06/25/2025
I was booked to a little session today involving a young female vocalista named Feroza, actually a singer-songwriter and quite talented, and guitarist acompaniest, who were going to record a song with a video crew present shooting in both studio and control room. The idea was to create a stripped-down live performance video of a song she had already recorded in another studio. I was contacted by the video producer a week ago and given the details. He brought in the young artist's EP producer who saw our room and liked it. The day before the session I built a template in Nuendo and ran down my plan. Easy peasey. BUT...
That night I was contacted by the video producer again and informed that the party had grown to vocal, guitar, keyboard, acoustic bass, and cajón. The video crew were to arrive at noon, the band at 1 PM, and reels were to roll at 1:30pm. Good enough. I cleared off the schedule for the morning of the shoot and hit the ground running. I altered the DAW template for the added specifics, and, as always, left room to grow. I chose my layout and started planting mic stands, mics, headphones and headphone control boxes. I made space for the doghouse bass in the live room along with the cajon. I had the rig built up in time for a cup of coffee before the video crew arrived mid-morning(!). I ran out for lunch at 11 AM and walked back into the studio promptly at noon to find the crew AND the entire band already there. Surprise!!! Also, the doghouse bass turned out to be an Ibanez guitar-style acoustic bass rather than an upright. Then, and also a surprise, the cajón player brought an electronic kick drum pedal that he wanted to run direct. I was glad to have already patched up extra... channels. So, the console layout came to be:
Vocals (Neumann TLM-170 through Avalon 737 preamp)
Kick box (direct through a Radial J48)
Cajón (Neumann TLM-103 on the front tapa plate)
Bass (I moved him into the control room, playing through a rack-mounted BSS direct box)
Guitar (1975 Martin D-28 picked up with two AKG C451B mics in my reverse ORTF layout)
Keys (Nord Stage Piano in control room through two BSS direct boxes)
That is eight neat tracks.
Here is my reverse ORTF array for the guitar.
We were rolling at 1PM. The band had a pickup bass player after their player was injured so they did a run-through of the song to give the new guy some familiarity. Always record the run-through! I got my levels and had some surprises from a VERY dynamic singer, but we both settled in. We made some headphone mix changes and then it was time to go. After a couple of hilarious false starts they put down the first full take. I have never figured out why when the band rolls into the first legit take, the levels always change, but they do. If I could develop a way to predict whether they will go louder or softer I'd make a million. Each take featured different levels but by the third take the band was tight, I had some average levels, and the vocalista was on. Good take! The band's arranger called for a listen party in the control room.
Recording!
After a listen and discussion the music arranger/keyboardist asked about quantizing the cajón. They finally decided not to, possibly influenced by my fear that it would make him a robot and that indie music seems to be embracing a little humanity. The player was pretty tight anyway. The vocalist wasn't completely happy with her take, though. We took a quick break during which the video crew stripped out much of their gear. Then we loaded the vocalist in the studio, gave her a chance to get more comfortable, and overdubbed vocals onto the final take. With a single pass and one pickup we had a lovely take.
At this point I drew attention to the usual fret buzz from the acoustic bass. Electric basses don’t suffer this but it is a “feature” of acoustic basses. The arranger hadn't noticed it, even though it occurred throughout the song, so he was appalled. I did mention that it is normal with an acoustic bass. The arranger decided he'd prefer an electric bass. The bassist had his Jazz Bass along as a backup but it was strung with flat wounds and he wasn't sure it would fit the style of the song. I offered my Jazz Bass with round wound strings and he took it. He nailed the song in one take, with the exception of punching in one (1) note and ended up loving the way the bass felt. That was fun!
Voile'! We are done with tracking! Everyone is happy! Hugs and handshakes all around and the band began loadout. Once out, the band, the video crew, and the vocalista adjourned to a nearby coffee shop and I began striking my setup. Video crews always turn the room upside down, changing the track lights for their uses (instead of the artist's) and moving stuff to get a better shot. They rarely put anything back. No problem, but it made cleanup a little longer. I started roughing in the mix but eventually it was time to call it a day. With the mics, stands, cables, headphones, and direct boxes back in the lockers and the room cleaned and normalized, I headed home for the weekend. I'll start the mix for real on Monday morning.
Here is this gal’s first video, released on the same day as the session:
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