Recording Session 3- Before and After

Before the third Recording Session, I researched techniques for recording a Cajon (see relevant blog post).

After meeting the duo (a Rap Vocalist and Acoustic Guitarist- they decided not to bring their Cajon) we asked them what they were looking to do that day. The Vocalist, when asked, said that he would like a pop shield and a reflection filter so once we’d selected a suitable microphone, we set up the stand designed to use a reflection filter with. The guitarist also chose to use a microphone to record his guitar so we set up a condenser microphone in order to capture the full tone, reverb and colour of the acoustic guitar. They then requested a click track at 98bpm, therefore, one of my group members set one up in ProTools and we gave them headphones to hear it through. We did this by setting up fold back (and talk back) using the patch bay and the auxiliaries on the mixing desk. We then turned our attention to the mixing desk and asked the musicians to play through the song that they wished to record that day, as they did this we ensured that the levels were correct and adjusted the gain in order to ensure that there wasn’t any peaking on either the Soundcard or the Mixing Desk

We then asked them if the volume in their headphones was okay and made changes to it as they wished. After this, we asked them if they were ready and then proceeded to make the first recording. We noticed some minor peaking in this one and adjusted this afterwards before making the second and third recordings (they weren’t happy with their second performance). We still had time left after this, therefore we asked if they would like to record anything else or if they would like to record another instrument to add onto a track. When offered the opportunity to borrow a studio bass guitar, they settled on adding a bass line to their third recording. We achieved this by inviting the guitarist and the vocalist into the control room and after playing back the recording to them, plugged the bass guitar directly into the mixing desk. We were then confused temporarily as we couldn’t hear the bass guitar through the speakers as the bassist was playing through for practise. After checking the volume and other controls on the mixing desk it was then that we realised that the bass had been plugged into the Direct Output rather than the Jack Input! I then unfortunately made the mistake of unplugging it without first turning down the volume of that channel…ouch! We then added another track into ProTools and ensured that the bass would start recording at the start of the third recording on ProTools so that the Vocal and Guitar parts would be playing through the studio monitors for the Bassist to play along with.