Yasamin Al-Tiay EP recording

Last weekend we started recording Yasamin Al-Tiays EP and all going to plan it should be all tracked this weekend!

You may notice some new gear in the photos, I am looking after it for my friend, excellent engineer and all round GC Tom Anderson of TA Audio. He's out of the country soon so I am keeping some of his stuff safe.

We started with some guide tracks and then some Cajon which I recorded with a close KM184 and then a pair of Mojave MA 200's as stereo room mics. Then Matt played some bass drum with a mallet (instead of using the Cajon's bass drum as the bass drum sounded much nicer) and we added a full drum kit to one of the songs and some snare to another and then a whole bunch of percussion... Lots of drum layers!

On Sunday we worked our way through Bass (DI'd with the Chandler TG2, I don't think I am going to be able to give that back sorry Tom) Acoustic guitar, Banjo and Ukulele. KM184's got a fair bit of use that day (I probably felt sorry for them having delegated their usual overhead/stereo duties to the Mojaves!)

Josie Tuck - Banjo & Ukelele recording

Bruce came to record some Banjo and Ukulele for Josies album. A really lovely sounding Banjo makes all the difference!

Great North - Banjo Recording

This is Steph, wife of Strahan from Great North and recent owner of a banjo. I thought banjo might sound nice in one of the songs so got her to have a play around and she came in and recorded her part yesterday.

Its funny how one part can completely change a song. Lead me to the light had been dragging a bit, but now the Banjo gives it momentum and makes the chords more ambiguous.

Christmas Album - Josie Tuck

Just recorded a christmas song with Josie Tuck (and band) live with no overdubs and its great. I really like to record like this sometimes (dependant on band and song etc) I like a bit of bleed between mics.

I switched the ribbon in the picture above to be another pencil condenser (as seen below behind the beta 57a) on Bruce's banjo after hearing the first few takes and that the ribbon wasn't really sounding very good and that the banjo was lacking something. I think once I'm going to end up using the condenser on the banjo, although it didn't have as much body it sounded more open and natural which is what we're going for.

Ellens bells were more than loud enough to cut through everything and didn't need miking up. I also played jingle bells from my desk, again they didn't need miking because they were meant to be quiet in the mix and the roomy bleed in to the other mic's was more than enough!

Also because there was no click everyone opted for no headphones which was how some of my favourite teacups recordings got done, theres something nice about just capturing people playing naturally.

I also got them to record a very special refrain at the end (which you'll hear in due time)