This first recording session was a big one. We got the guide tracks laid down for the first three songs, Love is a Crime, Spit it Out and KO4. It was great to be in this environment with them. I recorded some material to make for promo’s and took photos for the visual online aspect.
Me and Niall engineered in this session, and did various mic techniques. As they were only guide tracks we got the singers to use the Se2200A changed the pattern to bi-directional and then had one of them either side. This worked as a brilliant technique for us as the way they harmonise made it sound beautiful on the track! This could be a potential method we use in the future. We originally had one on the Neumann-87 and the Se2200A but we found their voices worked a lot better with the SE… as they are very powerful singers.
For the drums we used a total of 7 microphones, these were on the snare, 3 toms, kick and 2 overheads. The overhead style I used was a stereo pair, aimed in the same direction towards the centre of the drums, so we got most of the sound captured. We used a DI box for the Piano, the Bass was mic’ed up using a Audix D6 very close to the bass amp. This was because the sound was quiet, however with the guitar the mic was placed about 6 inches away from the centre of the cone, this was a decision because it is the most tonal part of the amp. We used an SM57 for this.
Singer set-up:
Drum Kit set up:
DI Box for Piano:
The pictures and short video I recorded will be made into a promo video for them. This will go down as part of my project, as I am working in liaison with Niall I will be uploading this online