SESSION WALKTHROUGH

	On this page we'll take you on a walkthrough of a typical band recording session from preparation through mixing.   It is aimed at helping musicians new to modern recording techniques who may feel a little apprehensive about going into a recording studio for the first time.

We'll assume a fairly typical (whatever that is) line up of bass, drums, guitar, keyboards and vocals and we'll take you through each step and try to explain the approach we take to capturing your music and hopefully prepare you for your first venture into the recording experience.  We strongly recommend the band has a pre-project meeting with the engineer to discuss the points covered in this walkthrough and to draw-up a session plan (what is to be done and when and by whom).  This will also help to develop a budget figure for the session.

1.0 Preparation Before Going Into The Studio

2.0 The Soundcheck

3.0 Backing Tracks

4.0 Overdubbing

5.0 Mixing

6.0 Editing/Mastering

7.0 CD Recording

8.0 Sequencing/MIDI

9.0 Summary

1.0 Preparation before going into the studio

The first thing is to minimise distractions so leave friends, family, fans, hangers-on, and Rover at home !

It is vitally important to realise you cant just turn-up at the studio and produce that killer performance.  Think of it in terms of an athlete training in preparation for a major competition !  Be well-rehearsed, well-rehearsed and well-rehearsed !  There is no substitute for knowing the material thoroughly.     If you don't, there may be many repeat takes leading to frustration and loss in confidence not only in the musician recording the part but also the other band members who may be watching on.

If at all possible, take time to practice playing wearing headphones and playing to a click track (more on this later).

It will really help if you have a good idea of how you want the finished article to sound, preferably with a tape or CD of something in a similar vein or style.  But remember,  the ultimate drum or guitar sound may be desirable and achievable but it will take time and time costs money !  Also, bring along several copies of the lyric sheets, these will help the band and the engineer when starting songs part the way through.  During your pre-discussions with the engineer it is also a good idea to discuss musical arrangements to determine, at least roughly, what your track sheets will look like and ensure you have sufficient tracks or if you will have to resort to sub-mixing at some stage (more on this later).

Again, make sure you are well-rehearsed and don't try to attempt anything new you haven't tried out with the rest of the band !   Obvious really but you'd be surprised !  Booze and banned substances are also not conducive to productive sessions !

Some specific tips :

Drummers :  Make sure heads are new but played-in, cymbals are cleaned up, screws are tightened, stool is oiled to eliminate squeaks.  Bring spare heads and sticks and don't forget keys !

Guitarists :  Make sure guitars have been set-up, with new strings (played in), intonation has been checked and electrical problems sorted out e.g. noisy pots.  There's nothing that kills the creative mood more than tuning problems.  Bring spare strings and leads.  Check speaker cabinets and combos for rattling/buzzing.

Cables : Make sure all cables the band intend to use are working and don't have any intermittent faults !

[Back To Top]

2.0 The Soundcheck

In an ideal situation, to eliminate any overspill, we would record all the elements separately but this does not always work for some bands so we'll assume the band will want to play together to lay down the basic rhythm tracks with bass, drums and rhythm guitar with maybe a guide vocal and overdub the proper lead vocal and solos etc later.  We'd also suggest adding keyboards later.

The drum kit will be miked up and the drummer will be asked to play a few things encompassing the whole kit which will be recorded.  Monitoring and communication from the engineer will be through headphones. The drummer can then listen to playback in the control room to comment about individual drum sounds and the overall sound.

We'll set-up the guitarist's speaker cabinet or combo in the studio and the amp in the control room with the guitarist.  Alternatively we could have the guitarist go straight into the desk via a preamp/speaker simulator.  We use the Marshall JMP1 extensively for this sort of recording.  Any opportunity to have the recording musician in the control room with the engineer is taken because it facilitates good communication with the engineer.  We can treat the bass guitar in the same way. 

Once everything is set up we begin the soundcheck to make sure everything is working and sounding good before setting the recorder to RECORD.   If the band has a producer, or at least someone the band has confidence in to sit in the control room with the engineer, so much the better.

[Back To Top]

3.0 Backing Tracks

First up, if you have practiced 'til your fingers bleed and your voice is raw, you'll be confident you know the material backwards.  But, you know what happens, as soon as the engineer starts the recorder rolling, you freeze up and suffer total memory loss.  Don't worry, this is a well-known phenomenon known as "red-light nerves".  It is up to the producer or leader of the band to reassure the musician and boost his/her confidence.  Take a break, have a walk, anything to relax before recommencing!

It is highly desirable if the band can play to a "click track".  This ensures the song does not unintentionally vary in tempo and enables the addition of sequenced instruments like synthesisers, samplers and percussion later on.   The click can be a simple beat on every count (4's) or something a little more elaborate.  Clicks on 4's have an inherent problem that if you are in time, you wont hear the click and if you can hear it you're out of time !  A repeated rhythmic sample can help in this case so the musicians can play off the sample.  There are many ways to address the problem so don't worry.

Having recorded the basic rhythm tracks of bass, drums and rhythm guitar (maybe with a guide vocal), the band should listen to the recordings before moving to the next stage.  It is crucial for each member to listen to their individual parts and critically appraise their performance in terms of quality, timing etc.  If there are any problems, it's best to fix them now and go back and re-do the offending parts, there is no "fixing in the mix".  You may not need to do the whole thing as the technology available to us means we can just drop-in partial bits. 

[Back To Top]

4.0 Overdubbing

Overdubbing is the process by which we start adding the meat to the bones of the backing tracks added earlier.  Assuming we used 8 mics for the drums, 1 mic for the guitar and DI bass that makes a total of 10 tracks used.  Therefore on a 24 track system we would be left with 14 tracks for lead and harmony vocals, lead guitars, etc.  We need to keep a record of what instrument is on what track and we do this with a track sheet (see below).  At this point let's assume we're going to sync the keyboards to MIDI so we don't have to reserve any tracks for this (more on this later).

The overdubs go on while listening back to the tracks you have already recorded and can be done in any order, depending on how the players are feeling.  Again, it is important to listen back to the completed overdub, say the lead vocal, and critically evaluate the performance; remember that when the song is copied to CD it is a permanent record of the song and there's nothing worse than listening back to a performance and wishing you could re-record a particular section or phrase !

If the band has done it's homework with the engineer then any sub-mixing or track sharing will have be done at this stage.  Let's assume we do not need any sub-mixing so the track sheet will look like this :

Notice we've added a second rhythm guitar (on track 11) and will pan each hard left and right.

A big issue that almost always arises during recording, particularly with live bands, is that the drummer will have finished his/her part then the bassist or guitarist sets up to play their part.  When they are running through the song, the other members of the band will often say "I never knew you played that" or "you're playing that wrong" or "I don't play it that way".  This is because they play so loud and on-stage monitoring is not always revealing what the other band members are playing !  This is not good because it can lead to players having to learn something new on the day of recording.  Much better to have a couple of acoustic rehearsals prior to the session where everyone can hear everyone else.  There is no place to hide in a recording studio !

[Back To Top]

5.0 Mixing

Once all the overdubs are done we move to the next stage in the process which is to mix down the 24 tracks into stereo (2 tracks).  We normally go to DAT (Digital Audio Tape) or CD-RW at this point to provide the session stereo master.   Remember that after mixing there is no going back, so this stage is critical to the success of the project and sufficient time must be allowed for in the band's budget to accomplish a good mixdown.  Again, discuss this with the engineer in the pre-project meeting.

Without giving too much away, the mixing process has several distinct steps.

Step 1 :  Get a rough balance of all the instruments.

Step 2 : Add any effects, for example, reverb, delay or compression.  If at this point we find we do not have enough effects processors available, no problem, we just record the effected part say, guitar delay, onto one of the spare tracks and treat it just like another instrument track.  Alternatively we could run the processors synced to MIDI and have the sequencer trigger a program change at the appropriate point (more on this later).

Step 3 :  Making fine adjustments to level, EQ, balance etc.  The band needs to make a important decision if they want to collectively do the mix or (better) elect one band member to work with the engineer to mixdown.  If the decision is to do it together, then the problem of in-fighting arises ("my vocal is being drowned out by the guitar", so you turn up the vocal, "now I cant hear the snare", etc, etc) which not only causes conflict in the band but costs time (=money !).   Preferably make this decision before the session and plan for anything between 1 and 3 hours per song.

We much prefer to make the mixing process a creative part of the process but sometimes salvage work ("fixing in the mix") has to be done.  You can, for example, replace recorded sounds like snare drums with sampled sounds by setting up a triggering process when the recorded sound doesn't sit right in the final mix and EQ cannot fix it.

[Back To Top]

 6.0 Editing/Mastering

Once the mix is complete, we go through a process we call verification.  We listen back to some commercially produced music to normalise ears and then make a CD-R or cassette copy for playing back on as many different systems as possible, for example, domestic hi-fi, car stereos and portable systems and make notes if appropriate of tweaks to the mix.   After making the changes and verifying, the songs will need putting in the right order and fix the gaps between each song (a process called pacing).   We do this direct to CD.

Some clients wish to have their CD mastered for production.  We believe that high-end mastering can only be done by mastering houses (it's why they exist!).  Beware of recording studios saying they can master, it requires a different skill set and equipment to properly master audio.  If you want proof, pick up any commercially available CD and look at the credits.  You will see a credit for the recording studio and 995 of the time, a separate credit for the mastering house.  We work with several mastering houses who we trust and can handle this for you.

[Back To Top]

7.0 CD Recording

Once we have a master CD, this can be duplicated and artwork for the cover and label can be designed with photographs if available.   See our Other Services page.

[Back To Top]

8.0 Notes on sequencing and MIDI

In some instances, there is no need for a real drummer and all the drums are programmed via a sequencer e.g. Cubase and the sounds produced by the drum sample player e.g. Alesis D4.  In this case the engineer can work with the songwriter to program the sequencer or, sometimes the client will already have the MIDI file so it is just a case of loading the file into Cubase.  By synchronising the hard disk recorder (HDR) to Cubase we can run drums and keyboards "live" without committing either to disk until ready to mixdown.  This gives enormous benefits in terms of flexibility and saves tracks on the HDR.  

[Back To Top]

9.0 Summary

In summary, the modern recording process can be lengthy and intimidating to the newcomer but we do our best to make our clients comfortable and relaxed. 

Above all enjoy yourself and have some fun !!!!!!

[Back To Top]

  Last updated on June 18th, 2008

Images and Words Copyright ©Soundmagic Studios 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008