Local Animality Progress

We have been frantically tracking for local animality the last few weeks. We have thus far tracked 5 demos for the album which we are now in the process of revising so that we can continue to improve our skills.

A few weeks back I had to make a trip to tassie as i was struggling with my mental health. This has been something I have had to cope with throughout my learning process and this time wanted to make sure I was in full communication with Mike so we were able to still get the recording that we needed. We had a band that we were due to record and i had decided that I was not going to make in back to Bris to be apart of the actually tracking day.

However, mike and I had many conversations about the previous session and made a lot of decisions together via phone calls. We talked about the things we wanted to change for this recording mostly we wanted to nut out what we weren't happy with and why.

The main thing we wanted to change was the drum sound. Over all it’s good for the Cassowaries song but we wanted that really clean, tight studio sound and this recording is a little flat in our opinion. The overhead setup that we had picked was not very practical at all. It got in the way of the drummer's arms and we took a lot of time re adjusting its position. It also just didn’t sound as good as we had hoped but i'm glad that we tired it because i had never done this over head setup before. We decided that we would use a spaced pair for this next recording as it is easier to set up and to adjust depending on how wide we wanted the stereo image. 

Another thing we changed was the position of the drums in the room. Mike and I had discussed that the position we had them in for the cassowaries recording was probably in a bit of a ‘dead’ spot in the room. This is something that we should have paid more attention to when doing our pre production plans for this session. So Mike went into the studio and hit a nsare a bunch of times to find the clearest spot in the room to set the kit up around. I was not there for this but Mike found a sweet spot that is pretty much in the center of the room where we have set the kit up for all the other recordings because it is the brightest spot in the room. This has worked really well for the other recordings as well. It's great to have these things worked out every time before hitting the studio so we don't need to do it on the day. 

Here is a digram of the two drum set up's we have tried!

Another thing we discussed changing was the room mic technique that we used. We had done a bunch of research about room mic techniques (see previous blogs) that we wanted to trial for the production of this album. The first technique we used was a mid/side recording using a Royer 121 and C414. This wasn’t a very accurate room sound we didn’t think and it was also time consuming to set up. Something that we want to focus on is getting a solid studio workflow set up for these recordings so finding techniques that are effective and easy to set up is what we were trying to find. 

Mike suggested that we try a small diaphragm condenser technique that involves the mic’s laying on the ground behind the kit pointed at the snare. This was something we wanted to try as it captures more kick and snare rather than hats. We want to kick and snare to be super present and using room mics in the right way can definitely reinforce these sounds and add texture to a mix. 

We decided that multi- tracking was something that we just HAD to do to get the clean sound that we wanted. The cassowaries tracking sounds good but I would be better if we could have the bass and the rhythm guitars isolated from the drums. The other thing we differently wanted to do for this recording was strictly DI the bass. After tracking a bass amp for Cassowaries we decided that it is much easier to effect and clean DI signal/ re amo it that try and blend it in with overdriven bass tones. 

The result of these changes that we made to the mic list improved the sound of the recording a lot! This was super exciting for me to hear when I was in TAsmania and when i heard the balance that Mike did i was so stoked that putting our heads together to improve our recording techniques paid off. 

I organised a friend to take my place in the studio on the tracking day so that mike could have someone to help in the live room. This took a few days of planning in itself when I was in Tasmania I had a chat with our friend Distin and asked if he was keen to help out. He was super stoked to be able to help us. I filled him in on his role for the day - live room assistant and then himself and Mike had a pre - production session together before the recording. This was super helpful and we were all on the same page even though I wasn't there.

I wanted to find out how the day was for Dustin so I caught up with him and asked him some questions about the day so that I could see how these changes we had made to the tracking had affected the running of the day. 

I have summarized my conversation with Dustin here:

The first thing I wanted to know was if they stuck to the recording plan. Tracking DI’d bass, DI’d keys and drums at the same time with a DI’d guitar as well for a guide. This meant that the majority of the tracking was done in the beds. They then just did two guitar part layers and a scratch vocal at the end. We are planning another tracking session for vocals at the end of this month. 

Dustin assured me that they had and that it had saved a lot of time tracking the Bass DI with the drums. Dustin said that the band were also very well rehearsed and they were very easy to communicate with. They weren’t afraid to spark up if they weren’t feeling comfortable. He said that the band were also super keen to help set up as well as they were keen to get the recording done as quickly as possible.

The set up went smoothly. One of  Dustin's roles was to efficiently set up the live room so that Mike could begin EQ-ing the drums while the band we sound checked. They worked really efficiently as well even just by setting up Mic’s on stands and plugging in XLR cables to the right inputs ready to run when the mics were set up. Dustin said that Mike had gone in the night before to set up the pro tools session as well as most of the mics so that everything was ready to go for when the kit was set up. This is something Mike and I had tried to keep doing for all sessions where possible as it saves a lot of time on tracking days. 

Dustin was also the live room tech while they were tracking. He was in the live room communicating with Mike and moving around microphones to get the ‘sweet spot’ for each part of the kit. This is also something else that Mike and I are doing every time we record. We have set roles one person will be live room tech and one person will operate the desk. This means that when a problem arises on the day we don't need to discuss who is going to do what. Whoever's role it is fixes the problem so we don’t waste time discussing what to do. 

Problems that they faced during the session mostly was to do with the drum tone. The kick drum was sounding very resonant at the beginning of the session and it took and while for the top to get a blanket in the kick in the right spot to fix it. I think that these sort of things come with practice and are something that I want to work on more as we continue this project. In the end they found a good place to dampen the kick sound. Dustin said that it was still a stress free process; it just took some time to get the right tone. 

Another problem that they faced was to do with communicating with the band. The drummer was getting really frustrated with his takes as he is a super perfectionist. This meant that he was getting burnt out and in the end couldn't get a whole take. Mike and Dustin over came this and made some edits in the studio to comp together a drum take that was perfect. This is something that Dustin hadn’t had to do before and he said he learnt alot from listening back through the takes and really having to make quick edits in the studio was an interesting learning experience for him. Dustin let me know that there was definitely a few more editis to be made on the drums but that it was pretty spot on given the situation.

Something else Dustin and Mike had to work out on the days when they were doing guitar takes was that the guitarists strings were new and therefore kept going out of tune. This just meant she had to tune up in between takes but this gave Mike and Dustin time to pick parts from other takes to put in the master playlist. It was a bit of a shame when there were some great performance takes that just weren’t in tune. Dustin said that the band were all very positive about it and that in the end it didn’t take much longer than planned.

Dustin said that the main thing he learnt throughout the day was mostly to do with how to communicate with a band, Dustin was the main communicator for the day and was on the talk back mic relaying information to the band. He said he really enjoyed being in this role as hyping the band up and keeping them engaged and involved when they were not tracking was one of the biggest things he focused on. Dustin said that he really tried to make sure they were talking on time and that he made sure to gage when they needed breaks which is something Mike and I can be bad for sometimes. 

Dustin said that the multi tracing process worked really well over all and that it does seem to be the most efficient way from his perspective to track these songs within a day. Even though I wasn’t there for this tracking I feel as though I learnt alot from planning remotely with Mike and after having this chat with Dustin I feel as though we had made some pretty great decisions about this project that came out of this session which is super exciting. 

Thank you for reading. I will be posting again soon about the next phase of recording with BLUSSH, The Flamingo Jones and Dark Moon Society.