A few days ago I recorded the first episode of my podcast! I am so stoked because everything ran so smoothly. I had the best afternoon and we got it done in even less time than planned so went and had a beer after to celebrate.
Working with Meg and Ella was so seamless. I felt confident as I was setting up and I have everything planned to a T. When they arrived it was great they had looked over the document I made to send to them so they knew exactly what to expect. They knew I would have everything set up before they arrived so all we had to do set up wise was make sure that we could all hear each other properly. I set up the pro tools session and headphone mixes in the control room then moved in the live room and made sure everything was set up. Mike helped me with the recording when they arrived getting our headphone levels right. It was really handy having him there to make these adjustments so I didn't have to run in between the live room and control room.
Originally I was going to record the interview in the control room so I could be right near the desk. However the control room for the Audient's are small and the vibe didn't feel right. So easy enough after I made the decision about 20 minutes after starting to set up I moved the microphone stands in to the live room. I set the microphone's up as I had put of my Pre Pro plan and checked I had set up all thread phone mixes correctly and that all the headphones we working.
Once this was set up I set up the Nt2A microphones in the same live room but put them to the side. I then put the C414 and the Sm57 on short stands and moved them over to the side of the room with the guitar amp. This was just because we had some extra time so I decided to just get prepared for when they arrived we had some things in place for the song recording. Good thing there wasn't much gear as they were just a duo but it was cool to make some really deliberate decisions regarding doing a minimal recording such as the microphone choices and how I would run the session.
I put a lot of thought into how I would run this which was event in my production plan. I knew how I wanted everything to be set up and when I was going to do things. I deliberately left a lot of time to do things I knew wound't take long for situations such as changing the podcast recording from the control room to the live room. I did this in case there was anything that didn't work such as headphone (which there was) and I had to run back to tech team to get new bits of gear. Even though there was a few things I still had about 15 minutes spare before the girls we due to arrive.
The document in which I created which included my project pitch, plan, how I was going to mic everything and a run sheet of the day was sent to the musicians prior. This was great and they gave me good feed back that is was intact helpful seeing the document and that is was engaging to read. They felt they were well informed of how the session would run even though there was a few minor changes on the day. It felt good to share my production plan with them so they felt like they were as much a part of the project and were well informed of the out come and the process they would be involved in and they really appreciate that level com communication and trust.
So after we had finished our interview which was heaps of fun and ran really smoothly we had about 40 min of audio. This was great as I knew there was a lot of things in there that would need to be taken out and arranged a little bit. Mike took a few notes of when these things happened and I tried clapping when they did but after looking at the session it was still hard to see where the claps were. So I really just had to listen and take out what I thought I needed to as I went through editing. This is fine as I knew it wasn't hours and hours to edit but in future I think I will need to think of a better way to mark these things as the interview is happening. Even if I just had a timer that I start on my phone at the beginning and if there is any mess ups writing down on some paper when they were and what they were.
Meg and Ella took a little break after this and I went in a set up the guitar amp and microphones. At first we mixed up the top cone of the amp we used. This sounded really thin coming through the desk so I figured due to the age of the amp maybe one of the cones wasn't working as effectively. So I moved the mic set up to the bottom cone and it sounded a lot clearer. This is something I probably should have checked out before the session but the girls didn't get back to me until that morning of the recording if they were going to be able to bring their own amp. This was a good trouble shooting exercise that I felt I dealt with effectively rather than just letting them keep playing with the tone sounding off and then I would have to try and fix it after.
Apart from this little set back when the girls began playing it was really simple to record and I was able to just make sure all the levels and tone was sounding nice. The NT2A's were a perfect mic choice for them. I had seem them perform a number of times and I'd say there voices would be similar to my own tone of singing voice. This is the mic I always know will need fail to just capture the rounds and twangy sounds that I like in my voice. One of the songs Meg used a melodica. I was unsure if I would need to get another microphone to capture this sound. I got an extra SM75 before the session and had it set up on a stand ready if the NT2A didn't sound right as they usually juts play into the vocal mic. I thought it would be best to just try playing through the Nt2A first. To my surprise it sounded great the only thing I had to do was tell Meg how far away to play it. We did this just by repeating this part of the song three times to find the right distance. It sounded the best about 20 cm from the mic which is relatively close I think because that thing is actually LOUD. I was stoked that we didn't have to set up a new mic because the NT2A sounds so nice and knew it would be way easier for Meg if she didn't have to jump between microphones. I'd say this was a relatively stress free session compared to some of the sessions I have been involved in recently. This was due to less musicians but also the fact we had the afternoon planned to a T. Leaving some time to make mistakes and not be stressed made us all feel really relaxed.
I am now in the editing stage of the podcast and I am halfway through. Stay tuned for a mixing blog and final product soon! Also Here is a link to the production plan I sent to Ella and Meg if you are interested.
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