More Studio Geek Speak

Pastor Tim’s new band (someday they will be named, but for now they are non-committal) is wrapping up some various overdubs this week mostly doing guitars and vocals.an interesting track we did a few weeks ago was some stomps and claps on “What Wondrous Love is This?’ harkening back to Radiohead’s “We suck young blood’ and Queen’s “We will rock you’. We had about 10 people in a small studio with a tube U47 micing the floor. Everyone would sway back and step forward at the same time. We must have tracked this group 4 or 5 times, giving the illusion of 50 people slamming their feet on the floor it had a killer low end thump a la hip hop records.

We had a wicked string recording sesh last week. A group of Mars Hill string players came in 3 violins and 2 cellos (does anyone actually play the viola? Come talk to me if you do.). Brian Eichelberger (E-Pop) put together some outstanding string arrangements, which really took the songs to the next level. We sat the players up in a semi-circle with 2 AKG 414s (through GML mic pre’s) doing a close stereo pair thing. They sounded great and we ended up dumping the Coles 4038 ribbons which we had hoped to use as well, but were far too mid-rangy. I also put up a FET Sony C-37 (a mic which has grown on me a ton during the making of this record) in an omni-pattern in the middle of the group. I threw it into a Summit EQF-100 for some mid-sweeping goodness and slammed the Urei 1176 as well. This created a very full string sound with only 1 mic. Most songs we tracked either the Sony or the AKGs for 4 to 5 takes, again giving the illusion of many more players than were actually present.