In this session, I recorded the song Confusion from the last project with James. We had quite a few technical issues but we managed to solve them quite quickly.
Issues we had:
Firstly during our set up, we were having problems with the mic stand holding the right overhead mic. It kept falling down and therefore we couldn’t get it to stay in the right position. After adjusting it so that the sides were even and the mic was not weighing it down, it stayed much better and was now tighter and placed where we wanted it to be.
After that, I began to set up the vocal mic but there were components missing which meant it kept falling out of its holder. I had to change it for the other one in the studio, which actually made things much easier for recording because it meant that the vocals had no spill on them.
Then as we were about to do a take, the DI for the second guitar was feeding back so we changed the input from 10 to 12. This did not help much because the DI box was faulty but it did prevent the feedback. Due to this, we decided that it would be best to mic up an amp instead. This was okay for a while until Amelia informed us that she could not hear herself through the headphone. This was an easy fix, all we had to do was open the mixer in Logic and turn her up louder than the other instruments. After doing that we adjusted the volume of other instruments especially the bass to get a desirable mix for the artists.
Next, the artists were struggling with their timing so we allowed them to do some takes along with a click. This was easy enough but we could only use it if we recorded it as just playing the click cut off the studio’s audio for the instruments.
Our final problem, which was our biggest one, was the kick drum mic. This had been quiet throughout the entire session and we noticed that it wasn’t picking up any sound but we could hear it. We realised that it was being picked up on the overheads but not the actual kick mic. My first thought was to ask Micheal if he actually used the kick drum during the song. He said he did and so we tested the level before trying another take. With the gain turned all the way up, we tried again but there was still nothing. Next, we realised that the sub and gate were on so we turned them off but it made no difference. Our only other thought, after asking for help was to change the mic. After doing so we finally had an alright sounding recording but it was still quite quiet. We decided to adapt the EQ in logic so that it sounded more full and had more bass in it. It worked thankfully and we got a great take, finishing the session ahead of schedule.
Setup:
- Kick drum – AKG D112 then AKG D440
- Tom mics – AKG D440
- Snare Mic – Shure SM57
- Guitar amp mics – Shure SM57
The amps are facing backwards to each other to avoid spill on the tracks - Overhead mics – SE4
- Vocal mic – SE Titan
