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sessions

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

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Velvet Star
Wild Messiah
COMPETITION WINNER!
Martyn Barker
Biggi Hilmarson
Throat Culture
Bryan Josh
Sarah Dean: Harp
[In Audium]
Mostly Autumn
Graham Hodge
The Brew
Fabulous Ducks Live
Circus Envy
Anya Thomson
Henwen
Haverhill Silver Band

[In:Audium]

[In:Audium] are a local three piece band consisting of members Rich Nichols - Guitar and Vocals, Steve Berrieman - Bass, and Ben Booth - Drums. http://www.myspace.com/inaudium Formed in late 2004 the band have played countless numbers of live shows around the UK and their debut CD 'Drawing Silence' was released in 2005 followed in 2006 by Digital Saviour. Drawing from a lot of different influences they are one of those bands whose genre you can never really put a finger on but well crafted songs with a slightly electronic and industrial undertone are the band's standard sound. This track "Polaris" is from a new 3 track EP to be released in December 08.
The session
As always I like to try and set up the musicians so that they can see and hear each other in the live areas and being a three piece really helps. After a short chat I decided to record the band all together and add some guitar overdubs and vocals afterwards. The drumkit was set up in the main room and miked as follows;
Bass Drum.......Audix D6 placed about halfway into the shell, slightly off centre of the beater and an Audio Technica 4047 placed level with the outer edge of the shell and again off centre. The Audix is great for this type of modern kick sound with plenty of weight and attack. These two signals were summed to 1 track (after carefully checking the phase relationship between them) and compressed with the Focusrite Red compressor taking off about 2-3 db on the loudest hits. You have to be careful not to completely squash the kick so I generally use a slowish attack time on drum compression in order to allow plenty of the drum impact to come through. The Audix mic has a presence lift which, coupled with its slight mid-range dip and low end boost gives a nicely sculpted kick sound while the 4047 provides some lo-mid body and a bit more space.
Snare Drum.........Sennheiser e609 on the top and a Shure SM57 underneath.These mics were phase checked and summed to one track via a Urei 1176 compressor again using a slower attack time. Interestingly I have had this Sennheiser mic on loan for a while and I've really got into using it a lot on snare drums. It's always hard not to reach for the SM57 on the snare but I've had some really good results with this mic and its hypercardioid polar pattern gives good rejection of the rest of the kit and is nicely bright. I got to really like this mic so much that I bought one of my own but unfortunately it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the loan one! Guess which one he's getting back!
Toms............Sennheiser 421s. Bog standard stuff really. You just can't go wrong with the 421s on toms. Because there wasn't a lot of individual tom work on the track the toms were summed down to a stereo pair of tracks and compressed at the sub group with a pair of old Audio Development compressors.
Hi hat and Ride cymbal.......were a Neumann KM84 and a Calrec CM1060 respectively...again fairly standard stuff.
Drum Overheads.........I originally put up the Hebden omnis looking over the drummers shoulders at the face of the kit but changed these for a pair of Neumann u87s in order to get a bit more focus and stereo spread and to create a bit of space I put up a pair of the Golden Age R1 ribbons about 6 feet in front of the kit at more or less cymbal height. I have done this before with the AEAs and I wanted to hear how these budget ribbons aquitted themselves. I really like these mics and while the main room is too dry to have any real useful ambience I like the clatter it makes and usually feed some into the mix. Ribbons are really good at this as they give a very convincing room sound without being having too much sizzle from the cymbals.

 
 
Recording Drums
Kick drum: Audix D6 Snare drum:e609/SM57 Hi Hats: Neumann KM84
O/H Left: Neumann U87 Ride Cymbal : Calrec 1060
Toms Right: Sennheiser 421 Room Left : GA R1
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.
 

Steve plays a Shechter C4 Bass with Active EMG-HZ Pickups running through a Hartke HA4000 Head and 4x12 and as ever the bass guitar cab was miked with my trusty Neumann u47fet...right up against the speaker grill and slightly off centre of the speaker cone. Compressed via another old Audio Development unit. I recorded the bass flat but did some quite heavy eq'ing at the mix to get it to cut through the guitars.
Rich the guitarist has an amazing setup with PRS guitars running through his custom pedalboard into a Soldano Decatone head fitted with Groove Tubes. The Soldano 4x12 guitar cab was miked up with another Sennheiser e609 right up against the top left hand speaker (these mics are specifically shaped to do just this) and a GoldenAge ribbon about 15 inches away and slightly off axis of the top right hand speaker with, of course, a pop shield in front of it. I recorded these to separate tracks and monitored them left and right. When these channels are in phase they produce a good stable centre image but not much width. For those people who want to hear a radical phase difference effect then pan them left and right and invert the phase on one of these mics. You should immediately hear that the centre information disappears and the familiar “hole in the middle” becomes apparent. If you leave them out of phase and pan them both to the centre the signals all but disappears completely. There was a track with a guitar solo which suffered from this phenomenon but the name escapes me. (Ha Ha, Jr..private joke)
The GoldenAge R1 mic gives a big rounded warm mid range while the Sennheiser provides some brightness.
The clean guitar part which starts the song was left as the two mics panned extreme right and left and
we ended up double tracking the main rhythm guitars so at the mix the two original guitar mics were summed to the left (though not in equal volumes) and the double track mics similarly to the right.
We tried a number of vocal mics but ended up with a Golden Age ribbon mic compressed with the Audio Development limiter. The vocal was recorded flat and processed with just a little delay at the mix. A harmony part was added in the verses and recorded in exactly the same way.

Geeetar Stuff:
Soldano Decatone Head fitted with Groove Tubes
Soldano 4X12 Angled Cab fitted with custom tweaked Soldano S12X Speakers
TC Electronic G System
Fulltone Full Drive 2 Mosfet
Zex Ooh Wah 2
Zvex Fuzz Factory
Ernie Ball 6166 Volume Pedal
PRS guitars - 513 Rosewood, Custom 24, Singlecut and McCarty
Gibson 1957 Les Paul Goldtop
Elixir and Planet Waves Cables
(To record Polaris guitars used where PRS 513 Rosewood, PRS Custom 24 and PRS Singlecut)

Recording Guitars/ Vocals
Guitar 1: Sennheiser E609 Guitar 1: Golden Age R1 Bass1: Neumann U47
Vox1:Golden Age R1 Guitar 3: 609/R1
Guitar 2: Sennheiser E609 Guitar 2: Golden Age R1  
Keys L: DI Keys R: DI Keypad 2: DI
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

With sessions like this where you have very little time, speed is really of the essence and making the right decisions at the tracking is vital. If you get it right it means that, like this session, the mix was mainly about compressing detail and finding an overall balance to get the style of the song across JS
 
 
Microphones and recording 2008. Recording [in:audium]