THE CONTROL ROOM

Studio 1 consists of the following equipment:

Adam A77x Monitor Speakers

Rokit 5 Speakers

Emagic Amt 8 Midi Interface

Keyboard Impulse 49 Midi Keyboard

Emagic Logic Controls Mixer

Focusrite Pro 40 Audio Interface

Focusrite Octopre mk 11 Audio Interface

S-phone headphone mixer amp mixer/amp

Spl 2381 Monitor and talkback controller

Focusrite ISA One ff Preamp

Setting up mics for drum kitsKick Drum- Audix f6

Top Snare- Shure sm57

Bottom Snare- Shure sm58

Rack Tom- Audix f2

Floor Tom- Audix f2

Left Overhead- Audix f9

Right Overhead- Audix f9

Overhead placements- ORTF, XY

When it came to recording our compositions, we used Studio 1. Studio 1 has much high end equipment to help construct really quality music. The studio is connected to two other rooms, via stage boxes. These stages boxes are located at either end of the live room, which connects through the vocal booth and into studio 1. The vocal booth is self explanitory and the live room is used primarily for drums, but can also be used for any other instruments. Guitars can be directly plugged into the soundcard in the studio itself. The studio is connected to 16 inputs, which can be used to rig mics for drum kits and or guitars etc.

When setting up the levels fro the mic it was key to invert the polarity of the botom snare, this gave much more power to the snare and improved the quality of it greatly. I found that the toms took a some trial and error to get right, naturally they give off a lot of resonance and so they aren't easy to record, it couldnt always be solved by turning down the levels, but it meant some rethinking about the position of the Audix f12s (tom mics).

When it came to my composition, I decided to have live drums as the recorded element. The track consisted of synthesisers, keys, bass and guitar. The drums were recorded last. The drums were recorded through the souncard inputs that lead to the live room where the full kit was set up by Alex and Ned. I decided to have the XY position for the overhead mics as I noticed that the result was a fuller sound and that was perfect for what I wanted the composition to sound like.

I had the Audix f6 positioned half into the drum and not completely as I didnt want a distorted heavy sound, and the position I had it in gave perfect balance to the sound. Before recording I held a sound chec to make sure the levels were just the way I wanted them, I found that the focusrite pro 40 and the focusrite octopre mk 11 were very easy to use and Logic was very responsive to the changes being made. I also helped set up the mics on Montel and Ned's recordings, to which they shared a similar opinion to the XY position for the overhead mics. It was popular opinion that the sound was much clearer because of this set up.

Matthew Tracey