Studios
Duncan Studios
Description: set up as the home studio of Gareth Duncan, this was initially where all the Sell Crazy tracks were recorded. Now with Mike Livesley's studio up and running we tend to split the recording duties across both sites, although most of the final mixing is still done here.
Example Tracks: Hope You're Okay Wrath Of God.
Livesley Studios
Description: more recently concieved, Mike Livesley's home studio has been the venue of all the live band recordings. With two studios it allows us greater flexibility of where we can record and pooling of equipment has allowed us to be more adventurous with what we try.
Example Tracks: It Don't Feel Wrong Half A Stone.
Duncan Studios
Welcome to the Duncan Studios. We have hot and cold running water and a selection of beverages for your enjoyment...
Most of the songs that are recorded at Clare Road are done with a similar setup. If we don't have a recording of live drum track then Toontracks's DFH Superior drum sampler is used to lay down a rhythm in Cakewalk Sonar 3, running on an Athlon 2000+ based PC. Occasionally a Roland SPD-6 percussion pad is used to enter the beats but mostly it is done via the piano roll.
Next up comes the Fender Precision Bass which is usually recorded clean through a Johnson J-Station effects processor which connects, via a digital connection, to an M-Audio Delta Audiophile soundcard.
The guitar sound is provided by a Squier Vista series Jagmaster driving a 60W Marshall TSL601 amp. When recording the TSL601, the output of two microphones, a close Sennheiser Evolution e845 and a further away Rode NT5, are combined. The microphones are connected to a Behringer Eurorack MX802A mixer which connects into the analogue I/O of the Audiophile soundcard via the tape loop. Headphone monitoring is provided by Beyerdynamics DT250 headphones connected to the mixer.
Over the top of that basic track the vocals are recorded using a second NT5 connected to the mixer. Finally any piano is provided by Muon Software's free DS404 sampler plugin controlled using an Evolution MK-261 keyboard via a midi connection.
When mixing the track the digital output of the soundcard feeds a pair of Event TR8 monitors via an M-Audio Flying Cow A/D converter. The Waves Musicians II bundle provides the plugins for EQ and compression and a number of free plugins are also used.
Occasionally, for live recordings, an HP IPAQ H2210 with a Core Sound PDAudio-CF digital audio interface is used. Connecting to the PDAudio-CF is an M-Audio Duo soundcard into which the two matched NT5s are plugged. All the recording is done to a 1GB SD card.
For backing up, an older PC running Linux serves as a file server and internet gateway.
Livesley Studios
The live band recordings done at Livesley Studios utilise pretty much every bit of equipment available to us. The recordings are all done in one room and so spill between microphones is a fact of life.
Everything is recorded onto an AMD64 based PC running Cakewalk Sonar 3 via an Edirol UA1000, which connects to the PC using USB. The Edirol provides four microphone preamps, two of which are also Hi-Z inputs for DIing instruments, and four line inputs. To allow us to use sufficient microphones we connect two Behringer mixers, a Eurorack MX802A and MX602A, to the I/O of the Edirol using the mixer tape loops. The mixers also provide us with headphone monitoring using Philips SBC HP250 and Beyerdynamics DT250 headphones. A third set of Philips headphones is run direct from the Edirol headphone out.
The drum kit is recorded using four microphones. A Stagg DM-5010 microphone inside the kick drum, a Shure SM57 on the bottom of the snare and two Rode NT5s recording a stereo image of the whole kit. The NT5s and SM57 are connected to the Ediriol microphone preamps whilst the Stagg microphone is connected to the MX602A mixer along with a Shure SM58, which is used to record guide backing vocals. The Squier Jazz Bass is DIed into the final Ediriol preamp input.
Finally the MX802A inputs where connected to a Sennheiser Evolution e845 recording a guide vocal track and an AKG C3000B recording a Marshall 6100 LM 100 Watt Valve Head. Playing through the Marshall amp was a Fender '72 Telecaster Deluxe guitar.
After recording the band with guide vocals we overdub a new set of vocals recorded mainly using the NT5s but sometimes with the C3000B.
Last updated 22/10/2006. © Sell Crazy.