at TFS
Today as I was mixing “What Goes Around” I decided I needed some claps, but the problem was the reverb plugin on ProTools didn’t quite sound real enough for me. So I decided to mic up a large room that has wooden floors and a brick wall that we have upstairs. I used the NT1-A condenser microphone right in front of me and then I put two dynamic mics in the rooms “sweet spots”. The wooden floors and tall ceiling gave me a huge reverb sound that sounded really good and authentic.
Yesterday and today have been mainly pre mixing. Basically I just need to get all of the music that we’ve recorded somewhat organized and get rid of tracks that we don’t need so that we are ready for backup vocals, vocals, and perhaps some horns if we have enough time. I am slightly worried about the final mixing because as I’ve seen at TBeats, mixing takes a very long time because you really only want to make slight changes to each track until it fits perfectly in the mix.
Yesterday at TBeats I actually got to press record since Brandy was working on her own song and there were no other engineers in the studio. It was pretty simple just pressing record and then play, but I did learn quite a few helpful keyboard shortcuts and other tricks that will help me save tons of time. For example, when recording a track that will most likely take more than one try to get right, you can simply change the recording mode to playlists and set it to loop and it will automatically keep every take you do for that section without having to create a new track every single time. Then you can listen to each take and drag individual parts that you liked most into the main mix or just use the take that sounded best. That is probably the most useful thing I have learned during my entire project. We also touched a bit on how analogue recording works. Later today we will have hopefully our last guitar session. If we are able to finish all of the guitar this week, then we will start on vocal harmonies, vocals, any extra synths or other sounds we might want, and finally mixing (which I’ve learned takes a ton of time). The attached picture is basically the remote control for protools. The red button at the bottom is the record enable button and the button next to it makes the track play so you can record onto it. This is located on the far left of the mixing console.
Yesterday we recorded some of the guitar parts for the album. It was really nice because the guitar player who came in knows music very well as opposed to some of the other musicians who were good at their instrument, but didn’t know music very well. This made for an extremely easy and quick day yesterday. We were able to lay down a rough take for three of the four songs. I have found that recording rough tracks first can be a very helpful way to record because, even though it may take more effort and time in the begining. It helps us to better visualize what that particular instrument is going to say in the song and strain out any bad ideas that don’t really fit in the mix. In some cases, such as yesterday, we can even use some parts from the rough in the finished product. We have also been experimenting with different micing technics to get different sounds from the instruments. For example, last week we used an XY pattern which I learned at TBeats for micing the piano. The XY pattern is when you cross two microphones to make an X shape. This gives you a stereo field. When we recorded guitar, I used a Shure SM58 dynamic microphone on one end of the amplifier cone, and a Rode NT1-A condenser microphone on the other end of the amplifier cone. The combination of the crisper and cleaner SM58 with the heavier and thicker NT1-A worked very nicely.
This morning I spent about three hours mixing our bass and drum tracks that we have for “Fall In Love”, “One Plus One”, and “Leave Me Out Of It”. Using the process I learned at TBeats, I start by adding a compressor to each track to give it a little extra sound. If you get it too loud, the track will clip which creates a crackle. Next I add two one band EQs, one to cut off the highs and one to cut off the lows. Unless I’m trying to get a special effect, usually I just want to cut out the frequencies that I can’t hear but are still taking up space in the mix. Then if there are any frequencies that I want to feature or take out I use a seven band EQ and basically just sweep through it until I find something that I like or dislike. After doing this for each track, I send them to a bus which is basically a control track. For example, if I have five different drum tracks, I can send them to a bus and control the volume of the drums from just one track. Eventually once the mix is finished, every track should be sent to a bus and all of the buses sent to the master fader.
Yesterday I spent most of the day working on mixing Phill’s upright bass that he recorded for “Fall In Love” and getting it ready for next week when we add lead guitar. That was difficult because I had never recorded or mixed an upright bass before. After many YouTube videos, it actually turned out pretty good. After that we began recording a recent addition to the EP that has yet to be named. All of today will be spent recording this new song which is coming together much quicker than some of the other songs we have been recording.
Yesterday I realized that recording is not always fun. We sat for about four hours mixing just one song. But I have continued to learn tons of interesting and helpful information from Brandy and the other engineers at TBeats Studios. Today, Phill Sansone is coming in to record his upright bass on a song called “Fall In Love”. I’m really excited for this song because not only is it a catchy song, it will have upright bass and probably just some guitar licks on an acoustic. It is a very simple song but the musicians we have playing on it are both very talented so I really think they are going to be able to bring this song to a different level than some of the other songs on the EP.
Today we spent recording drums for both “One Plus One” and “Pick Up Line”. It is very frustrating because if just one part of the drums is out of time, the whole song will be out so we had to go back and rerecord many times today.
Yesterday we had Cody, the drummer who is playing on the EP, come in and record the drum part for the first track on the album, “Leave Me Out Of It”. It took us a little more than four hours before we got it just like we wanted it. Although we recorded it all the way through, we still need to go back and add a couple background parts tomorrow. Today I spent the day at TBeats. We gave tours to an Australian guy who works for “Ponto Solutions” in the advertising and marketing section, and a singer songwriter named Greg who was interested in recording and collaborating with Tony, the owner of TBeats. I also got to work a bit with a different TBeats engineer named Malcolm who produces EDM, rap, trap, and house music. Almost everyone I talked to today was interested in working with me in some form later on, most importantly a young rapper who is coming to record one of his songs in my studio on Friday afternoon.
The problem I have for the coming week is that the only audio interface that is supported by my version of Pro Tools is my Fast Track C600, which works great for recording instruments where I only need one or two channels since it is only a four channel interface. The problem we have is that next week we are planning on recording drums which, depending on the style of recording and desired sound, can use five to eight mics easily. The other option I have is to use the Mackie ONYX 1620 mixing console, which has eight microphone inputs. The problem with the second option is that, as I mentioned earlier, my version of Pro Tools does not support the Mackie ONYX 1620, so I would have to run all of my drum mics out of the mixer, into my Fast Track C600, and finally into Pro Tools as one stereo track. This means that I would have to get my sound levels and EQing exactly right for each channel before we recorded it. Today I spend some time experimenting with different mics to see if I can get a good sound that I want for my project while only using three or four microphones or if I just want to mic up the whole drum set and hope I can EQ everything the way I want it beforehand. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do, but I’m leaning towards the fewer mics approach. Today I also spent making sure everything is charged, clean, and where we need it to be for Monday because when we are trying to record drums for an entire EP in one week, its would probably not be too fun to be looking around for mic cables or drum sticks. Over all its been a really good first two weeks and I’m very excited to actually start recording.