Prism Sound Mic To Master

Went to a Mic to Master event today with people such as Tony Platt, producer of some ACDC and Bob Marley albums, along with many other professionals in the music business.  Mastering Engineers from AIR studios and technicians from DPA, ATC acoustic engineers, audient, prism sound, and SADiE were all present.

Mic To Master is a series of workshops and masterclasses on recording techniques, mixing and mastering which are designed to give engineers, producers and all other creative audio enthusiasts an opportunity to learn expert tips and tricks of the trade from recording industry professionals. 


The day started with Tony Platt talking through the process of producing an entire album for an artist last year, it was really interesting to see what problems he encountered on the way and how he overcame them.  
Tony then went on to discuss the use of microphones and we did some comparisons, he also talked us through his choice of processing and mastering on some particular tracks.  


After lunch it was all about mastering with Matt Colton of AIR studios, he began with a talk about mastering for vinyl and how some techniques can be transferred to mastering for CD.  The second half of the afternoon was run as a workshop format with Matt mastering a track on the rig that they had brought in.  It was really cool to be able to observe this process and take some notes.


Well worth going!

HEAT listening challenge

Just had a go at the heat listening challenge.

Three mixes, Protools only, ProTools with HEAT enabled and a mix on a Neve 8048

"Many audio professionals believe that certain Neve consoles are the Holy Grail of analog mixing supremacy and are key to getting that coveted warmth in your digital recordings. Many others believe that you can get the same sonic richness mixing in Pro Tools, using plug-ins and no analog gear whatsoever. Still others believe that the answer lies somewhere in between, using analog inserts or summing boxes with an “in the box” Pro Tools mix."

I found it really difficult to distinguish between the pro tools only and the pro tools with heat mix however could easily here the analogue summed mix.

Avid | HEAT

Haven't had a chance to use it yet but sounds really cool

Found this video interesting 

Avid | HEAT

Non-graphic Eq Pluggins

So recently I've been using the Waves SSL G-Eq and have loved the results.  I find myself listening to every finely tuned adjustment i make and think it has worked wonders on vocals.  A really warm analog sound.

Compared to a graphic Eq like Logic's channel Eq, where i find my self just grabbing the mouse and ramping up random frequencies till i get the sound i like, i find the process far more focused and accurate.   

I dialled in some settings on the SSL to enhance the sound of a vocal recording.  I then tried to recreate the settings on a graphic Eq (sort of creating the graphic of the SSL Eq) i found didn't achieve as nice result as the SSL.

Not really expecting the same results as a Waves plugin on Logic's most basic Eq however i was quite shocked at just how much difference there was in the the sound.  I had to make more changes to Logic's Eq to get it sounding remotely near the SSL.

 

Band Recording Day 3

Day 3 Tuesday 2nd Nov 17:00 - 22:00

Tracking Vocals

Went in at 17:00 to pick mic’s etc. up and set everything up.  This included routing microphone, setting up reflection filter, recording some practice vocals to see everything was running smoothly.

Set up a foldback mix of every track for the vocalist to hear.  

Sent some reverb down the foldback on the vocal channel.  

Prepared a quick mix for the band to listen to

Whole band arrived including vocalist at 18:00

Vocalist had not yet finished writing lyrics or fitting them to the songs so he spent an hour with the track looping in his headphones perfecting the vocals.

19:00

Started recording first vocal takes, recorded many takes for the first verse and chorus. 

Tried different techniques when recording the verse as the vocals were fast and the vocalist was running out of breath by the end so experimented with recording each line separately, the band decided this did not sound natural enough so went back to record it in one take.

Gave the vocalist advice about singing directly into the mic, he kept looking at lyric book and were were not getting a consistent volume throughout the phrases.  

Mic was sounding ‘phasey’ so repositioned the SE electronics reflection filter.  

By know vocalist had warmed up and got a lot more confident and sang first verse and chorus in 1 take.

Short Break

Vocalist came in control room for listen and was reassured as it sounded much better here than it did in his headphones.  

Tracked the second verse and second chorus, vocalist was getting much more confident now.

The whole band went in to the live room and gathered around the mic to record a ‘chant/wowowoo thing’ in the breakdown.  Which ended up being dreadfully out of tune so was scrapped.  The vocalist then did this on his own.

Doubled up the breakdown vocals

Tracked vocals for final chorus and extended chorus, took afew takes for this to come together.

Went back to double track the whole vocals in one take.

Recorded rough mix to CD for band to take home.

Band Recording Day 2

Day 2 Sun 24th October 9 - 5

9:00
Went in before band to recall the last session and tidy up some routing and channels.  Channels all over the place had got a bit messy in the haste of the tracking session the day before.

11:00
Guitarist came in.  Wasn’t happy with his tone in the one song that we had done overdub guitar for so we spent some time messing with the amp and pedals.  Also added an extra mic to the amp, (guitar was sounding thin so added close sm57 for deeper sounding proximity effect)

12:00 - 16:00
Recorded multiple guitar tracks for 2 of the songs

The band felt that the 3rd song they recorded wasn't arranged properly so decided to scrap it. 

16:00 - 17:00
Did rough mix of first song to take home!

Band Recording Diary Day 1

I've been recording a band recently and thought I would share some of my documentation.  The tracks are not yet finished, I'll publish each day as a new thread.

Tracking on Radar mixing in ProTools HD

Console: Audient ASP 8024

Recording Device: IZ Radar (24tracks)

Day 1 - Sat 23rd October 9:00 - 17:00

9:00
Got studio keys and equipment

Mic’ed up guitar and bass amps

Went to collect drum kit and mic’ed up

13:00
Drummer came in and positioned his kit how he wanted

Made some mic adjustments to drum kit

1:30 p.m
Band arrived and practiced the songs while we set levels in the control room and prepared channels ect.

14:00
Recorded first live tracks, the band were not happy with some takes so re recorded.

Did live recording of 3 songs to use as a ghost track for overdubbing

Band came in for a listen / the band and us were very pleased with the unmixed live recording

Short Break

Did drum overdubs for all 3 songs

Recorded these new drums on 8 new tracks

Had to keep live drum overheads to hear count in

Recorded bass overdubs over unwanted live drum tracks

45min Break

Recorded rough overdub Guitar for one song

Did rough mixes