Hi Ben, I'm just curious how you record your piano parts (and others as well, but piano specifically). Is the piano in your shed? How many mics, what kind and where do you place them etc?
Yeah, I record it in the shed. It's an upright piano, and I record it in stereo. I have a pair of sm81 mics that I use most of the time, 2 to 4 feet from the piano on each side of my piano bench. I have them maybe a foot off the ground, aimed upwards towards the soundboard. Afterwards, I often hard pan them right and left. And that's usually my starting point. I sometimes do it in mono if it's a simpler line, and I sometimes use a room mic if it needs more space to it. And if it's a busy mix, I might mic the hammers instead of coming from below. But the first technique is the most common.
Yeah, it's easier to get a good sound with a stereo pair. Even if each mic is different. Mic placement isn't quite so picky, and I find it's easier to mix. Typically melodica and accordion. I don't think I've ever used harmonicas in recordings, though I do own a couple.
Ah, nice to see the recording techniques thread back, I learnt a lot from it back in the old forum. I have a question. What do you use while recording to keep everything in time? I've heard before that Welcome Home was all based around you stamping on a block of wood. Do you ever use something like a metronome so everything is in time and easy to chop up and 'sample'?
Yeah, sometimes I use a click track. Other times, I just play a guitar, or whatever the central instrument is, and just time everything to that. Like the song "We're On Our Way" was not done with a click, so it's a little more ramshackle. Others require it for me to get everything to sit together well. Just depends on how hard the rhythm is, and whether being loose fits the play style.
Oh ok, thanks. When I have tried recording I have found that its easier to use a click track so I can loop stuff instead of recording throughout the whole song. I should really be less lazy and just play it all in one go
Well you can actually take the middle ground if you want a more natural feel. Record to a click, loop it like you usually do, then mute the click and record the whole thing again while playing back to the looped recording. That way you end up with something mroe natural than a looped/repeaded part, but not quite as wild as using no click. It's kind of like the autotune trick of recording rough vocals, pitch-correcting the hell out of them, singing along to the pitch corrected vocals, then throwing out the pitch corrected original take. The new vocals won't be perfectly in key, but they'll be much closer than the original take.
Hey Ben, I'm curious as to how you record your vocals. They have a unique room sound to them, especially tracks like Family Portrait, The Moon is Down, well... most of the songs I guess! Is that actually the live sound from the room you tracked the vox in or is it reverb added in the mix? (Combination of both? Maybe blending in a room mic?) I'm guessing it's the natural sound of the room, but if it's a secret I'll understand.haha I have a clever trick involving soundtoys echoboy and my 1176 clone that I wouldn't give up without a fight
This thread was really really interesting to read on the last forum! Could anyone recommend a decent mic to use for an acoustic guitar? I never know where to begin when looking for one as I've only really got the option to buy online and there's just too many for me to begin to understand the differences!! Am not looking to spend too much money as always
Assuming you have a preamp with phantom power, the Oktava MK-012 is an excellent choice. A cheaper alternative that still sounds great is the Little Blondie (you can probably get a stereo pair for the price of one mk-012). Those are both small diaphragm condenser mics, which are great for instruments, but not so great for vocals. If you're looking for a good all around mic that you can use for guitar and vocals you should check out something like a KEL HM-7U. If you want to go even cheaper, then maybe the MXL 2003a or V67G. Now if your preamp doesn't have phantom power I highly recommend grabbing a couple Prodipe TT1's. They're insanely cheap dynamic mics that sound nearly as good as an SM57. I've done a few recordings shooting them out against each other and the difference is minimal. (The TT1 is a little more sensitive to sibilance) They sell them here: http://www.musicfactorydirect.com/p-405-prodipe-tt1-ludovic-lanen-model-dynamic-microphone.aspx Condensers are probably a better choice for acoustic guitar though.
Thanks for the recommendations, really helpful!! I really like the look of the Little Blondie, got in touch and they said they'll ship to UK for $15 so going to order one up soon
What kind of bass drum did you use on The Roots (and similarly on Touch the Sky EP)? Kinda sounds like a concert drum but not as big. Or is it standard kick drum with some funky mic placement?
It's a floor tom actually. Not a big one either. It's from my friend Mark's Gretsch Catalina Jazz kit. I think it's a 14". I just play with tuning for the sounds, and mic placement.
I'm curious about this as well Ben if you don't mind sharing - what mics/chain did you use for vocals on Roots? Vocals sound great
Oh, I don't mind sharing. I think it's fun to pass around techniques. They always mutate once they get into someone else's hands anyway. For The Roots, most of the vocals were SM7B through the Sytek, which is a transformer-less and very uncolored preamp. So it was more the sound of the mic than the pre. I typically track a few feet away from the mic too. And for some of the roomier sounds, I would add a room mic, which was usually the KSM44 in omni through the Sytek, and usually near the ground. Most takes had a little touch of reverb on them as well (sometimes on the main, or just the room, or both). There were also some songs where I tracked the vocals 4 times, then summed to mono while adding a short decay reverb. I have a really old, technically crappy reverb plug-in that does this well, because it wasn't coded for proper stereo. I like how it crams things together and I use that technique quite a bit when I want it to sound less separate. Which is often. And for a funny little tidbit: the vocal sound for Family Portrait was an accident. I had been recording piano just before singing, and I had two SDCs down near the floor for that. When I was singing, it didn't even register that I was having to crank the pre for my vocals all the way up. And I don't usually monitor into my headphones -- I just take one ear off. So I didn't notice that I was tracking with an SDC down at my feet and not the mic in front of me. In the end, I liked the sound of the wrong mic more than the one I'd planned on using, so I sang the rest of the song in that same position. Made it hard to mix, but I like those kind of happy accidents.
Are you using any hardware for compression and/or eq or just plugins? I think I remember you saying someone else does your mastering, so I'd guess that they are doing some compression/limiting at least.
I don't use much in the way of compression. The only things that I commonly use a compressor for drums, and occasionally for vocals or bass guitar. It's very rare I'll use it on anything else. I try to avoid using it too much. And I don't have any hardware compressors or EQs. I don't like using them when recording alone. They're fun when I'm just engineering (well, coming from the one time I had access to such things), but it's a headache on my own. And I don't do my own mastering for Electric President. But everything for Radical Face is actually is not mastered at all. I had both Ghost and The Roots mastered, but in the end used the unmastered versions for the final album. I just didn't like it as much. So what you're hearing is just the mixes.
