7th Kind Sessions 2005

Day Thirteen - Twenty Six

2005-10-11T19:28:00.000-05:00

MWM

This here is my tracking face. Whenever a member of the band is recording, it is important to keep quiet, and to analyse the track as it is being born. Hmmmm....... YES!!!

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Day Thirteen - Twenty Six (Vocal Tracking II)

2005-10-11T19:25:00.000-05:00

Biiilllllllllllll

Day Thirteen - Twenty Six (Bass Tracking)

2005-10-11T19:22:00.000-05:00

Bass Tracking - Drum Maintainence

Sometimes at the studio we multitask. During this Bass tracking session for "Message from Headquarters" and "Sparrow," Tyson was giving his floor tom a face-lift.

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Tyson - Critical Listening

2005-10-11T19:18:00.000-05:00

Critical Listening

This is always the defining moment of any "yeah... umm.. yeah... I think that might be 'the One'" take.

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Drum Tracking with Tyson

2005-10-11T19:14:00.000-05:00

Drum Tracking with Tyson

We continued with drum tracking for "Message from Headqurters" and "Sparrow." "Message" has two separate drum parts, which adds to the dynamics of the tune.

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Day Thirteen - Twenty Six (Vocal Tracking)

2005-10-11T19:12:00.000-05:00

Bill in the Booth

Throughout the last few months Bill and I have been at "The Studio" (it's name only when I'm recording, otherwise it is "The Space"). We've been ironing out the vocal parts for these first 4 songs, making sure the man's got enough rest, and that he isn't hoarse from a late night at a gig, etc...

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Ed's Special tracking sessions

2005-10-11T19:07:00.000-05:00

Ed's Listen Back

Since Ed had busted his teeth when we were recording the first few songs, the other horn guys had to fill in for him. The man plays a pivotal role in the band, and demanded to be heard, so we re-tracked his parts once his new chompers were in blowing order.

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Blog-reader's Wilson Fix

2005-10-11T19:04:00.000-05:00

Wil

In case you missed Wilson, here's a new pic of him touching his instrument from the Basic Tracking sessions fro "Message from Headquarters" and "Sparrow".

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Day Thirteen - Twenty Six (II)

2005-10-11T19:02:00.000-05:00

The Snake, The Trap

Drums were then recorded for "Message from Headquarters"

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Day Thirteen - Twenty Six

2005-10-11T19:00:00.000-05:00

Horn Panorama

Sorry to all blog readers. I've been busy like stupidness and have had to put ye olde blog on the back burner for a few months. Here are a few pics to quench your thirsty reading eyes. First here is a panorma of our follow-up horn session for 7th Kind's "Message from Headquarters" and "Sparrow"

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Day Twelve: Basic Tracks- "Sparrow" & "Message From Headquarters"

2005-06-29T18:25:00.000-05:00

Rough Tracking Panorama

The recording sessions for 7th Kind's "Space Vacation" and "Job 40:8" are complete (except for a very small Alto Sax part on Space Vacation)! So, we're moving on to the Next two tracks:

"Sparrow" & "Message from Headquarters"

These first 4 tracks together are bound to be a really fitting representation of the bredth of the 7th Kind sound, so Bill is planning on putting together a promo/demo of the tracks for submission to record labels and the like.

We began our session at 7pm with the full band setup in the space: one mike for drums, one form trumpets, one for french horn, one for saxi, one for bass an done for guitar. We're leaving vocals out as we did with the first two tracks.

One take took care of "Message from Headquarters," the most dynamic of these songs so far.

After a couple of attempts with "Sparrow," we decided to skip the basic tracking and just build the song up from the drums. The issue was with the click track. Bill and Tyson had written some tempo changes into the song (one section in 13/16 or something). Tyson was playing along to the click track which Bill had exported from his notation program and some newer sections were missing, not to mention that there is some serious complexity to the changes and recording each part alone would probably get us th ebest results.
PS- CHECK OUT THE KILLER BAND PANORAMA!!! CLICK THE IMAGE TO VIEW THE LARGER SIZE.

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Day Eleven: Vocal Re-Hash

2005-06-26T18:09:00.000-05:00

Vocal Take

There are two possible opposing extremes to the tightness of a performance, sloppy and sterile. The best work seems to be some combination of the two, meeting somewhere in the middle. Upon reviewing the vocal tracks Bill and I had captured a couple weeks ago. I decided that though he is in time, pitch, etc... we had lost the nuance and immediacy that comes with a real, honest, natural performance. We had become to sergical in the process. So, I decided we needed to come back to the songs with more energy and just go at it without all the technical preoccupations. So, I headed off to 7th Kind's Space at 10am. All went well and we captured quite a few tkes to choose from. I will probably end up using a combination of the earlier takes and the new, energized takes for the final mixes.

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AJ Sax Solo

2005-06-16T14:29:00.000-05:00

AJ in the Hangar

When the horns were done, AJ showed up to trakc his Sax solo. This solo is not written in the chart, so AJ improvises it each time 7th Kind play live. The crowd always loves the hell out of it, and I think everyone gets the sense of immediacy from his solos being so off-the-cuff. Being that this is an improvised thing I had an idea that the recording might take a few shots. AJ would undoubtedly want to come up with his perfect version of the solo. So, 54 takes later, we had the Sax solo to end all Sax solos. We had also planned on tracking the final section of the alto sax part, but 1 1/2 hours of solo playing left AJ with a "Blown Lip." Next Time! (The solo is amazing by the way).

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Day Ten: Trumpet Soli

2005-06-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

Trumpet Glis

Today is slated to be the final recording session for 7th Kind's "Space Vacation" and "Job 40:8." Of course these things never go exactly to plan and there will be at least one more session to finish off a sax part that was left undone.
At 8pm, Eric and Ed (who I had not recorded up until now, due to his broken front teeth) arrived to record the trumpet soli for "Job 40:8." I set everything up as i had in previous trumpet section with the AT4040 and the Ribbon mic in a spaced pair configuration about 6 feet in front of the players. All went well and everything was taken care of in 7 takes.

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More Mic's = More Better

2005-06-09T13:38:00.000-05:00

More Mic's = More Better

We continued on to record Bill's vocals. To start, I set up all of the mics I thought would be suitable for vocals - AT 4040, MXL V67g, Rode NT1A, and AKG 3000. Bill's wife karyn stopped by and also helped us decide that the AT4040 was the best suited to Bill's vocal. It wasn't to harsh, and had just enough mid's to make the sound full.

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Day Nine: Guitar and Vocal Tracking

2005-06-09T13:32:00.000-05:00

Bill Tuning Up

Today I started out recording guitar with Bill. We used his Marshall amp and placed it in the front room of the space with an sm57, AKG C1000, and the T.Bone Ribbon mic for the room. After a few takes and some listening, I found (surprisingly) that I preferred the AKG to the sm-57 for this guitar and amp. So, for the final mixes i will be using a blend of the AKG with the Ribbon mic for some room sound.

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7th Kind Live at the Beat Kitchen

2005-06-08T13:50:00.000-05:00

7th Kind Live at the Beat Kitchen

Awesom show! Great venue. Upon first listen, you'd think you would want to dance to 7th kind's music, but I gave it a try with my girlfriend and I have yet to learn how to dance along to tempo and time signature changes, so we ended up looking like dumbasses on the dance floor. I guess the musical energy is best absorbed and expressed through irratic convulsing, because that seemed to work alright.

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Day Eight: The Sef on Bass

2005-06-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

The Sef

John arrived at 8pm as planned and I had been setup to go for about an hour. It's always best to have too much time that not enough. So we immediately got the bass plugged in and the Sef began warming up.

Mic'd Bass Amp

I Isolated the bass amp up in the front room of 7th Kind's space, so John and I could monitor the sound in the main room through the NS-10 monitors instead of headphones. It's best to tweak the sounds through montiro speakers rather than headphones if possible, emulating the final mix as accurately as you can. I used the same basic setup as I had previously on our first day of bass recording: a beyer dynamic M-88 off axis the speaker cone and a direct out of the amp. Both channels went through the Sytek pre amps 1&2.

Action Photo - The Sef

Unlike our last bass recording session, both John and I had more than enough time to spend getting the performance and the tone right for these tracks, 7th Kind's "Job 40:8" and "Space Vacation." The first time around we were also attempting to record drums in the same night. That was a major misjudgement, as drum tracking can take a very long time. It felt like the bass recording was just crammed in.

So I had John play along with "Job 40:8" while I went back and forth between the 2 rooms tweaking the settings on the bass amp and adjusting the microphone. He actually brought 2 basses in as well, a 60's Fender Jazz Bass with flat wound strings and a hybrid Jazz style bass with standard steel strings wrapped in nylon. We opted for the bass with the nylon strings as it had a nice natural, almost upright bass tone. In the end, we only did about 6 takes total for both songs and got a nice rounded bass sound, with just enough mids, and a great performance - the most important element in any recording.
We both discussed our dislike for much of the intense synthetic polish of 80's bass tracks, and make sure to avoid that at all costs. The nylon strings helped quite a bit. There is a fine line between clarity on a bass track and that cheeez tone.

The Sef was kind enough to give me a ride home. We listended to Don Byron's jazzy clarinet Klezmer music, discussed the music scene in Chicago, the midwest attitude, my upright bass and live music experience, and stupid and/or elitist people and the shameful need to realize they exist and talk about them. Next week: an all-day session with vocals and guitar!

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Leave the Mic, Take the Canoli

2005-06-02T10:58:00.000-05:00

Fiore's Deli

After a beautiful tour through downtown, I made it to 7th Kind's space at around 4pm. Drummer Tyson was there working with Bill's sister on her clothing design buisiness. She maintains the space in the front of the building as one of her studios.

I had become intensly hungry on the trip over, so I decided to head over to Fiore's Italian Deli around the corner and get a Italian Beef sandwich (again). They're amazing. I also had to grab a chocolate canoli, since I've been craving one of those bastards for more that a month. The whole experience was blissful. I sat outside in the warm pre-summer sun and munched. I also bought some fresh basil, my secret weapon when it comes to recording bass, which was what I was doing for this session. No I don't smoke it.

Before John Sefner, 7th Kind's bassist, arrived I was planning on resolving some old issues I'd been having, and making headphone mixes for the session. Since I've been having endless troubles with the timestamps on many of the takes that I've been transfering to my Pro Tools system, I decided to arrive a bit early and solve the problem. To reiterate what I explained before, any take that does not begin at 00:00:00:00 is importing at the wrong point on the timeline in my system. I figured the best way to take care of the issue was to make guide tracks that would start at 00:00:00:00 (using "bounce to disk") for all of the overdubs. Then I could import each guide track, and visually match up the actual overdubbed take next to it with perfect accuracy. Then I'd just delete the guide track once everything was lined up. There were only about 6 guide tracks that I needed to make, so it didn't take too long. I later tested my theory at home and discovered that it worked perfectly. I realize there ought to be a more sophisticated method for sharing files between Digital Performer and Pro Tools, but the few methods suggested by the manuals didn't work, so i'll be investigating other avenues further as we continue on with the 7th kind album.

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Day Seven: My Italian Beef with Time stamps

2005-05-29T22:58:00.000-05:00

So, this week I made sure to arrive beyond early. I arrived at 7th Kind's space at around 2:30pm and began building some rough headphone mixes for the trumpet/tenor sax and guitar overdubs we were to record.

I also spent some time trying to figure out why the tracks I had been taking from the computer at the space have been misaligned when I import them into Pro Tools on my computer at home. For some reason, if any given take does not begin at 00:00:00:00, then it will be "time stamped" with the wrong time, so when the tracks are played back together, the mix ends up sounding like a band camp nightmare. Of course, I could visually and aurally align the tracks to be in the basic ballpark, but I just can't let that fly when we're recording this thing for real in real-time. I thought I had figured the issue out, and I even wrote down the takes' start times, but when I got home and attempted realigning them, some of them were still off. I have a couple of fail-proof techniques I'll be employing as a last resort, so no real problem there. Just more of a hassle. Whatev.

Just before the boys started showing up, I headed over to Fiore's, the Italian Deli down the block for one of their magical Italian Beef Sangwitchiz, and I managed to pass on the canoli. It was an amazing accomplishment and disappointment.

Eric & Wilson

Eric and Wilson showed up at around 7pm to record some parts that tenor sax and trumpet share. We had been saving these takes since I previously recorded sax separately from trumpets and the guys wanted to maintain the synchronous vibe that can only be obtained by recording the part together. For these takes, I merged my mic techniques from the previous trumpet and sax recording sessions. I used the same spaced pair of the AT-4040 condenser and the Ribbon mic as I had with the trumpets, and I also used the same close micing that I had previously used on the tenor sax (MXLv67g on the lower keys and a SM-81 on the upper keys). I moved the Ribbon and AT4040 around the room a bit to get a good natural volume balance between the two instruments. All went superbly!

Wilson Le Papparazzo

After the trumpet and tenor takes, which only took about 20-30 minutes to get down, Eric headed home and Wilson stuck around to punch in some parts he couldn't get to in our earlier sax recordings due to bastard reeds.

Bill Tuning

After successfully tracking some amazing tenor sax genius, Bill showed up with intentions of recording the guitar parts for 7th Kind's "Job 40:8" and "Space Vacation" in an hour, which i told him was a little bit of a tight time constraint.

We set up his amp in the front room of the space, where Bill's sister maintains one of the locations for her clothing design buisiness, and I mic'ed one of the speakers with an sm-57 (duh), an AKG D1000E (a new one for me, but what's a session without something new?), and my ribbon mic again, placed further out in the room to use in the track if i need some space for the guitar. The AKG D1000E was a sort of random mic that bill had in his mic bag, and it seemed to fit the bill for a guitar amp mic, spec wise, so i gave it a shot. I ended up liking it paired up with the ribbon mic better that the sm-57. For the early mixes I've been working on, i've completely muted the 57.

Bill at the Jam

After some intense discussion about existential matters and the current status of reality, we managed to get some good takes recorded for "Space Vacation," the keeper being one solid take from start to finish, save for some evil crazy compressor-feedback madness we had to capture separately for the closing of the song. We gave "Job" a few go's, but decided to come back to the song later. We had run out of time. Ultimately, Bill also decided he wanted to redo all the guitar takes when we had a solid block of time to really dive into them. Well, we got some practice, at least.

Bill was kind enough to give me a ride home, as many of the other guys have throughout the 7th Kind sessions, and we continued our talk about the existential crisis and the correlation between a person's name and their personality. I learned that apparently anyone with the name Emmet is doomed to a life of ridicule. Sorry to all you Emmet's.

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Punching in the Triplet

2005-05-21T00:29:00.000-05:00

Excited trumpeteers

Following the French horn tracking for 7th Kind's "Job 40:8," we continued on to tracking trumpets for both "Job 40:8" and "Space Vacation." For these tracks, I decided to go with a spaced pair. Conventionally, when setting up a stereo pair of microphones, two of the same model are used (they are often tested and "matched" at the factory, so you essentially get two of the same mic).

My spaced pair was different, though. I decided to use the same RB500 ribbon and Audio Technica AT4040 from the French Horn tracking, both still in their figure 8 patterns to capture the room sound. The AT4040 can actually be switched between multiple patterns, but the ribbon's design makes it's pickup pattern inherently figure 8.

Trumpet Take 54

The ribbon mic was at the players' left, while the AT4040 was at their right. They were both about 4 feet off the ground and angled inward toward the space between Eric and Justin. We needed to record a surprisingly few amount of takes before everyone was happy with what we had captured.

Punching in the Triplet

Justin played Ed's trumpet part on "Job 40:8" while Eric played his own part, and Eric played Ed's trumpet part on "Space Vacation" while Justin played his own part. We later overdubbed the lead trumpet part that was written for Eric on "Space Vacation" without moving the microphones. Everything went smoothly and we now only have to fill in a couple sax parts, redo the bass tracks, and record the guitar and vocals for these two songs. Till next Week!!

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Day Six: F-Horn and T-Rumpet

2005-05-20T23:58:00.000-05:00

Say Blog!

Ed, one of 7th Kind's 3 trumpeters, had smashed his front teeth out a month or so ago in a bicycling accident, not the most convenient injury for a trumpet player. He is still recovering and waiting for his new teeth to "set." So, the remaining 2 guys were planning on overdubbing his parts after we got their tracks down.
So, Justin and I arrived at the 7th Kind Space and I immediately began setting up and getting headphone mixes. He warmed up the horn a bit and Eric showed up shortly thereafter. We told Eric the story of our amazing travels, and he made an interesting point: It took the bus an hour to travel 3 miles. Most of the time the traffic prevented us from actually "traveling" at all. We could have walked that distance just as fast, and we could have been moving the whole time! Well, the blog isn't for bitching about the Chicago Transit Authority, so I'll move on.

Justin on F-horn

We decided to track the French Horn parts for the song "Job 40:8" first and then move on to trumpets.

For the mic setup on the French horn, I wasn't all too sure where to begin, so I decided to give myself a few different choices by recording 3 separate tracks from 3 separate mic's in different positions. I don't plan on using all three of the tracks, instead I'll be choosing one from them depending on which allows the horn's sound to sit in the mix most effectively. The only real clues I had were based on my knowledge of recording other brass instruments. I was also aware of the fact that in an orchestra setting, the French horn is often placed at the back wall, where the horn's sound reflects and creates a full wash of sound. If the horn is being recorded, the mic would probably be placed facing the same wall as the horn. That full, reverberant sound is a bit much for some of the quick bouncy parts written into this song. 7th Kind is a tighter, more rythmic band, so to get that tighter sound, I decided on a more direct mic placement.

Justin Frenching

For the mic placement, I chose:

A Dynamic mic:

-Beyer m-88 placed about 1.5 feet from the bell, about 45 degrees off axis.

A Large Diaphragm Condenser with a Figure 8 pattern:

-Audio Technica AT4040 place about 4 feet away from the bell about 45 degrees off axis

A Ribbon Mic with a Figure 8 pattern:

-T.Bone RB500 placed about 8 feet away, 6 feet off the ground and aimed at the bell of the horn.

The figure 8 pickup pattern on the last two mic's will hopefully capture a little bit of room sound, as well as some of the direct horn. The final tracks ought to have a nice balance, giving a nod to some of the reverberant, orchestral french horn element, while maintaining the direct, punchy sound at the same time.

These mics were all going through the Sytek mic pres. The Ribbon through Channel 1 and the Beyer and AT4040 through the Burr Brown Channels 3 and 4, respectively.

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Public Transit Junkies

2005-05-20T14:06:00.000-05:00

Michael - Public Transit Extraordanaire

Well well. There's been no rain for the last few weeks except for the occasional light shower in the middle of the night. We decided to break that streak yesterday as I was traveling to 7th Kind's "The Space." I caught the bus near my place after wating for about 15 minutes, and then took the 1 hour trip downtown (usually about 30min.). I switched to the bus that would take me the extra 3 miles to "The Space" and was surprised to hear my name. "Mike!" Justin (7th Kind French Horn and Trumpet player) was caught in the same CTA hell as I. It's lucky for us that we caught the same bus, because the remaining hour long ride would've been extremely lonely. So we chatted about the band and it's beginnings, past whack-job members, and the other trumpet player's busted mouth.

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Day Five: Baffling News! More Sax Tracking

2005-05-07T19:08:00.000-05:00

mike - mic

Today we return to "The Space" to continue sax tracking. Bill, 7th Kind's singer/songwritter/arranger, and I arrived at about the same time just after 6pm and began setting up the baffles (aka "gobo's"). I think we acheived damn near the same setup we had last week, though we didn't tape off the positions of the mic stands and gobos.

Ribbon Room Mic P.O.V.

AJ and Wilson showed up and after some small battles with junkie sax reeds, we managed to record some really solid sounding sax tracks for 7th Kind's song "Job 40:8"
Here is a view of the recording setup for the sax tracking, from the point of view of the ribbon mic.
'Till next time! Mike

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Wilson - 7th Kind Tenor Sax

2005-05-01T18:39:00.000-05:00

Wilson - Tenor Sax

To track the Tenor Sax, I used a mic setup similar to the Alto Sax. I placed the Large Diaphram Condenser at the lower keys (an MXL V67g), at about 2.5 feet away - aimed at the side of the sax. And just as in the placement for the Alto, I used a smaller diaphram condenser on the upper keys (an SM-81) at about 1 foot away, from a slight angle above the sax, aimed at the side of the instrument.
When placing the mics for both saxes, I set the small diaphram mics up first, then adjusted the distance of mics aimed at the lower keys in order to make sure these lower key mics were in phase with the mics aimed at the upper keys.

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AJ - 7th Kind Alto Sax

2005-04-30T18:28:00.000-05:00

AJ - Alto Sax Extraordinaire

The mic placement for the Alto Sax was as follows:

One AT4040 placed about 1.5-2 feet away from the lower keys aimed at the 'side' of the sax. This mic is intended to capture the lower end and lower notes played on the Alto, which project from these lower keyholes. I ran the mic through the Sytek pre amp channel 2.

One MXL 603 placed about 1-1.5 feet away from the mouthpiece and upper keys, positioned slightly above and angled slightly downward. This microphone has a smaller diaphram, so it is more articulate and can capture the more subtle nuances and shimmery clarity of the upper notes. I ran this mic through channel 3 of the Sytek preamp. This is one of the channels in the unit that has the Burr Brown op-amp. This option (which is on both channels 3 & 4) is a bit silkier than the standard op amp that is on channels 1 & 2. Those channels are often described as more transparent and straightforward.

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Token Crotch-Grab Burn-out Rocker Photo

2005-04-28T16:59:00.000-05:00

7th Kind's AJ (Alto) & Wilson (Tenor)

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Yayyheeooww!! Gear Pictures!

2005-04-28T16:29:00.000-05:00

Sytek and MOTU interfaces

For my approach with 7th Kind's Alto and Tenor Sax, I decided to try a few mic placement techniques at once. We have the mics and the power to record the tracks, so I went for it. I know sometimes too many options can be a bad thing, but I'll have to worry about being decisive about which mic tracks I'll keep later when I'm mixing. Here's the general layout:

The T.Bone Ribbon Mic placed about 12 feet off the floor, and 12 feet in front of and between the players. The position is also about six feet away from the upper corner of where the front and side wall meet the ceiling angled toward the players. The Ribbon was chosen because of its ability to catch some of the overtones that brass instruments create. Also, the mic "hears" sounds most prominently from directly in front and behind it, so it records reflections from the wall behind it as well as the direct sound from the saxophones. I have the mic going through Channel 1 of the Sytek Mic Pre. Listening back to recorded takes of this mic were pleasantly surprising. There is much more direct sound than i anticipated, but still enough room sound to give the track some space.

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Bill Ashby - 7th Kind Shopvac soloist

2005-04-28T16:10:00.000-05:00

Bill Ashby - Shopvac solo

To start the evening off, I setup stereo submixes for the Sax players to monitor while they record (this eases some of the wieght off the computer's shoulders). As I was getting this taken care of, Tyson dropped by to get his massive array of drums and cymbals together for a gig. Quote: Tyson - "Double kick pedal or no?" Mike - "Dude, you're bringing all 18 cymbals - YES double kick!"

Bill (7th Kind Songer, Songwriter, General Coordinator, Daddy) showed up around the same time to do some "Mother Hen" housekeeping. He was sure that a cleaner floor would yield a richer sax tone.

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Enter Day Four: Alto & Tenor Sax Tracking

2005-04-28T16:04:00.000-05:00

Recording Studio - Lockdown

Today I decided to take my usual route through downtown to the 7th Kind hidden lair, which I discovered really isn't much different in time, only in scenery. It's much more interesting than stopping at each and every block in boring neighborhoods.

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Recording Tyson - The 7th Kind Cymballer

2005-04-23T13:55:00.001-05:00

tysondrums

Well, John left at around 11pm-ish and Tyson and I stayed till 1:30am-ish to perfect his drum takes. Here's what I used to mic the kit:

CAD KBM412 - Kick
sm57 - Snare (duh)
MXL 603 - HiHat
SM 81's - Overheads
MXL 990's - Room mic's
CAD TSM 411's for Tom's 1,2, and floor
*and we tried the T.bone Ribbon off center in the middle of the room really high up near the ceiling for the crazy factor, but it was getting too much noise and less tracks means less problems with our buffer issue, so I pulled it.

We both loved the sound of his Ride cymbal, whcih i beleive is more the part fo the cymbal but the mic's did it justice. It sparkled and was nice and present without being piercing. This room 7th Kind has is also pretty impressive, though the asthetic appearance would lead most to think otherwise. When I would turn up the room, mic's Tyson's eyes would light up. This is a great thing, becasue I would love to get that natural room sound in on the record rather than some sort of synthesized version of it through plugins. Overall, I am extremely excited about the sounds on the drums so far.

Drum Tracking Meters

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Day Three: 7th Kind Drum and Bass Tracking

2005-04-23T13:54:00.000-05:00

johnbass

OK. I live on the north side of Chicago right on the border of Uptown and Lakeview, and 7th Kind's rehersal space where I'm recording this project is in the Ukranian Village, on the near west side. Last time I went down to "the space," I took a bus downtown and transferred to a bus headed west. This took about 45 min. so I was interested in a different route. I was clued in to a different route that avoided downtown, but it ended up being 1 & a half hours of travel. On top of that I was carrying a backpack full of mics, cables, and a few thick manuals, and a rack case with my mic pre's in it. Damn a car would be nice (sometimes).

The important stuff: This time I was determined to figure out "the headphone problem," which in truth was an "engineer not knowing his audio program form a hole in the ground." I had borrowed the manuals and did some reading online and had a better idea of what to do going into the situation. I decided to show up about 7 hours early and totally explore this program. Well, a mile or so walk lost in industrial park hell to find Fiore's Italian Deli, one italian beef sandwich, some windblown grease to my new t-shirt, and an amazing chocolate canoli later, I figured it out (kinda).

COMPUTER AUDIO GEEK MOMENT -
I was forced to lower the buffer to dangerous levels so there was no delay on the monitor (headphones). I thought there would be an easier and more graceful way, but the MOTU interfaces can only send 2 channels of direct audio through for monitoring purposes. We are going with 11 channels here, so ignoring any of those inputs was out of the question. So there was a slight delay on the playback, but the musicians said it was damn near un-noticeable. Tyson (7th Kind drums) said it just sounded like a chorus effect or something, so we went with it.

We started tracking bass (John) and drums together for both 7th Kind's songs, "Space Vacation" and "Job 40:8," and all those inputs simultaniously really killed the computer's processor. So there were a few glitch noises here and there. We decided to keep what we had and track drums seperatly from bass. If necessary, we will re-track the bass parts alone once we've recorded all the other instruments for these songs.

We had Tyson at his kit in the usual place they keep it for rehersals. He is against the side wall slightly off-center facing at an angle toward the front door of the room. John was playing his bass in the room, but his cabinet was in the front entrance room, mic'ed with a Beyer M-88. The sound was nice and full, but also tight and it seemed to sit in with the kick drum just right.

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Day two: Rough Tracks

2005-04-13T12:58:00.000-05:00

Yeah! The baby was born on March 14th, it's been about a month and we're back in business! Bill and I opted to go without headphones (duh) and get our rough tracks recorded for "Job 40:8" and "Space Vacation." We also ran a couple of quick takes on some new 7th Kind tunes: "Sparrow," and "Eternal Regret of Un-Cowboy". We went with a much simpler mic setup. The first attempt, we tried to individually mic much of the drum kit and each instrument. This time around it's all about simplicity and getting it done. These are rough tracks anyhow. 1 mic for drums, 1 for french horn, 1 for trumpets, 1 for saxes, 1 for guitar, no vocals, DI for bass. Ahhh... simple success.

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Mass Email - Baby on the way

2005-03-07T12:54:00.000-06:00

Bill emails everyone and decides to wait a couple weeks or so until our next session. He and his wife have a baby due on the 14th.

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Day one: Rough tracking day - no sound to disk

2005-03-02T12:48:00.000-06:00

For the 7th Kind project, I will be using Digital Performer through MOTU interfaces. I have never worked with this setup before, so I arrived to the space as a beginner in DP. The idea was to roughly setup mics and do rough tracking for two of 7th Kind's songs, "Job 40:8" and "Space Vacation." Well, there were some headphone issues and some novice DP/MOTU user issues, so 4 hours passed and nothing was recorded. Kind of a bummer way to start off a project, but I've commited myself to figuring this program out.

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General list of gear and initial technique ideas

2005-03-02T09:18:00.000-06:00

For the 7th Kind recording sessions, Bill came to me wanting a "studio record," as their previious recording was tracked live and mixed pretty dry (no effects, little compression, eq, etc...) and he wanted to see what 7th Kind could get with a more polished, overdubbed, full-on mix. He had some equiptment that he had used on previous projects when he was in charge of all the tracking and mixing. Here's a general list of the studio gear we will be using (Bill's, mine and some borrowed):

Comptuers / Software:

Tracking into a PowerMac g4 with Digital Performer 4
Mixed on a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.5 gig with Pro Tools LE 6.7

Audio Interfaces:

MOTU 896 audio interface (for use during tracking)
MOTU 828 audio interface (for use during tracking)
DIGI 002 audio interface (for use during mixing)

Mic Pres:

Sytek MPX-4aii (with Burr Brown Op amps on pre's 3 & 4)
*also those on the MOTU interfaces : 2 from 828, and 8 from 896

Mics:

(2) sm57
(2) sm58
sm beta58
Beyerdynamic M88
(2) sm81's
T.bone RB500 Ribbon Mic
RODE NT1A
(2) MXL 990's
MXL V67g
MXL 603
(3) CAD TSM411's
(2) CAD ICM417's
CAD KBM412
AKG C3000B
Audio Technica AT4040

Monitors:

Yamaha NS-10
Event 20/20 bas

*Very limited outboard gear. Most all dynamics and effects will be done with software plugins.

All of this will be used in 7th Kind's rehersal space for tracking, which is pretty large and has really high ceilings. I'm hoping for the best.

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