New Week, New Faces; New Tricks - Posted on 2018-03-14 by Matthew Cloutier

Hello again!

Matt at the Recording Connection. The past two weeks have brought more complications in my personal life that ended up affecting our sessions in some ways (totalled my car a block away from the studio), but we've managed to fit in the hours. 

We had steady business on the previous week building the progression of a project being made by a local Ska band, Replica. Their drummer had come in alone the week prior to record multiple takes for five of their songs. Alex showed me the proper positioning for the studio's drum kit as well his his preferred mics of choice for drums; we hadnt had a drummer come into the studio until now so it was great hands-on practice for me. Coming back to this week, the rest of the band featured a bass, guitar, keyboard, vocalist, and even trombone (engraved with a quote from my favorite anime, which I admit I got pretty excited over). We decided to plug the bass and guitar straight into the studio's 18i20 interface and route them through Native Instrument's Guitar Rig after finding both musician's favorite virtual amps to simulate. THAT in itself was really cool to watch; the bassist and guitarist practically named their favorite amps and we replicated the same sound in FL Studio. In these sessions I also learned how to mic an analog guitar amp and WHY you would do it from an audio engineering perspective and how to mic a trombone, and/or any brass instrument by extension. Replica's members were really friendly, down to earth people and it was a pleasure helping them track their EP. 

This week was a fairly slow one, and due to my car troubles and the ensuing problems in my REPLACEMENT vehicle, could only make it to one session. We saw the return of Bronte (Northwe$t B1) and his crew Gio and Buda, and they all recorded individual songs. I had the chance to run the recording session for the first time, and as stressful as it was to be put on the spot it ended up going fairly smoothly. I learned a lot more sitting in the drivers seat, even though we weren't learning any new techniques. Always good seeing Bronte, he always comes to the studio with great lyricism and beats. 

All-in-all its been a lot more hands on recently and I'm enjoying the experience coming from it. 

Till next time.