Recording details of a track that I shared recently - Received a number of requests…
Hi everyone,
I’ve received quite a few requests for the details of the recording process for the song review and video that I shared recently.
In the review I covered most of the gear that I used for the recording and the video shows most of the actual recording.
Link to the review:
http://www.recordingmag.com/tapereviews/2017/02/347.html Link to the video of the recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSv2v_ztcZ4 The requests have asked for the actual tracking and mixing side. So here goes…
The entire recording was tracked and mixed in
Sonar Platinum. The final track count was
54 tracks.
Most of the keyboard parts came from the various soft synths bundled with Sonar Platinum.
The song was initially recorded as a demo with programmed drums. The drum programme was very simple – enough to give the drummer an idea. I didn’t put in any fills etc as I knew this would be deleted when the actual drums were tracked. The kit was close miced –
D112 on the Kick drum. I positioned the mic inside the drum opposite the beater. This enabled me to get the bright “click” of the beater but still retain the “body” of the kick as well.
SM57s on the snare and toms. I don’t mic the underneath of the snare. I’ve tried it before and find that I never use it.
I didn’t mic the hats as there was more than enough coming through the overheads and room mic.
I had two overheads above the kit (
Behringer B1s). I quite like the B1s as they are quite bright.
I then had a room mic at the other end of the room. This was a
Rode NT2A.
Once the drums were tracked, I cleaned them up. I use the
Sonitus eq for equing my drums. I also inserted the
Waves RVox plug in on the kick and the snare. I swear by this compressor. It’s one of those comps that are so transparent that you’re not aware that it’s compressing. It does give a lot of “body” to the drums though. For the overheads I rolled off a bit of the bottom end and lifted the tops (using
Sonitus Eq). Once I had the drums sounding pretty decent, I then mixed in the room mic. I did add a bit of the Waves
Rverb eq on the snare, toms and overheads but added most of the reverb onto the room mic. This gave the kit a very “live” sound. It was also very easy to adjust the amount of liveliness by raising or lowering the room reverb level.
The bass was played into the Line 6 Helix using the Ampeg SVT amp sim. I eqd it by taking off the bottom end at about 75 Hz and then also “scooping” out a bit at 110Hz. This gave a nice punch to the bass without “cluttering” the rest of the mix. The bass was also heavily compressed using the
Rvox.
The acoustic guitars were double tracked, panned left and right and miced with an
Se2200 mic. I then tracked two clean Les Paul tracks (also panned left and right) to go under the acoustics. This tended to “fatten” the sound of the acoustics but by lifting their level I could still retain the “sparkle”. I added a Castenets sample with the same Rverb.
The Nylon string guitar was also recorded with the Se2200 and all I added was some eq for extra brightness and a bit of the same room reverb. I also used the
RVox comp. I mixed a Rhodes piano using the
Lounge Lizard VST under the nylon string chords.
The Les Paul parts were all tracked using the Helix direct into the desk. I used a Marshall Plexi patch. The reverbs were once again the Rverb.
The heavier guitar parts were double tracked using the Dual Rectifier amp sim and the “orchestral” synth parts was a patch from the
Rapture VST.
There was also a Mellotron part (choir voices) which was the
Roland JV2080 synth module.
My main compressor was the Waves Rvox and all the eqs was the Sonitus Eq. I also used the Sonitus delay on the solo electric guitar parts. There was a Waves “chorus” effect on the clean Les Paul parts.
The final track was mixed down and mastered in Adobe Audition. I used the Fabfilter Mastering tools on the final mix. There was very little that was needed on the final mix. I added a very small amount of tops to the mix and then using the Fabfilter Pro L I lifted the overall level to an amount that compared to most other mixes but still retained a large degree of dynamics.
Regarding the video – the parts were filmed using three Sony HD cameras and then brought into Sony Vegas for editing.
I hope I’ve covered everything. Thank you to all the users who commented on the video and song.
Cheers
Peter.