ascoustic stuff in the garden...

[edwhite]

Hi all,

I had some friends over for a couple of days this week - really hot weather so we decided to get away from my boiling control room (well they did - i was stuck here on the other end of the multicore) and record in the garden - we ended up recording this track at 2am with the stars above us and a few neighbours with their windows open looking down at us wondering what the hell we were up to. just simple gear - sm58 thgough a tla c1 for vox, horrid rode nt2 through avalon 737 for guitar and an ambient mic - a nt1000 i think. turned out a little bit like ryan adams/whiskeytown stuff - mix is very rough at the moment so forgive me - but i have to say that it was the most enjoyable session for me and the musicians in a very long while. here is the mp3 and a few photos to get the general idea:

homepage.ntlworld.com/selby.white/gstq.mp3





we did about 12 tracks like this - the others have more ambience in them - birds, dogs etc.. ill post some more up if anyones interested.

ed

[edwhite]

p.s. how do i get these damn url and img links to work!!!!

[edwhite]

AHA!!!! - sorted it - here are the links again in swanky url linktastic form:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/selby.white/gstq.mp3

[brianb]

yeah post some more. nice stuff. good feel. soulful. sounds like you had fun too.

Brian

[Aeroplane Audio]

Recording outside is the shiz.
totally.
100%.
Shiz-worthy to the max.


Which might be how i would describe the posted track.

Is taht percussion thing that comes in just strumming on muted guitar stings? Whatever it is, i like it. alot. I serisouly think it's those little things that push it over the top as far as song construction goes.

[edwhite]

hi - yeah the "percussion thing" is just some light strumming high up - bit like a mandolin (sort of). we double tracked it and panned left and right a bit. I think i recorded the ambience mic with both takes also to give a depth and sheen to it - although having said that i might not have used them...

ed

[captain54]

I actually checked out your track on Nuendo.com, and I must say, you did one hell of a good job on this track...outstanding

can you give me a breakdown of the signal chain? what mic pre's did you use for the vocal, guitar and ambient mic? Was Nuendo and hard disk your only recording medium? was the cello a sample? keyboard patch?

again, great job!!

[edwhite]

hi captain54:

vox was an sm58 into one channel of a TLA C1 valve preamp/compressor, with a little compression on the way in - just to drive the valves really. ambient mic was a rode nt1000 through the other channel. guitar was a rode nt2 into an avalon 737 (one of the old purple knobbed ones - i got used from a studio liquidation!), tiny bit of eq to bring out the string and fret articulation and slight compression to tame the peaks.

the outputs of the pres went directly into my motu 24I/O, into nuendo, recording at 44.1 24bit. monitored throguh my motu 2408 into my sony dmx r-100 desk. I actually mixed on the desk too not that it makes too much difference. I cant remember whether i had a bit of reverb in there but if so it will have come off a lexicon nuverb AES-EBS running on an old nubus mac quadra (these things rock - a 300L in a computer).

nuendo was and is my sole recording medium. I am looking at getting a nice vintage tape machine for the sound, probably an 8 or 16 track to track to or just bounce over.

the cello is a sample from peter sidliaceck's solo strings collection running in halion. I used the 'knights hall' preset on waves IR-1 to sit it back a bit, possibly too much in my opinion compared with the guitars, although it is a nice contrast.

it was quite a learning experience actually - the pres are a new addition to my studio, and they really make a difference - quite subtle on individual channels, but if you track a whole song through good preamps it makes a huge difference in my opinion. Using a range of pres works well too, otherwise the whole song can go a bit one dimensional and sound just like the box - I love the fairchild 670, but a track where everything was recorded through it would sound awful. doesnt matter really as the closest ill ever get to one is the mackie uad-1 model. ahh well....