Casey Fogg is a talented singer/songwriter from Brisbane, who is wanting to return from a short hiatus to record a new single Start It Up. I will record, mix, and master the track, using the project to experiment with some advanced recording and production techniques...
Casey has been singing around Australia for over a decade, including support gigs for the likes of Daryl Braithwaite and The Superjesus. In 2014 she released her debut album Bleeding Hearts, produced independently in Brisbane, which received airtime around the country. Fitting amongst the pop / rock genre, Casey's powerful voice sees her songs likened to artists such as Paramore or Killing Heidi. Check out a song from the album below:
Sitting comfortably amongst the pop rock genre, the song is quite loud and exhibits many layers. It features a large snare and a very clicky kick, accompanied by the rest of the kit at a much lower level. Overall the drums sound over-compressed to my ears, which I particularly noticed in the unnatural toms; consequently I aim to deliver a more natural and dynamic drum sound. The guitars and strings provide a nice stereo image, leaving a lot of space central in the mix for Casey's vocals. To my ears, her voice sits a little distant in the mix, and it doesn't seem to fit cohesively with the rest of the instruments, almost as if they were recorded in different spaces. However this could be due to an unnatural reverb, most likely provided by a plugin's algorithm. To improve on this, I will record everything in the same room, and I aim to use as much natural reverb as possible in my mix. This will require me to try out some creative room mic'ing techniques, and blending them into the mix to provide natural reverb.
After meeting at an open-mic night, we discussed the idea of recording a single, and exchanged numbers. Casey sent me her demo for Start It Up, from which I discerned a 4/4 time signature and a tempo of 92. I communicated with her regularly, trying to gain a perspective of the direction she was hoping to take this single. I gathered information on the artists she was bringing in, their instruments, technical requirements, timelines and availabilities, what she expected of and from me, and her release strategy. From these discussions we agreed that I will record, mix and master the single, providing her with the recording stems and my mix bounced as a WAV file. I will also provide her with my mastered WAV file, but recommended to her that she get a fresh set of ears to master the song for an optimal outcome. I then pieced together a project plan, and booked in the first session with the drummer.
Session 1 - Drums
Andrew is an experienced musician, having played in numerous bands and recorded in various studios around the country. I learned that he would be bringing in his drum kit, a Gretsch Catalina series, featuring a 24" kick, 13" rack tom, 18" floor tom. In addition he uses a 13 x 7 Orange County snare drum, and Zildjian cymbals; 14" hats,16" & 18" crashes, 22" ride.
Before the session I was asked to put together a guide track for Andrew. To do this I took the demo and placed a 92bpm click over the top with a clap on the downbeat. I then had to play with time-stretching to ensure Casey's vocal cues were all perfectly timed. I threw a limiter on to bring the level up, and sent it to Andrew to practice before he came in for recording.
Next I looked into numerous recording techniques to get some ideas for how I wanted to approach the session (Rogers, 2015; Earnhardt, 2017; Gasson, 2017). The key take-aways from consuming these was:
Be more careful with mic placement, don't just "set and forget" and don't rush the process, move them and adjust them to get the right sound.
Get creative with additional mics, try other rooms, using baffles, positioning on the floor, lowering mics to remove unwanted cymbal spill and gain more drum sound.
Use the room's acoustics, capture reflections off multiple surfaces.
Play with phase, use it to your advantage.
Previously I have never had the inputs available to double mic each of the drums, so in my mind this was a requirement for the session. I also wanted to include the 'clicky-ness' of the kick drum in Casey's reference track, so I opted to use a third kick mic, aimed at the contact point of the beater and the skin. Furthermore, having previously used a range of dynamic mic combinations on the kick with no standout success, I chose to try a condenser outside the shell in combination with a dynamic inside.
In addition to the overheads, I was inspired by my research to try out some creative positioning of room mics; to provide myself some options when it comes time to mix. I opted for two C414s as room mics, due to their high-frequency response, and wanted to position them in a corner of the room where sound would build up, perhaps facing into the corner of the glass through to the control room. I also wanted to take two 2011s and AB them on either side of the kit to provide a really wide stereo image. I chose to position them nearer to the floor, capturing more drum sound and less cymbals. Finally, I wanted to try including a mono signal from a ribbon mic. For this I proposed a Royer 121 positioned in the centre of the kit, but on the far side of the room.
Finally, I took the session plan and decided on a list of appropriate microphones. In the end my input plan looked a little something like this:
Kick In - RE20
Kick Out - U87
Kick Beater - MD441
Snare Top - SM57
Snare Bot - SM57
Rack Tom Top - MD421
Rack Tom Bot - SM57
Floor Tom Top - MD421
Floor Tom Bot - SM57
OH - KM184
OH - KM184
Room - C414
Room - C414
Creative Room - 2011A
Creative Room - 2011A
Mono Room - 121
After a lot of organisation and preparation, it was finally game day. I pre-organised my ProTools session, and arrived a couple of hours early to setup and check all mics were working. Overall the session ran quite smoothly. Previously I have had to record numerous artists or instruments in one day, so this was quite refreshing just having to focus on doing one thing well. Some fine-tuning of the mics took about half an hour, as I repositioned the room mics around the space to capture the best possible sound. In the end I positioned the C414s in the top corners of the room. These provided quite a bright late reflection of the kit, and improved the stereo image nicely when blended in with the OHs.
After moving them around in height and aiming them towards different surfaces, I ended up achieving a great sound from the 2011s positioned near to the ground, aimed up above the drum kit. It provided a very wide image, with a great emphasis on the low-frequency content of the room. When used in addition to the other room mics, it really 'filled out' the space, making the drums more cohesive and less unbalanced towards the upper range of frequencies.
Besides the obvious improvement of double mic'ing the snare and toms, the sonic quality that really surprised me was the U87 on kick drum. When the kick drum was played it really 'breathed' with a full-frequency response that seemed to simulate, or perhaps even exaggerate, the upper-mid to high frequency content. As I moved it further away from the kick it seemed to capture too much of this high-frequency room content, and I had to place it back against the skin. Challenging the status quo of "classic" dynamic mics on drums has not been a priority for me until this session, but now I have experienced what an incredible different it can make, I really look forward to experimenting with more condensers or ribbons on drums in future.
Working with Andrew was a great step for me as an engineer, not just for technical skill, but for personal progress working with an artist in the studio. Having been in numerous studios before, he had a calm manner and knew roughly what to expect. Consequently, it gave me a little more insight into working with professional musicians. Most obviously, the sense of anxiety was gone from the room, requiring me to think further than just 'make him feel comfortable' to 'how can I get the best recording out of him'. This required me to fill him with confidence and energy, so that he would really hit the drums giving it that rock aesthetic. It was also a little different for me to be able to talk critically with an artist, having to carefully select my words to try and get the most out of the session. His knowledge of terminology (and consistency of playing) enabled me to punch him in on particular sections of the song; for example when he included a fill on the first bar of a verse which I suggested could be a little busy. He was able to quickly understand what to do and when, and on the first attempt we were able to rectify the issue.
Both Andrew and Casey seemed happy with the recordings, and I thoroughly look forward to mixing it. I feel like I took a lot from this session; from working with a next-tier musician, to trying new microphones and techniques out. Prior to this, I have not pre-prepared my ProTools session before, and that was another big lesson for me: minimise the number of things my head has to focus on, and a better outcome will ensue. Reinforcing this concept, was having to just record one instrument in a day. I really enjoyed that workflow for me, and will aim to do this more often in future.
After returning home, I quickly mixed the session on my laptop using headphones, aiming to use as little processing as possible. I used very light compression in a few places for consistency, and notched out some problem frequencies with EQ, and the result (compared to my previous over-processed projects) was remarkably better than I expected:
Session 2 - Bass
Kevin is as talented as a bass player as he is in the studio himself, so it was another interesting session navigating experienced artists. Before I brought him into the studio though, I researched a lot of bass recording techniques. I have not previously recorded the output of an amp, only ever a DI, so this was a new area for me. After watching some YouTube clips, and reading numerous articles, I gathered a better perspective for my approach.
Along with the DI, I wanted to dual mic the amp, and mix the two together to achieve the best possible bass sound I could. Though as I had not done this before I opted to mic it up with three, and choose the best combination. Benghiat (2019) recommended a few different options for microphones, but one that seems to resonate with me was the Electrovoice RE20. He explains that it "is remarkable in that, due to its Variable-D design feature, the proximity effect is virtually non-existent". For close mic'ing of a bass cab it seemed to make sense that this would be a good choice. The other two microphones I was deciding between was my ever-favourite, a U87, and my old favourite, a C414. Both of these condenser mics were recommended by various sources (Benghiat, 2019; Houghton, 2007; Huart, 2014), and I believed would help to bring out the clarity of the bass string pluck and generally a provide a fuller tone for the bass.
Come game day, I used the RE20 as my main source of sound, choosing to direct this aimed at the centre of the cone, quite close to the grill. The C414 and U87 I moved around a little (forwards and backwards, I wanted it to be as centred as possible), until I found a complimentary tone that best suited the RE20. In the end, interestingly, the C414 sounded better when sitting much closer than the U87. At this point I knew that phase issues would prevent me from using the two condensers at the same time. Another interesting point to note was that the C414 sounded best with a cardioid pickup pattern, but for the U87 I found a better sound with it set to omni. Finally, I also took a DI out from the tuner pedal, before the processing of Kevin's pedal board, to capture the clean sound.
It was a relatively quick session in the end, as Casey was also supposed to lay down rhythm guitar but was feeling ill on the day. Due to this, I also had a 121 and a KM184 in a M-S stereo recording position towards the back of the room (details coming with guitar component). Consequently, there was a few moments where Kevin tried to be a little daring with some bass flares, using his pedals to create an extravagant sounding bass. Whilst I couldn't use the whole of these takes (or so I currently anticipate), I did find the M-S mics picked up a great sound that I will be able to cut and edit over the top of little parts to add production value.
Working with someone who is usually in my position (running the studio session) helped to keep things moving quickly. He was able to succinctly explain in technical terms what he wanted from his headphone mix (eg: high-pass the demo at 200, less room mics etc.). Similarly, dropping him in on certain sections of the song seemed magically easy as he nailed the position and transition every time. Looking forward to the remaining sessions, though with COVID-19 on the loose it might make things a little more difficult: only time will tell.
Session 3 - Guitars
Lead guitarist is filled by Tony, long time collaborator with Casey, who herself plays rhythm. Due to COVID however we have had to postpone the recording session until an unknown point in the future. Both artists are not wanting to risk their families health at this point in time. I asked if they were capable of recording in their homes, to gauge the possibility of working together remotely, but Casey would prefer to wait until the time is right and continue as planned.
Session 4 - Vocals
SUSPENDED
It's crazy how suddenly the pandemic happened, and how impactful it has been. I have made sure to keep communication open with Casey, irregularly touching bass with how she's going. Particularly because her voice is on the recovery a little, but she's feeling positive about her progress. We been discussing vocal health, from drinking more water and quitting smoking, to honey and its benefits (particularly melaleuca/manuka): especially with respect to both tissue regeneration, and its usefulness in smoothing a smokers voice for a recording session.
I feel bummed this project had to be placed on pause, I think we had some really good momentum going. That being said I feel like isolation might give them a lot of practice time! I will personally use this time to continue researching for this single - see if I can find/ think-up some unique recording techniques for the two remaining sessions. Though with Casey happy to place the project on pause, I will be reallocating most of my time to other projects made possible by the apocalypse.
Stay Tuned
- TA
REFERENCES
Benghiat, M. (2019). The 5 Best Microphones For Recording Electric Bass. Retrieved from https://www.themusickitchen.com/mics/5-best-electric-bass-microphones/
Earnhardt, R. & Creative Sound Lab. (2017). Drum Room Mics - How to Get MORE Drums, and LESS Cymbals. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyCGmrrb3Og
Gasson, J. (2017). Recording Drums With Steve Albini. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmP9z-xTRz0
Houghton, M. (2007). Better Bass. Retrieved from https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/better-bass
Huart, W. (2014). How to Record Bass. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F5XgkvGuSE
Rogers, N. (2015). Ambient Miking: Room For Improvement. Retrieved from https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/ambient-miking-room-improvement
notes:
[mixing drums]
play with phase, toms, see which works better
limit OH's to take out snare only so doesnt add an extra delayed sound to snare
delay rooms - give time for attack to breathe ~15+ms
Kommentarer