Audio Production

Milestones – Week two and three of the three-track demos

May 8, 2009 May 8, 2009 In my last blog I wrote about the first week of recording The Lights Out for our three-track demo project. In that first week we got the drums and bass recorded and I was able to do a basic mix before heading into the studio for the next round. We had put down some scratch guitars and now we had eight hours in Studio D for the real thing. First up was Rish playing a hollow body Gibson through a Marshall JCM 800. We put the amp in one of the booths and it sounded great, nice tone and really big and crunchy. We had four speakers on the cab so why not four mics: a U87, 414, SM57 (of course), and a Royer 121, a few different ones to see what sounds we can catch. Rish put down his rhythm tracks with little problem and then we doubled them, which would make them bigger in the mix. Next we switched up the Marshall for Adams Peavey and set the same mics up. Adam plays a Strat and so we had two very different guitar sounds which was great, but right away we were feeling that Adam's guitar was sounding a little too fuzzy, too much low end and needed some more crunch. This was a situation wherein the musician liked the sound, but from an engineer’s point of view we knew the guitar would not stand out in the mix, and we wanted to record the best sound we could rather than have to 'fix in the mix.’ We tried a different amp setting and came up with a compromise. Given a little more time we could have tried a different amp or spent longer tweaking the settings, but the clock was ticking. Adam got his parts down with few problems and we were all happy with how it sounded; we were ready for vocals. We doubled all the rhythm guitars, so with four mics and two guitarists we'd end up with sixteen tracks, plus lead guitar lines and other overdubs. Before doing vocals I chose the best mic combinations and bounced down the guitars to just a few tracks so we wouldn’t run out, especially as I'd be mixing in Pro Tools LE. I had booked a four-hour session in studio F for each of the songs, figuring Rish would be able to sing at least one song in four hours. This spread the time out over three evenings so he wouldn’t blow out his voice and gave us some spare time if we ran into problems. We put up a 414, U87, and an RE20. Straight away Rish loved the sound of the RE20 and we agreed, so the RE20 for vocals it was. The first evening Rish slammed out the main vocals and some doubled parts for two songs, and completed the third on the second evening. This was great, but recording doesn't usually go so ahead of schedule, so I didn't get too comfortable. Over the next two evenings we did all the backing vocals - which really made these songs stand out - using a 414 to give a different sound from the main vocals, and had time for some shakers and tambourine. Mixing wasn't too much work as some editing and mixing had been done along the way. These were pretty straight ahead rock songs so nothing too crazy was required in the mix. The songs turned out great, very professional-sounding and a far cry from demos. The band was happy and I feel great being able to put into practice all I have learned over the last few months.