Session musicians

This week we had session musicians in to lay down vocals. Knowing we had to be professional we made sure everything set up and working befor they arrived, this would allow us to come across professionally and maximise our time with the musicians. Knowing studio two had poor natural ambiance we knew we had to dampen the sound as much as possible, to do this we made a booth, in this booth we had a shure sm 58 set up as we felt the 414 had quite a boring sound, however we had one of these incase the dynamic microphone didnt do the job. After this i had Dan and Curtis make sure we had a signal through from the mic and had a nice headphone level to allow the singer to be able to hear the track and enough of their voice so they could pitch correctly. Once the musicians arrived we made sure to have a general conversation to build a comfort zone, we made sure they all had seats and felt comfortable in their surroundings. This then led into a conversation where we explained how we planned to record, the sound we wish to create, showing them similar tracks for them to A to B, then showing them the tracks. Once we all fully understanded what we wanted and after creative input from the musicians themselves we got onto work. The first vocals we layed down were harmonies for Dan's track, during this i played assistant, this led to me taking more of a back seat and letting Dan and Curtis develop their skills as producers and engineers as they are frequently in the live room, however occasionally i would step in to help with technical difficulties or creative input. After a few takes we realised the dynamic mic could not pick up a strong enough signal for us to use in track, so we quickly changed over to the 414. After recording Dans vocals we moved onto mine where i took on the role of producer and engineer. First of all i got Daniel to lay down a guide track as he had more of an understanding of the songs structure and as this track is a call and responce between male and female vocals it would allow my session musician to know where her vocals come in. Once i had the guide track down i decided on Flora to lay down the vocals, i chose her as she had a softer voice which i felt suited the track and also went with the message of the song. I asked her to go through the track a few times, this would allow her to practice and would also give me time to set up levels of compression and find a nice reverb sound from the lexicon reverb outboard. I chose the lexicom as i knew we took out all the natural reverb from the room and i feel the lexicom gives a far nicer and natural reverb than space designer, this may be due to lexicom being in the forfront of reverb units. Once we were ready to record i broke the recording into sections, verse 1, verse 2, chorus and breakdown. Having smaller parts to record would allow Flora to get the most out of her voice, instead of strainging to get a good take throughout the entire song. I recorded 3 or 4 comps for each part, this would allow me to take the best parts from each one to get the strongest vocals i could, then after i had her double them as i feel this gives a bigger and stronger vocal. We continued with this process and after every section i had her come back into the control room so she could listen to how everything sounded, may any necissary changes and have creative input into the track. She came across as being pretty excited on how everything sounded so i did a rough mix to let her hear how she would sound in the stereo mix and the rest of the track. During her takes of the track i kept letting her know how good she was sounding and where she made mistakes i made sure she felt comfortable to have another go and kept patient with her, this allowed her to relax and feel comfortable and every take her voice became stronger and full of confidance. Overall i am extremly happy with the vocals, they fit the song and its mood perfectly and are full of character.