Week 9 Progress

This week we made huge strides in finishing the recording of the 5 song EP. We now have three songs completely recorded and are about 3/4 of the way through the mixing process and the last two songs are not far behind. We need to finish the vocals for the song Bottom of the Glove and we need to record acoustic guitar and vocals to Change your Strings on Sunday which is the song that we recorded piano for. The recording session with the piano went a lot better then the first time we tried. The room sounded great and the piano was in tune and sounded wounderful. For the piano, I used two Audix pencil condenser microphones, one on each side on top of the piano with the lid open and I also used a Shure SM7B as a mono overhead to get a little more room feel. This combination is sounding really nice. This past week the only real issue i ran into was when we were recording the piano. Since I had to take all the gear out of my house, I forgot my Ilok and thus was not able to use Pro Tools to record the piano which is my go to DAW for any situation. I instead had to use Logic Pro X which was almost foreign to me. We did manage to get great audio and when the session was done I simply exported the files and imported them into Pro Tools to start the edit process. We are right on track to finish the recording by Thursday of this week and I will hope to have the mixing portion of the songs done by next Friday to give me the weekend to finish or fix any little issues that might come up during mastering. I have also started working with a friend on photoshop and I have worked with the band to come up with original ideas for the album art. I have been a little stressed that I would not finish the project on time and maybe that is normal for most people but that little extra pressure has pushed both the band and myself to get the best product we can. I do not see any major issues arising in the next week and most of the process remaining is is straight forward.

Around Sample full band

Heart of Fire Sample full band

Rose to the Flame Sample full band

Week 8 Progress

In week 8 the band and I took major steps forward to finishing the project. We now have 3 songs completely recorded, one that still needs guitar, bass and vocals and the direction of the fifth song is still in limbo. I will provide samples of the unmixed bass, drum and guitar tracks at the bottom of the page. Next week i will have mixed samples of the three songs up on here. We had some late nights the past few weeks so I can meet my deadline but so far the recording process is picking up and going better then anticipated. The band seems excited to see their project come to life. I have not ran into any problems this week as far as recording goes, however i am trying o find the right balance on the drums as I begin to mix the three songs. The guitars in Rose to the Flame seems powerful and dirty like an old Offspring song and the drums behind them seem small. I am working on compressing and EQing the drums to make them sound huge but not so over done that it takes away from the rest of the band. We have a full week of recording at night with a goal of having the entire 5 song EP recorded by Friday morning.  The guitarist and I are going to take another shot at recording a piano for the last song to give the EP a mellow song to even out the upbeat songs that are recorded. The last piano we tried to use did not sound great and we thought about scrapping the song but we think it could be a really strong song if we get the right sound. This time I will use a pair of SM57's as room miss along with two Audix pencil condensers for the piano itself. I beielve that I can have the record mixed by the end of next week or the very beginning of the following week. I am also starting to work on the album artwork for the front and back of the CD case. For this I using photoshop which I have only used a handful of times, hence why I am starting to work on it now rather then later.               

Rose To The Flame Bass Sample

Rose To The Flame Drum Sample

Rose To The Flame Guitar Sample

Week 7 Progress

 It has come to my attention that people would like more information on my recording process and how I use plug-ins within the sessions that I am working in. First I will say that over the past week i have recording a lot of guitars. I can not record drums at my house for acoustic reasons and the bass player of this band seems to be actively away at the moment. So I will focus this post on my progress with the album and also the guitars. For the rhythm guitars, I have been recording a PRS Tim Mahoney model with duel hum buckers as well as a vintage Les Paul with hum buckers. These pick ups give a nice fat and full tone. I record these guitars directly into an Avid Eleven rack with the main outs of the unit into the Focusrite 18i20. I have been using the 1989 SL-100 drive channel on the Eleven Rack, this is a very accurate representation of the Soldano SLO-100 amp head. this is the same amp that gives Warren Haynes' of The Allman Brothers his signature tone. This tone is sweet, fat and has a nice bit of gain that I was looking for in the rhythm guitar. I used the 4X12 cab that is rated to 65 watts and i used the Cond 87 which is an amazing emulation of the studio standard Nuemann U87. We recorded two songs with this amp combination and has worked for the songs very well. Once I recorded the guitars into Pro Tools, I then used the the SSL channel strip waves plug-in to EQ and control the dynamics. I put a hi pass filter on the guitars to cut any other lows that would interfere with the bass, vocals or any drums that might sit in the frequency area. Since guitars running through any amp have compression on them already I did not need to do much in the way of compression, however I did use Waves CLA-2A optical compression to give it just a little bit of a warmer and more natural feel to it.  I will come back to the mixing of the guitars once i have every thing recorded to do a proper final mix on the song. Next week I will discuss more of the songs structures and bass recording and the following week I will cover vocal recoding and drum techniques.  This project is coming along as I would like even though I have not been able to stick to a strict time schedule due to work and school and conflicts with the band. The only real issue that i have come across is getting the bass player/vocalist to actually show up to do his part. He is available this weekend though to get the bass recorded and Monday we are in the studio to work on vocals.

Week 6 progress

 Last week I did not have much in the way of progress on the recording side of this album, how ever i did start the mixing process on two songs and mixing the drums on two more. For the songs, Heart of Fire and Around, I have all the instrumentation mixed to where I feel comfortable adding the vocals and for the songs Rose to the Flame and Bottom of the Glove, I have the drum tracks exactly where I like them to add the rest of the instruments and the vocals. The instruments will be recorded later this week and I will set up a studio session at the Art Institute for next Monday to get the vocals on the two songs that are almost complete. The only real issue I have ran into is time and band motivation. This is a learning process for both the band and I and getting them motivated to work can be challenging at times. So far, I am on schedule to complete the project on time, however, I have found that my original time line seems to be more of a suggestion rather then something that I follow to the letter. I was not planning on mixing the songs until I have them complete, but that just does not work and i think that if i waited until they were all recorded, I would not have enough time to finish, so I am mixing as we go. This plan seems to be working out well because I can use the down time from recording to mix and fill time that I might not have later. For the recording process, the Eleven Rack is working out very well to get the amp tones for the guitars. It took a little while to convince the guitarist to let me use the Eleven Rack but when I showed them what the unit can do, they were more then happy with the results so far.

                                                                    Dave the Drummer

                                                 Avid Eleven Rack

                                Heart of Fire edit window and mix window

                                  Around Edit window

Week 4 progress

In week 4 of this project I recorded a Piano at a freinds house using my Focusrite 18i20. The piano was an upright piano so I lifted the lid and mic'd the paino using two Shure SM57's. One on each side to capture the highs and the lows. I also used a stereo pair of pencil condenser microphones for room mics to capture the natural reverb. The recording sounds very good raw so i will start mixing this once i get the rest of the arrangement set. I also have starting recording the guitars for two other songs. So far into the project i have three drums tracks recorded of the 5 that need drums. One song has the guitars and bass all done which leaves the last 3 that need guitars and bass. The next week i plan to get into the studio to finish the last two drum tracks and also if there is time, record the vocals to completely finish the first song.

Week 3 Progress

  This past two weeks I started my final project for Special Topics. My project is record, mix and master a 5 song EP for the band, “Bottom of the Glove”.  I started by writing my proposal that was accepted in week 2. Once that was accepted I could start on the actual project. The first thing I started was all the scratch tracks, for this I used the rhythm guitar set to a click track. The drummer of this band hates recording drums to a click track so I am tricking him in a way. Since the rhythm guitar for 4 of the 5 songs is the one constant though out the whole songs, I recorded the guitarist at my house set to a click track. Now when we start the drum tracks, I can have the drummer play to the rhythm guitar and every thing will stay in time and he will never know. The 5^th song doesn’t have any drums to it and is more of a slower piano and acoustic guitar song with some harmonica and other added elements. I have the studio booked for next Monday, August 3^rd to get the drum tracks started and hopefully will finish three of the songs. This is my goal for next week. This past week has been all prep for this EP. So far I have not encountered any issues in preparation or planning and the scratch tracks for the rhythm guitar came out very well. I will have to modify the pre production plan to add the piano recording to the fifth song and I am going to have to research the best way to mic up a piano since I have never recorded a live piano before. Overall, my project is starting to come along in the way that I would like.