Plan B...

So, after the way everything's worked out using the studio at college, me and Alie came up with an idea that will give us the results we're hoping for.

At home, Alie has a small studio set-up with an iMac, 8 track, keyboard/piano, microphones and Logic Pro. With this, we can record everything we want to in our own time without having to keep to a three hour time limit like we would in the studio at college. We've decided a date for next week that we will record over a period of two days, doing this will give us a better chance at getting more recorded and done for the EP.

We've decided on five tracks for the EP and if we get that all done in time, we we're going to have an extra two bonus tracks. The five tracks we've chosen for the EP are:

1. We The Kings - Check Yes Juliet
2. Simple Plan - Every time
3. Kate Voegele - Sandcastles
4. Hellogoodbye - Here In Your Arms
5. Kate Voegele - Kindly Unspoken 
6. Rumours - Forever Young (Acapella version)
7. Athlete - Ordinary Angel (Piano solo) 

The track listing hasn't change much at all as these are songs that we can both do well. The two bonus tracks are songs that myself and Alie have chosen as a solo track to do something a little different on the EP. We're keeping 'Check Yes Juliet' as we came to the conclusion that it sounded terrible last time due to the piano at college being slightly out of tune. 

Anyway, that's all I have to update you all with so far. More news will be on its way shortly.

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy! 

3rd recording session planning...

So, after last weeks horrific recording session, here's a plan to ensure that the same things will not happen again, well hopefully not anyway.

Basically, after last week, we decided a few changes to how we would be recording so that we could lower the chances of things going wrong again. Anyway, when recording Hellogoodbye's - Here In Your Arms, the timing was awful and I was either playing too fast or too slow for the song, so when I was recording Alie's vocal the timing was out very slightly. This made an impact on the quality of the recording and once we'd run out of time we discussed how we could change what had gone wrong. We came to the conclusion that setting up the vocal microphone in the control room would be a brilliant idea. This would then allow for the piano and the vocals to be recorded at the same time without any spill from either the piano or the vocals in any of the mics; this would then eliminate the possibility of the timing going out again.

The unfortunate events of last week also helped us come to the conclusion that Check Yes Juliet by We The Kings was off the track listing to be replaced with another Kate Voegele song. We decided on this idea because I had difficulty finding the correct chords to go along with Alie's vocals leaving us with no choice but to change the song choice all together. This is a shame as we both loved playing this song but it just wasn't working out when being recorded as it sounded so out of key.

Anyway, with a floor plan and a full microphone specification to follow, this is it for now!

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy!

2nd recording session...

Well, me and Alie had out two and a half hour session in the studio this morning, it didn't go to plan as a lot of things haven't with this project.

Anyway, we got in and set-up all the usual equipment in the live room and the control room and got on with it. We started with Check Yes Juliet by We The Kings and recorded the vocal track first. Following this, we recorded the piano track straight afterwards being successful on the first recording. On the other hand, the vocals and the piano tracks were out of time and sounded pretty awful so we re-done the piano tracks again. This time instead of the vocals and the piano being out of time, it sounded as if the vocals were off key compared to the piano and the two tracks just didn't work together at all.

Set-up of the mixing desk.

Recording the vocals for Check Yes Juliet

After scrapping the idea of recording that song in the session, we moved onto record Here In Your Arms by Hellogoodbye. This wasn't as bad, Alie sung the song down the talk back microphone whilst I played the piano so I had a rough idea on the tempo of the track. We done this a few times as I went a little too fast the first few times. Following this, Alie went into the live room to do the vocals, I got the desk ready and hit record and half way through it the track was out of time. We re-done it one more time and it still didn't work leaving us with practically nothing by the end of the session.

Overall, this session was pretty much a disastrous waste of time and I feel so disappointed about it. Shortly there will be a video added of the set-up for the session...

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy.

2nd Recording session planning...

So, it's very nearing the end of our time at college and we still have a lot to do, but here's the plan...

Me and Alie have a studio session booked for 2 and a half hours on Tuesday next week to get some serious work done! We're going to try and get 3 songs done and more if we can fit it in. The plan is to record the following three songs;

• Simple Plan - Every time
• We The Kings - Check Yes Juliet
• Kate Voegele - Sandcastles
• Kate Voegele - Kindly Unspoken (maybe)

We're going to be recording the piano and vocal tracks for these three songs, I believe we can do this because of our practice session last week. It went really well and I feel we can get this done all in good time! We will be using the same microphones as last time as we know they capture the sound we're after and feel this would be the best choice. The C414 for the vocal microphone and the 2 C1000s microphones for the piano. After next weeks blog I will be writing up a detailed post on why we chose the microphones for our recording sessions, this will be done with a floor plan as well!

Floor plan for 2nd Recording Session.

Our time doing this project hasn't exactly been very straight forward and has been full of ups and downs, we will get this done to the best we possibly can! 

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy! 

More planning and our practice session...

After our first recording session it was back to the planning side of things, we've come up with a pretty solid plan that we're definitely going to be doing a six song EP and anything else we can get recorded will be a bonus at the side.

Time is getting on now and the deadline is nearly upon us so we're pushing ourselves to the limit. For our next recording session we will be recording at least three songs for the EP which leaves us with only three more songs to record afterwards.

For our next session there has been a few song changes to make sure that we get the EP finished on time. Three songs we've decided on for the next recording session is:

• Hellogoodbye - Here in your arms (New song)
• We The Kings - Check Yes Juliet (Piano tracks)
• Simple Plan - Every time (Re-do vocal and piano tracks)

During our FMP planning session on Monday afternoon, me and Alie put a plan together which was to print out all of our sheet music and vocals so during Tuesdays session we could practice the songs in the live room to perfect them. This worked out as a brilliant idea as we practiced all the songs for the EP and after a few goes at each song we were left feeling confident. As this session went so well we filmed one of the songs that we done which you can find here... http://youtu.be/ruJ2SPd0d_k this was our cover of the Hellogoodbye song which we shall be recording during our next recording session. 

Our next recording session is yet to be booked however, I'm confident that we will get all this done in time!

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy! 

1st recording session...

So finally me and Alie managed to get into the studio to record some songs for our album. For our first recording session as just me and Alie it went pretty well.

We began the session by grabbing all the equipment we'd reserved for the session and headed back to the live room to begin setting up. Overall, the setting up part went well with it taking us only 15 minutes to get ready. Although the set-up was basic it was just the way we wanted it. The two C1000s microphones were placed in the 'X,Y' position over the top of the piano faced inside of the body of the piano to capture as much sound as we could. The C414 was used for the vocals and was set-up at the front of the live room. We plugged the C414 microphone was plugged into channel 4 and the two C1000s microphones were plugged into channels 5 and 6.

Piano set-up with the two C1000s Microphones!

Vocals all miced up with C414 mic!

Following the set-up of the live room, me and Alie went into the control room to set-up the mixing desk and the mac ready for recording. This didn't take us an overly long time however, we did come across a few small issues with getting the sound through the speakers which was fixed with the press of a button. Before the recording session we both decided that we would record the vocals and then the piano afterwards, so I set up two channels in Pro-Tools, one for the vocals and two for the piano.

All the tracks set-up on Pro-Tools ready to go!

Mixing desk all set-up and ready to go!

After the set-up of the control room I went into the live room to practice my pieces before the actual recording to warm myself up ready to go. Whilst I was practicing Alie used this opportunity to adjust the levels on the desk for the piano. After the piano was ready, Alie went into the Live room to have a little practice whilst I adjusted the levels for the vocals, before this we plugged headphones in so we could communicate with each other with having to keep coming in and out of one room. However, we had a little trouble with sorting out the headphones so they'd work properly but that problem was quickly solved when we switched the pair of headphones for another pair. As well as the problem with the headphones we also had problems getting Alie's phone to play the music through the desk into the headphones so we could play along to the songs to ensure we were in time, this was solved by pressing down the Aux buttons on channels 1 and 2 on the desk.

Channels 1 & 2 Aux inputs for Alie's phone!

Aux input for Alie's phone!

After everything was completely ready to go me and Alie got started right away with recording the vocals. As we did one practice of each song before 'officially' recording, we came up with the idea of recording the practice as well as the 'official' in case it comes out better.

Alie's vocals being recorded!

Vocals & Aux channels!

Once we'd recorded the vocals for the first song which was 'White Flag' by Dido, we got straight on with it to record the piano part for the song. I went in and had one practice run through and then went on to record the official track. I messed up many times and it took me a while to get a decent recording of the song. As well as this we also found that we didn't like the sound of the piano, the sound was muffled and was pretty poor all together due to the fact there was felt covering the strings. We found out after the session that this can be changed and the felt can be removed, this is one thing that we would change for our next recording session.

By the time the end of the session came we had managed to record vocal tracks for Dido - White Flag, Simple Plan - Every time and We the Kings - Check Yes Juliet. We only managed to get piano tracks recorded for Dido - White Flag and a half decent recording of the piano for Simple Plan - Every time that I'm not particularly happy with.

Overall, I learnt a lot during this process as it was a chance for me to really get to know the equipment and the way it works. I was pleased with how well the recordings of the vocals went as they sounded clear and just the way we expected. On the other hand, I wasn't as impressed with the piano tracks and am going to be re-doing them at a later date.

Thanks for reading,

Charlotte.

1st Recording Session Plan...

So we've managed to book our first recording session for next week so we can get a start on recording the first few songs for our album. Our aim for this recording session is to record at least 3 songs however, if we were to reach this target well within good time we've prepared another song in case so we can get as many songs done in the time we have avaliable. The four songs we've picked to record are:

1. Dido - White Flag
2. We The Kings - Check Yes Juliet
3. Avril Lavigne - Don't Tell Me
4. Simple Plan - Everytime

For these four songs we'll be recording just the vocals and piano, at a later date we may decide to add a string section in on pro-tools.
For this recording session we'll be using various equipment in which we think is suitable for the instruments we'll be recording.

Equipment List:

2 x C1000s Microphones
3 x Microphone Clips
3 x Microphone Stands
3 x X.L.R Leads
1 x C414 Microphone
1 x Pop Shield
1 x Music Stand
1 x Headphones
1 x 3.5mm Jack

For this equipment we're planning on using the 2 C1000s microphones in the X,Y technique for the piano, this will capture both the high and the low end of the piano which will ensure we will pick up the full range of the piano. The C414 microphone is being used to mic up the vocals with a pop shield over the top, this will ensure a reasonably clear recording with no 'popping' from the vocals as the pop shield will make sure the microphone doesn't pick any of that up.

Floor plan for 1st recording session. 

This is all we have so far for this recording session, there will be another blog up shortly after the session to say how it went and how far we got.

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy!