STUDIO RECORDING
"Go Fishing" Song Session
Pre-Production
On 30th October 2019, I talked to Jin, who is my Thai friend, to help me to find a band, so he suggested that one of his friends is a member of the band name “ Awkward Family Portraits”. His friend is named Chis Blackmore before I contacted him, I listened to a couple of their songs, and I realised that I would use this band.
On 12th November 2019, Chis texted me that Awkward Family Portraits is not his right, so he introduced Stuart Neil. Stuart is of Hoojamamus infamy, AKA FatMantra, so that Stuart would find the band for me.
On 14th November 2019, We discussed the deal, which was the recording date, the genre of the song and the instruments that we needed to record. We decided to record in one
day, it was on 26th November from 5 to 10 pm.
On 24th November 2019, I wrote a pre-production plan and sent it to Stuart and my assistant engineer, “Thiago”. It included a stereo image, tracklist, instrument note and day plan.
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One week before the session, I made sure I had already booked the studio on Booking resources and told them exactly the date and time.
Recording Process
The recording took place on 26th November with all instruments. The band came to SAE at 5.30 pm because of the traffic. I had already prepared the microphones for recording acoustic guitar and used the console tape mark on the desk to make it easy to find the track in each instrument before the band arrived. The session had changed because the double bass had a problem, so we used actual bass instead of double bass and acoustic piano to electric piano.
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We started by recording the acoustic guitar as the electric piano (acoustic guitar in the live room and electric piano in the control room). The acoustic guitar would be the main body of the song. For the acoustic guitar, I used two AKG P420 condenser microphones and one Rode NT2 condenser microphone, so we placed two P420 20 cm away from the hole in the acoustic guitar, and I used the MS stereo technique. We changed one P420 to a cardioid polar pattern, and the other changed to figure 8. On desk and protools, I created 3 tracks (first track for the centre mic and figure 8 mic I duplicated the tracks one track pan fully left and the other pan fully right and pressed phase invert on the duplicate track). For the Rode NT2, we placed it near the corner of the room and faced off the acoustic guitar to get a room sound. The acoustic guitar was put opposite the electric piano in the control room.
For the electric piano, we directed the signal to the Focusrite Red 8Pre (audio interface). The electric piano sound is muffled so we really do not like it. As a stereo image in the pre-production plan, the piano would be planned like a background of the song, however, the piano sound that I recorded is mono so I sent the piano signal to the speakers in the live room and placed two Rode NT2 condenser microphone 20 cm away from the wall and faced the diaphragm to the wall to get the room sound.
For bass, I mentioned in the first paragraph that we did not use a double bass. We directed the signal to the Focusrite Red 8Pre (audio interface). After recording, we sent the bass signal to the tie line and prepared to re-amping the bass. Re-amped steps, we used a bass amplifier and placed the amp face to the door. We used two microphones
which were the Red 5 RV15 valve microphone and AKG P420, pointed to the centre of the speaker.
The last track was vocal. We set up two microphones. The first one was AKG P420
and the second was Rode NT2. We placed microphones as high as Stuart and for the
Rode NT2, we placed it upside down so that the diaphragm could receive a clear sound as
the first microphone. We used a pop filter to avoid the wind getting into the microphone. I
created two other tracks that Stuart wanted to sing a harmony note, however, he could
not find the suitable key for the song so he gave up.
Protools Session and Editing Process
It took two hours to edit all the tracks. First, I started by deleting the unused tracks because the instruments were changed so that the tracks would change, either. I started with the vocal track. There were two vocal playlists which are pretty suitable. However, there was a slightly different in each playlist. I chose the best track and tried to get rid of all the inhaling sounds. Checking the fade is the most important thing to avoid a pop sound. For the piano, I had four takes of the piano track. However, the best track is the latest one. We used a lot of punch records so I had to fade it. For the acoustic guitar, I had only one best track, and Stuart played only one take, so I had nothing to do with the acoustic guitar. For the bass, I had two best takes and one take that missing one note.
Mixing Process
I started with mixing the bass first. I used EQ3 Band-7 and BF-76 compressor. I boosted the low end (65 Hz) and cut the low mid(167 and 469 Hz). For the compressor, Nick helped me to use BF-2A and Multiband dynamics. Overall, the level of the bass sound was quite low so I wrote automation to boost the bass volume on the bass master bus and I put the bass in the middle of the song.
For the acoustic guitar lead, I used only EQ3 Band-7 so I started with using HPF at 100 Hz and I cut low mid (286 and 508 Hz) and a bit of high mid (3 kHz). I panned to the right (0,50) to avoid the rhythm guitar.
For the vocal, I used EQ3 Band-7 and I set HPF at 150 Hz. I cut low mid (561 Hz) and high mid (2.75 kHz). I pushed the vocal a bit in front by boosting 1 kHz. I create two aux tracks and one track for room1 reverb and the other one for mod delay III. I automated volume by adding +4.4 dB at 1.50 - 2.60 mins on the song.
It took approximately 8 hours to finish mixing this song. I mixed 5 hours in the Audient studio and 3 hours in my room. We did not have tempo and click track. Stuart sent me a reference song called “ The Pack” by villagers. I used plugins and effects in the audient studio.
The acoustic guitar rhythm had too much low mid so I used the same plugin as the bass,
however, I set High Pass Filter at 100 Hz. I did not cut the low mid (303 Hz) too much
because it would lose the body and I cut a bit in mid-range (1 kHz). I boosted high mid
(4 kHz) to get a string of AC guitar and I boosted a bit of high-end (16 kHz) to get the
air. For the compressor, I set medium attack and release on the track. I created the AC
GTR Rhythm bus track and I put Ozone 9 eq plugin and cut a bit of low mid. I sent the
medium plate reverb to the guitar either. I panned the rhythm to the left (50,0) and I
automated panning more to the left (80,50) at 3.25 - 3.50 mins on the song.
The Electric piano was the one that we did not like the sound so I used a basic equaliser and compressor. I used HPF at 100 Hz and cut mid-range (978 Hz and 2 kHz) to avoid the harsh sound. I boosted a bit of high-end (16 kHz). For the compressor, I set medium attack and release on the tracks. On the electric piano bus track, I used Ozone 9 eq and an imager to enhance the stereo image. I automated volume by reducing -2.6 dB at 2.24 - 2.55 mins and adding +3.3 dB at 3.25 - 3.50 mins. I automated panning more to the right (50,80) at 3.25 - 3.50 mins on the song.
Mastering Process
