Tracking/Recording
Our studio is a lovely old converted stable with very high ceilings which, if we choose to, gives a nice roomy sound, instead of the usual boxy bedroom sound that recording at home tends to suffer from.
The live room is split into 2 parts by a supporting wall that doesn’t extend across the whole space. This gives us wonderful flexibility for controlling live sound recording, as it can be used as a huge baffle between different instrument groupings, letting everyone play together in a way where they can find a comfortable balance and still make eye contact with everyone else.
It also enables us to close off half the room for a closer setting and a more intimate sound, whether tracking instruments and voices individually, or all together in a “live” setting again, as there is still room for a 5 piece band.
There are also further sound absorption and control measures dotted about the place, to balance things out, but we’ve decided not to stick with the standard dull grey or green tweed office colours, opting to hide or recover them. Now although the visuals of the place, don’t affect the sound in any way, we have gone out of our way to try and make the place look interesting and inspiring, a place to:
Shout for Joy to the Lord, all the earth – Psalm 100:1*
Equipment
We have our own selection of quality microphones to choose something suitable from, for all musical styles, from pounding drums and loud rock guitars, to quiet, detailed acoustic sessions and everything in between. To go with these, we also have a number of different preamps and some outboard units that offer a very broad range of tones. Also, it’s worth noting: if there’s some specific equipment you want to use, that you feel particularly strongly about, and we don’t have it – we know of and have used, businesses that hire out audio equipment and can probably get hold of it just for you.
Our “operational centre”, connecting everything together, is an analogue 40 channel desk. This feeds our audio interface which is capable of recording upto 20 separate sources simultaneously to our PC. The desk is also set up to provide 8 completely independent, personalised, zero latency monitor mixes, at the same time, with the facility for an additional 6, but we don’t have that many sets of headphones(!). It’s likely the most comprehensive monitoring setup for musicians, for miles around. As for the desk’s spare capacity, we use it for other very important duties like listening to our favourite music from our mobiles or youtube…
- Recording
- Mixing
- Mastering
- Formats
- Streaming
* Please Note: All sessions of Joyful Shouting and Entering His courts with Praise etc. will be preceded by Prayer, ideally before the drummer starts up… 😉
