Over the course of my project, there have been a few things go well and a few things go extremely badly. There were many things I would of changed about it which I will go into more detail about during this blog.
Until the last 2 months of the year, we had an absolutely useless technician called Alan. Everytime there was a problem with any equipment and we needed some help in getting it working, he didn't help as he didn't know how to
There were problems with microphones where over a couple of weeks there were a few that didn't work and at one point, one or two went missing which meant we were short on equipment.
The Mac's were one of the other problems. For a full session the mac's weren't working as they needed completely re-imaging and got completely wiped off which meant we lost one of our projects that we had recorded the previous week.
It wasn't just the college equipment we had problems with, we had problems with our own stuff as well.
Everytime Kriztian brought in his head and cabinet, there seemed to be a problem with the clean channel on the amp meaning we couldn't do any clean recordings. As well as that, we didn't always use the compressor so the tone was a bit poor at times.
The drums in the studio were just awful. They must not have been re-skinned in about 8 years by the sound coming from them which also meant that the drum sounds on the tracks we did manage to record drums on sounded absolutely rubbish, but due to not being able to bring in our own drummers kit, this was the only option we had.
To be honest, I also don't think we had enough recording time, especially for the amount of people there are in the groups as it was basically 90 minutes per week to record music for 4 people which turned out to be near impossible so both me and Jon ended up recording 2 of our tracks each at home.
All in all, there was alot I would of changed about the project but unfortunately this couldn't happen
Friday, June 11, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Album Inspiration Covers
A few of the album covers I have chosen to use as inspiration for my FMP project are:
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life And Death
Iron Maiden - Killers
Annihilator - Set The World On Fire
KISS - Destroyer
Yngwie Malmsteen - Trilogy
Manowar - Hail To England!
How my EP cover will look any like this is beyond me but... It'll do!
Here they are...
ENJOY!
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life And Death
Iron Maiden - Killers
Annihilator - Set The World On Fire
KISS - Destroyer
Yngwie Malmsteen - Trilogy
Manowar - Hail To England!
How my EP cover will look any like this is beyond me but... It'll do!
Here they are...
ENJOY!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
28/03/2010 - Week 11eeeeeeeez! Final Recording Session
This week we decided to do an acoustic cut of one of our songs
The song we chose was one we have already fully recorded for the project called "We Reign"
Dan plugged in the midi keyboard and got a piano line layed down as the rhythm then added a few more layers over the top to add more to the mix
We were going to record acoustic guitar but the acoustic guitar in the college was completely knackered. As in:
dead strings (about 3 years old)
half hanging pickguard
intonation completely out
major fret buzz all along the neck
We asked for an allen key to sort out the truss rod on the acoustic but the technicians wouldn't give us one.
So yeah, we got on with the piano lines and decided we are going to record more guitar/bass work at home for mixing in college when the production process begins. Leah said this is perfectly acceptable as we can make decent enough projects at home and bring in the audio files for final mixing into logic if needs be.
For the drums, we have a few tracks already done on real drums and will be using midi drums for the other tracks. But, we will be putting the midi drums into a program called "EZDrummer Drumkit From Hell" which is a virtual drum machine used by the likes of Meshuggah and many other bands when triggering drums.
I will be posting another blog before Thursday's deadline day with a few samples of songs/takes and screenshots/pictures of setups and takes on Logic and Reaper (Reaper being the Workstation me and Jon use at home for recording songs)
Would you notice if I missed a day or 2?...
Stevie.D
x
The song we chose was one we have already fully recorded for the project called "We Reign"
Dan plugged in the midi keyboard and got a piano line layed down as the rhythm then added a few more layers over the top to add more to the mix
We were going to record acoustic guitar but the acoustic guitar in the college was completely knackered. As in:
dead strings (about 3 years old)
half hanging pickguard
intonation completely out
major fret buzz all along the neck
We asked for an allen key to sort out the truss rod on the acoustic but the technicians wouldn't give us one.
So yeah, we got on with the piano lines and decided we are going to record more guitar/bass work at home for mixing in college when the production process begins. Leah said this is perfectly acceptable as we can make decent enough projects at home and bring in the audio files for final mixing into logic if needs be.
For the drums, we have a few tracks already done on real drums and will be using midi drums for the other tracks. But, we will be putting the midi drums into a program called "EZDrummer Drumkit From Hell" which is a virtual drum machine used by the likes of Meshuggah and many other bands when triggering drums.
I will be posting another blog before Thursday's deadline day with a few samples of songs/takes and screenshots/pictures of setups and takes on Logic and Reaper (Reaper being the Workstation me and Jon use at home for recording songs)
Would you notice if I missed a day or 2?...
Stevie.D
x
Thursday, March 25, 2010
21/03/2010 - Week 10nnnnnz!
This weeks recording session was cancelled due to performances being on that we had to play in.
Hopefully next week we'll get some bass work done as we have none done so far
Hopefully next week we'll get some bass work done as we have none done so far
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
16/03/2010 - Week 9eeeenz!
Today, we weren't in the studios as other people were using them
So instead, we used the 2 sessions as rehersal and writing time
It worked out well as we got a few things practised nicely and worked out properly
Not much else to write about really...
Peace out!
Stevie.D
x
So instead, we used the 2 sessions as rehersal and writing time
It worked out well as we got a few things practised nicely and worked out properly
Not much else to write about really...
Peace out!
Stevie.D
x
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
22/02/2010 - Week 7eeeeenz
For this weeks session, we worked on Kriz's songs
He decided to get the rhythm guitar tracks done to 2 of his songs and a couple of lead lines as well
For the guitar, he had the usual set up of the Marshall head and cab with the DI box from the head and SM57 on the cab positioned just off center of the top left speaker as we found that speaker gives the best sound off. Well, the top 2 speakers give off the best tone
No drums or bass were done this week
Your mind tells you that you lost your confidence...
Stevie.D
x
He decided to get the rhythm guitar tracks done to 2 of his songs and a couple of lead lines as well
For the guitar, he had the usual set up of the Marshall head and cab with the DI box from the head and SM57 on the cab positioned just off center of the top left speaker as we found that speaker gives the best sound off. Well, the top 2 speakers give off the best tone
No drums or bass were done this week
Your mind tells you that you lost your confidence...
Stevie.D
x
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
08/02/2010 - Week 6iiiinz
This week we were focusing on Dan's tracks for his FMP
He brought in his keyboard for doing the recording as he can get the exact sounds he wants from his keyboard instead of having to mess about with the logic presets. Also, this allowed him to do live recording instead of midi recordings.
We plugged his keyboard into the outboard interface on 2 tracks to get a stereo split of the input for better panning.
After sorting out the inputs and setting up the mixing desk, we opened up the project and got it set up for recording on 4 stereo tracks
Dan recorded his keyboards live instead of midi as you get a better feel to the track and the track sounds alot better.
When he had done his keyboard lines, I got the Line 6 pod, plugged that into the outboard interface and recorded a bass line for the track. After 6 takes, I finally got it down perfectly (including the bass solo in the chorus =O )
After that was done, dan just recorded the keyboards for his next 2 tracks and we worked out some acoustic guitar parts for them.
Next week (after the holiday), we shall be doing some more guitar work and hopefully some bass stuff. We still have quite a bit to do.
The more of you I inspect, The more of me I see reflect...
Stevie.D
x
He brought in his keyboard for doing the recording as he can get the exact sounds he wants from his keyboard instead of having to mess about with the logic presets. Also, this allowed him to do live recording instead of midi recordings.
We plugged his keyboard into the outboard interface on 2 tracks to get a stereo split of the input for better panning.
After sorting out the inputs and setting up the mixing desk, we opened up the project and got it set up for recording on 4 stereo tracks
Dan recorded his keyboards live instead of midi as you get a better feel to the track and the track sounds alot better.
When he had done his keyboard lines, I got the Line 6 pod, plugged that into the outboard interface and recorded a bass line for the track. After 6 takes, I finally got it down perfectly (including the bass solo in the chorus =O )
After that was done, dan just recorded the keyboards for his next 2 tracks and we worked out some acoustic guitar parts for them.
Next week (after the holiday), we shall be doing some more guitar work and hopefully some bass stuff. We still have quite a bit to do.
The more of you I inspect, The more of me I see reflect...
Stevie.D
x
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
01/02/2010 - Week 5eeeeenz
THIS WEEEEEK! We did a bt of rhythm guitar tracking and attempted to lay down some drum tracks but due to some pretty big technical issues, We couldn't get the drum tracks done.
When we arrived, the drum kit was in pieces so Bobby had to come in and set up the kit for us as none of us are experienced enough drummers to set a kit up... Maybe we should learn how to.
So Kriz went off and got his head and cab from his grans and brought that in so we could record the rhythm guitars. After getting the amp set up, Jon set up his pedal so we could get a better tone from the amp (as the Marshall MG100HDFX amps are a bit shite...)
We mic'd the amp up with a Shure SM57 on the top left speaker of the cab and a DI box plugged into the DI out from the head. This way we could get the pure tone of the head and the warmth of the tone from the cab. We then took a 20 foot cable running from the cab, under the door and into the control room for Jon and Kriz to record with (as they prefer to actually sit in the main room to record so they can watch the mac and see the exact points to play at.
We got the rhythm guitars down for the track "Edge of Darkness" and we are going to be getting the lead done in the next session
Next weeks plan is to get a load of Dan's tracks recorded and do some live audio on them as the live audio sources.
Hello me, it's me again...
Stevie.D
x
When we arrived, the drum kit was in pieces so Bobby had to come in and set up the kit for us as none of us are experienced enough drummers to set a kit up... Maybe we should learn how to.
So Kriz went off and got his head and cab from his grans and brought that in so we could record the rhythm guitars. After getting the amp set up, Jon set up his pedal so we could get a better tone from the amp (as the Marshall MG100HDFX amps are a bit shite...)
We mic'd the amp up with a Shure SM57 on the top left speaker of the cab and a DI box plugged into the DI out from the head. This way we could get the pure tone of the head and the warmth of the tone from the cab. We then took a 20 foot cable running from the cab, under the door and into the control room for Jon and Kriz to record with (as they prefer to actually sit in the main room to record so they can watch the mac and see the exact points to play at.
We got the rhythm guitars down for the track "Edge of Darkness" and we are going to be getting the lead done in the next session
Next weeks plan is to get a load of Dan's tracks recorded and do some live audio on them as the live audio sources.
Hello me, it's me again...
Stevie.D
x
25/01/2010 - Week 4ooooonz
This week we were hoping to get some rehersals in in this session. We asked out friends James Roast to come in and do session drums for us but this turned out to be a waste of time as he did not know any of the songs we had asked him to learn and it was like he had never seen a drum kit before.
As mentioned, this session turned out to be a complete waste as we then tried to spend the next hour and a half / two hours teaching him a song in the hope he may pick one up... this didn't happen. Which as you can imagine pleased us all so much...
More evil than violence...
Stevie.D
x
As mentioned, this session turned out to be a complete waste as we then tried to spend the next hour and a half / two hours teaching him a song in the hope he may pick one up... this didn't happen. Which as you can imagine pleased us all so much...
More evil than violence...
Stevie.D
x
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
18/01/2010 - Week 3eeeeenz!
For this weeks recording lesson, we recorded some drums
For the session, we had our drummer Arran Hartley come in for the day and record a couple of drum tracks for us. He did the drum tracks "Edge of Darkness" and "Words Unspoken" which was quite handy as those are 2 of the main tracks for the album
Arran brought in his own cymbals and snare drum to replace the studio own ones (so the kit sounded a bit better than it does)
We also hooked up the compressor and ran the drum signals through the compressor and getting a much nicer sound for the recording. For the microphone set up, we used as follows:
Kick Drum - AKG D112
Snare - Shure SM58
High Hat - Shure SM57
Tom 1 - Sennheisser E604
Tom 2 - Sennheisser E604
Overhead Left - AKG C1000s
Overhead Right - AKG C1000s
We had a bit of a problem with the initial set up as we originally had a Shure SM57 on the Snare drum but the microphone didn't work so I suggested using a SM58 which proved to be a good suggestion as the snare sounded quite good. Also, We had the kick drum mic resting upside down on a cushion on the inside of it. This proved to work very well as it picked up a nice kick tone.
The tom mics were clipped into place and placed very closely to the toms. We has the high hat mic placed on just above the top plate pointing down at it so it picked up the full hit of the high hat. With the snare, the mic was sat sideways, almost pointing along the surface of the snare. This helped to maximse the clarity of the snare sound from each hit. Finally was the overheads. They were placed directly over the top of the right and left side of the hit, so like, on the right side, it was over the tom and cymbal where as on the left it was over the high hat and cymbals.
When we got down to recording, we had Jon sitting in the main control room playing the song on guitar and recorded arran playing along to it as thats the way Arran prefers to record. We tried to get some drums to older tracks re-recorded but due to technical problems with the Mac, we couldn't get the project onto the desktop and open it from there as when we tried to open it from my iPod, it would do a system overload everytime the track would drop from the intro to where the band came in.
As previously mentioned, the 2 tracks we did get recorded were "Edge of Darkness" and "Words Unspoken". We wanted to do a third track, "One Moment", but Arran couldn't get it right so we had to drop that one for the day.
Hopefully next time we'll get the rhythm guitars recorded to the drums and then get the rest done over the course of time.
Silence speaks louder than words...
Stevie.D
x
For the session, we had our drummer Arran Hartley come in for the day and record a couple of drum tracks for us. He did the drum tracks "Edge of Darkness" and "Words Unspoken" which was quite handy as those are 2 of the main tracks for the album
Arran brought in his own cymbals and snare drum to replace the studio own ones (so the kit sounded a bit better than it does)
We also hooked up the compressor and ran the drum signals through the compressor and getting a much nicer sound for the recording. For the microphone set up, we used as follows:
Kick Drum - AKG D112
Snare - Shure SM58
High Hat - Shure SM57
Tom 1 - Sennheisser E604
Tom 2 - Sennheisser E604
Overhead Left - AKG C1000s
Overhead Right - AKG C1000s
We had a bit of a problem with the initial set up as we originally had a Shure SM57 on the Snare drum but the microphone didn't work so I suggested using a SM58 which proved to be a good suggestion as the snare sounded quite good. Also, We had the kick drum mic resting upside down on a cushion on the inside of it. This proved to work very well as it picked up a nice kick tone.
The tom mics were clipped into place and placed very closely to the toms. We has the high hat mic placed on just above the top plate pointing down at it so it picked up the full hit of the high hat. With the snare, the mic was sat sideways, almost pointing along the surface of the snare. This helped to maximse the clarity of the snare sound from each hit. Finally was the overheads. They were placed directly over the top of the right and left side of the hit, so like, on the right side, it was over the tom and cymbal where as on the left it was over the high hat and cymbals.
When we got down to recording, we had Jon sitting in the main control room playing the song on guitar and recorded arran playing along to it as thats the way Arran prefers to record. We tried to get some drums to older tracks re-recorded but due to technical problems with the Mac, we couldn't get the project onto the desktop and open it from there as when we tried to open it from my iPod, it would do a system overload everytime the track would drop from the intro to where the band came in.
As previously mentioned, the 2 tracks we did get recorded were "Edge of Darkness" and "Words Unspoken". We wanted to do a third track, "One Moment", but Arran couldn't get it right so we had to drop that one for the day.
Hopefully next time we'll get the rhythm guitars recorded to the drums and then get the rest done over the course of time.
Silence speaks louder than words...
Stevie.D
x
Thursday, January 14, 2010
11/10/2010 - Week 2ooooonz!
This week Kriz brought in his Marshall MG100HDFX half stack guitar amp and we set it up in the corner of the live room.
We moved the drumkit down towards the top end of the studio and put the blue divider up so it would cut out any surrounding noise and stop studio reverb.
We then setup the guitar amp up and got a half decent tone from it but it was kind of impossible from the guitar and amp we were using. After that was done, the DI and microphone were plugged into the live box.
Steve helped us setup the compressor/noise gate in the mastering room. That helped get a bit of a nicer tone and give us a rough idea of how to setup the compressor properly
We finished off the session by doing a few takes at recording the rhythm guitar for the track "Metallica Rip Off Pt. 1" for Kriztian but due to extremely terrible guitar tone due to the dead strings and amp, we are NOT going to be using these takes.
Rattle your god damn head...
Stevie.D
x
We moved the drumkit down towards the top end of the studio and put the blue divider up so it would cut out any surrounding noise and stop studio reverb.
We then setup the guitar amp up and got a half decent tone from it but it was kind of impossible from the guitar and amp we were using. After that was done, the DI and microphone were plugged into the live box.
Steve helped us setup the compressor/noise gate in the mastering room. That helped get a bit of a nicer tone and give us a rough idea of how to setup the compressor properly
We finished off the session by doing a few takes at recording the rhythm guitar for the track "Metallica Rip Off Pt. 1" for Kriztian but due to extremely terrible guitar tone due to the dead strings and amp, we are NOT going to be using these takes.
Rattle your god damn head...
Stevie.D
x
04/01/2010 - First session of the new year!
Welcome!
This is the first week of my blog for the new yeaaar!
This week, we sat down and set out the logic template for all the tracks we are going to be recording and set out the order we are going to be recording the tracks and what order we are going to do the instruments in
We worked out that the best way to do it is:
* Drums
* Rhythm guitars
* Bass guitar
* Lead guitars & lead overdubs
* Synthesizers and piano work
* Vocals & backing
Bow to the Headcrusher...
Stevie.D
x
This is the first week of my blog for the new yeaaar!
This week, we sat down and set out the logic template for all the tracks we are going to be recording and set out the order we are going to be recording the tracks and what order we are going to do the instruments in
We worked out that the best way to do it is:
* Drums
* Rhythm guitars
* Bass guitar
* Lead guitars & lead overdubs
* Synthesizers and piano work
* Vocals & backing
Bow to the Headcrusher...
Stevie.D
x
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