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!

A day with Monya Russo

Hi everybody,
today I had the privilege to have with me in my studio one of the best singers I've ever worked with, Monya Russo.

She's really young but has an impressive talent and ...curriculum! Try to search on Google and you'll agree. ;-)

She came to Molen to record all the vocal tracks for her next single. 68 voice tracks (main voices and tons of backing vocals) in 4 hrs, with no pauses, without ever appearing unfocused or tired. She came with her sister Selena, who's also her manager.

One of the things that impressed me most is her (very rare) ability to emit the so-called "acuti di fischio", extremely high-pitched notes that sound very similar to a whistle but are produced with the vocal cords and not, in fact, whistling.

I made a short video with her explaining a few notes about it.

 
Looking forward to working soon again with her!

With her sister Selena..

With me.