Recording Procedures Archives

Procedure for recording M.C. Murph’s “Martyrs And Heroes” CD

November 17, 2006 by Aaron

Recording Procedures

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 16 and 24 Track ADAT
Mix Destination Format: DAT
Final Format: Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 24×8
Outboard Processing: Ensoniq DP4 effects, BBE Sonic Maximizer, Dual Tube Pre-Amp,
DBX Compressor, Furman Compressors.
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660, Ensoniq Mirage
Mics: AKG D1000E, AKG 414
Editing: Sound Designer 2, Masterlist

Procedure:

Tracking: All instrument tracks were tracked direct to ADAT from synth sequences.
Tracks were separated for mixing flexibility, so the sequencer had to be synced to
the ADAT. I used two methods: I output midi clock from a BRC ADAT controller for two songs
and I used a JL Cooper DataSync to output midi time code to the sequencer for the rest.
(DataSync connects to an ADAT’s 9-pin sync output and converts to midi time code.)
Sequences were run multiple times while synced, with 1 to 8 tracks selected and all others
muted (to track more than one sequencer track at once, I used panning and aux outputs to
separate tracks). Mirage provided most movie samples. For five songs, vocals were overdubbed
using the 414 and a tiny bit of compression. The rest were overdubbed with the D1000E, no
compression (one track was recorded on with a bad board, bad mic, totally distorted, eq’d “telephone”
style…this gave the effect I was looking for). All tracks went to tape dry and flat.
Mixing: All mixes were done with 16 or 24 tracks ADAT and the Mackie 24×8.
The main mix inserts were routed through a dual tube preamp and then the BBE Sonic Maximizer.
Some kicks and snares were compressed. No vocals were compressed at mixdown.
Editing: Mixes were transferred digitally into Sound Designer 2, trimmed, and
some gain lowering was done (where there were only a few 0dB readings, I knocked them
down 1dB, so that they could be boosted in Masterlist)
Fade outs were added and songs were imported into Masterlist, where they were ordered, gain
corrected and transferred to a running master DAT. The DAT was sent to the pressing plant
for CD duplication.

A procedure for mixes for two jazz groups

November 15, 2006 by Aaron

Recording Procedures

jazz recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track ADAT
Mix Destination Format: Mac Hard Drive – Sound Designer 2
Final Format: One-Off compact disc
Mixer: Panasonic DA7 Digital Mixer
Outboard Processing: Art QuadFX Reverb

Procedure:

Tracks were recorded live on 8 Track ADAT and output through ADAT’s elco
connector to analog inputs in the DA7 mixer. Trims on the board were
calibrated and left at +4dB input level. One effects processor was used,
an Art QuadFX Reverb; input from analog aux out 3-6 on
the DA7, output to aux returns 3-6 on DA7. Mixes were prepared on the
DA7, saved to scene memory (to come back to in case of remix), and output to Sound Designer 2 digitally.
Sound Designer 2 files were trimmed and imported into Masterlist CD
software, where they were gain corrected and burned on CD.

Problems Encountered:

It would have been more desirable to output from ADAT’s optical digital
out into the board and remain in the digital domain. But the ADAT tracks
were recorded at 48kHZ sample rate, and CD’s are 44.1kHZ. Four of the
Bill Wood mixes were output at 48kHZ digitally to ProTools, mixed in
ProTools, then exported to Sound Designer 2 files (thus remaining always
in the digital domain). Technically, this might be slightly better as far
as sound quality; recording initial tracks with a better resolution
(48kHZ) is desirable. However, to be able to burn these mixes to CD, they
had to be converted to 44.1kHZ, which was very slow and proved VERY
inefficient. I opted for the analog inputs on the board; the board would
convert that analog signal to 44.1kHZ and output that directly to Sound
Designer. (As a side note, this initial method
bypassed the mixer entirely, which in some circumstances could be good,
but the DA7 is a powerful new board and widely used, and it was quite
desirable to get some real experience with this board…it is QUITE
impressive…although I wouldn’t have had to use the analog inputs if it
had a realtime sample rate converter.)
The DA7 outputs both SPDIF and AES/BEU digital signal, but lacks a
normal RCA output for SPDIF. The studio didn’t have a XLR-RCA cable
suitable for digital signal, so I had to output AES/BEU signal to a DAT
machine (using the DAT machine as a very expensive converter box), and
output from the DAT to the computer (also, that DAT only outputs AES/BEU
and optical, so I used a second converter box to convert optical to
SPDIF). This presents no degradation of sound quality, but does add
incovenience, and ties up a DAT machine. The DA7 could use an RCA SPDIF
connector.
The ADAT was normally integrated into the mac and ProTools through a
special ADAT/ProTools interface. When connected, this interface caused
problems recording to or even using Sound Designer 2. This was unexpected
(I’m still surprised) and took a while to troubleshoot. Finally we
figured out that it was the interface, and for this project, disconnected
the ADAT interface and ran the ADAT totally separate from the mac.
Notes:
- These were given to me as ‘rough mixes’, so they were done VERY quickly.
  Still, the consistancy of the tracks made it easy to go from song to song
  and already be fairly close to a good mix.
- Effects were used sparingly on the Kostur mixes and not at all on Wood.
  The room they played in is very live, and the music needs to sound
  natural, not over produced.
- Projects that are intended to be mixed in this fashion in this
  particular studio setup should be recorded to ADAT at 44.1kHZ. Several
  options would then open up for recording, and efficiency would be greatly
  improved.
- Using a JL Cooper DataSync, I was able to sync the board to ADAT
  (with the board’s MIDI input), enabling automation of mixes. I didn’t
  ever feel I needed to use automation, but it might come in handy on other
  similar projects, when the ProTools/ADAT interface is disabled (theboard
  normally syncs to ProTools/ADAT through MIDI, mastered by the Mac, but
  when the ADAT is not synced to ProTools, this can’t happen. So I brought
  the DataSync out and used that to sync the board to the independant ADAT).

Procedure for recording M.C. Murph’s “Artistic Apocalypse” CD

November 14, 2006 by Aaron

Recording Procedures

artistic apocalypse, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track Darwin (harddisk), 16 Track ADAT
Mix Destination Format: DAT
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 24×8
Outboard Processing: Ensoniq DP4 effects, BBE Sonic Maximizer, Dual Tube Pre-Amp,
DBX Compressor, Furman Compressors.
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660, Ensoniq Mirage, Kurzweil K2000
Mics: AKG D1000E, AKG 414
Turntables: One very crusty Realistic stereo system turntable.
Mastering: TC Electronics Finalizer
Editing: Sound Designer 2, Masterlist

Procedure:

Tracking: Most instrument tracks were tracked to Darwin through an Art tube-preamp.
Tracks were separated for mixing flexibility, so the sequencer had to be synced to
the ADAT. I used Darwin’s MIDI out to generate MIDI Time Code and sync the sequencer to that.
Sequences were run multiple times while synced, with 1 to 8 tracks selected and all others
muted (to track more than one sequencer track at once, I used panning and aux outputs to
separate tracks – although most were done one at a time because I was running them through the tube). Mirage provided some movie samples and drum sampling…for some drums, I sampled the other synths with Mirage and layered the two sounds (Mirage can change a sound quite a bit). Also Mirage provided some synth tracks (like the piano on “Rule Rope”). Vocals were tracked using the D1000E, no compression to tape. All tracks went to tape dry and flat. Some samples were edited directly inside Darwin. Some vocals were edited, chopped up, cut and pasted, etc. inside Darwin, especially the Artistic Apocalypse remix, which was rearranged by cutting and pasting the vocals to different spots in time. The exact time they needed to be pasted from and to was determined by checking the time code on the sequencer corresponding to the correct measure. Using multiple versions within Darwin allowed for more than 8 tracks. Tracks were transferred to ADAT digitally for mixdown. On “Whinerz”, vocals were run through a variety of settings on a Yamaha practice guitar amp with distortion, and cut and pasted to different tracks of Darwin for stereo effects, etc. A real snare (recorded by the D1000E) was used along with synth snares on “Magnetic Poetry” and “Quietly Manic”. The K2000 was used for the “One In A Million Chance” interlude and for an extra snare on “Magnetic Poetry”. The Yamaha guitar was used as a bass and as the distorted guitar on “You Took Something Away From Me”. For the distorted guitar, it was tracked twice, each channel panned hard left or right, for a stereo effect. For the intro beat to “You Took Something Away From Me”, the entire mix was run through headphones, which were mic’d. Only the intro vocals for “Rule Rope” were done with the AKG 414. The breakbeat on Disappear was recorded to Darwin from a .wav file and pasted carefully to loop it. The crusty turntable produced scratches on “Magnetic Poetry” and “Steam”. The breakbeat from interlude one was recorded to Darwin off CD and edited and pasted to loop and vary it. The record noise on “Banetai” was sampled to Mirage from a cassette and looped. The kicks and snares on “Banetai” were sampled to Darwin from CD and triggered via MIDI.
Mixing: All mixes were done with 16 tracks ADAT and the Mackie 24×8.
The main mix inserts were routed through a dual tube preamp, light compression and then the BBE Sonic Maximizer.
Some kicks and snares and basses were compressed. Most vocals were compressed at mixdown. Extreme “telephone” style eq and an old radio type effect were used on the vocals for “Majority Of Men”. Multi layered snares and kicks and synth patches were buss mixed to single (or double, if stereo) tracks before being transferred to ADAT for mixdown. “The Pair” was buss mixed into 8 tracks from over 24 before being transferred to ADAT.
Editing: Mixes were transferred digitally through the Finalizer then into Sound Designer 2, trimmed, and
some gain lowering was done (where there were only a few 0dB readings, I knocked them
down 1dB, so that they could be boosted in Masterlist)
Fade outs were added and songs were imported into Masterlist, where they were ordered, gain
corrected and transferred to a running master DAT for backup. The masterlist audio was burned to a CD, which is the master to be sent to the plant
Notes: Only 8 tracks (Darwin) were available for tracking.
This didn’t matter much because the sequencer was synced to ADAT. The whole sequence
could always be heard from the sequencer, even if all ADAT tracks couldn’t be
monitored at once.

Procedure for recording Third Option “Frosted Mini Wheats” CD

November 13, 2006 by Aaron

Recording Procedures

frosted mini wheats, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track Darwin Harddisk
Mix Destination Format: DAT
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 12 Channel VLZ
Outboard Processing: Art SGE Mach II Efx Processor
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660, Ensoniq Mirage
Mics: AKG D1000E
Mastering: TC Electronics Finalizer

Procedure:

Tracking: Most instrument tracks were tracked to Darwin through an Art tube-preamp. Mirage and Darwin provided sampling capabilities. Samples were taken from movies, original poetry, PlayStation games (Overblood) and even a cassette of a play version of The Crucible.
Mixing: If seperated, most of the songs would’ve been something like a 24 or 32 track mixdown. But I only had the 8 tracks of Darwin to work with. So I ping-ponged, trying to stay very careful along the way. The singing vocals were double and tripled up (there were four of Tamara and two of Aaron), and then a stereo mix was created of those tracks. The drums were made another stereo pair, and basses and synths made up other pairs, etc. Sometimes I would deviate, but this was the general rule of thumb.Kick/snare/hats etc. were usually seperated, mixed on the Mackie, and run through the Art tube. The Art tube has only one channel so they would be transferred in sync one channel at a time. Interestingly, when you do this, it spreads the stereo spectrum out a bit. It’s a great effect, but sometimes it’s not good for things that you might rather feel very dead center (like kicks or bass or even vocals). I could listen to synth tracks “live” (played back by the sequencer) while mixing a couple of basses, for example, to make sure that in the context of the whole, things were coming out ok. Some pairs were mixed digitally inside Darwin to make room for this method.I sort of reinvented the trance wheel on this. For some reason at that point I had never really heard a trance record, or I guess any dance club music on CD, because after beatboxing for about an hour one day, I had the “revelation” of progressive trance, which is pretty stupid considering it had been around for years! Nevertheless, the whole project was about writing techno instead of rap songs for a change (even the concept of “writing” techno is a little odd, I guess), and doing this “revolutionary” thing where all the songs just morph into one another. *sigh* Still, even though it didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t even remotely inventing anything, it turned out a bit different, because my process was inevitably odd. I didn’t have the normal techno tools, which seem to usually involve progressive style looping and generation and tweaking of parameters over time, and I didn’t even really know how people did it (I suppose I still don’t, really, now that I think about it), so what I did was write a song on the sequencer, using some drum patterns and such like I always did, then improvising some piano over time, and mixing it down. Then I started a whole new sequence, and started it off using themes from the other song, more like a composer might do, and then morphing the riffs. I used similar synth patches (sounds) in some cases and different ones in others, but totally wrote, tracked and mixed the song seperately. I did this for all the songs, all the while strategizing in the sequences how the BPMs would be matched up and how many measures they would overlap (usually six). I would offset each song so that tracking to the Darwin, it was already at the right place in time and would overlap with the previous song. I used one project in Darwin, using virtual reels to create new songs. When I eventually had a mix down of a song, I would just copy it to the clipboard, and paste it in place into the “main” reel. The first song was on tracks 1 and 2, the second song on 3 and 4, and so on, looping around and around the tracks. Meanwhile, I had another master “volume” sequence on Cakewalk which would just be used to do the crossfades (Darwin’s internal mixer responds to MIDI volume and pan messages). I would carefully map the tempo changes that might happen within songs onto the master sequence to keep the SMPTE time and measures lined up, and create the fade ins and outs using the very powerful event editor in Cakewalk. Over time I kept adding to this master sequence as I mixed new songs. Interestingly enough, when the sequence was about 30 minutes long, it wouldn’t sync to tape if started after about 30 minutes. I had to take it out of sync mode and put the transport at the same spot as the Darwin transport and play them manually at the same time to get an approximate audition of the crossfades. This worked fine, because they didn’t need to be sample accurate in time. Eventually, I would sync the sequencer to the main project, and it would follow along for an hour, creating crossfades while a master CD and DAT was being dubbed off the SPDIF output of the Darwin (which outputs the result of the internal digital mixer). This worked fine, and I went back onto the DAT to create new track markers, then dubbed another CD for the master to be sent to the plant (so that there would me more than one track 🙂 ).
Mastering/Editing: I explained the bulk of the final edit down above, but mastering was a little tricky because of lack of space on Darwin (it has 1 gig, which is pretty much full at 70 minutes of stereo audio plus a couple other multitrack projects). I also hadn’t really forseen wanting to remaster the mixes before I had alreay set up a whole crossfade sequence, etc. This is because I didn’t expect to get an opportunity to borrow the Finalizer. I thought I might get a short time in the studio where the Finalizer lived, so I planned to run the whole project through a setting on the Finalizer that would hopefully do them all some good (this would be a lot quicker). As it turns out, I got to take the Finalizer home, and given this opportunity, I couldn’t stand to take such a short cut. So, using virtual reels in Darwin, I ran mixes through the Finalizer and back to Darwin. Since Darwin of course is in sync with itself, I could just paste the new mastered mix over the old in the main reel, and voila. Where it got tricky was I could only do one at a time, and I had to delete the old one. This doesn’t sound that tricky right now, but it really wasn’t easy to deal with for some reason. The crossfades didn’t need that much tweaking, but I was glad I did each song seperately, because the settings on the Finalizer were vastly different from song to song.
Notes:

Ultimately, FMW has never been duplicated en masse. The artwork and masters were at the plant, and I got a call saying they couldn’t do it because of all the samples. Funny thing is, I don’t think they listened to it. They mentioned the liner notes, and I think if I hadn’t given credit on the liner notes, they never would’ve known. Funny thing is, only a couple years before, they had pressed Artistic Apocalypse, where I used the same technique of using movie samples and giving it credit on the notes. But in those couple of years, the industry landscape changed dramatically, and it was no longer alright to use samples of that nature simply by giving credit. In the days of Martyrs And Heroes and No Apocalypse (my first CD’s), you could use a sample from a movie or something, as long as you gave it credit. At least that was the word on the street. Apparently the law was unclear about it. Now it’s a bit clearer, and the answer is, no damn samples ever any time, which sucks, because the only people who get to do that kind of art are either major labels who have access to the people, or people who never get to actually reproduce the work. So now, we will dub a copy of Frosted Mini Wheats if it gets ordered, but no duplicated CDs. I spent awhile trying to track down sample clearance, but no one even responded. Finding the people, in most cases, was impossible. Later on, with Cult Of Nice, I had one sample, and was by some miracle able to contact the people, pay them a fee, and actually obtain clearance. There have been several times when songs from Cult Of Nice were rejected from liscensing organizations because of samples, only to have me write back to them saying “THAT’S NOT A SAMPLE, that’s original poetry, performed by us!!” Even if something SOUNDS like a sample (which was the whole point of Cult Of Nice – poetry that sounds like samples, but is original), people go berserk. That’s how much the landscape changed in those 2 years.

Procedure for recording Third Option “Monkey Set” CD Mix Set

November 12, 2006 by Aaron

Recording Procedures

monkey set, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track Emu Darwin
Mix Destination Format: DAT/CD
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD-Rs
Mixer: Behringer DDX3216 32 Channel Automated Digital Mixer
Outboard Processing: Internal to the Behringer mixer
Synths: Alesis S4, Boss DR660 Drum Machine
Software: Propellerhead’s Rebirth, Cakewalk
Mics: Shure 55SH (50’s style mic)
Mastering: Behringer Ultrafex

Procedure:

Tracking:This 20 minute mix set was pretty much a one day project. I sat in my home, not in the studio, and played with the settings on Propellerhead’s Rebirth in realtime for around 20 minutes and let that be the basic foundation. Because it was brand new to me, I didn’t even KNOW that you could simply export things as a .wav file, so I brought the 8 track harddisk recorder Darwin (by EMU) upstairs and took the 1/8th inch stereo out from the computer’s normal soundcard into 2 tracks of Darwin with a Y cable. Then I just played back the Rebirth song to Darwin, and took Darwin downstairs. I lined the Darwin tracks up to where they’d be in sync with Cakewalk. Then I set up a single sequence, and where there were relatively major changes in the sections on the Rebirth song, I created a new drum pattern, which I recorded in stereo on two tracks of Darwin, to sort of spice up the drums. Then I’d do the same with a synth track. In the beginning it was some airy thing, I played improv’d stuff, made sure it was all in time in Cakewalk, and then recorded it to Darwin. There was an organ solo of some kind in there, various little spice ups, not too crazy.Then I spent a little while coming up with various little poems and a little rhyme and even a little melody in that section, about a metaphorical monkey, who I pictured as a sort of cracked-out Curious George, and set up the Shure mic, and just winged it. I tried to just have some various voices and experiment with saying things like I’d never said them. Recorded that and a couple of backing vocals onto Darwin (mostly in the beginning), and then mixed down.
Mixing:Pretty easy mix. The Rebirth song was pretty well balanced, the vocals didn’t seem CRUCIAL anyway *laugh*, so I went through a couple passes, did weird things to most of the vocals like telephoning or using metallic effects, just experimenting with the Behringer’s effects, really, automating the drum channels to sort of move a little bit so they’d sit, and the same thing with the vocals, and ran it. It probably took an hour or two to do the whole 20 minute mix.
Mastering/Editing:There wasn’t really a mastering or editing stage, other than, once I’d set up my mix, I took the Behringer Ultrafex and tweaked the overall sound like I like to do. Later when I dubbed the thing to disc to send to get a few copies made, I did a little compression via the Behringer’s compressor, and left it alone otherwise.
Notes:

This was an experiment project, basically. I made some copies because what I came up with was fun, if not ultra songwriterish and crafted to ultimate perfection. The mix actually sounded pretty dang clean, especially for how fast everything was done. The point of the project was the whole thing of taking Rebirth tracks and integrating them with some more stuff. This was my first venture into using any sort of soft synth. It was fun, although Rebirth is certainly a different tool, and hard to get used to really making it do something unique. I wouldn’t call this project groundbreaking when it comes to the use of Rebirth! 🙂 My favorite part of the thing is the metaphoric monkey, frankly, and nobody seems to understand that whole trip.

Procedure for recording Third Option “Still” EP

November 11, 2006 by Aaron

Recording Procedures

recording, still

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track Darwin Harddisk
Mix Destination Format: DAT
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 12 Channel VLZ
Outboard Processing: Art SGE Mach II Efx Processor
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660
Mics: AKG D1000E
Mastering: TC Electronics Finalizer

Procedure:

Tracking: Most instrument tracks were tracked to Darwin through an Art tube-preamp.
Mixing: Still was done like Frosted Mini Wheats. If seperated, it would’ve been something like a 24 track mixdown. But I only had the 8 tracks of Darwin to work with. So I ping-ponged, trying to stay very careful along the way. The singing vocals were double and tripled up (there were four of Tamara and two of Aaron), and then a stereo mix was created of those tracks. The drums were made another stereo pair, and basses and synths made up other pairs, etc.Kick/snare/hats etc. were seperated, mixed on the Mackie, and run through the Art tube. The Art tube has only one channel so they would be transferred in sync one channel at a time. Interestingly, when you do this, it spreads the stereo spectrum out a bit. It’s a great effect, but sometimes it’s not good for things that you might rather feel very dead center (like kicks or bass or even vocals). I could listen to synth tracks “live” (played back by the sequencer) while mixing a couple of basses, for example, to make sure that in the context of the whole, things were coming out ok. Some pairs were mixed digitally inside Darwin to make room for this method.
Each remix was either a slight rearrange in the sequence and retrack and remix (maybe keeping audio tracks like drums from the main mix, always reusing vocals from the original tracks), or in the case of the Murphurd’s Slow and Unrequited Love Mix, it was a matter of taking the main mix and slowing it way down to a quarter of its original speed, and then laying drums from the Phase Motion mix on top of it. Since it was half of half the speed, they sync’d up beautifully. Then I layered back in a Tamara vocal track and retracked a vocal myself. This was the one remix that was a full blown audio remix, as opposed to a rearrange and start over. It had no newly recorded tracks. What was screwy about slowing it down is that Darwin has no DSP features. What I did was hold the jog wheel in one spot for over 20 minutes and dub the slow output to a DAT, then back to Darwin, sliding it into place so it would be in sync. Darwin also doesn’t show a wave, so that was a matter of listening, placing a marker in hopefully exactly the right spot, doing math, and doing a move function, and then moving it a frame, or a half a frame, or a 1000th of a frame at a time until it felt like it sounded right. You can’t just slide around in Darwin, you have to push “action”, “move” and tell it how far and in which direction to move.
Mastering/Editing: Mixes were transferred digitally through the Finalizer, back to Darwin, and eventually dubbed to tape. The Finalizer was borrowed; this and Frosted Mini Wheats was the first mixing/editing/mastering for release done in the NQuit studio.

Procedure for recording Third Option “Cult Of Nice” CD

November 10, 2006 by Aaron

Recording Procedures

cult of nice, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 24 Track ADAT
Mix Destination Format: DAT/CD
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 32×8
Outboard Processing: Lexicon Reverbs, Art SGE Mach II Efx, 1178 compressor, Furman compressors, DBX Compressors, Alesis Quadraverbs, Zoom vocal efx
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660, Ensoniq Mirage, ASR-10, Casio CT770, somebody’s toy 20 key Casio
Mics: AKG Tube 414, Groove Tubes, AKG 414s, , Shure 55SH (50’s style mic), SM57s, SM58s, 757s, AKG D1000E
Mastering: TC Electronics Finalizer, Alesis Masterlink

Procedure:

Tracking: This project was way more straight forward than previous projects. Songs were written and arranged using Cakewalk in my NQuit studio, and synth tracks were tracked to Darwin through the Art Tube Preamp, sync’d to the sequencer with MIDI Time Code. Then, we’d take the Darwin to Rock Romano’s Red Shack and sync the Darwin to the ADAT chain there, and track live grand piano, live drums and vocals.The piano in Woman’s Poem was tracked in Albuquerque, at Washburn Piano. I called the NM Symphony and asked if they had a way to record pianos, and a guy came out with a couple of pretty good mics and we recorded it straight to Darwin. I had a mix set up on two tracks to listen to in headphones and voila.Some pianos were recorded at the Red Shack straight to Darwin as well. These were some of the ones where I was engineering and playing and was by myself, and didn’t have time to run back and forth between the control room and the piano (although I did do some of that). The intro piano on track 1, “Cult Of Nice”, was strange, because it plays for about a minute or two wild (no sync or click track or anything) and then links up with the beat when the beat comes in. I kind of just practiced a couple times, working out an arrangement that would be the right length (unless played at some WILDLY different speed than usual), and had to just sort of feel the beat come in and lock to it on the fly. Everyone in the session was very excited when, on take 1 of actual recording, it happened, it worked, and I did it! I got punched in the arm in excitement. It was great.
On The People United, the vocal snippets “go on go on” and “the people united will never be defeated” were samples from Possibility. I used ASR-10 to sample and then loop them, playing them back at a slightly higher pitch than original.

Bodies, which is the “hidden” track (actually it just hides because it has no liner notes mentioning it) was tracked all at the NQuit studio to Darwin, whilst drunk. All the vocals are improvised straight to tape.

On Possibility, the crowd chanting “the people united can never be defeated” is about 30 of me, voice varied and submixed, and about 10 versions of Tamara and a friend Rebecca doing the chant along with mine. Eventually they were all submixed into a stereo pair (or actually, maybe even one track – wow) for mixdown. Everyone kept saying we needed to bring more people in, but it wasn’t necessary. The drums in the intro section are live drums. This was the first ever time I’d even attempted to play live drums on a track, and only the 2nd or 3rd time I’d even touched a kit. I didn’t come out virtuoso, but I pretty much got what I wanted. The track has a 3/4 section, then in the build up is 4/4 and speeds up, which I used tempo changes in cakewalk for, and had to follow along with the drums. Later I ran those drums through a pitch shifter, making them lower and fatter and weirder.

Also on Possibility, a lot of the sounds that sound like maybe techno sounds are actually real piano. For example, when the beat comes in the last time (which incidentally adds two live drum tracks that I played, and then cut up and added a delay to complicate the rhythm), and there’s a “boop (boop boop boop)”, that’s piano. For this song I did some playing with taking a Shure 57 and putting down deep in the middle sound hole of the piano, then running it straight through three guitar pedals, out to a guitar amp, micing the amp. The pedals were Boss pedals; a stereo delay, a distortion, another overdrive of some kind, if I remember correctly, and a wah-wah pedal. I had the pedals next to the regular piano pedals so I could use them and the sustain pedal and what not. It was really cool, the only big problem was that even sticking the amp in the closet across the room and closing the door, I was always tetering on the brink of extreme feedback. I could barely use the overdrive or it would go nuts.

Another thing fun about Possibility was the eery sort of synth stuff in the beginning, plus the “vroom” synth build up, much of that was done with this tiny little toy Casio which for some reason had pitch and mod wheels, but was a toy and a HALF. It was one of these things with like 20 keys that’s about a foot and a half long, that you give to a kid. But it had this cool thing it would do, so we used it.
Mixing: Mixdown happened via ADAT, sometimes with Darwin in the chain, and the Mackie 32×8. Straight forward, multitrack mixing, using inserts for compression, efx, etc. On Ash, I first took a bunch of vocal tracks of the poem, all recorded at different times, from DAT and put them on an ADAT tape, and submixed them to a stereo pair, fading them in and out manually while it recorded, to get the effect of one poem starting, then fading away, then another version coming in but not in the expected place in the poem, sometimes even going backwards in the poem. I think eventually, you get the whole poem. Fades and little EQ or efx changes were done on the fly manually. In some cases it would take a bit of rehearsal, and I even got Tamara to help with a couple that I didn’t have enough hands for 🙂
Mastering/Editing: Mastering was straight forward. Finalizer out to DAT and CDR. Most tracks I did a sort of mastering/mix version where I ran through the Finalizer and tweaked the sound right at mixdown, but then also did a version with no Finalizer. Whether I ended up using the mix/master version or remastering the “raw” version varied from track to track. I edited using an Alesis Masterlink, which burned the Red Book CD master.
Notes:

Tamara was very hard to record. She was relatively new to the studio and her voice would just POP up for one word and give these incredible spikes. Also, the AKG Tube mic, while great for most people’s vocals, was WAY to tinny and sibilant for her. We used various other mics, like the regular 414 or the SH55 50’s style mic that we would use live, or even the groove tubes. At that time, there was a broken Neumann U47 in the studio – how sad! Also, oh dumb of dumb, it took me awhile to realize there was were Urei 1176 and 1178 compressors in the studio, so most vocal compression was done with the DBX compressors, which I liked, but not like the 1176. Oh well.

Recording Procedures

Procedure for recording M.C. Murph’s “Martyrs And Heroes” CD

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A procedure for mixes for two jazz groups

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Procedure for recording M.C. Murph’s “Artistic Apocalypse” CD

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Procedure for recording Third Option “Frosted Mini Wheats” CD

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Procedure for recording Third Option “Monkey Set” CD Mix Set

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Procedure for recording Third Option “Still” EP

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Procedure for recording Third Option “Cult Of Nice” CD

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