Clinic? Jeeez. All I can do is tell you kind off step by step how we did it, and then you can ask questions if you like.
Don’t get hung-up on how I do or not do things too much; I have a different way of working with just about anyone I’m working with on a regular basis. As far as I’m concerned as an engineer and /or producer you have to find a place where you can meet creatively with an artist. That place differs from person to person. Don’t underestimate the importance of this statement if you want to be a good engineer. You really need to be a psychiatrist to do your best. As an example, I know one guitarist who is brilliant, but if I make him mad he’s even better, and then the recording goes from “normal” to “special”. I’ve called him everything under the sun, stopped him in the middle of tracking many times, just to upset him, it has always worked. (Note: don’t try that on others J, it just works in his case).
This song……. Uru was asked to write a song for Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits)’s daughter Natalie, for Natalie to perform at a telethon fundraiser. Very short notice – 2 days before the show. Uru wrote the song, but it was a bit much to ask Natalie to learn and perform it live (she’s just 15), so the organizers asked if Uru would do it herself. I managed to get some time in the studio (had other people in here as I have not been able to work), the day of the performance. The performance area of the TV station concerned is outside, chance of rain, so we had to record, mix, master a backing track without a lead vocal for Uru to sing over live, as well as a complete version just in case it rained.
No time to set up – just go in and do it, and most of the ‘good’ gear still has not been installed.
First, Uru sang the song to me the night before, and I twiddled a bit with
the Yamaha Motif to get a loop going with the right timing and feel. As we don’t have any MIDI stuff installed as yet – keep it straight and simple.
First thing we did in the studio was plug the Motif in. My first time recording with just the Motif, so first check out the analogue outputs, into an A/D9624 into Pro Tools, then did the same with the S/PDIF optical output. I found the optical out somewhat low (have written to Yamaha about that), but the sound superior. My chosen route was optical out of the Motif, into a SRC9624 sample rate converter (at 16/44.1) and out into Pro Tools via AES at 24/48. To save time I did most of the drum sounds (EQ, reverb, balance, panning) within the Motif and recorded it into PT as a stereo file.
Second, I put together a slap bass with 2 sampled guitar sounds, in order to create a pretty full-frequency-range bass / guitar sound, and played that over the track. Minimum variety, to keep it simple and make it quick.
Next, the vocals. Not something you would normally do at this point, but then, working with someone with perfect pitch has its advantages. First the choice of microphone and preamp.
First thing to consider, the main purpose was to make a backing track for a live performance, as well as a track to lip-synch to in case of rain. OK – so its likely she will sing live through something like a Shure. No good bringing her own live mic, because that’s an Audio Technica 5055 with an extended low end, the TV engineer would have to shelf the low end or we’ll run a risk there. So…… if she is going to sing through a Shure we have to make sure the backing vocals do not sound to full and polished, or they make the lead sound dull. The normal high end vocal chain (MagMike – hand build pre with 2 large optical tubes) is therefore out, as are the Grace and LS-1 pre’s. Try
the Control 24’s Focusright pre’s for the first time (I cannot make up my mind if I don’t really – or really don’t like them – even though they are cool on drums).
First we do a scratch lead, as a try-out, using one of
the Neumann U89 I ‘s. This mic in combo with the Focusrights just sounds to dull, so we go up a gear and use a U87, which has had its guts ripped out and replaced with “tubed” inners. This works, even tough the mic is definitely better than the pre’s deserve.
The set-up for Uru’s vocals is just the U87 – into
a Control 24 Focusright Pre, into Pro Tools. No processing, outboard or plug-in. It’s a “don’t try this at home” thing with a good microphone like that, once again, with Uru its easy as she has brilliant microphone technique, she’ll keep those meters level, she’s just born to do it right, makes my life real easy. Also, remember we had very short time, so I had to think of making the track sound “full” without having to spend a lot of time on instrumentation, and consider that the lead might have to be one to lip-sync to. So on the mics power supply I set the (continuously variable) pattern slightly towards omni-directional. We track the vocals in the control room, with the monitors (L,S,R & Sub) on. You can do that here, as the control room itself sounds very good, and so do the monitors. This gives the lead vocal a distinct ‘live’ feel.
OK – we track the vocals with the U87, one take, and that’s the one you’ve heard, a keeper.
Next are the backing vocals. First I play the track from start to finish, with the mic open, and Uru sings a “central” backing voice. Then we go back and do harmonies. When working with Uru I tend to do the backing vocals in groups, here we did the same. There are 2 main groups, each with three harmonies. Then there are 2 sub group fillers, each with
2 voice harmony.
The key thing here is to find out what a singer NEEDS to hear. Strip unnecessary elements out of the mix. A singer needs to hear the best possible reference needed for the part in question, and that’s all. Master getting a good Q mix and your recording speed with go into overdrive.
Having recorded the backing vocals, I listen to them as groups. Take one group of three, find the ‘middle’ voice, keep that panned central, the high panned to one side, the low harmony to the other side. Then the other group, again panned, but the other way around, to create a nice balance in the mix. Same with the vocals which are in pairs rather than groups of three.
To save time I bounce each group back to disk as a stereo file, so I have them nicely balanced, but on 1 fader per group. Also to save time I now applied a small amount of reverb on each group, using a TC MegaReverb. Please note, there is no processing or EQ on any of the backing vocals other than the verb
Next – the lead vocal. Get the tools out, using TC VoiceTools to apply a small amount of EQ and a very light compression, as well as a reverb from the TC MegaReverb.
Having all the vocals (which are supposed to carry the whole tune) sounding as good as I can get them in the crazy timeframe, I fix them into a group, so one fader controls all.
Next, add the drums in the mix and create a pleasing balance, then add the combi “bass” sounds. These are a little to full, so I use a TC EQ sat to trim some frequencies, mainly in the ‘slap’ sound of the bass, as they are interfering with the vocal harmonies in some parts.
Having the whole mix finished I decided to add some padding, for which I program a delayed pad which ‘floats’. Play that into the track, only in the places I want to hear it.
Now its almost ready, but to add interest and emphasize some vocal parts, as well as to make a build-up feel to the track, I use mutes to drop out some parts, mainly drums. This makes the track a lot more dynamic and interesting. As a final touch I play in some barely audible bells, very sparingly.
With the master fader set at 0dB, we now have an overall level averaging –2dB, with some small peaks, mainly from the kick. No time to transfer everything for mastering, so I do a quick job by putting TC MasterX on the main bus, turn off the expander, drop the input level to about –3.6dB to ensure no peaks or clips, and then apply light compression which retains the dynamics but gets the volume up where I want it to be.
That was that. I have since mastered it properly, which sounds a damn load better than it did. Especially the MP3 file, which I think is a bit hard sounding. I didn’t have time to do a proper encoding within Pro Tools, so I did a quicky using the free version of MusicMatch on the computer.
When we finished we went home, got changed, with the intention to relax for an hour before going to the TV station. Didn’t work, I was just out of the bath and my phone went – could we please get there asap as they wanted to bring Uru’s performance forward., so we jumped in the car and went like hell. The weather had held up, so she did sing it live. I went into the sound booth and organized a quick check while they were interviewing someone, to dial in a good verb and make sure her monitors were cool, 4 minutes later we were on. Uru did a great job, 3 minutes 36 seconds, I grabbed the CD with the backing track, gave her her coat, and 1 minute later we were on the way home.
Something I learned from Keith Moon. Do your thing and “leave them there”. Good move. Everyone wanted to talk to Uru and Uru was gone, so the phone didn’t stop ringing, which gave us the chance to organize interviews etc. on our own turf.
Hope that is what you asked for. Any questions just ask.
. Very cool my friend.
