Overhead and Underdeveloped
Been busy finessing some recording techniques. I’m hoping there’s a good outcome to this, and that I don’t get caught up in making things sound good without, you know, recording anything. That’s the downside of being your own engineer – you can get caught up in the minutiae of production and recording pretty easily. I’ve in the past referred to this as “Reaktor Syndrome” – as in “I made this awesome granular resynthesizing snare drum synth in Reaktor, and it took me 23 hours, and it sounds awesome and…oh crap I haven’t written a note of music to ue it with.”
Anyway.
Last week two things of note happened – I received a matched pair of M-Audio Puslar II small-diaphragm condenser mics in the mail (thank you eBay), and I recorded a session with the Natyarpana dance company.
The Natyarpana gig was unusual in that it was an entirely different way of recording than I’m used to, and frankly one I was a little unprepared for. I’d like to think everybody learned enough in the process that further sessions will run more smoothly, and I’d also like to think the resulting output was pretty dang good-sounding. It helped that all parties involved were pretty bogglingly talented. It’s humbling when a young kid comes in, sits down at a keyboard and just bangs out complex passages in a dual-manual configuration, while working pitch bend and mod wheels like a seasoned pro.
I also learned that brass chimes will dominate any mix, no matter how far from the mic they are.
So while I wasn’t recording any specific ND stuff there, it was educational, and I learned a few things I may try to carry over to my own recordings.
Meanwhile.
The Pulsars are filling a gap in my mic locker – I’ve needed a good stereo pair of mics, and a good mic for handling percussion and various acoustic instruments, and these fit the bill nicely, doing double-duty. While I’d love a pair of nicely modded MK-012’s or SM81’s, the price point on those has gotten kind of ridiculous, and I snagged the Pulsars off eBay for a ludicrously good price. Using them as drum overheads I can make a dhol sound pretty thunderous, assuming I can play it well enough and don’t accidentally get too enthusiastic and smack into the mic stand (this happened. Twice). Certainly I get better results than I did with a 57 and my somewhat “eshy” large-d condenser in mode. Also, in a stereo x-y config I can get the acoustic fiddle to not sound like a 4th grader is playing it. These are good things.
I used these techniques to record some loops and riffs for a track I’ve been struggling with for a while. It’s one of those tracks that always had potential, had good lyrics, a good hook, and some good ideas, but I just couldn’t get it to gel from either an arrangement or performance standpoint. My vocals were always weak and thready, the drums were flabby, and there just seemed to be no propulsion to it. Using these new recordings and a few of the tricks I learned on the Claire Voyant remix, I think I’m on my way to something a little more cohesive. I think when I try to write something “just so” for a certain genre, for example when I try to write a straight-up drum-n-bass track, I tend to end up with compromised mixes – when I stick to my brand of big, sweeping ethno-tronica I think I do better. I also need to concentrate more on writing songs that fit my vocal strengths – I have this tendency to write stuff that matches a certain sample or something, but turns out after the fact to be in part of my vocal range that sounds weak. So I’m fixing that. Even though I’ve only got about a minute of the track written and recorded, I’m already liking it better than all my previous attempts.
