Tag: recording

  • Video: Natalie Phillips – Silent Tears

    Video: Natalie Phillips – Silent Tears

    Thought I’d share this with you. About ten days ago, Natalie Phillips came into work to record a couple of songs. On this particular day, I in particular, was faced with a challenge. This had to be a very quick session. Natalie was coming in for 2 and I had a meeting, that I couldn’t get out of, at 3. Plus I couldn’t be late, as I was late for the last one, because I had been recording a session that ran over.

    Natalie arrived a little after 2, and myself and Phil Maltz (camera and lights) set up. I had a problem, there seemed to be something wrong with every cable I picked up. After costing myself an extra 5/10 minutes going through cables, I literally had 20 minutes to get two songs recorded. After a very quick soundcheck, literally a verse and a chorus of one song, we went for a take. Against time, every second counts and as the song was just kicking in, the guitar player stopped ‘Sorry, I made a mistake’. Trying to remain calm, it’s now 15 minutes to meeting time. We started again and flew beautifully through one track. Then Natalie asked ‘Do we have time for another?’

    One take, ‘Silent Tears’ was filmed and recorded and I have 5 minutes to spare before the meeting. Great performance from Natalie too.


  • 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.