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
Martyn
Barker is a guitarist/singer/songwriter based in East
Yorkshire in the UK. His band, which comprises on this
recording, Simon Brooks (drums), Tom Butler (guitars)
and Trevor Atkinson( bass) are all from the same area
and gig regularly. Youtube.....”exmagicbastard”....MySpace....
“Martyn Barker's Tea Band” coming soon. (I
remember one of my first sessions was with Martyn in 1988
when the band turned up with more beer than equipment...Still
a great session JR)
The
session
Now here is a different session in as much as all the
recording for this song took place at Martyn's home studio
“The WashHouse” (and away from the safety
zone of Fairview) with all the instruments being recorded
in a small area but at different times. The room has hard
walls, floor and ceiling so in addition to some acoustic
foam panels on the walls we draped duvets and blankets
around to take the edge off the room. Small, hard sounding
places are not generally very nice to record in but with
a bit of work and improvisation you can do wonders! The
control room is tiny and can accommodate just one person
but works well. There is not too much sonic seperation
between the recording room and the control room so often
it's a case of getting a level, recording a bit then listening
back without the spill to check the recorded sound.
Having said that we were pleased with the results. We
recorded Simon's drums first with Martyn playing a guide
guitar and vocal for reference. I made the initial recording
on Pro Tools on our Mac G4. Martyn has an ADAT based recording
system but I didnt want to be restricted to 8 tracks and
endless bouncing so we went down the ProTools route.
The drum mics were;
Bass Drum....AKGD112E
Snare............Shure SM57
Toms.............Sennheiser 421
Hats...............Neumann KM84
Overheads.....AKG C414.
Ride Cymbal..Calrec CM1050.
The bass drum and snare mics were recorded flat through
a pair of TL Audio Mic Preamps,
all other mics went through a small Mackie desk, again
flat.
Because the ProTools 002 rack only has 8 inputs I recorded
the drums to 7 tracks, mixing the ride cymbal in with
the overheads, thus keeping a track for guides.
We spent a friday evening setting and micing the kit then
recorded 8 drum and guide tracks the following day. I
ran off some monitor mixes for the band to rehearse their
parts along to.
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.
At
a later date we spent another day recording Trevor's
bass guitar which was played through a combo and
mic'd with an SE Gemini Valve Mic into one of
Martyn's TLA mic preamps and recorded flat with
a small amount of compression. We got through
the 8 songs quite quickly (the value of rehearsal!)
and afterwards we recorded some acoustic guitar
parts played by Martyn. His guitar was mic'd with
an AKG C414, again flat through a TLA Mic pre.
On our third
session Tom came in to add his guitar parts to
the songs (nylon strung on this song). Again mic'd
with an AKG 414 and recorded flat to tape...sorry
Protools.
During a final session at Martyn's we recorded
some vocals. I tried the SE Tube Ribbon first
but ended up using the SE Gemini which was kinder
to his voice. At this session we also added various
other electric guitar parts, percussion and harmonica
to various tracks.
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
These
sessions took place over the best part of a year
and eventually Martyn wanted to finish the project
so booked some time in Fairview where we recorded
four more songs with the band. I transferred the
ProTools recordings to our Radar, we added some
vocal and guitar overdubs and mixed from there.
However this particular song had nothing added
to it and shows what can be done in a home recording
environment given some good players and a few
nice microphones! JS
