Longtime Love

Mimsy came over to record a quiet song "Longtime Love". We're currently waiting for her band/chosen musicians to be in the country and available so we can get on with the rest of the record. But this one we're going to leave really sparse Vocals, Piano and maybe a guitar. Because of that I thought it'd be nice to make it a point of difference on the album and record Vocals and Piano live in one take, not to a click, not even with headphones on. The idea being that it'd sound like Mimsy just at home singing her song. I put up a couple of room mics to try and to capture that sensation of being in the same room as her.

I left the front on the piano to isolate the Vocal mics from the piano and the piano mics from the vocal as both were going to be quite quiet and then mic'd the piano from the back for a really warm rich piano tone. Mimsy also played with the damper pedal on to keep the tone really warm. 

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!

Christmas Album - Bannerman

Bannerman recorded their Christmas song on Wednesday evening. 

We tracked Drums, Bass, Organ, Keys, Vocals and electric guitar live. Ritchie sung and played guitar in the bathroom and the guitar amp out in the corridor and everyone had headphones. 

I even had my Leslie set up in the laundry for Finns Hammond to plug in to, but different years of hammond connectors meant no real Leslie fun (although we ended up running it through a plug in Leslie emulator in protools)

After that Cole played some tambourine and then Finn and Oliver recorded their Trumpet and Trombone parts respectively. Ribbon on the Trumpet and MD421 on the Trombone.   

Mali Mali - Recording "The Ramp"

Today we recorded another song for the Mali Mali EP called "The Ramp" Ben and I thought it would suit this song to have the guitar and vocals recorded live. Because I had the luxury of having all my channels free I setup a few more mics than I've used in the past recording Guitar and Vocals live. I think when we were playing it back the Nady Ribbon and two KM184's in combination sounded the best.

The Beta57 was there incase we opt for a dirtier guitar sound and then Kiwi incase we want a cleaner vocal sound but for now I love how that Ribbon sounds with Bens voice, I will definitely have it up for later vocal recordings. I don't think we'll be using the room mic much.

More Great North Album

I am feeling exhausted having spent the weekend recording a few more songs for the Great North Album. It took some time but we managed to get 3 songs tracked, 2 with live vocals. All the songs were pretty new and in the heat things got a bit stressful and grumpy but we made it through.

One song we ended up completely stripping back and re-arranging, going from more up beat poppy feel to very very mellow. So mellow that Hayden was able to sit in the same room to track his acoustic and vocals.

On one of the other songs we wanted to add a rattle on the ride cymbal and Olly hadn't got one so I carefully dismantled one of our taps! You can see the tap taped on below.



I spent alot of time on Friday messing around with our piano, carefully replacing felts and playing around with different adjustments so we could track some piano and vocals live with the album closer "All Eyes". After a while we ended up not tracking the vocals live for that song but put down a live acoustic piano anyway.

We intend on replacing all the other keys on the album but considering how piano focused this song is I thought it would be best not to replace it (considering we're not going to a click)

(yes that is a beta57a on the piano, sounded great too!)