Spent another weekend in Michigan recording the band’s EP.
We did some pre-production stuff Thursday. Then saw Mux Mool at the Globe and danced all night
We spent the rest of Friday tracking a new song. Overdubbed some guitar tracks and bass tracks onto the songs we already had.
Fun thing Saturday: Got to the space and the 1st channel in my preamp wouldn’t transmit signal from the XLR input. After calling API and talking to their answering machine, the preamp came back to life. Throughout the rest of that day I noticed the channel did not reach the same level of signal as the rest. It is really weird to get low levels from a 414 into a 3124; two pieces of gear known for their high output. Near the end of the day we tried to track one last song and I had to avoid the first channel on the API because it wasn’t providing an equal amount of gain for a stereo pair. Which with ORTF is sort of important.
So most of what we tracked that day I am not 100% on keeping. I couldn’t monitor with faith on the system which was painfully annoying.
Anyways, some interesting discoveries this weekend:
SM57+414 = defined crunchy guitar
I started to think about how the microphone placement would affect it’s position in the stereo image. Especially with backing vocals, I kept changing the position of the singers to the microphone and placing baffles around them. Luckily they were as invested in experimenting as I was.
Sidenote: A solid wood door with acoustic foam stapled to both sides make great baffles.
When we did a live take of ‘Because Of You’ I separated the drums and guitar with two solid wood baffles leaning against a couch. Honestly, I had no faith in it but there is just enough separation that I have something to work with—supposing the takes aren’t too soft or distorted.
For now I need to walk away from the material in order to make an aesthetic decision.
