Straight from the off we had a lot to think about when recording bass guitar. The bass guitar is a rather quiet instruments, however it can have rather big transients, and some notes can be played a lot louder than others… especially when played with fingers instead of a plectrum. Therefore we considered using a compressor on the way in in order to reduce the dynamic range of the bass so that there were no huge peaks. In the end we decided not to use a compressor on the way in, as it can cause the recording to lose some of its life and sound more mechanical. The bass part of the isn’t particularly twangy anyway, so even though Danny finger-picked, there were no big peaks. Another problem that we had was the hiss of the bass amp that we used. The tweeter in the amp was slightly broken, and hissed when the treble was turned up. This meant we had to have a slightly duller bass sound, with less boosted high frequencies. This week I was in charge of the mixing desk, meaning that I had to get the signal of each microphone (and DI) into Pro Tools. I had to remember to turn on Phantom Power for the condenser microphone and then get the signal level to the desk right, and then send the signal into Pro Tools using the short faders. Then I used the long faders to hear the bass guitar back.

AKG C414 (Left), AKG D112 (Right)

We had Danny sitting in the control room, whilst the amp set up in the Dead Room of the studio, which allowed us to capture the sound of the bass with hardly any reverberation. We used an AKG D112 (dynamic) and an AKG C414 (condenser), as well as using a DI so that we could test the different sounds. Both microphones were placed close to the grill of the amp and slightly off centre, in order to capture both high and low frequencies. Both microphones were set to a cardioid polar pattern, however we immediately noticed that the Signal-to-Noise Ratio was not very good, especially on the D112, presumably because it was close to the tweeter (which was in the right-hand corner of the amplifier). For the DI we used a DI Box to split the signal to both the Audient Desk and to the amplifier. In the end we decided to use the AKG C414 because it sounded better, and also is more sensitive and had a better Signal-to-Noise Ratio.

We recorded the bass within two takes, and created a playlist for each take so that we could switch between both takes when deciding which one to use whilst editing.

In Group C, we are going to record Michael Jackson’s Beat It.

Yesterday we recorded our first instrument; drums. This week my job was to control Pro Tools, (a good way to gain some experience on Pro Tools as I have next to none). Whilst George was sorting out how he wanted the drums set up and the engineers were setting up the positioning of the various microphones, I was creating and naming tracks in Pro Tools. After creating the tracks, Charlie increased the gain on inputs 17-24 until each one was about right (it doesn’t matter if they seem a bit low as the drummer will play louder in the actual recording). I then armed each track on Pro Tools so that Pro Tools would receive a signal, and Charlie sent each microphone signal into Pro Tools using the short faders until the signal was in the yellow (or orange, whichever you prefer) of the level bar. We both decided on the correct level to have each one at. We used eight microphones for the drum kit:

Kick Drum: AKG D112 – This is a large diaphragm dynamic microphone. It is very robust and is good for picking up low frequencies. Also, quite importantly, it can withstand a high Sound Pressure Level, which is very much needed in a microphone that is used for recording a kick drum. It uses a cardioid polar pattern, capturing a direct sound with less spill from other drums.

Snare Drum (Top): Shure SM57 – This is a small diaphragm dynamic microphone, which is set to a cardioid polar pattern. This is a good polar pattern to have when recording a snare because it ignores the other drums relatively well. Despite being small, it is rather robust and can also withstand a high SPL.

Snare Drum (Bottom): Audix I5 – The Audix is also a small diaphragm dynamic microphone. It is robust and can withstand high SPL, but has a slightly different frequency response to the SM57. It is important to mic up the bottom of the snare drum as well as the top because the actual snare is located on the bottom of the drum, and therefore you will capture a more well-rounded sound by putting a microphone on both the top and bottom of the drum.

Floor & Rack Tom: Audix D2 – A small diaphragm dynamic microphone that can withstand a high SPL. They use clips to clip onto the drum, which practically can be good because they save space, with no microphone stands needed. They have a hyper-cardioid polar pattern, meaning they capture a very direct sound.

Overheads: AKG C414B’s – A large diaphragm condenser. Condensers are useful when it comes to overheads because they are more sensitive so pick up more of the sound of the drum kit. The C414 has various polar patterns to choose from, and we decided on using the cardioid setting, as we were not particularly trying to pick up the sound of the room (we had a separate microphone for that). The overheads pick up an overall stereo sound of the drum kit. It is important to make sure that the kick drum and snare drum are heard in the centre of the two microphones – something that we had trouble with, but managed to rectify by moving the right overhead slightly.

Room Microphone: Audix ADX 51 – This is a small diaphragm condenser microphone which was placed behind the drummer in an attempt to capture the sound of the entire room.

As the drum track for Beat It is rather repetitive, we decided to also record guide vocals and a guide guitar so that the drummer knew where in the song he was. The microphones that we used for these tracks are as follows:

Guide Vocals: sE X1 – A large diaphragm condenser microphone which is rather inexpensive and not ideal for vocals, however good enough for a simple guide vocal line.

Guide Guitar: Shure SM57 – This microphone was placed slightly off centre of the amplifier grate in order to pick up both the low and high frequencies.

The recording itself went rather smoothly, and the drums were recorded in two takes with no need to record any parts again.