Month: December 2013

For my mix, I wanted to give it some kind of difference to the original, without losing the feel of the song. The first major difference between my mix and the monitor mix would probably be the lack of the mandola. I got rid of it as it had a harsh sound that didn’t fit the verse and the style of piece I was going for. Also, I only used the piano chords in the final verse, to give it a different feel to the other verses, separating it from them. Another part I cut down was the slide guitar in the chorus. I cut it down so it was only playing the final few chords of each chorus, as it’s sound clashed with the main guitar sound. In terms of the main guitar, I brought the part in a few bars later than in the monitor mix, since I felt that it had more of an impact on the piece. I also panned one part hard left, another hard right, and kept the third in the middle. For the solo guitar part in the second chorus I applied an EQ to the part, getting rid of some of the more harsh mid to high end frequencies, giving the part a softer sound that sat well in the track. For the bass, I panned one part hard left, the other right, and the third in the middle. I also applied an EQ to bring out the lower end a cut out some higher frequencies to give a deeper sound. For the drums, the first thing I did was bring up the volume for all parts, because they were just lost in the monitor mix, and the drums are a crucial part to a track like this. After that I panned the two overheads hard left and right, and the snare drum slightly to the left, leaving the bass drum in the middle. I also brought the drums in later then they do to give more emphasis to the vocals at the start of the piece. Regarding the vocals, I started the piece with the main, lower vocal part without the higher vocals for most of the first verse. The higher vocals were brought in at the end of the first verse, slightly quieter than the main vocals, also panned hard left and right. Also, I added a reverb effect to the main vocals, to give them a stronger emphasis throughout the whole piece, especially in the first verse, where it’s just the vocals and the bass.

For our last week of recording we recorded two additional parts for the song; a mandola and a piano part. To record the mandola we used an SEX1 condenser with a cardioid polar pattern to pick up just the sound from the mandola without any room ambiance. We used tremolo strumming on the mandola in the verses, then switching to strummed chords in the bridges. In addition to the mandola we also had a keyboard part to record. The keyboard was simply D/I’d into the desk from the live room, playing chords in the verses.

For recording the vocals we had 2 different parts, a main, lower voice and a higher one to add to the main vocals. We recorded both sets of vocals in the dead room to make sure they were as clear as possible with no disturbance. To record all the vocals we used a Neumann U57 condenser microphone, commonly used for vocals. We also used a pop shield in front of the mic to muffle any harsh plosives that could have been picked up. The main vocals were recording in mono, and we recorded them 3 times to give people a choice of which ones to use when it came to their own mix. For the higher vocals, we recorded them in stereo so that we could pan them in the final mix.

We had three different guitar parts to record; the main rhythm guitar between the verses, the solo guitar between the second and third verses, and the slide guitar, which was with the main rhythm guitar between the verses. Firstly, to record the rhythm guitar we used 2 SM57s on a vox amp which was hooked up to the guitar. 1 of them was in the middle of the amp, the other on the edge to get all of the guitar’s sound. We also used a 414 for room ambience, about 2 meters from the amp with an omni directional polar pattern to pick up all the sound it could. Also we double tracked this part so we could pan it however we wanted. For the solo guitar, we used to the same microphone setup, but put more gain on the amp for a different sound. Finally, we had the slide guitar which used a different amp, but with the same mic setup. This part needed more gain, and we also added a pad to the part to make sure it didn’t overpower anything else.

The second instrument we recorded was the bass guitar. The bass was recorded in the dead room, with 2 mics recording the amp’s output; A D112 dynamic, and an M201 dynamic. We also used a D/I box to handle any impotence that would’ve come from the bass. The D/I was put through a Sony compressor with a 5:1 ratio to get it’s levels consistent. The phase of the D/I signal was inverted to give a fuller sound overall. When recording, we used pre roll which plays the track without recording for a selected time to give the player some idea of where they were coming in.