D8 Skills #38 & D9 | Unit E | Recording Vocals for Freak Tiege
Yesterday, I was asked to record some vocals, and happily accepted. Yesterday, we spent about an hour in the studio, however, due to the nature of how we want to collaborate with each other (I was constantly giving feedback and suggestions), we decided that we'd come in the following day and I'd bring my laptop an interface with me; this would enable us to be in the same room making it a much more efficient and high-quality process. I could quickly make suggestions, and he could easily come to the screen to point things out and ask for certain changes to be made. It also allowed us to seamlessly do a rough mix on the fly during the recording process with him deeply involved in the process. I have found that when the 'tech people' are in the control room and the 'artists' are in the live room, these two terms deserve their separateness, however, because he and I wanted to have a more joined together and streamlined approach to the creative process, this setup more than accommodated for it. Another thing I noticed about using this setup is that there was no possibility for me to lose focus, passion and enthusiasm for the project; occasionally when sitting in the control room, I can lose my sense of connection to the project and feel distant, which impacts the recording.
We layered multiple tracks including:
- Main Vox
- Airy / Soft Vox (Panned Right)
- Airy / Soft Vox (Panned Left)
- Far Back Roomy Vox
- Airy Octave Higher Vox
- Airy Octave Higher Vox (Panned Right)
- Airy Octave Higher Vox (Panned Left)
- Whisper
We used a Neumann U-87 with a pop shield in front. I set up the stand so that TJ was facing the wall with absorption material on it so that this minimised reflections, bringing down the sound of the room in the recording.