Multitrack recording process

Once we had recorded the drums, the next section we need to record is the bass.

To do this we used the kick drum mic from before,  AKG d112, and placed it directly in front of the bass amp. This is so we capture the bass frequencies more as these would either cut through the mix or be masked by the bass frequencies from the other instruments used. The reason we used this mic is because the low frequency response is better than just a standard dynamic microphone. It is important to mention we placed the bass amp in the dead room to eliminate any unwanted sounds and I played the bass from the control room so I could easily see the editing window on Protools to see where all the parts were in the song. the settings on the amp needed to be altered as initially the bass sound was to sharp so to give it more of a warm feel, we reduced the high end and raised the bass.

To pick up the actual sound of the bass guitar used, we decided to also DI the bass to ensure the other frequencies are there apposed to just a mass amount of bass. to do this we use the line out input on the amp and plugged a jack to jack into a DI (direct input) box  which we then plugged into the tower in the control room which was directly inputted into the desk.

Although the amp was in a separate room, I decided I wanted to hear the track through headphones to ensure that I am playing along to the actual recording opposed to a slightly delayed sound. This was very import and as we didn’t use a click track so I needed to hear exactly when the kick drum occurred to follow that for tempo and dynamics.

I played through the track once to practice and then we recorded. during the recording process I made one mistake at the end where I didn’t let the guitar ring out which we had to redo separate using a pre roll on Protools to ensue I could play that note in time and to the correct dynamics.

Once we recorded the bass we adjusted the levels of each channel i.e. the DI and the mic ones so we had a good balance between all the frequencies captured. after we were happy with the sound, we grouped the DI track and the recorded sound from the AKG d1112 together so we could alter the two levels together within our individual mixes and we coloured and labelled the two tracks to make it easier to view in Protools when editing.

 

Recording the drums first is the textbook process that most producers tend to follow when recording any track. This is because the rhythm section is the most important part of any track because it creates the tempo for the entire track. The drums for this track needs to be rather soft sounding, not like the typical heavy sounding drums you may hear on a rock or metal track.

Apart from the dynamics created by the drummer, the essential techniques used to recreate these sounds are with the choice of microphone and the microphone placement. The microphones used are as follows:

• 2x Overhead microphones- AKG C414B
• Kick drum- AKG D112
• Snare top- Shure SM57
• Snare bottom- AUDIX i5
• Rack tom- AUDIX D2 (clipped to the drum)
• Floor tom- AUDIX D2 (clipped to the drum)
• Room mic- AUDIX ADX-51

The placements of these microphones were the standard way to micing up a drum kit. As you can see, we have used 2 microphones for the snare drum one directed at the top and one at the bottom. This is to capture the full aspects of the drum so that no essential low or high end frequencies are not lost when recording. One issue that is faced with doing this is phase cancellation. This is where two or more sound waves interfere with each other and cancel each other out. The same principle is applied for the overheads to which we pan left and right to capture any leaking frequencies but also to capture the frequencies and sound of the cymbals or the kit to create a 3D image of the kit for the listener.

Now unless the drummer is a 100% committed professional, they would need to drum along to something either a click and/or a guide track. We decided that just a guide track would suffice as the drummer would then follow the feel of the others in the guide track opposed to a robotic click track. The difficulty with this is that the drums and rhythm section need to be precise for the others to follow but we feel that this worked well. For the guide track, we recorded a rough track of the vocals and a rough guitar track.

Although they are only guide tracks, they still need to be recorded at a fairly good standard so all members can understand and hear all the elements needed within the track to follow efficiently. For this we used the following mics:

• Guide Vocals- SE-x1
• Guide guitar- Shure SM57 (directed to an amp)

Each musician needs to hear what each others are playing so to do this we patched headphones to each member. We did have a bit of an issue with this e.g. the vocalist could only hear the guitarist, the guitarist could only hear the drummer and the drummer could faintly hear both. This wasn’t too much of an issue when it was recorded as the drums were in time, however this could lead to time being wasted and the track being out of time if you don’t have a good headphone mix.

Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow is an iconic track both written and performed by Fleetwood Mac. Many people have covered this song because of its happy, optimistic feel including the likes of Nina Nesbitt. Our group of musicians and producers have decided this would be a great song to reproduce. This blog is the story and process of how we recorded this iconic song.