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).