After doing research on Ethan Johns and reading about his thoughts on compression and not over compressing everything, I decided to try and stick as close to that as possible. For the acoustic guitars, I added some EQ and a slight bit of reverb to add to more ambience and avoided over using compression.

I kept this set up for the acoustic guitars consistent throughout the EP.

 

For the vocals, I again kept consistent settings for each track, using EQ, reverb, and some compression. Although Ethan Johns tried to avoid compression, I felt it was necessary in the situation. After researching, Home Studio Corner wrote on their website “It can be a great tool, and it can be easily overdone. However, I can’t imagine mixing a song without using compression on the lead vocal. It both tightens up the vocal and helps it fit into the mix.”

Also, the vocals are what the main focus of the EP would be on there for they needed to stand out and not be drowned out by the other instruments, hence why some slight compression was used.

For the recording, I decided to set up in the Radio Drama studio. Reason being, this was a studio I’d used a few times before and one which I felt more comfortable in using, and it was also the one which had the most time available.

For the setup of the studio room, I used two AKG 414’s. Condenser mics we’re definitely the right choice here, as the captured the delicate nature of the songs more than a dynamic would. I set one mic up on the opposite side of the room facing me and one close mic. An article on ‘Cakewalk’ backs this up in their article “10 Microphone Placement Techniques for Acoustic Guitar”. They use this technique saying “This configuration is typically used in conjunction with some closer microphones” and that “general room ambience becomes far more noticeable when using a set of room microphones.”  This ambience was important as we wanted to give this as much as a live feel as possible and natural ambience would only emphasise this more.

 

I kept this setup for the vocal as well, only this time, we made a little booth out of the boards which were in the room to cut dead any natural reverb which would come back from the room.

Firstly, we got the guitars down, we recorded two takes, in case double tracking would be required for the guitars. Also for Miles, there was also a lead guitar part which was recorded as well.

3 of the songs I recorded with a click track except for “You, The Ghost’, which was difficult to keep to a click track as the song is quite choppy, therefore I recorded this without the click.

After this Lizzie came in and sang her parts to the guitar parts I had previously recorded. She was very efficient in the fact that she came in and recorded her parts almost in under 2 hours.

 

We originally tracked each of the audio on Pro Tools, to which I would save each individual track recorded and organise them into their own folders so I could easily find them when importing them into Logic. 

 

After a full day of tracking, we felt we had good enough quality recordings which we’re ready to be edited and mixed ready for production.

 

“10 Microphone Placement Techniques for Acoustic Guitar” – Cakewalk -https://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007013311/10-Microphone-Placement-Techniques-for-Acoustic-Guitar

 

Now the extra instrument parts were written, it was time plan out the recording sessions.

We both agreed to focus on the acoustic guitars and vocals to get the base structure of the songs down before thinking about the other instruments. We discussed possible ways we could record the other instruments, without spending too much time finding a string section or other people who could record the instruments quickly and efficiently.

I made Lizzie aware of MIDI which we could potentially use, saving time and efficiency, and this way the ideas I had for each of the songs I could use the way I initially planned without a session musician having to learn the parts before recording them. Also, we both agreed as well that this could be a great way to separate the instruments which would feature in her live performances as only guitar and vocals would be recorded, which is all that is in her live setup.

We agreed that the use of MIDI would be an efficient way, and having worked with MIDI before, I felt confident I could create backing instruments that fit the songs without overpowering the basis of acoustic guitars and vocals.

Now we agreed and decided to use MIDI, this way I could decide that I would edit on Logic Pro X, as this was the program I initially learnt how to MIDI instruments on. I feel much more confident adding extra instruments on this than I do on Pro Tools.

At the last meeting, we both agreed and underlined the importance of not over exaggerating the instruments we put in. We wanted to make this as much as a live feel as possible. Also, when Lizzie plays live she just uses acoustic guitars and vocals, so if too many extra parts were added, she would come to play it live and it would be more difficult to replicate with only a couple of guitars and vocals.

When writing the extra instrument parts, particularly for the drums, I took some inspiration from bands in a similar genre such as Mumford & Sons. On early Mumford tracks, It consistently features a bass drum playing straight crotchet beats throughout to keep that driving beat going.

I thought this was essential particularly in the song Wild Things. I changed some of the structures around in this song so it builds up slow, mellows out during the break, building up again before mellowing out at the outro once more. This would be different from the way Lizzie recorded the demo where she kept the song going with the same chords, tempo, and dynamics.

Lizzie would still be able to play this live without it sounding bare with the extra instruments not on stage, as with this idea, she could start off slow, playing softly then build it up before mellowing down again, like the idea for the structure suggests.

For the two songs (Miles and The End) which would not feature drums or bass, we decided that the string parts should be slow and soft and just to add a bit more punch in the background. Again these wouldn’t be too overpowering and the main focus from the recordings is still aimed to be just acoustic guitars and vocals.

 

Mumford & Sons – Little Lion Man – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E

After recording the demos, Lizzie gave me my own creative freedom for the other instruments and any structure changes I were to make. Initially wrote down the structures with some added extra bits for our next meeting which we could discuss. 

 

Lizzie initially said after recording the demos that these are ready for a band (at least guitar, bass and drums) to feature on them however, after listening to the demos of her songs, I came up with some initial ideas.

Two of the songs which would be recorded – ‘Miles’ and ‘The End’, I felt didn’t require a full band setup and would be more suited to a more orchestral approach for the backing music, particularly string sections. I played some parts which I said could feature on the above tracks. These tracks are noticeably slower paced and softer dynamically hence why I suggested string sections would be appropriate.

I showed Lizzie a particular song from Scottish rock band Twin Atlantic, and their song ‘Crash Land’, which, although the band consists of guitar, bass, drums and vocals, Crash Land is a much slower and stripped back song featuring cellos and violins, which could be a direction to take The End, and Miles in.

Lizzie agreed that this would be a better option than to try and write a drum part that would fit the songs and that a full band for these two particular tracks would be unnecessary.

 

Twin Atlantic – Crash Land – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mqC1E_-yjc