Late Night Poets

Some more Late Night Poets recording the other week. We recorded another 3 songs. One of the songs I previously recorded with them was voted number 1 on theaudience.co.nz unreleased chart, winning them $10,000 to make a video for it.  

Great North Drums

We're starting work on the third Great North album, slightly different process this time. In the past we've done most of the tracks live. Last time recording Vocals, Acoustic guitar, Bass and Drums live for almost all of the songs. This time we're tracking to a click and have just finished the main part of the drums to a pre recorded acoustic and vocal guide. Next up either Acoustic guitar or bass... or anything really!

With the addition of 3 mics and a couple of new preamps my drum tracking setup has become a lot more flexible. For Great Norths drums I went with Royer R121's as overheads. RE20 in the kick and the Nady ribbon mic as a kick out mic. I also put the KM184's back in the room as ORTIF room mics.

French For Rabbits - Blue Barn Studio

Spent last weekend in Wellington recording Drums, Bass, Strings, Guitar and some Vocals for French For Rabbits, again at Blue Barn studios.They're due to come back up to Auckland to finish it off next weekend.

Hula Hope - Drum Recording

A few weeks ago I recorded the bones of 3 more songs with Hula Hope from Wellington featuring guest vocals from Steve Abel. I'm in the process of adding a few extra parts to them (bass, keys etc) and asked Alex to play some drums/percussion. I'd added some of me playing individual marching drums on a song but needed more of a full drum kit sound for the others.

French For Rabbits

 I spent a few days at Blue Barn studio in Wellington with French For Rabbits working on a Single that might feature on their forthcoming album. Pretty fun getting in to a different space for a bit although I hardly felt like I was in Wellington as I didn't leave the studio except for sleep! We worked hard and got all the tracking done, now I'm back in Auckland ready to mix it all.

Josie Tuck - Drum recording

We spent a few days last week recording drums for Josie Tucks album with Stephen Thomas behind the kit. We got some really great sounds and tracked some really cool beats; a bit of afrobeat influence in a couple of songs, some cool percussion as part of the kit and a fair amount of jazz influences, even some free jazz moments! Lots of the parts are almost symphonic which should be a good base for the type of instrumentation and arrangements that Josie intends to have on top. 

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!)

Ivory Coast - Drum Recording

We recorded some more drums for Ivory Coast's album over the past couple of days, we tracked a couple of new songs and then re-did some of the songs that had changed a bit since the initial drum recording and added some extra percussion here and there. Despite me having a nasty cold it was actually a fun couple of days of recording!

I tried out my Studio Projects C4's as some stereo room mics (they were ok, not sure if I'll bother again) and I had an MD421 as an extra kick mic on the floor just angled up to the front of the skin (which actually sounds really great). In total I had 14 mics on the kit, which is quite a few for me but I like to get a few options up so I can delete most of them. For one song we tracked yesterday I'll probably only be using the kick, snare and the ribbon mics. But its nice to have the others there in case maybe I wanted to have the stereo room mics for to give the drums some stereo interest or more depth or maybe I needed a little more hihat or a tom etc.

Quail State Drums

Had a fun few days recording drums for Quail States album, its something that Jono has been squireling away on for some time now in his bedroom recording to programmed drums. He enlisted Stu Harwood (Tono & the Finance Co, Proton Beast, etc etc) to play the real drums on the album and I recorded them all here over a couple of days.

I guess half of the record is a lot louder than the music I usually end up recording (seriously noisy bands I want to record you, I don't just do folk pop) which was really fun because you can get away with some slightly more flashy drum fills and loud drums are just generally more fun. Then the other half is a lot quieter, really simple drum patterns that repeat with little difference the whole way through, kinda like a motif. Amazing what a difference a real drummer makes.

Also note the couple of Ribbon mics in the bottom corners of the photo which Stu brought with him, they made for great room mics, delicious! He also brought a Great River MP2NV which we ran them through, driving them a bit on the input and controlling that with the output level. 

Teacups EP Drums

Spent the day recording some drums for Teacups EP with Jackson (Sharpie Crows), Chelsea and Liz. Talita is in France making beautiful food. Some of the photos on her blog make me want to cry with how delicious they look.

Mimsy Cable - Drum recording

We started recording drums for Mimsy Cable's album yesterday. Trusty Alex Freer stepped up to fill drum duties on the record. Alex is a really great drummer and I have worked with him on so many different recordings now: Artisan Guns, Cool Rainbows, Mali Mali, Watercolours, Bearcat and now this record.

He brought in an old Hayman drum kit and we went through songs that suited that kits toms yesterday (photo above) but switched things around today and used his warmer with shorter sustain Yamaha toms (photo below) for a couple of songs that had more of a tom focus.

I tried the MD421 on kick and it seems to be sounding really nice, it was too clicky for my liking inside the drum but as an outside kick mic it works well, lots of punch. I've got the D112 sat inside the kick on some dampening to capture a bit more click and a bit more low end.

Great North

 

Spent the weekend just been recording the Acoustic Guitar, Lead Vocals, Bass and Drums for 4 more songs for the Great North Album. This could potentially be the last Drum tracking we need to do...

I think this is the start of something really good.

Great North Album #2

This weekend we started the initial tracking for Great Norths second Album, they like to try and get a live feel for recording. When I recorded their EP we tracked Drums, Bass, Keys and Acoustic live and then recorded Vocals and Electric Guitar on top. Then for their first album we recorded Drums, Bass and Acoustic guitar live with a guide keyboard track for most of the songs (which we redid on a real piano later) and one or 2 we did with a live lead vocal.

Before we started this album we had a think about what really worked last time and for me all the tracks that stood out as being my favourite performances were the ones we did with a live vocal. (Newfoundland, I Feel Alive and Hands) Something about them seemed to stand out as being more sincere or more real. I think we all relished in the slight vocal imperfections so this album we're mostly recording live vocals with Drums, Bass and Acoustic guitar.

The vocals are being tracked through my new Brent Averill 1073 DMP. Its essentially like having a 1073 microphone pre-amplifier section from a vintage Neve console on my desk making all my recordings sound just that little bit more delicious! Hooray! It finally arrived in the morning of the first day of tracking and is sounding lovely so far.

We got basic tracks for 7 songs done over the weekend. More recording fun next weekend (and the weekend after and the weekend after that and the one after that...)

I stuck a Studio Electronics C4 through the shockmount of the Baby Bottle to give me options for the Acoustic Sound. I'll probably end up using the Baby Bottle, its a less precise warmer sound which I think works well for Great North, but options are good.

Day #2 of Tracking Rachels using my Bass for the recording, hers is much nicer to play for smaller hands but the active pickups sound too pretty and bright. I'm getting a clean DI'd signal and one through my sansamp. We also redid the bass on a song through my new DMP, it sounded amazing, old and warm but detailed and punchy. Instant bass tone.

Tied On Teeth

Last Friday I tracked a single with Thames band Tied on Teeth.  Got it all done in a day, drums and bass live and then Guitars and Vocals on top.

I've been playing around with XY overheads for so long but never really been satisfied with the sound I was getting from them. I thought I was getting too roomy a sound with AB in the past and having listened to them carefully I really didn't like the recorderman technique I tried recently on the Mimsy Cable recording and the Great North album demos. Having recently read an article on stereo mic configurations and listened to a lot of different examples and also mixed a Watercolours song that we tracked with AB overheads I think I might be leaning back towards them, I tried it out on these guys and they sound great. Much more defined stereo image than XY and yes slightly more roomy but I think in a good way.

We used an array of guitars for the guitar tracking, it was so easy to just keep adding stuff and now I have to work out what is necessary and whats not. In the picture below Hugh's got a cloth covering the strings to mute them so he can strum all the strings and just play the one fretted note to get a really percussive sound.

Mimsy Cable and the Nocturne Bell

A couple of days ago I was recording the live tracks for a single with Mimsy Cable and the Nocturne Bell. I took this as an opportunity to try some different to my normal mic placements on the drums. I've been wanting to try out the "recorderman" technique again as I haven't really bothered trying it for ages, so far I think the Overheads sound really great, I may be using it more often. Also got the telephone mic out for a distorted room mic. I set the Kiwi to bi-directional with the null aimed toward the kit which got a really great open room sound. Alex assured me he'd be hitting fairly gently so I put my Blue Baby Bottle up as a second kick mic, it sounded really beautiful, really punchy and heaps of delicious low-mid.

Cass used my Jazz Bass with the neck pickup volume rolled slightly back to give the bass a bit of a boxy tone and we DI'd the Wurlitzer ready to be re-amped later. Hayden played guitar along live in the other room with his amp. After getting the live band down Alex added some tambourine and jingle bells and Hayden played a few cool ambient extra guitar parts.

We'll be tracking some horns and vocals sometime in the near future!