Recording - May 2016 - 64

these days we look for the most complicated
ways to achieve the simplest results, and the
recording process is certainly not immune.
As for suggestions, we urge Jack to check out
the great Kelly Joe Phelps' CD Tunesmith Retrofit.
To our ears it's as masterful a "one mic" recording as there exists in Jack's genre, and he might
benefit from its sounds to give him ideas for
future recordings.
Summary: When in doubt, go with the gut!
By submitting a Readers' Tracks entry, you automatically grant permission to Music Maker
Publications to feature your submission in our print column, on our website, and/or in our
SPOTLIGHT e-newsletter. We reserve the right to shorten entries for editorial reasons. By listing
your name with the submitted work, MMP does not imply any assignment of rights to the submitted work. We can neither guarantee publication of a review nor engage in correspondence
about individual submissions.
All submissions for Readers' Tracks are done online. On our website at
www.recordingmag.com, click on Readers' Tracks and then "Submit Your Recording". Fill in the
required information and upload an MP3 or AAC file of 5 MB or less; a photo of you, your
band, an album cover, or your recording rig is optional but appreciated. Submissions to
Readers' Tracks are posted online as 128k MP3 files; you can submit tracks at higher quality if
you wish, and they will be converted by us before posting.
Please consider providing publishable contact information in the area entitled "Production
Notes & Credits." This includes your band's website, social media pages, label links, etc. An
email address is required for all entries and will be published in print and online.

Jack Robbins / Forever Son
Equipment: PC with Digidesign 003 Rack interface running Digidesign Pro
Tools 8; RØDE M3 microphone, no-name nylon-string acoustic guitar.
Monitored on modified Bose 501 speakers.

Music: "Come On Back" is a male vocal folk song. Jack wrote, performed, recorded and mixed the song. The finished track was mastered at
Indie Masters in Melbourne, Australia.
Recording: This seemingly simple submission comes to us with quite the
educational back story, friends. You see, in his production notes, Jack
reveals that the goal of this effort was to achieve a "lavishly personal
sounding recording that captured the flow of dynamics but sounded as
though it was recorded with 'one mike and all live'." Okey dokey, then...
so did he succeed? Well, mostly-but he really took the long way around
to achieve it!
You see, instead of trying "one mic and all live" from the get go, Jack
set about filling his recording space with a plethora of tracking possibilities. He tried to capture his "one mic and all live" sound with (take a deep
breath here): a matched pair of RØDE NT5 small-capsule condenser mics,
the DI output from his Schatten passive acoustic pickup and LR Baggs Para
Acoustic preamp run through a Peavey Valve King 212 electric guitar amp
and miked with a Shure SM57, and finally a RØDE M3 large-capsule condenser as his vocal mic.
I think that at this point, I'll let Jack continue the tale in his own words.
"After a few takes it sounded great, but I had really missed the point. If I
wanted it to sound like a single mic, I just needed to use a single mic! I set
up a few different mics, but settled on the RØDE M3. It was all about mic
placement and the room."
"It was recorded in a small room with limited furniture. I started with setting the mic up on a stand, and positioning it in between the guitar and
vocal, but it always sounded a tad hollow. I then experimented with placement and ended up placing the mic on a wooden desk, on its side, 1 foot
away and aiming at the guitar. There was also a wall behind the desk. I
sang down towards the mic. This created that small personal feeling I
wanted and the desk captured any lost resonance from my vocal and the
guitar. It also made the dynamics great. In the end, to make a song sound
like it was recorded with one mic, use one mic!"
Suggestions: Fortunately Jack assures us that he took away much from
his project, not the least of which is to trust one's instincts! Far too often
64

RECORDING MAY 2016

Contact: Jack Robbins / Forever Son,
foreverson@live.com.au

Jay Mitchell / Life Without...
Equipment: PC running Cakewalk SONAR 8 and
Toontrack EZdrummer, Audio-Technica AT2020
condenser mic, and Ibanez guitar and bass.

Music: "Now You Know Why" is a male vocal
rock song. Jay one-man-banded the track at his
home studio.
Recording: There's a very interesting sonic
landscape happening in this high energy track.
Using his Toontrack EZdrummer software, Jay has
fashioned a drum sound that could be described
as equal parts punk and garage band. By this
we mean an aggressive performance with wide
panning, slashing cymbals, bright tones, and an
ambience that would indicate a distant room
miked scheme in a space with a lot of hard surfaces at play. Also, the electric guitar tones here
are simply massive, with no shortage of low/midfrequency action.
That said, neither the guitars or the bass
shared the sonic room ambience of the drum kit.
Through our monitors they both had a much
more present quality that pushed them forward in
the overall mix. This trend continued to an even
greater extent with the vocals, which are basically spoken during the verses and sung out through
the chorus sections. Presence is the overall
impression we get with the vocals-again, miles
away from the drum sounds.
Suggestions: In our opinion, intent plays an
enormous role in the creative/recording process.
More so than one's DAW, microphones or instruments, one's vision for a recording, from the writing/arranging right on through to the final mixing and mastering, is critical.
From the overall quality of Jay's submission, it's
clear that he is no stranger to the various elements that make up a successful track. If the disparate ambiences found here were accidental, or
from lack of experience, we would be advising
Jay to close the sonic gap between his drums
and the additional sound sources. In our estimation, however, the disparity found here was by
design, and therefore should stay as such. Jay
should just be aware that his vision isn't guaranteed to "click" with every listener.
Summary: Vision carries the day!
Contact: Jay Mitchell / Life Without...,
canadianjam9969@hotmail.com

http://www.recordingmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - May 2016