James Glenister's Multitrack Recording Blog

This week we were recording the bass for the track, played by Ross.

Callum and James Woodliffe were in charge of setting up the mics this week.Two mics were used to record the bass, The AKG 414 and AKG D112, and both were placed close to the amp facing the centre. Initially we tested to see which mic would sound the best, but we ended up using both. In addition the bass was also connected to a DI box, which was then connected directly to the amp.

This week Olie was on desk and Daniel was on Pro Tools, so it was his job to add the two mics and DI channels into the Pro Tools session we created last week, and colour code all of the bass channels to separate them from the drum tracks and the guide tracks.

Ross played the bass from the desk room; however the amp was placed in the dead room. On the first recording, Ross played up to the solo section of the song with no problems; however the solo section needed to be re-recorded. To do this, instead of re-recording the entire song, we re-recorded that specific section using a pre-roll, which gives Ross time to get his bearings before playing. We also had to do the same with the song ending as Ross ended abruptly first time when the last note is normally supposed to ring out.

In Group A, we are recording a cover of “Jenny Don’t Be Hasty” by Paolo Nutini.

     

This week we recorded the drums for the track, which were played by Clementine. As this was the first week of recording, James Woodliffe provided Clementine with guide vocals while Daniel provided guide guitar. Ross and Adam were in charge of setting up the mics, as well as setting up the drum kit. The mics that were used for recording the drums were:

2x AKG 414 for overheads

SM57 for top snare

Audix i5 for bottom snare

2x Audix D2 for Toms

AKG D112 for kick drum

Audix ADX51 for room mic

This week I was in charge of operating the mixing desk, which meant it was my job to make sure that all 8 microphones were coming through the correct channels (channels 17-24), make sure that the gain levels were all correct, as well as sending the signal into Pro Tools, which was being operated by Olie. Olie created a new session on Pro Tools, using a 24in24out template, with the bitrate set at 44100 Hz (standard CD quality). Each track was labelled appropriately on Pro Tools, and then all of the tracks were grouped and colour coded, so the drum mics were set as one colour and the guide tracks another. A Click track was also assigned to channel 16, although this ended up being removed as the performers seemed to work better without it.