prominent when recording so we didn't need to mess about with plug ins.

Having such a choice in equipment does mean that things take longer to record but it means you can get a much more refined sound that you are looking for.

We settled with the Vox amp and a Gibson guitar for the lead part in this song and we used the Marshall combo and the 1960 Fender Telecaster for the rhythm part.

Neumann U87 (Vocals)

Neumann TLM 102

For the vocals we jumped between used a Neumann U87 and a Neumann TLM 102 because we thought that the U87 had a more harsh high end than the 102 but on the voice that we were recording it seemed to sound better on the U87 than the 102. We also used a pop shield on the vocals to stop the 'p' and 'b' sounds peaking the microphone signal when he sings.

The U87's tone seemed to work really well on our voice and we got some lovely sounding vocals from it which sound great.

Neumann KM 184 (Backing VOX)

When we recorded the backing vocals we chose to use a stereo pair on KM 184's which have such a clear tone especially a large sound or a sound which a wide frequency range. We also used these on the overheads of the drums which worked great. They have a nice shine to them wish inset washy or harsh in any way. This songs contains gang vocals in parts to we used a stereo pair of these microphones to capture a small group of people. These microphones were positioned in a XY pattern which worked great for the type of sound of vocal we wanted (a chant).

CON D-Command desk. All digital.

 The Pre amps we were using we the Focusrite ISA 828's.

RECORDING

Drums and Bass (Tracks 2-6)

We recorded the drums and the bass guitar together to lay down the foundations of the track. Myself and the bass player are very tight together so we figured this would be a great way of doing it. We were both in separate rooms from each other but we could see each other and we could see the producer and everyone in the control room. This was good because we play very well together and it meant some of the musician ship would rub off into the playing and the feel would be much much better. We played the song all the way through several times and went back over anything we felt could be played better. This means we have lots of takes to choose from so if we wish we can choose sections of them to make sure the performance is tight. We were monitoring through headphones with the click and we had a guitarist playing a guide track in the control room so we had more than just drums and bass to play too.

Guitars were tracks after the drums and the bass were finished. They were played in a booth down the hall. We decided to track the lead before the rhythm which we don't normally do but because of the way this is structured for the guitars it was easier. We then tracked the rhythm guitar. We had a talk back microphone in the booth with the them so we could talk to them and they could talk back. The guitars were recorded the same way as the bass and drums. We recorded the whole track through several times which meant we had a few takes for the song. For different sections of the guitars we sometimes tried different guitars what might have sounded better for a particular section. We even decided to go direct into the pre amp because it just sounded so great and then used pedals to give the distortion or delay we wanted. This was a slightly different way of approaching it but sometimes it gave us the sound that we wanted better that the amps were.

When did the vocals we recorded them in a small booth using a U87. We also used a large microphone stand and hung the microphone so that our singer could look up and open his chest more. We found that this technique worked really well and we got much better results. We decided to take a different approach to the vocals where as we ran through a whole take of the song and then we would go back a do each section or phrasing again. The reason we ran the whole song through at least once is so that you can get some phrases that run off each other nicely. Sometimes if you record all the vocals separately when you listen back to them all together it can sound quite blocky which is why we run it through so some phrases can have a feel to them and really run with the music. In addition to the we took away the click when recording vocals because it helps to get more an emotion and energy behind the vocals when they sung with meaning rather sticking to a click. This can make it sound unnatural. The backing vocals were recorded just over the parts where they were needed. We had several headphones for monitoring so we could all hear what was going on. As we had more of less figured out what it was what we were going to record we just went in one after another and recorded our parts for the backing vocals.