Recording Clients T4.5At the beginning of this programme we were instructed on how to mic up a drum kit. Setting up a drum kit with a mic can be one of the hardest and most technical things to do when recording clients. During our first day of recording we were required to mic up a drum kit for one of the clients. In order to do this the drum kit had to be moved to the optimal position in the room to produce better acoustics. The first drum that we set up with a mic was the kick drum. We used a dynamic microphone and placed it just inside of the kick drum in order to allow a sufficient amount of low-frequency sounds to be picked up. The second drum which was set up with a mic was the snare drum. The snare drum requires two microphones which are positioned on top and underneath. The top snare microphone was positioned so that the microphone head was facing directly to the centre of the snare drum. After this the high hat was set up with the microphone. We used one microphone above the high hat pointed directly at the centre in order to pick up most of the high-frequency sounds that we wanted. We then set up the rack toms and floor toms with their microphones by putting a microphone directly above each of them a suitable distance away from the centre. This distance is about a foot and a half. The last thing we did was position the overhead microphones. These microphones are used to pick up the entire drum kit. We also used these microphones to pick up the symbols which we found to be more convenient then adding two more microphones for the symbols. The overhead microphones were positioned around three feet apart from each other and pointed down to the symbols. After recording the drums we added some EQ in order to make the overall mix complementary of each other. The next task was to record an electric guitar for our client. We did this by connecting the electric guitar into a DI box so we could record directly into Logic which is a Digital Audio Workstation. An advantage of doing this as opposes to recording an electric guitar with a microphone, is that it reduces the interference and distortion and therefore increases the signal to noise ratio. After the guitar had been directly recorded into Logic we added different effects such as a peddle board, compression, reverb and noise gates and this helped to achieve the desired sound. A disadvantage of recording an electric guitar by a DI box is that it reduces the natural sounds which would be produced if recorded with a microphone. We also had to record a bass guitar which was done using a very similar method to the electric guitar. One of the clients required piano to be used in one of their tracks. This was recorded using a midi keyboard using the pre-programmed instruments on Logic. An advantage of recording midi instruments is that the recordings are able to be quantised (put perfectly in time). Another advantage of using this technique to record midi instruments is that is has a large selection of sounds such as strings, brass or multiple alternatives. A disadvantage of recording via a midi keyboard is that it strays from achieving authentic acoustic sounds which can only be achieved when doing live recording. During this project we were also required to record vocals for our clients. The majority of the time we would record the instruments first and then bring in the singers at a later stage to record the vocals on their own. We used a dynamic microphone to record the vocals which was positioned around 8 inches from the singers mouth with a pop shield in-between. The pop shield is used to reduce the noise that is created when a singer sings a word beginning with the letter, P. After recording the vocals we would add effects such as reverb and melodyne. Melodyne is used to correct wrong notes and make small adjustments to the vocals to ensure each note is correct. An advantage of recording the vocals after the instruments as oppose to recording them at the same time, it means that if the vocalist makes a mistake the recording of the musicians does not have to be stopped and restarted again. In conclusion on this project I feel we have successfully learnt how to set up microphones for recordings of multiple different instruments, and this is useful for each of our clients to create their best music.