TMC: Tracking I
- Tim Allison
- Mar 5, 2019
- 3 min read
Another day spent in Neve-rland with The Mailbox Crew; this time tracking Keys, Bass, Drums, and Lead Vocals. All seems smooth sailing so far...
Making up the rhythm section of the group, Matthew, Mercedes, and Kaleah came back in to construct the backbone of their two songs; leaving just horns and harmonies for our final session. The pre-production plan (seen in the first of this series) came in handy when planning for this session, and with a little practice throughout the scratch track recording the whole session ran much smoother.
DRUMS
Setup for recording drums remained identical to last time (seen in TMC: Scratch Track), to ensure consistency between recordings.
BASS GUITAR
Bass guitar was routed into the desk via a passive mono DI box to obtain a clean signal. I would like to then re-amp the bass track, and mix this with the clean sound to provide a suitable bass guitar sound with a groove that fits the genre (taking into consideration their previous works and Ben Lee as references).
KEYS
A clean signal was also recorded from the keyboard, which was routed into the desk via a passive stereo DI box. Matthew played the Yamaha keyboard with excellent dynamic range, allowing me room to mix everything together in a more natural way, perhaps with just a touch of compression and reverb over the top.
LEAD VOCAL
To record Matthew's lead vocal I opted to use a Rode NTK, as it is a valve condensor microphone designed to add incredible detail, and a warm richness to a voice. Interestingly, upon a little research, I discovered that the optimum position for such a microphone is actually upside-down. Since hot air rises, and valves do not respond the best with heat, it was recommended for the best possible results to position the mic hung from the stand, rather than its intuitive alternative. To maintain a sense of consistent natural reverberation, I chose to keep the C-451 B's in the corners of the window recess (as discussed last week) to capture some excited room ambience. I then also decided to position the C-414's in an A-B arrangement in the live room (obviously equidistant from Matthew) to provide myself with additional options that could be mixed in the post-production phase.
SESSION NOTES
This tracking session I placed high priority on getting headphone mixes right, in order to make the artists feel as comfortable as possible, which in turn would draw out a great performance; this was particularly true for Matthew's vocal track. Initially I was unable to patch in reverb through the outboard hardware (signal was patched correctly, but I couldn't find an appropriate reverb effect to apply). Consequently, after a little time wasted, I inserted a return channel digitally in the DAW with reverb, which I could then send in moderation to his headphone mix. In the end, it was interesting to observe how much more comfortable he seemed (and therefore sounded) with appropriate headphone reverb, reinforcing such a necessity. To mitigate this issue in future, I returned to the studio a few days later and played with all of the options on all the outboard gear, until I was more than comfortable with the gear.
It was also interesting to note that Mercedes seemed to play bass guitar better (and more comfortably) when click was removed from her headphone mix. Since drums, keys, and click can all be heard simultaneously on certain beats, and it is highly unlikely they would be perfectly synchronous, it made sense to me to try removing the click and have her 'feel' the music more.
I will leave you with a brief video of the tracking session in action (Mercedes on Bass):
... and a sneak peak at the skeleton for their opening track, 'Blow Your Mind':
Great things are coming!
Stay Tuned
- TA
Comments