A Day
In The Life...
by John
McKay
I often talk to
bands about recording, and some of the
questions I hear most often
are:
- "How does this
work?"
- "Do you record
everyone at once?"
- "Can we do
overdubs?"
In an effort to
answer some of these questions, and to
give a feel for what working with me is
like, I've written this little breakdown
of a "typical" day of recording. If you're
doing more than three or four songs, the
session could be more like two days, but
the process is the same.
10 am - At the agreed upon time, I
arrive at the band's place. Usually it's a
house, or possibly a practice space, or
gallery. Houses work just fine, there's
plenty of room to set up, and there's a
fridge!
The band's gear is probably set up
already, I may ask people to move things a
bit, for better separation. I'll set up my
'control room' on a table, maybe in the
kitchen, or living room. I have a long
snake, so it's not important that I be in
the same room with the band, though that
works, too.
It takes me about 1-2 hours to get set up
and ready to start tracking some songs.
This includes loading in, setting up, mic
placement and getting tones.
12pm - Tracking begins. Typically,
I'll have 6 mics on the drums, plus a room
mic or two. I have mics on the guitars,
and the bass may be mic'ed, or DI, or
both, depending on how it sounds, and
whether the bleed from the bass amp is
workable. Each microphone goes to its own
track, so if the bass player miffs a note,
we can go back and punch in to fix it.
Similarly, we retain lots of control for
mixdown.
I like to set up a scratch vocal mic, but
it's not necessary. Similarly, headphones
are used when necessary, but often, the
band can hear each other well enough
without them. It's the band's call.
3 pm - Assuming everything has gone
smoothly, we're on to tracking vocals and
overdubs. I use a variety of vocal mics
and techniques, depending on the artist's
comfort level and style. The vocalist can
be in the 'control room' with me, or in
another room by himself. I've tracked
vocals with headphones, and occasionally
without, using speakers for
monitoring.
6pm - By now we're onto the mixing
phase. I prefer to mix on another day, if
the band is able to do that, but if not,
we can do a proper mix on tracking day.
Otherwise, I will provide a rough mix on
CD for the band to listen to between
sessions.
Mixing is a matter of getting the right
sounds, setting the right effects, and
doing whatever editing is necessary
(cleaning up the stick clicks at the
beginning of a track, for instance.) For
most bands, the instrumentation is similar
from track to track, so it's possible to
move through them pretty quickly.
This part of the day can seem tedious, as
we listen to the same part of a song over
and over, but mixing is a delicate art,
and often very small changes can make big
differences in the final sound. Patience
is a virtue!
9 pm - By now we're basically done,
making a few last tweaks. Then I'll burn a
few copies of the CD, and one master CD,
with the tracks in 24bit format, for
mastering purposes.
10 pm - Time to break down and load
out, which usually takes about 45 minutes
or so.
All in all, it's
very simple, and efficient. I work fast,
and try very hard to prevent burn-out from
setting in.
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