Recording and Producing (Progress)

10/01/25 - Mic'd things up in the studio - we had been introduced about all the different mics we had by our tutor Jordan - having setting up mics for the drumkit (kick, snare, and overheads) showing us how to link this up to Logic. In our second session my group started again from nothing and we had set up the mics from the drumkit without assistance - whilst Faith, from another band,  got the Logic project up and processed.

17/01/25 - My band didn't record in the studios today - as our other guitarist had to leave early - I had taken up the role of producer and collaborated in helping with the recording and Logic project for another group in another studio. Doing the usual of connecting outputs on the loom and linking them to the Logic tracks - activating phantom power for the condenser mics adjusting the gain on each instrument to the correct level alongside Madi.

24/01/25 - Today we followed through with our plan for our first recording session - I had been late, meaning the plan changed - for when I arrived the other three of  that were there all helped mic up the drums (C1000s for overheads, D112 in the kick, SM57 on the snare). They had also put the D.I. box and acoustic guitar in the control room - because they only had one pair of headphones at the time. I arrived afterwards - the guitar is the leading instrument of the song - we gave the headphones to our drummer so she could hear the guitar from the studio and play along to that. After sfollowing our our plan and soundchecking gain levels we tried a take. However, through the midsection of our song it changes tempo - the part came in with the metronome and threw our drummer off. So next we tried without the metronome, relying on the guitar to keep the tempo as steady as possible for us all to have a founded rhythm. Finally, downloading to our hard drive and promptly clearing up the studio.

31/01/25 -  We decided to start from the beginning with our initial recording - Billy didn't like his original acoustic guitar track, and Charlotte hadn't arrived yet - with me arriving during the setup, so this gave a chance to rerecord the acoustic guitar track once more. Madi had set up a brand new Logic track, Billy set up two small condenser mics (Rode M5s), one angled at the opening of his guitar and the other at the 12th fret; equidistant from the guitar. This time we recorded to a metronome, but because we have a tempo change - we split our song into two sections. We found that we can make the metronome switch tempos, meaning we got a onetake shortly after. For the next recording session we were out of the studios and used FO1 upstairs to record vocals, using a Rode NT2A from Andy, along with a 'cradle' to prevent damage and a 'pop shield' to filter out harsh sounds and ambience. We plugged this into the audio interface and did a couple of vocal takes. Since this song mainly revolves around the rhythm of Billy and his acoustic guitar, we recorded that and Madi's vocals without Charlotte's drums so that then I can track my guitar alongside the original recording next time.

11/02/25 -  For our final session we followed our Session 2 plan - miking the drumkit with the two overheads C1000s and a D112 in the kick, and an SM57 on the snare also using another SM57 to mic up the guitar. Whilst we did this in the studio - Madi setup the logic project. Us three had done the recording whilst Madi left to write lyrics - by the end of the session we had managed to get all recorded, ready to now mix.

28/02/25 - Today we started the mixing process of our track - after exporting our track onto a Mac we individually added and adjusted a low pass filter to all regions except the kick drum. Where the lowest frequencies of each part sits - we cut out the area before that - preventing the mix from sounding muddy, saturated with low frequencies interfering - we then swept over the vocal track, stopping where Madi sounded best - around 2500Hz, and boosting the gain of the frequencies in that area by +3dB. Finally, doing the opposite of what we did to the vocals with the electric guitar as to prevent it from drowning out the vocal's clarity - since they share similar frequencies; cutting at 2500Hz by -3dB.