The Final Betrayal - Session 2 - 27 May 2012

Jamie (drums), Darren (guitar) & Colin (bass) turned up for the session which was booked from midday until 5pm.  It was such a hot day that we had to have to windows to the studio to let in a breeze between takes, which is very unusual for this part of the country.

As we were just laying down guide tracks for the guitar, Darren had brought a practice amp that had a line out, so we could record it straight into the desk, without any bleed on the drum tracks. Colin's bass amp was set up at the bottom of the stairwell to make sure that there was no bleed from the drums or vocals.  The vocal mic was put outside the room at the top of the stairs as normal, but we ended up not using it at all.

It took about 2 hours to set up, which is normal if mic'ing up drums which left us about 3 hours to get some tracks recorded.

We started with a track called 'Stomping Ground'.  This is a fast metal tune (209bpm!), which starts with guitar, so I put down a click for the first 12 bars until the drums kick in.  For some reason, the bass sound wasn't coming through very clear.  Colin uses a Fender bass amp with an overdrive sound, but it was sounding really muddy.  It's quite easy to add sounds later on, but almost impossible to remove them, so we ditched the overdrive for recording.  If the songs require it, we can always run the bass track back through the amp to get the overdrive sound later in the process.  We recorded two takes of this track to see which is the better.  We really struggled with this track today. It wasn't sounding great and Jamie didn't feel his drumming was as good as it could be, so we moved on.

Next up was a track called 'Tomb', which is a heavy 140 bpm.  I think it was here we started hearing a weird clapping sound on the snare drum tracks.  It was odd because it wasn't on every drum hit, just every now and again.  It is something that can be sorted with a bit of digital editing, but it's annoying because we couldn't really track it down.  It wasn't the cowbell which was attached to the stand next to the snare mic and it wasn't anything else nearby rattling.  Very odd.

Finally, we did a track called 'Heart Echo'.  It still had the weird clapping on some snare hits.

It was a very difficult session today.  The room was too hot, the sound wasn't right and the playing wasn't as good as it could be.  At 4pm, the band and I had a chat about how we are going to improve things next time, which I think really must mean bringing in the whole band.   As Colin pointed out, he gets some of his cues from the guys who weren't there today, which throws him off, and I think that's probably true of Jamie and Darren too.  We decided to call it a day.

I think, sometimes, you just get those days where things don't go as well as you wish, and there isn't much you can do about it.  Today was one of those.  There is no rush, we can take as long as it necessary to get these foundations right.  It's a marathon, not a sprint (etc etc).

Face It - 17 April 2012 - First Listen Back

The title isn't really correct of course.  We've all been listening back since we started recording sessions in January, but this was the first time the band and I listened to all the tracks, in order, with almost final mixes.

Since last week, Jack had emailed me a list of changes the band had wanted, and I had written up a list of my own.  I made those fixes during the week, so all the mixes were pretty much as requested.

The band turned up at 8pm (beers in hand) and, for the first time since we started 5 months ago, not an instrument in sight :-)

We had a quick chat about where they are up to with the CD artwork before settling down in the sofas for a good listen to the mixes.

During the listen through, Mike spotted a couple of minor editing mistakes which were quickly sorted out.  The only slight sticking point was some backing vocals in 'Let Go', which I think was (and still are) a 50/50 split between the band (even though there is 3 of them!) as to whether to keep them or not.

The band left at about quarter past 11 with a copy of the latest mixes.  Their task before the next session is to get the artwork sorted out and see if there are any last minute changes to the mixes they want doing (and to decide about backing vocals on 'Let Go').

Face It - 10 May 2012 - Final Recording Session?

Intro

The guys turned up (beers in hand) as normal at 8pm to put some finishing touches to their album. This might be the last session where they actually record anything.  It wasn't going to be a long session, as Chris needed to be up at 5am the next morning.

We were only going to record a few guitar parts and some extra backing vocals, so we weren't planning for a long night.  Things didn't quite turn out as they should have.

Chris brought along his trusty Marshall amp, which we mic'ed up in stereo as usual.

Technical Issues

After a quick level check, we started adding some guitar parts to 'Everything Turns To Blue', then things just went a bit wierd.

There was a 'click' on the recording.  Now this happens more than you might imagine, but most of the time, the click is only heard once and is usually attributed to someone switching on a light, or the heater in the studio coming on, or a mic is still switched on during playback and it picks up something, or some other electrical interference and is not actually on the recording.  So we listened again.  There it was, same place.  So I set about finding which track the click was on.  Solo'd the track we'd just recorded and it was on there, so I muted that track and had another listen.  The click was still there, so I solo'd the drums (which had been recorded in January and definitely didn't have any clicks on), and the click was there, at the same place in the song.  Sometimes the gear I use (a Tascam 1804) is a bit temperamental (it certainly doesn't like being cold!), so I rebooted the computer and the recording box.  Same click, same place.  So I loaded another song and no clicks anywhere.  Very odd.  Rebooted a few more times, same result.  Only on this particular song, at this particular place was there a click that hadn't existed before.  To get things moving, I quickly mixed down what we had, and created a new project and imported the mix down.  This meant we could record the guitar parts and I'll put them back in the original project on another day.  The rest of the recording went off without any more clicks.  I guarantee that next time I load that project, it'll be fine.

Maybe it was just 'wierd Thursday'.

UPDATE:  The problem was 'mixing latency'.  My PC just wasn't up to the task of mixing 24 audio tracks with loads of effects in real-time.  After 'pre-mixing' a few tracks, the click went away. Phew.

Recordings

Cheer up Mike.  You get to  record something tonight.

On 'A Minor Incident' there is a particularly good bass part which we decided to double up on guitar.  Who's the best person to play it?  Well, of course, Mike played it in the first place, so, for the first time in a couple of months, he gets to record something.  We also wanted to make the chorus backing vocals sound fuller. Chris and Jack doubled each others parts, but it was still missing something.  Adding in the 3rd of the chord did the trick.

Sometimes during recording we'll add something that we aren't sure about, so we'll put in a demonstration version and take it away from the session to see if we like it.  This was the case with a backing vocal part in 'Living On A Shoestring'.  We'd only recorded a harmony part on the first chorus and needed to put it on the other 2 choruses.  With the miracle of digital editing (cut & paste), this was added to all the other choruses in a few seconds.

Chris and Jack added some ooohs to 'Thunder and Lightening' and we re-introduced a ride cymbal roll that was recorded when the drums were done, but never seemed to fit the song.  It's a good job we kept that track because it now fits the song!  It adds a little bit of lift to the song just before the chorus. Nice.

The song starts with the sound of thunder, but the sample we are currently using is a bit naff.  My job this week is to find something that sounds like, well, thunder and lightening :-)

Jack put down some backing vocals ideas on 'These Days', but his voice didn't really suit some of the parts.  Chris did a much gentler vocal on a couple of the ideas which fitted the laid-back feel of the song. The other ideas will go on the session mixes so we can decide which ones work and which to drop.

Something I missed when recording the main vocal, was a couple of lines in the first verse. Chris didn't pronounce one or two of the words clearly in the original take, so we punched a new vocal for those lines.
It was also decided to get rid of the guitar during the solo and just leave the harmonica.

We had a listen back to 'Let Go'.  The band are still divided about whether the 'Paul McCartney' ooohs fit the song.  I don't think we made a decision in the end, but we'll need to make one soon!

We wrapped up the session at about 11:20pm.  So much for Chris' early night :-)  Was this the last recording session?  Hmmm.  Maybe.

Things to do before going into a recording studio

This page has some good tips for those who are going into the studio for the first (or second) time: http://studiorecordingblog.com/studio-recording-tips-for-musicians/#more-9

I think the best one is perhaps #1 Prepare Your Songs.

• Do you really know how to play the song? 
• Do you know the tempo?  
• If there will be a lot of overdubs, do you know what these will be?  

The more you prepare, the quicker (and cheaper) your recording session will be.

Face It - 4th April 2012

Chris, Mike & Jack from 'Face It' came around last night at 8pm, to record some final parts for their album (along with a box of cans of beer).  They haven't yet got the artwork sorted for the CD cover, but they know what they want (and it should be very good). They just need to take the pictures.  The song order was decided a few weeks ago, but Mike thinks a few things could be swapped around.  Of course, it's not a problem to re-arrange things at the moment (from my point of view), just need a band decision.

We started with some guitar parts for 'Searching' to fill in the gaps between vocal lines.  When first recording Chris' Marshall amp, a few months ago, I could never get the same sound captured as it was in the room.  It took ages before we realised that, as the amp has 2 speakers, we should mic them both up.  This made all the difference and the result is very good once panned correctly.

Next up was a harmonica solo on 'These Days'.  This was a real problem.  It took a while to work out where to put the mic.  Eventually, Chris stood about 10 feet away from the mic and we got a sound that matched the room sound.  Unfortunately, it sounded very thin and weedy.  Even after doubling the part, adding effects and extensive EQ'ing, nothing seemed to make it sound right in the context of the song.  Some ideas were thrown about and Jack whistled the tune a bit, so we thought we should record his whistling instead.
Whistling directly into the mic was just too much wind noise, so he stood further back, but the mic kept picking up the wind, so he stood further back (etc etc).  We ended up recording Jack's whistling by him standing at right angles to the mic about 15 feet away (possibly standing on one leg, but I can't be sure about that).
After all that, it still didn't sound right in the song, so we moved it to right at the end after the final fade out.  At the moment, the last thing you hear on the whole album is Jack whistling in the distance (which may or may not appear in the final mix).  After all the messing about with mics, Chris ended up playing the solo on guitar, so had to mic the amp up again.  At least we know where the mics go for that.

Then it was Jack's turn to sing some backing vocals on 'Finally Free'.  I think this is the first time in about 2 months that Chris could take a seat and watch someone else do all the work. The original idea was to add some doubles to the main vocal on some lines and some 'Paul McCartney-esque ooohs' (similar to some early Beatles songs) on other lines.  The doubles were fine, but we spent ages trying to get the 'ooohs' right.  We left the oohs in place for the first chorus in the session mix down so the band can decide if they want Jack to do the other choruses, or we get rid of them for the final mix.

It was about 11:30pm by the time I made the guys a CD of the current mixes and sent them on their way (no beers left).

The Final Betrayal - Session 1 - 29 April 2012

This weekend, we started recording a new band called 'The Final Betrayal'.  Similar in style to classic metal bands such as Iron Maiden.  Facebook page here.

What interested me was their demo tracks, which feature fantastic musical hooks, great vocal harmonies, intricate guitar work and machine gun drumming.

The session was booked from noon until 5pm on Sunday.  Due to other commitments, only the drummer and guitarist were able to attend, but as we were only going to record some drum tracks, that wasn't a problem.

Before coming to the session, Jamie (drums) had packed his bass drum with a duvet to try and dampen the sound a little, but we found the resulting sound wasn't quite right, so had to remove the drum front, and put in a slightly less bulky towel.  This gave a much better recorded sound, but we had trouble with bleed from the bass drum being picked up by tom mics.

We ended up covering the bass drum and mic with the duvet cover, which you will be able to see in the photos from this session.  This also helped with my ears, as my control desk was almost directly in line of the drum, so I was getting the full force of Jamie's machine gun double bass drum work.  It's a good job it was raining, as the neighbours might not like what they were hearing as much as we did.  The studio is not completely sound-proof, so I'm sure there was some leakage :-)

Darren (guitar/vocal), was providing guide tracks for vocal and guitars, so we set him up at the top of the stairs, just outside the live room, to prevent his tracks bleeding onto the drum tracks.  For those of you who haven't been to the studio, there is a small landing at the top of the stairs, just outside the studio door, where we put the naughty children, and also the vocalist, for tracking sessions.  There isn't much room there, so after his amp, pedal board, vocal mic and amp mic, there wasn't enough room for Darren!  Fortunately, he managed to remove most of his pedal board, which gave him enough room to stand next to the vocal mic :-)  It's a glass door to the studio, which makes communication with whoever is in the studio easier and of course he had a mic, so we could all hear him OK.

It took nearly 3 hours to get the gear set up and sounding great, which didn't leave a great deal of time to lay down some tracks, but we took enough photos of mic positions and desk settings to make it quicker for the next session.

Jamie had never used a click track, so we tried that on the second track, but unless you are used to it, a click can be quite distracting, so we dropped that idea.  There are a couple of places where a fill isn't quite in rigid time, but hopefully I'll be able to fix that with a bit of editing.

Thinking time?

How do you count in when you start a song?  Does the drummer clicks his sticks: 1,2,3,4 and off you go?  In a recording situation, it's possible, a tiny bit of the final click would be caught on the recording, so we have to count the 4 silently.  1,2,3 doesn't really give you enough tempo warning, so we went for 7 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,- ).  I think Jamie has trouble counting in his head, as I can hear him say 4 quietly on the recording.  Might leave that bit in ;-)

The 3rd track we recorded, was 'World Of Lonely'.  This starts with a guitar arpeggio and no drums, so I set up a click to follow just for the introduction, which then drops out when the drums came in.  The no-drums-arpeggio feature also returns in the middle and at the end, so I ended up copying and moving the click around to give us something to work against when laying down the guitars proper in later sessions.

So, what did we get done?  We managed to get the drum tracks for 'We Are Electric', 'Distance' and 'World Of Lonely'.  We kept 2 takes for Electric, as we weren't sure which was the best.  I'm going to provide a reasonable mix for the band to listen to and we'll decide for the next session which to keep.

You can see more photos from the session here

Introduction

For about 15 years, I've been recording material written by myself and bands that I have been in.

In 2009, I had an extension built over my garage at home which gave me a 6 meter by 6 meter square room to set up as home studio.

In 2010, I needed a singer to put a decent voice to some songs I had written, This culminated the CD 'Come and be beautiful', by X-Factor contestant Paul Holt, released in 2011.  After having so much fun, I decided that I would like to start recording bands.

So in January 2012, I started advertising for local bands with original material to my studio to record a CD.  At this point in time (late April 2012), 'Face It' are a couple of sessions away from finishing their CD tentatively called 'Now Tell Me', while 'Sky Ladder' are about half way through writing and recording.

At the moment, recording time at Starring Studio is free.  In the future, a nominal charge will be made to cover costs, but will still be much cheaper than a traditional recording studio.

Feel free to send emails to starringstudio@hotmail.com if you are interested in recording here.

Also, check out our photo gallery: http://www.flickr.com/photos/79683209@N03/