Here's what they had to say about the gig:
Recording live shows has an added edge to it because you can't afford to have anything go wrong during the record. There are no re-takes or punch-ins. You are also in an environment that can lend itself to surprises! For example, feeback in the house sound would mean you have feedback in your recording as well. In this case, we were recording a full band all standing within a few feet of each other, so mic placement was very important to reduce bleed from other instruments as much as possible. This record went very smoothly, and I think everyone had a lot of fun and worked really well together. -- Hunter Levy, TRAC alum and Studio West Intern Program Manager
For this live record we utilized a nice selection of mics from Studio West, including SM81s for cymbals, SM57s for snare and congas, a spaced pair of AKG 414s as drums/percussion overheads, a couple of KMS 105s as audience mics, a Sennheiser 421 for the bass and a SM58 for the vocals. We also utilized a couple of JDIs for the acoustic guitars and a Countryman DI to get a clean signal from the bass. All the microphones were plugged into a splitter, which sent the mic signal both to the live mixer and to Pro Tools. The live performance was recorded through a couple of Digi pres into a Pro Tools HD9 system. The Pro Tools HD rig (Digi pres, 192, Mac Pro, Headphone amp, etc.) was set up at one of the corners of the stage, behind black curtains that separated it from the backstage area, and was only illuminated by the computer screen and one blue lamp, so we dubbed this area "The Blue Room". After setting everything up and doing the mic and sound check we were able to press "record" and enjoy Johannes' amazing show. I was really impressed with the group's ability to tell the stories of the places they'd traveled through their music, making us feel like we were actually in those places as they were playing. All the band members were very nice to us and seemed pretty happy with the gig, not only because of the enthusiastic audience response but because of the sound quality, which made us proud of a job well done. It was a really enjoyable experience for me as a live music enthusiast and as an aspiring Recording Engineer! -- Henrique Landim, TRAC alum and current Studio West intern
I really enjoy live sound so it was a great experience to set up for the show as well as record it. The musicians were all very easy going and extremely talented so it was great working with them. Johannes was also kind enough to give each of us a signed copy of his CD. -- Joel De Witt, TRAC alum and current Studio West intern
Posts
