LIVE IN THE NEVE POST MORTEM BLOG #2
- Jordan Aston
- May 2, 2019
- 4 min read
In order to create a set that resembled that of KEXP I knew it was on me to supply any props we would need. I booked a session in the Neve live room and set up a meeting with Alice and Alfred so we could take some measurements and right down some notes on what we might need. I brought in some lights/ black sheets and any tools I thought we could use to create the set. This was a very useful session as we realised that hanging sheets and lights might not be as easy as it seems since there are a lot of sound baffles on the walls to get in the way and since the walls are concrete we had to figure out a way to keep everything from falling down. We managed to figure out how to hang everything and I went out to get extra lights/ sheets and utensils so that on the day setting up the room would go as planned and there wouldn’t be any speed bumps. This was a very fun experience and made me realise that when leading a project like this there is a lot more involved than just the audio side of things. It was now time to create a production plan and send through a stage plot for Alfred to reference in terms of instrument placement, cable management and risk mitigation.
Back tracking a little, I had actually sent through a stage plot with a rough production plan to Alfred which turned out to be not as in depth as he’d like. It included a stage plan and showed where the instruments will be placed but I hadn’t gone into cable management or shown him where the power points were etc. This was a great learning curve as I ended up spending a number of hours on an elaborate stage plot that showed exactly where everyone would be standing with their instruments/ where every cable would be run/ power points/ power boards/ number of DI’s etc etc.. He was extremely happy with the length I went to providing an overview of how the room will look and run on the day. Next was to chose some microphones.
Considering the musical style of the band and knowing the way Jasper plays drums I decided to use a version of the Glyn John’s technique. It incorporates on overhead mic facing down at the snare to capture an overall sound of the kit, one over to the right-hand side of the kit to pick up the ride cymbal and toms. A kick drum mic inside the drum and not outside as I didn’t want too much of the ‘click’ of the kick and a mic on the snare. I chose 2 AKG c414 large diaphragm condensers as the overheads, a D112 for the kick and a 57’ on the snare. All keys were DI’d and the bass guitar was recorded with an RE20 along with being DI’d as well. The drum miking technique I thought would go well but as the recording session went on I realized that I wanted a bit more body out of the snare and the hi-hats were seaming a bit too ‘washy’ and lost in the mix. Lucky for us we had a tech department full of microphones so I went and got an extra 57 to put on the snare bottom and an NT5 close miked on the hi-hats to let Jaspers nuances and trills shine through. This made me consider making sure that I have extra microphones when doing future recordings outside of SAE especially when going for a minimal drum miking approach. After we had sorted out the microphone’s and got a great sound coming out of the desk it was time to start tracking and filming.
Three cameras were used in the process. One as the centre master shot and two either side of the master angling in to capture close up moments of hands playing instruments etc. We began doing takes and I had kind of organised with Alfred that I would press record around the same time he’d start filming for each take. This would have worked if the band hadn’t made any mistakes at all, which is obviously never going to happen especially in a live recording sense. What this meant was that when the band would stop and start, I’d create a new playlist in Pro Tools and begin recording again but Alfred kept on filming or vice versa. This was a mistake on our behalf as when Alfred and I sat down post recording session, we had to go through and match up every audio take with every film take which was time consuming. This was probably one of the biggest learning curves as it took me a while to be able to get him the audio assets he needed to start editing. While I’m on the topic of learning curves (seemed to be a lot in this project but I guess that’s a good thing), during the recording I was in the control room and heard some ‘crackling’ coming out of the monitors. It was only every now and then so I wasn’t too worried and I also assumed it was the monitors and not the recording since I’ve been in the Neve before and had the same problem. It turns out that it wasn’t the monitors it was actually a faulty lead coming out of the Nord keyboard. So even on the best takes I decided to use there is annoying crackling embedded in the recording. It meant that I had to spend a long time editing out these parts and replacing them with snippets of other recordings which was a tedious task to say the least. Another time-consuming error that will be mitigated in the future. Overall this was the most fun I’ve ever had on a project and I am really happy with how it sounds and looks so far. I can’t wait to do more of these sessions in the future!
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