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Andrew Tintle
April 26th, 2013
Time In: 7:00 PM
Time Out: 2:00 AM
David invited me out tonight to sit in on a session that he would be tracking from scratch from start to finish. I was really excited for tonight because up until now I have had a chance to watch David mix tracks that were already recorded, but had yet to see actual live recording happen.
The night got off to an interesting start, as the group which was composed of 2 vocalists (1 of whom played keyboards) and a drummer, arrived at the session without any instruments. They were under the impression that instruments would be provided, but that hadn't been worked out ahead of time so that was not possible. It was looking like the session wasn't going to happen, or at least wasn't going to be what the clients expected. However, David turned the situation around pretty quickly. We were able to get about 75% of a drum kit put together with a kit he had from a previous session. Fortunately, the drummer for this recording session lived close enough to home to pick up his cymbals and a few other things to complete the kit. To save time, we got a MIDI keyboard set up and did a scratch track of the vocals while the drummer was out picking up his equipment.
The keyboard player asked for us to set up the keyboard to transpose the chords he played to different keys while he played. I wasn't sure how to go about this, and David was busy getting other aspects of the recording set up. I got out my iPhone and googled the model of the keyboard to find the instruction manual and got the keyboard all set up. The client was really happy and I was able to assist in keeping the session moving. What I did was really simple, but I felt really proud that I was able to step up and help out. David gave me props as well.
The rest of the night went really smooth and it was a lot of fun. We tracked the drums and keyboards together, and did 3 songs, all in one take. These guys really had their parts worked out so it went smooth. The next step was to track the vocals for each song during overdubbing - this was the part that took a little longer. We tracked each vocalist separately in the vocal isolation booth.
I had a chance to watch as David worked in Pro Tools to iron out the sound of each track and he added the desired affects to each track that the client wanted. Since the keyboard was a MIDI instrument, he was able to change the tone of the piano part to really nice acoustic string sound. The finished product turned out awesome. About 5 hours after we started, the clients had 3 songs mixed and at a quality that far exceeded their expectations. Considering how their night started, they were incredibly impressed and I heard one of the clients say repeatedly that David is "A Magician" - she couldn't believe how easily he brought out the best in her voice.
This was a really great experience and I learned a lot from it. I stayed afterwards and talked with David for a while once we were all wrapped up. He really knows what he is doing and I feel fortunate to be learning from someone who is so on top of their craft! Can't wait for the next session.
