Tag: Mixing

  • Video: Adam & Kid – Happy

    Video: Adam & Kid – Happy

    A couple of weeks ago at work I had the pleasure of recording Adam & Kidd, well, it wasn’t pleasure at first, more of a frenzy. When the group arrived, to record a gospel version of Pharrell’s Happy, we discovered they were a five piece. For camera angles, that’s one headache for Phil. For me, recording the audio, I had to make sure that the final product was going to be good for broadcast.

    So, firstly, I had to figure out if I had enough mics and mic leads. This is when I wished I had my own ‘tool box’ from home with me. I always have a couple of extra dynamic mics and a condenser, just in case and of course XLRs, tons of XLRs. Do you think I could find any at work? No. Look out for the gorgeous yellow XLR running along the floor in the video.

    Normally if we’re recording anything, it’s a two or three mic job, which is fine. This session was a 4 mic job. I used two SM58s for vocals and then I basically had two shotguns that are normally used as video/speech mics. The band had brought a tiny amp to play electric guitar and bass through, so I mic’ed up the amp with one of the shotguns and basically had to trust them. The other mic is always an overhead so I maneuvered the overhead to over the djembe player. The djembe was LOUD! and also quite sharp so I had to take some top of that.

    As with the all the little set ups I do at work, we record it straight down to two tracks on a Zoom H4N. Simples, so I have to bring my A Game. On this track by Adam & Kidd though, I just added a tad of reverb afterwards to round out the sound.

    What do you think? I’m happy with it. Ok, sorry, I’ll get my coat.


  • Kristyna Myles – Big Love

    Kristyna Myles – Big Love

    KRistyna2

    At work we film musical artists and often use the audio from their performances for broadcast on radio. On this occasion, myself and Phil Maltz were working with Kristyna Myles. Phil takes charge of the video side of things when recording. Me, I look after the audio which on this occasion was actually pretty challenging.

    Normally, we would film a solo artist like Adam Wedd. At Christmas we recorded a series of choirs singing a cappella. Those are different and I had brought some of my own recording equipment, extra mics, cables etc just in case we needed them. For this, there were a few extra inputs I wasn’t expecting and a lack of extra mics and cables lying around, so I had to think on my feet, swap mics at we were soundchecking to see which was better with Kristyna’s vocals and with her keyboard and then mix it all live and record it down to two channels.

    I’m happy with the outcome of the version on Premier.tv however I prefer the version of the song we didn’t film. This is the one we used for broadcast on Premier Unsigned with Loretta Andrews. Yes, I might be picky, watch the video, listen to the audio file and let me know if you know what the difference is.

    Now have a listen!