It’s the end of November and the multitrack studio at the university is getting busy and booked up due to deadlines fast approaching. This week we were due to track the vocal tracks for the three songs we had, so we decided to use the ADR booth in the sound theatre to record O’Brien’s vocal takes which we had done before for a recording in our second year and got very good results. We also managed to use the Neumann U87 microphone to record the vocals which was placed a foot away from O’Brien with a pop shield in between to get a clean recording of our clients voice. The M-Audio preamps in the sound theatre are brilliant for tracking dialogue and sound amazing when used to record vocals and we got some fantastic results whilst using this setup for the session. The session began with O’Brien recording all the main vocal tracks for his songs after he had warmed his voice up using his exercises.

O’Brien ready to roll

After we had recorded all the main vocal tracks without any problems, we decided to layer the harmonies for the songs. After a chat about the best way to do things and what the song would benefit from, we decided on doing three harmonies of the same parts and then when it came to mixng the tracks we would pan two harmonies left and right and then the third through the middle. This is a popular production trick that makes use of the stereo field in songs and creates a lot of space within the track. Four hours into the session we felt as a group that we had enough vocal tracks to take to the mixing stage and I also suggested to O’Brien the idea of getting in touch with some marketing students about creating a sleeve and promo photos for the EP. O’Brien, Philip and I sat down after recording to listen to the three roughly mixed tracks and felt confident we had enough parts to take to the mixing stage. The only job left at the end of the session was to return the Neumann microphone back to security to keep it safe over night.

Philip Rollett returning the Neumann microphone back to security

The fastest paced session I have ever worked on. This week involved tracking bass guitar and keyboard parts with two of O’Brien’s friends who he has known for a long time. Megel plays the keyboard and Clive plays the bass and both are very experienced musicians who were able to come up with some parts for the three tracks whilst in the studio and it was my job to ensure we kept the session running smoothly for everyone involved. As these two instruments were going into the desk via direct injection, there was no need for any microphones except for a 414 we hooked up in the live room to hear the musicians talk to us about the different takes. O’Brien stayed in the live room with Migel and Clive to sing and give more of a feel to the different takes we recorded.

Clive, Megel and O’Brien

After about three hours of recording various parts and takes we were very happy with the results we had got and played the overall rough mixes to O’Brien and we were all very happy with them. Reflecting on the production process so far, I feel I have kept a well managed project going with a lot of attention to planning out time slots. So far the project has nearly all the tracks we need for the EP and the final recording sessions will involve recording vocal tracks and harmonies. The project so far has been a good learning experience and a lot of fun too!

A song really starts to take shape when you get some rhythm guitar on top of some drum tracks and this is exactly what happened in this weeks guitar tracking session. After Philip and I worked on choosing the best drum track takes from the past session we did some rough level mixing ready for O’Brien to start building guitar parts on top of the drums. Prior to the session my main concern was to book out two SM57 microphones and an AKG 414 with some placement ideas in mind. After O’Brien arrived we got to work on placing the microphones with the two 57’s close miked an inch away from the grill on the two speaker cones of the Line 6 Spider 212 amplifier. One 57 was placed an inch away directly facing the center of the cone whereas the other was angled facing the inner part of the cone, off the center. This was done to allow us options in post-production with various sounds, the AKG 414 was placed 8 foot away at a height of 2 foot in the air facing the front grill of the amp. The polar pattern we chose for the 414 was cardiod as we decided against omnidirectional as we were setting up in the ‘dead room’, therefore not a lot of reverberation would have been captured anyway.

The pair of SM57’s

After getting a good sound from the microphones and checking the phase on the 414 room microphone, we started to track different guitar takes and listened back to them and we very pleased with the sound we were getting. From this session I learned how it was best to get as many takes as was possible to then allow us more options when it came to mixing these tracks, choosing the best possible ones. We layered guitar overdubs with O’Brien and I even got a chance to play a few guitar parts including a guitar lick in the middle of ‘Another Day‘. Overall, this was a very successful session and now the tracks were starting to take shape.

O’Brien Hesson

Due to personal reasons, O’Brien was unable to make the sessions during weeks 4 and 5 and so Philip and I had to find other things to do for the project to remain productive. One thing we did was listen to a lot of Reggae music to try and note down some ideas for production and post-production techniques, this was a very good experience for myself as it opened me up to fresh ideas about how the final product could sound. Listening to popular Reggae artists such as Peter Tosh, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and The Skatalites helped me understand more and more about the genre sound and the feel that I wanted to incorporate into O’Brien’s EP.

The Skatalites

During these two weeks we also planned what instruments we would track next and what issues we may incur in the following weeks. As the keyboard and bass players were traveling a long way to come to Lincoln we had to keep in contact with O’Brien about what days in the coming weeks were going to be available for everyone. We decided that we needed the bass and guitar tracks down before even considering O’Brien to start laying down vocal tracks and so we decided on the next session being used to track guitars. O’Brien also got in touch with me about various ideas for guitar parts and I spent these two weeks thinking of ideas to bring to the session when we would next be in the studio.