Session Review: Tracking Ariel's and His Trusty Guitar

Entering Trimester 4 at SAE brought forward a heavier work load and with this, it means I need to get into the studio as much as humanly possible. My good friends Ariel is a keen self taught musician that writes beautiful guitar pieces that softly arpeggiate through their progression. I figured, If he wants to record and start getting some music down, why not help him out and jump in the studio as it will also give me experience with the gear. So this past Tuesday I hired out the Neve Studio and Live Room and we jumped in eager as ever. I hired out a pair of AKG 451B Small Diaphragm Condenser's as well as two AKG C414 Large Diaphragms Condenser's.

The set up of the recording was a little tricky, mostly due to Ariel's playing style (Very soft). I set up the AKG 451B's in a XY configuration placed in the center of his fret board capturing both the neck and sound hole. The AKG C414's I set up in AB due to the stereo bar having outer slots for that position.

Firstly, before I continue, I would like to point out the cable management, this is most definitely not good management due to the cables just dangling from the mic's. I did this due to the amount of Microphones on the stereo bar and because as long as it's neat and nobody touches anything, its fine by me. The session started a little rough, quite rough actually. This was Ariel's first time in a studio / recording so we ran into a few issues, firstly communication.

Communication is Key

When I got the line of commination between Ariel and I, I asked how loud his headphones were, he said "loud but my guitar is a good level" this was the crux of our recording session. His voice was so loud in his ear's as well as the guitar that he played very softly, I did not realise this in the session as he did not say. I continued to turn the gain up on the pre-amps and line into Pro-Tools due to the guitar being so softly played, which in turn made him play even softer.. We tracked 2 songs by that point, they sounded nice but the noise floor was clear in the recording and odd harmonic's were resonating throughout the recordings. When it came to the third song we tracked, Ariel spoke up and said "you know I have been playing softly because I figured you wanted it quieter." so I responded, "no I want it to be louder" and then it clicked. So I turned his headphones down and he started playing at normal volume.

Now, this was a little ridiculous because after he sorted this out Ariel said he couldn’t play anymore. After a day at work, trying to record at 8pm was not a good option. Luckily it was just a fun recording session in the second week, thus still able to walk away and not feel down about wasting our studio session. This says a lot about my lack of Pre-Production planning, although it was just a spontaneous session one day it was still brought down by my 'we-will-sort-it-out-as-we-go' mentality. It shows, to me, that if I cant get a simple session to run smoothly, that I need to jump in that studio as much as humanly possible because that cannot fly with a large production or in the industry.

Things to take away from this session?

• COMMUNICATION IS KEY: Discussing what is happening and making sure everyone know's what needs to happen / what is happening will save a session.

• Pre-Production Planning: even if it’s a one of, setting aside ten minutes to think over the session will do wonders!

• Practice makes Perfect!: If I never did this, I would not have run into these problems until I entered a proper session. Remember, its always better to F**K up in a practice session then a paid session.

• Free Samples!!: Ariel has said he doesn’t care what I do with the recordings as long as he can listen over what has been tracked.

Leaving this session, we plan to book another. I going to spend some time going over the recordings and seeing what we can use, if there is anything. I will cover or compare the recordings next session, so stay tuned!

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