Calling Kaiser : Recording Sessions

All kinds of stuff about recording our CDs, how we get our sound and how we stop our selves from going insane.

Following is a journal of the recording sessions that helped us record and produce our Debut EP, "We Write You From The Moon". So if your a tech guy, or just want to see how we recorded the CD ourselves, please read through. The studio we used here was Marly's recording studio, called: Alchemix Recording Studios. Enjoy

20.09.2002

We have decided to have a night session, yes, all night. These recording sessions can be very efficient, but if we start to loose energy half way through, the session can turn to s***. We are currently putting down guide tracks for 5 out of the 7 tracks that will appear on our Debut EP.

The basic idea here is to make sure we get the right tempo for all the songs. We use a click track for all the songs, it simplifies things when it comes time to edit and arrange the songs. For the guide track we are using our acoustic guitars, going straight in, latter, these guitar tracks will be replaced with properly micked up guitars. In the next session we will aim to get all the drums down. zzzzzz

06.10.2002

The drum kit. Today we decided to use two Neuman U89's in an ORTF pair to capture the drum kit. This could very easily take care of the drums, as the drum kit sounds extremely good, but we might want a more produced sound for some of the tracks, so in go the close mics.

Snare top and bottom, some MD421's for the toms, an AKG D112 for the kick and some other huge kick microphone, give us all the flexibility we need. Oh, and a Neuman KM 84 or 85 for the Hi-Hat, I forget which one. The drum kit is standing near the wall inside a really dead room.

This all gets tracked into either Pro Tools or Logic, depending on the songs. It takes a day and a few takes per song to get all 5 songs down. We have just a little bit time left to have a crack at getting some guitar sounds down. So into the reverb chamber we jump, with the Selmer Amp, we hook it up with a 57, an Egg and the big fat kick microphone again. Big fat mic sits above the amp, ready to capture the bass side of the 1972 Telecaster Thinline guitar.

In most tracks we decide to double track the guitar, sometimes with the same effect, other times with different pickup settings or overdrive amounts. We make up our choice on these maters right there, we might think about it before hand a little, but the majority of the ideas are decided and acted there.

Next session we shall continue the guitars, and get stuck into some bass, probably with some compression directly injecting into the Pre-amps and therefore the computer. Ow how relaxing it all is.

28.10.2002

Guitars, and more guitars. We experimented a lot with double tracking guitar parts, and panning them hard left and hard right, or sometimes just slightly to each side. With the song, Mr Robertson, we recorded the eletric guitar twice, once with distortion, and the next time clean (This will give us heaps of flexibility to change the mood and sound for each section, when it comes time to mix).

A U89 and sometimes an AKG C414 were used on the acoustic guitars, positioned around head height, pointing across the sound whole towards the neck. Martin acoustic steel string used on most tracks.

A few new guitar lines were created in the recording process, and a few were looped to create an abnormal feel over a normal groove. An example of this is in the song, Faster Everyday, which will be on our Debut EP, We write you from the moon, out in January 2003.

Also in this session, we put down the keyboard lines. To get the best synchronization between my playing and the track, we turned the monitors up heaps. It went well and didn't take too long. Additional synth lines were created on the spot during the session, this included chromatic and dissonant harmonies. Next Session will be dedicated to vocals. It will probably take a while to get all the vocals, and backing vocals down for the 8 tracks, as we will be adding additional harmonies to the backing vocals (a different sound to the live version).

2 sessions and counting, the vocals for most of the songs are down and have been edited. Whilst the main vocals are recorded in the live room, the backing vocals are usually recorded in the control room. It saves time and makes it easier to pass back and forth ideas between the engineer and the singer.

The AKG C414 was mostly used for the main vocals, as well as a slight amount of compression on the way in, which comes from the 02R96 console. Overall with the vocals, there was plenty of time to warm up and record several passes of the song, which gave us a choice of takes to edit and use.

So far there really haven't been any effects added to the vocals, and the same goes for the mix. Everything is really dry at the moment, which means the music and the vocals are not sitting well beside one another. This will be fixed once the levels are brought back to zero, and built up again. At the same time, Compression, EQ, panning and effects will be added. It will however be interesting to see whether more then one engineer can work on this stage at the same time. Remembering that 3 out of 4 members from Calling Kaiser are engineers.

Next week we might still be touching up on some main vocals, but mostly backing vocals. More editing will have to be considered for the rest of the mix before we can get stcuk into mixing. Toot!

Vocals, backing vocals, and more keyboard parts have been added to the 6 tracks recorded so far. This means its time to mix. Instead of all 3 of us engineering in the mixing stage, we have decided to split the songs into pairs. 2 songs per engineer, which probably means, the songs are going to sound really, really good. I decided to mix the songs without electric guitars in there arrangment. The songs are called "Slowly / Quietly" and "Robotic Pop Song".

For both tracks, I wanted the voice to stand out, whilst having a good relationship with the synthesisers. The drums were important too, I wanted the rhythmic element of the tracks to also stand out, whilst the rest of the arrangment would be used to create space.

The acoustic guitars in Slowly / Quietly have been panned to either side, but kept quite low in the mix. A third guitar (DI from pick up system) has also been added. It has a Hi frequency cut of point above 2k and is mainly giving the mix a fuller tone, adding important warm frequencies between 200 and 800 HZ. During mixing, this guitar track was adjusted, with the attention to change the sound of the vocals.

Robotic pop song has 2 guitars. One is my Blue Note guitar micked up by a Rode NT1 (around 20cm away, shoulder hight, pointing at the sound hole), whilst the other is the same guitar, but this time recorded via the pick up system (different take). These have been panned, hard left and 3 o'clock right.

For both tracks, I sent the vocals out of Logic Audio, and into a outboard DBX compressor, and then daisy chained this into a Digitech Stereo Effects unit. This can be heard mostly in robotic pop song, where I have (on the fly), enabled and disabled the effect in different sections throughout the song. I usually have it on (chorus and reverb) during long held notes, the Chorus and Outro.

The backing vocals in Robotic Pop Song were mostly automated to move from hard left to right, to easy left and right. Volume changes were also automated, as I wanted to the backing vocals to build up during the song, keeping them quite invisible during the early stages of the song. Again, I usually double tracked my own backing vocals, and also made sure to sing around 1 meter away from the microphone, to help them create distance in the mix.

Compression on both tracks was used quite a lot, on individual sounds, especially in the close microphones on the kit and even a mild compression on the overheads, to help bring out the cymbals. I should also mention that drum elements were directly edited in Logic, by energizing certain syncopations, usually phrase crash hits, and tom fills.

Next time we will talk about the mixng of the other songs.

We are almost finished, around 9 tracks have been recorded and moslty mixed. 6 or 7 songs will be choosen for the CD, leaving the others as B Sides.

The mixing stage ran well, we used a few reference CD's from similar artists to help stimulate production ideas and overall EQ seperation. Mixing is mainly accomplished inside the computer, with compression and effects sometimes being obtained by sending buss outs to either a DBX compressor, or several Effects units. We don't only use average proccessing unit for effects, we improvise and use what ever sounds good. In the case of vocals, we sometimes use a guitar pedal, and to keep the voice's high quality sound, we double up the new effect channel and the original channel together.

Some mixes get very plug in intensive, and therefore, computer system performance can sometimes get in the way of production creativity. Bouncing the drums down or effects channels locks you in to a set sound, even before the overall picture has been achieved. Its a problem, but if you take the time for a break, and come back to the song after freeing up CPU memory, the job can go on. The main thing is to try and not get fustrated, and to move on to a different song if you just can't fit a certain instrument into the mix. I'll try and spend no longer then 2 hours on a single song at a time, without atleast a bit of a breather, a run outside, a jump in the pool, anything to free my mind and make the experience more exciting when I return. Excitment fules the want to produce.

Mastering and getting the art design will happen in the next week, and duplication should be complete by the start of February.

Mastering can be an expensive closure to a CD project. For our Debut EP, we decided on the do it ourselves approach, to both keep the cost factor down, and because we needed the product finished soon.

For mastering we used a few plugins, and the program Wave Lab to create a proper running order. The CD has been compressed, EQ'd and Limited, however, only mildly. The songs we going to be releasing as Singles, have been limited a touch more, simply to increase their effect and to make them standout slightly from the other tracks. Plugins used includ the Waves collection, and TC Works.

The CD designing took us about a Week to accomplish. Apart from having to get the right dimensions and quality settings correctly set up, the creative process ran smoothly. The style of design was based on the vibe of the CD, and especially on our 2nd Single and title track, "We Write You From The Moon". As the name suggest, we were in space world, and were looking for a wacky way to portray space, and the songs. With the use of shade and color, snapshots of art work and an eye for overcrowding, we created a CD design that set the project apart from others.

Duplication is in the process at the moment. A run of 500 copies are being manufactured in Brisbane and they will be finished in 10 woking days, just in time for our CD launch, phew!!

This is the last installment of the current Recording process. We are planning to release a 2nd EP at the end of the year, so stay tuned for the start of our next recording journey.

The CD documented in these articles will be released on February the 15th in Brisbane at the Alley Bar in Milton/Auchenflower. If you have been interested in these articles, please come along and support us as we release, "We Write You From The Moon". Cheers, toot, toot, toot.