Apologies for the lack of new material but the mobile and the studio are so busy at the moment that weve just not had time to put any new stuff up. We have some great new sessions waiting to go up and a sneak preview of a fantastic new compresser but thats all to come!!!!! In the meantime have a read about the first in our series of great mics under £100
This is a new departure
for us and here we have our first session from a guest
producer, Biggir Hilmarsson. Biggi as he is known emailed
us to say that he was loving his new Golden Age R1 mic
and did we want to hear his latest composition for a
short documentary "Iceland Future and Hope".
It features real strings and a lovely grand piano. How
could we refuse?
Biggi is from Iceland
but is now based in London and has become very succesful
writing original scores for commercials and television
but is now getting attention in the film scene with
his beautiful, haunting soundscapes. He probably won't
thank us for name checking another Icelandic band but
there are similarities with the mighty Sigur Ros. It
must be something in the water up there. As well as
his commercial work Biggi heads up two other bands Ampop
(www.myspace.com/ampopband)
and Blindfold (www.blindfoldmusic.co.uk)
The
session Firstly I set
up a couple of AKG C2000 mics in approximately 5 metre
distance from the Steinway Grand through an old Allen
& Heath mixing desk with a bit of hi-pass filtering
and hi EQ boost. It didn’t take long until I achieved
a good stereo image and was ready to record. After recording
a few nice runs on the piano which I played myself, it
was time to record the cello. My good friend Maddalena
Branduardi who is in my band Blindfold came well rehearsed
and we set up one Golden Age R1 Ribbon mic approximately
half a metre from the cello through a Universal Audio
Solo 610 Tube Preamp. I set the output level to medium,
but the input level quite high to get a subtle tube distortion,
which made the cello warm and cutting through.
Then I recorded 4 violins, all with the GA R1 ribbon and
I was astonished how warm and rich it sounded and needed
no tweaking at all.
The double bass was recorded at my mate’s flat up
in Glasgow, in a nice Victorian room with high ceilings,
with a Rode K2 Tube Mic. He recorded 3 sets of the double
bass; legato, pizzicato and plucked, which all sounded
very good and needed very little EQ-ing during the mixing.
At last I recorded the vocals on the GA R1 ribbon with
pop shield, then took one of them through a leslie speaker
effect with a bit of distortion, which added a bit of
colour and edge to the sound.
To
hear the audio files above simply double click on
them and they will play in the media player you have
set on your computer. To download the files, create
a new folder on your hard drive and then right click
on the files above and choose "Save as Target"
to your new folder. When you have downloaded all the
files open up Cubase or a similar audio programme
and create a new project. In Cubase go to Import<audio
files and select all the MP3s in the folder. Cubase
will ask you if you want them on the same track or
separate tracks. Choose separate tracks and it will
paste them into a new project for you.SEE VIDEO.
The Mix
The mixing was quite straight forward, bit of high pass
filtering here and there to create space for all the instruments
in the mix. I almost didn’t touch the strings, apart
from the high-pass filtering and a tiny bit of brightness
boost on the violins, as the R1 captured them so well, very
smooth and realistic sound. The cello needed some resonance
reduction and a small hi-mid clarity increase around 2 kHz,
to make it stand out more as a solo instrument in the track.
After panning the piano well to both sides and creating
a nice stereo image of the strings, I added an old church
convolution reverb to the strings, which I had to automate
to a smaller reverb during the pizzicato parts. Lastly I
added a warm hall convolution reverb on the piano and reversed
it to give the piano a bit of character. BH
