FW Recording Project

I totally forgot to mention that two weekends ago one of my bands recorded an album at my house with me at the controls. It was a jerry-rigged kind of affair and I'm sure I did it all wrong...but here's what we did (making use of what was on hand and the little knowledge that I have):

Drums: I mic'ed the drum kit with 4 mics. Snare top, shared crash/hi hat, and shared ride/rack tom were all Shure SM48s. I had special drum mics available to me with tom mounts, but after testing that on some BreedArs recordings I decided that, since I didn't have enough inputs available to mic everything and I didn't want to use true condenser overheads (due to bleed) that the drum specific mics were just too focused. I needed to be able to share mics in a psuedo-overhead kind of way. The kick drum was mic'ed with a kick specific Sensenheiser dynamic mic. I ran all four mics into a little digital mixer that I have and then ran the stereo mix out of the mixer and into a second analog mixer that I have. Essentially this created a drum "bus" or "subgroup"

Bass: Ran through a DI box and into the analog mixer.

Guitar: Used a Sensenheiser guitar amp specific mic. Stashed the guitar amp in a nearby room with the door closed and volume relatively low (like 3 out of 10). Ran the mic directly into the analog mixer.

Vox: We had two vocals, one at the drum kit and one at the guitar station. Ran each as their own line into the analog mixer. There were no effects on the vocals. In an early planning stage I had planned to run the drums through the analog mixer and then everything else through the digital mixer (instead of vice-versa) and that would have allowed me to add effects to the vocals, but I ended up reversing it in an attempt to use the Aux sends (more on this below) on the analog mixer and then never switched it back. The natural sound of the room actually seemed fine and their voices sounded pretty good really. Not dry at all.

So all told, we had 8 inputs...which is all I had available to me. I had been worried about bleed between mics (especially into the vocal mic at the drum kit) but it didn't end up being a problem (maybe because I never needed to listen to each line as a separate track).

Note that I could have just mic'ed the room and called it a day, but I wanted the vocals to be clear and mic'ing things directly seemed like it would give me more control. And I think it did.

The output from the analog mixer went into my usb computer interface and then into Audacity. Originally I had hoped to run the vocals through aux sends to give each vocalist their own monitor mix and for me to monitor the mix from the recording interface...so they'd get what they needed and I'd get the final mix levels. But I couldn't get the aux sends to work with headphones. So I ran a headphone line out of the interface and split it 3 ways using a very ghetto assembly of extension lines and Y splitters. So we all had the final mix in our cans. This ended up working really well because then they could give me feedback on the final mix which probably saved disappointment after the fact.

It was hard to get the mix levels right. Even at low levels, the Audacity mix tended to clip easily...and even slight changes either made, say, the guitar too quiet or clipping. So we goofed with it and ended up getting an okay balance.  The bass guitar seems really quiet in the mix, but when you listened to the playback, it was in there plenty. So I'm not sure why that's the case. I've noticed that with the BreedArs project too, the bass line comes in quiet and distorted, but then sound fine on playback. Probably just a cheap interface that doesn't like low frequencies.

And then we played the songs live. No editing. We did a dry run on Tuesday night (about 2 hours) to get the levels and to get used to playing with the headphones. I spent an hour before rehearsal on Tuesday setting up from zero (I hadn't realized we were going to rehearse until last minute). Saturday and Sunday (about 4 hours Sat, about 2 hours Sun) we did the real recordings. We did 2-3 takes per song and that was plenty.

Now we are selecting the best takes. I plan to goof a bit with compression and noise reduction on the final selections and see if it makes them sound better, but I may also just leave them alone. I think the source file is good, the level is strong but without clipping for the most part. I think we did pretty well considering.

I'm gonna export everything as WAV and mp3 and upload the WAV to a bandcamp site and the mp3 to a reverbnation site. Then I'm gonna burn the WAV files to cd. We are gonna DIY a jewel case cover and use printable cds. We're only gonna make about 20 copies for close friends and family. Everyone else will either get a "bootleg" cd or download it off web.

Still have final edits to do, but so far I've been pleased with the results and I learned a bunch.

So True It Hurts

Bass Tab Font

I made a bass tab font. No biggie.

Breeders Tribute Update

I picked the next group of songs for the tribute recording project maybe a month ago.
"Only in 3's"
"The She"
"Little Fury"
"London Song"
"Doe"
"Opened"
"Too Alive"
"Put on a Side"
"Sinister Foxx"
"Tipp City"
"I Am Decided"
"Forced to Drive"
"Bragging Party"
"Empty Glasses"
"Istanbul"

Two weeks ago I spent a weekend working out the drum parts (hurt my back sitting on the drum throne stooped over writing notes using my snare as a desk too long...and it still hurts...old!), and last weekend and the week prior recorded the drum parts. They aren't perfect, but most are "good enough."

Last night I was in good "Kim" voice coming off of a long CJ rehearsal that ended with me singing "Into the White," "Manta Ray," and "Bam Thwok" right in a row...so I rushed home and started recording. Got down lead vox for all but Only in 3s, Too Alive, Bragging Party (discovered 3/4 of way through song that I'm missing the lyrics for the last verse), and Istanbul. It was a late night (relatively) and I found myself a bit exhausted with sore legs and back after standing playing bass for 3 hours and then standing a 4th and into a 5th hour to sing...but well worth the effort.  Again...old.

I realized on the ride into work that I've established a very strong pattern for this project which makes surprising sense. Typically when you are recording from scratch you start with drums to set the foundation. I've done this in this project too even though it isn't necessary at all because I use the original recordings as scratch tracks and don't even listen to the tracks I've recorded until the whole song is done. Why, I wondered? It is as simple as the fact that drums are the easiest thing to pick up first. They are intuitive. Even a non-musician can clap along to a recording. I spend a few weeks listening and learning and writing out notation for the drums...and then I record them when they are pretty good. I can't wait to record, I have to work out the drums, practice them a few times, and then record soon. If I go a week or two without working them, I lose them. By that time I've heard the tunes enough times that the vocals are second nature. So I do those next. Once I have to figure out actual notes...my go to is bass. It always has been even back in the days before I PLAYED bass. When I wanted to learn a song in my 20s, I played along to it by picking out the root notes first, and then translating those into chords. And so it is now. Once bass is done all that's left is lead and rhythm guitar. I've been doing lead first, because, I think, they are single notes and easier to pick out. Then I wrap up with guitar because I'm terrible at playing the barre and power chord structures. It is an entirely logical, and accidental, system.

Breeders Tribute Progress

I went ahead and finished the last 8 songs of "Pointless Recording Project Part Two" (having Monday off was admittedly key to getting this done). This brings the current total on "theBreedArs" project page to 32 songs. Depending on how one counts these things (what counts as a Breeders song and what doesn't is a more philosophical question than you might expect)...that leaves somewhere between 26 and 45 tunes remaining in the full catalog (plus, perhaps, a few rarities that I don't want to even think about). As the great Barney Stinson was want to say when no one at all in the world wanted him to do something: "Challenge accepted.

Breeders Tribute update

I'm up to 24 Breeders Tribute tunes posted now. I feel myself leaning in to the concept of just fucking recording them all.

My standards are going down too. Get it done is the new policy. Really what the fuck difference does it make? No one is paying attention anyway.

There is something profoundly satisfying about finishing a song...warts and all. It may be the last safe high in my life.

So the Pointless Recording Project Wasn't So Pointless Afterall (plus running live sound!)

Been recording Breeders covers since April and calling it pointless, but really it was learning for recording what I will consider a demo but the rest of the group will consider a major studio release for one my bands. I'm not sure we're ready to record, but people get excited about these things and I've at least talked them down to not spending money on the thing and instead just spending my time. We've narrowed the recording session to a targeted 8 hours over one weekend in September. Which weekend tbd. I started working on the details in earnest last night. I think I will use the analog mixer to create a "drum bus" of 4 mics on the drum kit. Run that into the digital mixer along with 2 vox, a guitar mic, and a bass DI xlr line. Then into the interface and on to ye olde shitty laptop. A bit of on-board reverb on both vox. Stick the guitar in a separate closed room. Hope for the best on bleed into and from the vocals. We'll see how it goes. If all else fails I'll throw a stereo pair on the bitch instead and call it done.

In other news, hanging out pretending like I'm gonna become sound person for a band with a Sunday night residency gig. Reading the Yamaha bible on "Sound Reinforcement." Watching videos online about running a digital board. Fairly certain that I could run the sound at this gig with absolutely no knowledge what-so-ever, but I'd like to learn proper-like all the same. Debating offering myself up to run sound at Showase 1&2 in 2015 as a "work toward goal" but haven't pulled the trigger yet. Probably I could have my shit reasonably together by then. Also thinking about pestering my buddy that I shadowed that one time to let me do it again. I kinda got overwhelmed on that deal and dropped the ball. But I think I've taken enough steps forward now to get back to it again.