The title of this blog is fitting, in the sense that it has been non-stop studio recording/rehearsing/gigging/mixing/pre-production/meetings - over and over and over and over. Today is my first day off and I am enjoying a coffee in Googies whilst updating this, ahhh...
The new Chutes single is now recorded and mixed and is absolutely fantastic! I think this song will make a real impact on people when they hear it. It's catchy, with great vocals, great lyrics, it's a good length for a single and ticks all the boxes, good luck guys and gal!
Thursday this week sees the laying down of some guide guitars/bass at Simon's flat for the new Magnets EP - we're recording the majority of it in an awesome Church/Theatre over the next month, better get the old Ipod touch out for some HD filming of that...
Thursday and Friday NEXT week will see me heading down to Brighton for the initial drum recordings for the new Phoria EP, again in some church, they seem to be the way to go!
The new Great Ancestors songs have now been mixed, and they're off to be mastered in the next couple of weeks by Andy Jackson, of Pink Floyd fame - these new songs are awesome, and really energetic. I guess that's what you get when you let a band record at gig volume in the same room together!
I am still offering one to one Music Production/Mixing/Recording tuition. You can either come to me at the studio, or I can come to you.
I will teach everyone from beginners to people who are advanced in the field - You may want to just learn the basics of recording, or you may want to brush up on polishing up your mixes, learn about advanced EQ/Compression techniques, mic positioning on a drum kit etc. If you have a home/project studio I can come along and show you how to make the most out of your mics/gear.
I am very experienced within this field, and currently very active within it - my recordings have been played on BBC Radio One, KMFM, and are played weekly on BBC Kent Introducing.
I charge £15 per hour, and you can hear some of my work/read about my musical background at www.anchorbabyrecordings.com - it'd be wise to check this out as you don't want to be learning from someone who's recordings you don't like the sound of!
Contact details are on the website.
More news as and when it happens!
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Spilling not only my coffee, but my latest news too...
My Mother had a nickname for me when I was a kid, I won't repeat it - but it was based on me spilling everything I drank/ate. At 28 I haven't changed, and have managed to spill half of my coffee on my laptop before I've even taken a sip. So if this update ends short, it means the coffee has seeped through to the circuit board and my charred and skeletal corpse, hair sticking up even further than usual, is sitting in the corner of Googies ;)
I've had a really busy few weeks, ridiculous in fact, hence the lack of updates. Burning the candle at both ends doesn't quite cut it!
So what's been going on? I've been working on this Gospel album, with an extremely talented MD by the name of Ira Jackson. Unfortunately though we had a bit of a nightmare with the musicians on this project, and it took twice as long as it should have. But it's done now, and has been mastered by Andy Jackson, Pink Floyd's head engineer.
10 days ago I was fortunate enough to spend the day in Brighton with Phoria, doing some live demo's as pre-production for their forthcoming mini-album. We set up in their house and tracked everything live with the help of a Tascam US1800 (16 channel USB audio interface which sounds just great) and my laptop. Then we spent the rest of the evening planning out where to do the proper recording, and looks like we've narrowed it down to a lovely church hall and a cool wooden-floored apartment with high ceilings! The plan is to start work on that next week, which is something that I can't wait for. The new songs are great, very dark and have an even more textural vibe going on than last years EP 'Yourself Still'.
Also taking place next week will be the finalising of dates for the Magnets EP, another record that is going to change people's lives this Summer ;)
On Sunday 10th we will be finishing off the new Great Ancestors recording (seriously dirty!) and on Monday 18th it's the recording of the new Chutes single.
On top of all of the above Jairus have some recordings for the near future once the new song is finished, and for all of you in Brighton please be sure to check us out at the Green Door Store on Friday 8th April with the fantastic Run, Walk! We are also please to be performing at the Westcoast Bar on April 12th with Piano's Become The Teeth and Monarch, be there!
I've had a really busy few weeks, ridiculous in fact, hence the lack of updates. Burning the candle at both ends doesn't quite cut it!
So what's been going on? I've been working on this Gospel album, with an extremely talented MD by the name of Ira Jackson. Unfortunately though we had a bit of a nightmare with the musicians on this project, and it took twice as long as it should have. But it's done now, and has been mastered by Andy Jackson, Pink Floyd's head engineer.
10 days ago I was fortunate enough to spend the day in Brighton with Phoria, doing some live demo's as pre-production for their forthcoming mini-album. We set up in their house and tracked everything live with the help of a Tascam US1800 (16 channel USB audio interface which sounds just great) and my laptop. Then we spent the rest of the evening planning out where to do the proper recording, and looks like we've narrowed it down to a lovely church hall and a cool wooden-floored apartment with high ceilings! The plan is to start work on that next week, which is something that I can't wait for. The new songs are great, very dark and have an even more textural vibe going on than last years EP 'Yourself Still'.
Also taking place next week will be the finalising of dates for the Magnets EP, another record that is going to change people's lives this Summer ;)
On Sunday 10th we will be finishing off the new Great Ancestors recording (seriously dirty!) and on Monday 18th it's the recording of the new Chutes single.
On top of all of the above Jairus have some recordings for the near future once the new song is finished, and for all of you in Brighton please be sure to check us out at the Green Door Store on Friday 8th April with the fantastic Run, Walk! We are also please to be performing at the Westcoast Bar on April 12th with Piano's Become The Teeth and Monarch, be there!
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
So many plans, so little time!
Well I have finally managed to update my website with some more recent recordings and reviews! Check out new songs from The Ambience, Chutes, Rubys Wishes and Elephants on www.anchorbabyrecordings.com
The coming months are looking to be very busy, with brand new EP's from amazing Brighton band PHORIA and Folkestone lads MAGNETS, a gospel album coming in from highly skilled MD IRA JACKSON, the start of a mini album from folk/jazz/whatever artist BERNARD EVELEIGH, a two-tracker from GREAT ANCESTORS and loads more to be announced!
I'm getting into a lot more location recording recently, and am always on the lookout for cool spaces to use. So if you have a very dead sounding room, or a very lively sounding room, or access to a church or cool sounding space please drop me an e-mail at anchorbabyrecordings@live.co.uk
I am currently looking for a CHURCH HALL to use for recording some drum parts and ambient guitar/vocal parts on the new PHORIA and MAGNETS records, please get in touch if you know of any!
I have recently managed to obtain a bundle of URS plugins, which I can highly recommend, they sound absolutely AMAZING and since their discovery I have barely touched my Waves bundle (aside from the Waves SSL buss compressor, which I swear by across the mix). So any future recordings will feature the sound of URS, see how different they are to my current mixes!
So recent activity around Anchor Baby includes a cool band coming in by the name of The Taints, pictured at the top of the page, outside the studio - Like the Libertines with a kind of Sheffield sound too! And this coming Sunday an acoustic live session from Ruby's Wishes on KMFM, to be broadcast at 1:20pm and also a short interview with myself and the band! Make sure you tune in!
On top of all of the above, I have now been asked to join Tener Duende, the Folkestone based Gypsy Jazz/Flamenco trio as their bass player, to replace the amazingly skilled Chester Boyd who is off to Uni in September. So lots of practising to do!
Friday, 4 February 2011
The other short stories...
Back to recording news then:
Kuulama were in last weekend recording their first demo, and it's sounding great! The Selmer amp (pictured with beloved ribbon mic) really worked out well for that WHO-style "CLAAANNNGG!!!"...See a short video of the guys in the studio below:
I am extremely happy to announce that shortly the guys from Phoria (and myself of course) will begin work on the follow-up to their very popular EP 'Yourself Still' with a new six-tracker! THe recording will start over the next couple of months and won't be done in the studio this time, but in various locations around Kent and Brighton, including houses, apartments overlooking the sea and a spooky old manor house!
Towards the end of the month I will have the AMAZING Great Ancestors in to record two brand new songs, I can't wait to capture the sheer energy of that band. Then it's the recording of the Jairus/Monarch split (I'll be doing both bands tracks for the sheer fun of it).
6th of March sees the beautiful Ruby's Wishes performing an acoustic set live on KMFM, and an interview with the band and me about the recordings and plans for this year.
The Ambience album 'Colour in Silence' is FINALLY finished!
I am also offering music recording and production lessons, prices from £15 per hour - I will teach beginners or people with experience, just let me know what you'd like to learn and drop me an e-mail at anchorbabyrecordings@live.co.uk
Exciting times!
A lesson in over EQ'ing, and other short stories...
Over the last couple of years I have tried to steer away from over EQing, unless I am mixing something recorded by someone who DOESN'T apply the 'get it right at source' approach - there are plenty of them out there!
Now it's a known fact amongst my friends and clients that I'm not too much a fan of 'the music technology course', this is due to a number of reasons and based on a string of work experience pupils who have been studying for two years, THINK they know it all and in actual fact have to be re-programmed by me and start again! Now, if you've done one of these courses you'll be taught how to 'fix' things with EQ. For example: "Boost 40hz on the kick for a bit of sub, cut at 400hz to reduce that boxy sound, boost at 4.5khz for a bit of click and then further at 10khz for a bit of snap". Experience has taught me that you can very rarely rely on ONE mic to achieve your sub, weight, click and snap and also brings me onto the main focus of this blog entry: PHASE issues.
EQ tends to introduce distortion and phase shift. So when you EQ something, certain ranges of frequencies become out of time with the rest of the frequency content. Basically certain frequencies will lag behind the others. You can often notice things like this on snare drums - the close mic on the snare could be perfectly in-phase with the overheads and you have a nice weighty snare sound. As soon as you start EQing radically you are in danger of the phase inverting - the snare may sound fine on its own but as soon as you dial in the overheads you're left with a very thin sounding snare! If you have to EQ things, it's often best to keep the Q's narrow and boost a few frequencies a tiny bit as opposed to something like 3k on a steep shelf by 12db to brighten a snare!
So, that's lesson 1. Lesson 2 goes back to the point I was making earlier about mics. Let's suppose you've started by getting a kick drum to sound as good as you possibly can in the room (VERY important, if you haven't done that then don't bother reading on!).
You are better off using a mic to capture the weight and depth your kick drum (I usually use a Heil PR48 for the kind of music I record) and then another mic to capture the snap (an AKG C1000 works out well for this if you want a bit of life too, or a Shure Beta 91 boundary mic - VERY snappy!). Blend the two signals to taste, a bit of SUBTLE EQ on the way in if necessary and you should have a good solid kick drum recording, ready for very little processing in the mix. You've recorded your weight and your click and snap already, so no need to go screwing things up with EQ, and your recording as is natural sounding as can possibly be. But with multiple close mics be aware of PHASE issues again, get it right!
In summary, the lesson is always the same: Do whatever you can in the room before you even look at a mic, then pick the RIGHT mic, or the right combination of mics to capture it! Keep things subtle, and don't give me any "But I don't have a massive mic collection" nonsense - the answer to that is "Learn to use what you DO have to achieve the results above!"...You'll be a better engineer for it.
Now it's a known fact amongst my friends and clients that I'm not too much a fan of 'the music technology course', this is due to a number of reasons and based on a string of work experience pupils who have been studying for two years, THINK they know it all and in actual fact have to be re-programmed by me and start again! Now, if you've done one of these courses you'll be taught how to 'fix' things with EQ. For example: "Boost 40hz on the kick for a bit of sub, cut at 400hz to reduce that boxy sound, boost at 4.5khz for a bit of click and then further at 10khz for a bit of snap". Experience has taught me that you can very rarely rely on ONE mic to achieve your sub, weight, click and snap and also brings me onto the main focus of this blog entry: PHASE issues.
EQ tends to introduce distortion and phase shift. So when you EQ something, certain ranges of frequencies become out of time with the rest of the frequency content. Basically certain frequencies will lag behind the others. You can often notice things like this on snare drums - the close mic on the snare could be perfectly in-phase with the overheads and you have a nice weighty snare sound. As soon as you start EQing radically you are in danger of the phase inverting - the snare may sound fine on its own but as soon as you dial in the overheads you're left with a very thin sounding snare! If you have to EQ things, it's often best to keep the Q's narrow and boost a few frequencies a tiny bit as opposed to something like 3k on a steep shelf by 12db to brighten a snare!
So, that's lesson 1. Lesson 2 goes back to the point I was making earlier about mics. Let's suppose you've started by getting a kick drum to sound as good as you possibly can in the room (VERY important, if you haven't done that then don't bother reading on!).
You are better off using a mic to capture the weight and depth your kick drum (I usually use a Heil PR48 for the kind of music I record) and then another mic to capture the snap (an AKG C1000 works out well for this if you want a bit of life too, or a Shure Beta 91 boundary mic - VERY snappy!). Blend the two signals to taste, a bit of SUBTLE EQ on the way in if necessary and you should have a good solid kick drum recording, ready for very little processing in the mix. You've recorded your weight and your click and snap already, so no need to go screwing things up with EQ, and your recording as is natural sounding as can possibly be. But with multiple close mics be aware of PHASE issues again, get it right!
In summary, the lesson is always the same: Do whatever you can in the room before you even look at a mic, then pick the RIGHT mic, or the right combination of mics to capture it! Keep things subtle, and don't give me any "But I don't have a massive mic collection" nonsense - the answer to that is "Learn to use what you DO have to achieve the results above!"...You'll be a better engineer for it.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Radio, Radio, Radio!
Another two of my recordings, by two different bands (Chutes and Delta Sleep) were played on BBC Kent Introducing last Sunday. In fact, the whole Delta Sleep EP has been played weekly (one track at a time) since November. That brings the total to over 10 bands so far in the last 9 months on Kent Introducing alone. I am very proud that the bands passing through the studio doors are making an impact and also proving that Anchor Baby Recordings works with good quality acts!
More Radio play this coming Sunday where you will be able to hear 'Earthquakes' by Ruby's Wishes being played by Adam Dowling on KMFM, which will be followed by an acoustic 'live session' at KMFM on Sun 6th March, as well as an interview with the band and myself - be sure to tune in!
On other news, the Mecurials recording is now mixed and sounds great. Fantastic lyrics and performances from Bernie and Paul!
The Ambience album is FINALLY being mastered on Friday 28th by Oz Craggs, and has been 10 months in the making! In order to celebrate I will be putting one of the tracks up (along with Ruby's Wishes, Elephants and Chutes) next week on the website MP3 player!
Even more news: I will shortly begin work on the new Magnets EP, which is being planned at the moment. This will mostly be recorded at various different locations around Kent, including a spooky old manor house that has a perfect room for a really lively drum sound! There will no doubt be a few teaser videos from these sessions one they get under way, so look out for them!
Dan.
More Radio play this coming Sunday where you will be able to hear 'Earthquakes' by Ruby's Wishes being played by Adam Dowling on KMFM, which will be followed by an acoustic 'live session' at KMFM on Sun 6th March, as well as an interview with the band and myself - be sure to tune in!
On other news, the Mecurials recording is now mixed and sounds great. Fantastic lyrics and performances from Bernie and Paul!
The Ambience album is FINALLY being mastered on Friday 28th by Oz Craggs, and has been 10 months in the making! In order to celebrate I will be putting one of the tracks up (along with Ruby's Wishes, Elephants and Chutes) next week on the website MP3 player!
Even more news: I will shortly begin work on the new Magnets EP, which is being planned at the moment. This will mostly be recorded at various different locations around Kent, including a spooky old manor house that has a perfect room for a really lively drum sound! There will no doubt be a few teaser videos from these sessions one they get under way, so look out for them!
Dan.
Sunday, 16 January 2011
Anchor Baby TV!
Last night, due to a no-show at the studio (no more bookings without deposits!) I decided to make some videos in order to show you what's going on around the studio, what kind of equipment we have there etc. The first is a video about how I usually mic a guitar amp, for some weird reason the audio and the video are slightly out of snyc, but you get the idea! The second video shows you some of the amp collection, enjoy!
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