Eight heads of the snake

So, on Monday night, with the departure of our vocalist to Peru for a month or so, we finally set about organising the Korg D888 for some serious attempts at recording.

The first task was to unload Rick's Wharfedale KMD-7 drum mic kit and to attach the various pieces around the kit as necessary; one of the major benefits of having clip-ons (as opposed to microphones balanced in and around the place on various stands or dangled on strings from the rafters) being that the microphones won't get knocked and shunted sideways by any errant feet and/or instruments etc. This means that each time we enter the 'studio' there won't be any need to re-measure and re-align any of the mic distances, as they shouldn't ever move; the barest alteration can make an enormous difference ...

In an effort to keep the floor space as tidy and efficient as possible, we're utilising a large snake cable that's been cut and separated at both ends so as to allow the various sockets to reach their appropriate mics. The only issue we had with this was the need to get the KM3s capacitor stick mics above the kit, so we settled on using independent leads hung from the rafters for those.

These stick microphones also provided us some further bother until we realised that phantom power was needed for them to collect any sound; the fact of my having neglected to bring the manual along a major hinderance. With this activated however, we had all eight channels receiving ample input, as verified by the alighted peak meters.

Thursday night was spent tweaking the sounds that we were getting (eg. thickening the kick by adding low end and stripping out some high). Again, the capacitor mics caused us some problems in that even with nothing being played (their associated tracks merely armed) we were getting a whole pile of ambient noise. We eventually just trimmed the hell out of the tracks they were active on (until no ambient activity could be seen on the peak meter at all). Despite our initial concerns though, there was plenty of sound still being collected by them.

After recording several sample beats (playing them back through the PA for purposes of basic critique) and getting the foundation of the sound pretty well sorted, the next step on Monday night will be to actually record a couple of full drum tracks so that the guitar can then be laid over top, which'll hopefully give us a better idea of how and where the drums are going to eventually sit amongst a mix (of sorts).

Gideon's Disease

'Twould appear that straining my left wrist around some atypical chords over the weekend (whilst unnecessarily employing a wide-necked classical guitar) has aggravated a previously minor ganglion cyst, which has since swollen considerably. Admittedly, it's still a decidedly weak specimen when placed in direct comparison with those found on various websites about the place.

Pictured below however, it's the weird 'bump' on my wrist (thumb side). Photographing it properly was inexplicably troublesome too, though perhaps this was simply a case of me wanting the photos to lie in their exaggeration of what wasn't actually there ...

Not quite sure of how best to approach its remedy (or, in lieu of this, minimalisation) but I suspect paying greater attention to my arm/wrist position whilst playing and making alterations as necessary will help considerably.

Incidentally, a new demo, aptly named id=10T (though not purposely so) was evacuated into being during the conjuring of this current ganglion's rage.

Milking a dead horse ...

Video footage, from an entirely different angle and courtesy of an entirely different video camera, has come to light and has thusly now been shared via Youtube. This new footage contains the opening acoustic set of the Wundy gig (23 April, 2010) and can be found here.

And now that the well has run dry with regards this particular gig, next stop: recruiting a new bass player.

Electrical genitals

An issue that was recently brought to light whilst unloading some recent recordings from our multi-track recorder was that the vocals, although occasional buried beneath the sonic surrounds, were actually (and obviously) still there - merely decidedly low in the overall mix. This was easily remedied by simply lifting the affected track within our editing software, making it more prominent when necessary (normally only the first half of each verse) before leaving the remainder relatively untouched.

Of course, when playing live, this luxury quickly vanishes beneath the general fuzz of on-stage noise, and so mooted for trial at our last practice was the idea of attaching a foot pedal to the microphone, effectively returning to us some basic level control. Conveniently, we happened to have a disused Boss DS-1 laying around.

This pedal will intercept a newly purchased Cannon to Cannon lead, which was cut in half to give us the two desired end connections (one for the back of the mic and one going into the PA) plus two newly severed ends that'll have the necessary jacks attached (one for the DS-1 input signal and one for its output).

There's a level setting on the DS-1, which controls the output volume, and (with the applied distortion amounts set to effective zero) we'll hopefully get a simple boosting/de-boosting of the vocals when the pedal is kicked on and off.

Of additional benefit, we'll hopefully also gain the oft-mentioned ability to apply effects to Tim's vocals (most especially within 'Movement Eight' ) ...

A quick Google search for 'replacing XLR with jack' led me to here; a simple diagram showing the standard method of wiring an XLR to a 1/4" TRS (stereo jack plug). I managed to harvest a spare one of these from the workshop, although another one will be needed to finish the job, of course.

To confirm which connections needed to be made and to where, I stuck the multimeter on 'diode test' and followed the wires from the Cannon sockets (numbered 1, 2, 3) to their appropriate ends, listening for a 'beep' whenever a connection was present (as shown above). Once I knew that the shield (the weaved mass of wires surrounding the four actual wires inside the cable) was 1, blue(s) was 2, white(s) was three, it was simply a matter of connecting them all appropriately.

Note: Before soldering the wires into place, ensure that the eventual sleeve is positioned back down the cable (as above), as once you're done, this pulls down to cover the connections and provides a nice finish.

The final two photographs show the end result (albiet of only one cable!)

Whether or not there'll be any complications with this idea when it crosses that all-important line from concept into practice remains to be seen ...

Edit: Turns out that using a stereo jack was actually overkill, because the DS-1 sockets only have two connections and thus support mono only. The basic idea did worked in practice however, though some unwanted 'noise' started to creep in when lifted to the volumes we wanted to achieve. A fix for this new annoyance shall now be worked on ...

The Mixer; facefixer

After recording the drums for our debut album with five microphones syphoned straight into our PA system (the sounds then merely flung at the computer in whatever mixed state we could achieved 'on-the-fly'), it was decided that this time around we'd employ a proper multi-track recorder to do the job, whereby we could then tamper with the results to our heart's content; deepening the kick, lifting the hi-hat, dampening the snare, without each manipulation automatically being applied to every other component of the kit as well.

And so, with this specific task in mind, the purchase of a Korg D888 was commissioned.

The sheerest modicum of knowledge is possessed by the sum of us three with regards recording in this manner however, so there'll be the inevitable difficulties, although my delight of moulding mistakes into justifiable musical expressions is wallowing in frolic at the prospect!

Prior to the departure of our bassist, who possessed a wealth of recording knowledge encompassing the better part of two decades, we (in the collective sense, that is) did actually manage to capture several live recordings of various songs, and I've since managed to extract these from the D888. This was easily achieved and no more drastic than transferring data from one external device to another.

Below is a screenshot of the result (it essentially dumps eight streams of equal length into sequential tracks):

'Twas a positive beginning.

From memory, five tracks were derived from precariously-placed drum mics (kick, hi-hat, snare and rotos, toms, and cymbals), one was the vocal mic going directly in, one caught the bass amp, and the last microphone performed duty in front of the guitar amp. Bleed was present, although it was relatively minor (or at least workably so), and makeshift baffles - actually old office dividers - were used in front of both amplifiers to aid in this prevention.

Also, as a delightful surprise, also found on the mixer were some older, full-band practice runs of two (at the time) brand new songs, 'Under The Table' which has since been smoothed out and played live, and an energetic version of 'Face Down'. This last song, although slated for inclusion on the new album, is not currently being performed due to its ungainly bass-driven structure being irrepressibly hollow at present, so we're certainly glad to have this early rendition for future reference; both from a technical point of view, and one merely divined by interest.

Amassed before the gates they be!

Indeed! The recording of our sophomore album shall soon be embarked upon with gusto, and with our vocalist away ransacking the jungles of Peru for five weeks (or the equivalent of nine practices) Ricky and I shall be putting the album into solid pre-production, organising the various techniques we intend to employ this time around with a view to at least having the rough mixes done (sans vocals, of course) prior to Tim's return.

We're continuing to work on new material until our very last practice as a three-piece; total number of songs ready so far for contemplation within the realm of this new recording being eleven with two more currently under construction with a view to them also being included.

In-depth accounts of all aspects of the recording process will be detailed in this blog as we progress through it, stumbling and learning as we go.

Two left feet + deep end = jump

Weren't no other choice, for with time rapidly disappearing, our decision to run with an extended setlist and an overly ambitious stage set-up was about to go down in flames before even a chord had so much as been strummed, as everything was suddenly (and horribly) compounded by our general sub-par level of knowledge when it comes to the business end of sound engineering.

After a few failed attempts to get the sound wired through the various means we'd envisaged and discussed during the week, we settled on at least getting the same basic approach going as we have in the practice room (having thankfully taken our own PA system with us); surmising that if worst were to come to worst, we'd at least be making some noise ...

Stage notes during set

Once this decidedly rudimentary set-up had been established, we then set about trying to amplify our presence by simply getting more sound running to more outputs.

To this end, we eventually managed to send the vocals directly through the main in-house system, which cast a more generous level of volume towards the crowd whilst simultaneously freeing up our PA for another use, as directly in front of the stage was a large foldback tied to the main volume; our inability to isolate these (the front-of-house speakers and the foldback) caused some problems with regards Tim's vocal mic feeding back but he received swift, screeching reminders if he stepped too close or moved too far sideways though, so this was kept to a minimum - though at the expense of a much less animated frontman than we're accustomed to seeing.

A healthy level of foldback was paramount though, because it was our first outing together as a band and we'd never gotten around to mimicking the stage layout (and any crucial sound discrepancies) of a live performance beforehand. This is surprisingly important, as various cues can all of a sudden disappear when you're least (or most!) expecting them.

Centre page of the programme

Anyway, our own PA system was then utilised to partially disguise some of the missing bottom-end by clipping a microphone onto the kick drum. It would've been preferable to run some reverb across this as well, although (due to being unable to get the sound through front-of-house) this unfortunately wasn't an option. The guitar amp was also sent through our own PA unit, which helped to better scatter the sound as it would otherwise be coming from merely one source; the more sound we could throw about the venue, the better ...

As it turned out, the onstage sound was by far the best we've ever actually experienced. Naturally, our having been reduced to a three-piece instead of a five-piece was a contributing factor - less instruments needing to point sound at less musicians equalling less chance of it all becoming a muddied shambles onstage.

Thankfully we also had time to run through a couple of half-song sounchecks (one acoustic and one electric) for an audience of three who helped shape the final sound with minor adjustment being made to various EQ settings where possible. Thanks Em, Mel, and Karen!

The entire electric set (currently sourced from one stationary angle, though another more dynamic view exists) is up on our Youtube channel