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The
Blizzard Of '77
40
Thousand
For this project,
the band wanted to get quality recordings
of a number of songs (13, in fact.) We
decided that a live, ambient type
recording would be fitting, and that
everyone would play together, including
vocals.
The first thing I did was to tweak the
snare drum a bit, to get it to cut through
a little more. I did this by tuning the
heads tighter, and removing some muting.
It's important to remember that step one
in any recording is getting the source to
sound the way you want it. I mic'd the
drums in my standard way, but since he had
4 toms, I ended up using the Sennheiser
e604s on the two high toms, and SM57s on
the floor toms. I used a sennheiser e609
on the snare, aimed almost across the
head, away from the hihat, to reduce
bleed. I used my GT44s as overheads,
looking in from above the front of the
kit. The kick was a D112 out in front, and
a Nady dynamic on the beater side.
The guitar was mic'd with a KEL HM1, since
he was playing a smallish amp, and I
wanted to get a good accurate sound. I
ended up pointing it at about a 45 degree
angle to the cone, to cut down some bite
that was a little too aggresive. The bass
was an RE20 on his 4x10 cab. Since we
wanted a sort of garage vocal sound, we
used the Shure Green Bullet, taped to a
stand. It went into a little practice amp
they had on hand, which was mic'd with an
Oktava MK219, sort of lying in front of
the amp, tilted a little, with a packing
blanket over the amp and the mic. It still
picked up some drums and guitar, so I left
that mic on, even when he wasn't singing,
as it contributes to the overall sound.
Lastly, I put two Oktava MK012s on stands
pointing at the far corners of the room,
looking up at the area where the walls
join the ceiling. This gives a nice smooth
room sound, without any transient peaks.
It also gives a more diffuse sound because
of the three surfaces interacting.
We tracked all 13 songs, with a few takes
of each, then picked our favorites. There
was some very minor editing here and
there, just to corrrect a couple of
flubbed notes. We overdubbed a second
vocal on a couple of tracks, which I
recorded using both the practice amp and
the room mics. Mixdown went fast, I did a
rough at the end of the day, then did
final mixes at home, which I presented to
the band via the internet. I didn't do too
much, as the basic tracks sounded very
good. I added a little reverb to a few
things, mostly just for an effect on the
vocals, and occasionally the drums. I
think the end result is very organic, very
live, and a good representation of the
band.
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