Lucynine piano session and other news!

A-B miking with Sennheiser MD441

Hi everybody, sorry for the long break, here again with juicy news.

First of all I quickly recorded a short 5-pieces Piano Solo EP you can listen to and/or purchase for 3€ right here: http://molen.bandcamp.com/album/aftermath-flood

But maybe the biggest news (and I'm proud to announce it) is that I started working on the next Lucynine release!!!

It will be extremely different from "Chronicles from Leri". A radical change of direction both for what concerns the sound and the approach in the realization. This mainly because this time I'm using exclusively acoustic and analogue instruments and effects. Only tracking and mixing will be done in digital, but no virtual or digital instrument will be used to produce any sound.

Blackboard as an acoustic screen

Now I'm going to give you some technical info about the tracking of the piano for the song I'm working on these days.

This song was born in a weird way. I wrote the lyrics before the music. Then I recorded a quick prepro, using a virtual rhodes to write down the harmonic structure and the internal microphone of my MacBook Pro for a vocal line. After a few days I had decided I loved that song so much that I recorded a definitive vocal line (yes...before having... "the song"! I sung on the fake rhodes track).
I let some friends of mine listen to the result and they all said, without talking each other, "Hey, this could be perfect with a real piano, voice and nothing more!". Well... I immediately thought it was not supposed to be a ballad: I needed to record all the instruments, to write down a complex arrangement, etc. But. Why not? So I presume this song will be released in two different versions: the "rock" one and the "piano" one.

Close to the hammers!

I'm next to complete the "piano" version right now. You'll also hear a strange electric bass line. Anyway, two days ago I recorded the piano part at the Cuneo Conservatory of Music. I played on a pretty good Kawai mezzacoda. I used a couple of Sennheiser MD441 really close to the hammers in A-B configuration (I love that "woody" sound). I also used a matched pair of Schoeps mikes (Colette series with cardioid capsules) in a large ORTF configuration to capture the room. They were placed about 3 metres far from the piano, 1mt by the floor, pointing to the piano. Well, a bit lower because there was a noisy neon lamp on the roof and I tried to avoid capturing it. This is the reason why I also used the blackboard you can see in the photos as a screen for the close mikes. It worked. I used a RME Fireface 800 as A/D converter and my KRK headphones as monitoring system. Klotz cables.

Take a look to the photos, if you like. I'll keep you updated.

Enjoy!

Tips to warm up the digital sound - PT1

Ok mates, this is for guys (like me, sadly) who play guitars and basses through software emulators or try to recreate the real sound of analog or acoustic instruments like drums, Fender Rhodes, Hammond, analog synths, etc. using virtual instruments.
Today I did a little experiment with a loop played by me and composed of drums (played and programmed on a sampler), bass and guitar (played through virtual emulator) and a wurli (played on a virtual instrument).

This is the mixdown with only software plugins/emulators:
Vintage Loop - DIGITAL

The experiment is to try to give a kind of "analog spice" to the digital sound. I decided to work on drums and guitar.

First of all, let's give a real room ambience to the drums. So I recorded my own room ambience with a stereo couple of microphones (Se4 by Se Electronics) put in ORTF mode, while playing the drums track through my VXT8 (bypassing the subwoofer). The pre-amp (Audient ASP008) is set with a hi-pass filter on 250hz to avoid bass frequencies resonances.

Afterwards I passed this track through my TL Audio A2 with maximum compression and tube stage set next to the peak limit.
This new track is to be kept at very low volume.

Later on I worked on guitars.
I put a microphone (an Se4 again) off-axis against the woofer of one of my two Equator D5. I chose this monitor because of the coaxial tweeter, to avoid phase problems.

As I did for the drums track, I passed the signal again in the A2 using the tube to get a real tube harmonic distortion.

The new mixdown is here below.
Vintage Loop - ANALOG

Obviously it's not a macroscopic difference, but this kind of processing can provide great results if used with taste and courage.

Good evening, mates.