Wednesday, June 1, 2011

A Long Day

A few days ago we recorded a version of the Nomeansno song "Long Days".  Here's a little photo journal of the process:

Recording guitars and bass in the live room. Hacked Traynor cabinet with a 12" up top powered by a Traynor YBA-1, and a 15" on the bottom powered by a GK 400RB. Heil PR40 for bass and an older ShinyBox 46 for guitar. An Oktava MK219 (further back in the room) was also used on guitar.

The studio is wired to allow you to play guitar from the control room with your amps and cabinets in the live room. I take my pedal board into the control room with me so I can tweak on the fly.


The Oktava MK219 was used for guitar and the main vocal track, but it started making some squelching noises later in the day. Here it is on the workbench with the body apart. The XLR connector was loose, no other obvious damage. I've been thinking about sending it to OktavaMod for an upgrade anyway so perhaps now is the time.




The Sony / MCI JH-24 2" tape machine. This is a 24 track machine, but I put the 16 track heads on it. Sounds much better and I like the limitations of 16 tracks. ATR Magnetics tape, 15ips at 500 nwb/m, IEC eq. The electronics drawers are open because it appears a mouse has been hanging out inside recently and I'm about to vacuum it out.
A view of the MCI electronics. This is where you make all the alignment adjustments.

The Toft ATB16 console just after the final mix. Jawbone Jambox up top courtesy of our old pal Chris McKillop, who had a hand in designing it. Very useful for checking mix balances.
The track sheet for Long Days. The drum mic was indeed messed up on track three, so we just used the kick mic and the left side of the Jecklin Disc pair, making the drums mono in the final mix. I actually prefer mono drums in many cases, but the Jecklin Disc pair did sound great until the mic started acting funny.
The final mix on the ATR-102. ATR Magnetics tape, 30ips at 355 nwb/m, AES eq.



And here's the track: