Members MrJoshua Posted February 21, 2011 Members Share Posted February 21, 2011 Recorded a demo for a four-piece group Saturday. Two acoustic guitarists, an electric bass player and a djembe. The bassist was the only one not singing. We were going for a pretty organic sound. They just wanted a demo to show around to local clubs to help them get booked, so I set up a total of eight mics and a DI. The group was arranged in a semicircle in the same room, sitting together with a guitarist/singer to each side of the djembe and the bass player a bit off to the side. The bass player was using a US Fender Jazz 5-string. I ran him through a Radial J48 active direct box into a Chandler Germanium preamp. For room mics I set up a Microtech Gefell MT-71S and Royer R-101 ribbon in a mid/side arrangement, centered on the djembe player. These used both channels of a Neve Portico preamp with the "Silk" button engaged. Each acoustic was then captured with a Mojave Audio MA-101fet small-diaphragm condensor aimed right around the neck/body joint. I plugged these into both channels of the Groove Tubes SuPRE. The Djembe player got an AKG C-414 B/XLS in Hypercardiod mode aimed at the top head and plugged into an API 512c. For vocals, I decided to go with cardioid dynamic mics in the hope of minimizing bleed a bit, since we were doing everything at once. The female singer/guitarist got the EV RE-20 into a Great River MP-500NV, and the male singer/djembe player got the Shure SM-7b into another MP-500NV. The male singer/guitarist got a Sennheiser MD-421 II into an API 512c. A little rearranging was done during warm up to keep the close mics in phase with the room mics, and then I basically hit record and said go. They did three songs. Two of them were one-takes, and one was two takes. Then we went back and fixed a couple of bass flubs on one tune (the DI made that very easy) and added backing vocals on one song. The only sour bit of the whole thing was that on the last song one voice cracked pretty bad once on a high backing part, and he was singing it during the live take instead of waiting to do backing vocals on the next pass. But they decided to keep it instead of doing another take, so, fair enough. I did a quick rough mix and sent it home with the group, telling them to listen to it and tell me what they were hearing and I'd get a final mix to them this week. But I think it was pretty close. Basically I just brought up the room mics and then added enough close mics to even things out. Anyway, it was an enjoyable session. It's nice when a group comes in and things go smoothly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted February 21, 2011 Moderators Share Posted February 21, 2011 That sounds like a lot of fun. And I love the sound of a good dynamic through good a pre on voice. Thanks for sharing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted February 21, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 21, 2011 That sounds like a lot of fun. And I love the sound of a good dynamic through good a pre on voice. Thanks for sharing that. I'm actually really pleased with how the vocals came out. My normal go-to vocal mics are the Microtech I was using as a room mic, the SM-7b and the Mojave Audio MA-200 and MA-201fet. I use the RE-20 as a kick drum mic most of the time, and the 421 on toms (although I have used it as a live vocal mic before). This was a good reminder to me not to mentally stick a mic in only one application just because it's my go-to for that use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 It's nice when a group comes in and things go smoothly. Translation: It's nice when a group comes in and knows their stuff well enough that you can actually track them all simultaneously, in the same room, without having to worry about bleed too much, or isolating them and doing endless punches and overdubs... Sounds like it was a fun session! Any chance we can hear a song or two once you get the final mix approval? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted February 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 22, 2011 I don't know if they'll want me playing songs online since they were meant to be "getting gigs" demos as opposed to "ready for record production" demos. As in, we weren't too worried about finger squeaks on strings or some slight noise from someone shifting around in their seat and that sort of thing. (I tend to not be too worried about that sort of thing anyway as I think it just sounds like someone playing a guitar, but some people stress out about it.) It's a good recording and I think it sounds great, but it isn't exactly polished, if you see what I mean. But yes, that's exactly what I meant. It's nice when a group comes in, gets everything right in one take, and moves on to the next song. As a side note, this was also second tracking session with the new Pro Tools HD2 / Lynx Aurora 16 setup. So far I'm really enjoying the experience. Between the HD cards and the UAD2 Duo card, my CPU has about as little stress on it as I've ever seen. I ran this session at 88.2/24 just because I knew it would be light on tracks and wanted to hear if I could tell any difference between that and tracking at 44.1/24. I couldn't really tell much difference, if any. It did sound good, but I attribute that to the players and the setup as much as anything else... It's amazing how much easier it is to capture a good sound when you start with a good sound, isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 It's amazing how much easier it is to capture a good sound when you start with a good sound. For anyone interested in learning how to record, that should be lesson #1. They should write that down. :phil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted February 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted February 22, 2011 It's amazing how much easier it is to capture a good sound when you start with a good sound. For anyone interested in learning how to record, that should be lesson #1. They should write that down. :phil: It sounds like the sort of silly and obvious thing that wouldn't need to be said, doesn't it? But if there's one thing that I credit with helping me break through to the next level when it came to learning how to record, it was the moment I came to the realization that I couldn't make guitar X sound like guitar Y because guitar X DOESN'T sound like guitar Y, and ISN'T SUPPOSED to sound like guitar Y - it's supposed to sound like guitar X. And that instead of trying to figure out how to make something sound like something else, I would be way better off figuring out what sounds I actually had available and incorporating those into the recording in the correct way instead of trying to insist on a sound that wasn't there. I'm not sure if that even makes any sense, but I guess what I'm saying is, if you want a recording to sound like a Les Paul through a Marshall stack, get a Les Paul and a Marshall stack. If you have a Tele through a Twin Reverb, record a Tele through a Twin Reverb and just arrange the part to make it fit the song. It makes it a LOT easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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