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Sharon R Harmon
#laterblog
2/2/2017
My mentor Don Z. has me bring in a musician for my first recording session. I happened to work with one, a Mr. Alex Galiatsatos that happens to also produce his own original material. The song he decided to have me record is one inspired by Crosby, Stills & Nash 's 'Long Time Gone', he calls 'When Our Brothers Cry'.
We only had 3 hours to work with, and accomplished about half the recording in that time. He notes how different it is than recording in his own studio, where time is crucial, and he basically has to go with a track after only a few attempts at most, where at home he can scrap something repeatedly if not totally content with the content.
First, we recorded his bass track DI into a Focusrite pre-amp set to Instrument, with a separate scratch vocal to help him hear his timing. The pre-amp line was fed directly into an analog compressor on automatic setting.
After that we recorded his acoustic guitar track in stereo using a spaced pair, with non-matching ribbon mics. Sound was checked through the MONO monitor, to listen for phasing problems, comparing to whether phase was enabled or not on one of the mic pre-amps. It turns out neither needed the phase polarity to be changed, and sounded great as is, from the recorded sound.
The last piece we had time for was recording his electric guitar track. If I recall correctly, I think we used a dynamic mic placed about 3-4 inches from the center of his two-speaker amp. I chose to compress the signal coming directly out of the pre-amp, and chose not use the auto setting. I went with a fairly short attack, and threshold of about 4-5 dB, and medium release. I am looking forward to spending some time really listening to to that track, and possibly get a chance to compare it with another setting for recording the same guitar track.
Hoping to finish most of the recording portion tomorrow (later today!), and possibly start with my first experience in the EQ'ing and mixing portion of recording. If we don't get to it, I suppose I can simply work on it at home with my shiny new Pro Tools 12.7 to put that to use, compliments of RRFC.
All in all a great learning experience so far. Was super nervous, but I think I managed well for it being my first time EVER. Speaking of experience, a lot of what I realized tells me I will only learn from experience, and a lot of it is equipment dependent, etc. So here's to owning some of my own gear/having my own studio soon-ish!! :p
