Multitrack For

Ben Howard I Forget Where We Were

For my Multitrack Recording I have chosen Ben Howard - I Forget Where We Were the song is in 113 BPM and has fourteen Audio Tracks and one MIDI Software Instrument Track. All Instruments and Vocals were played by Fraser Powell and Backing Vocals from myself. The Software used to Mix was Logic Pro X.

Mixed and Recorded by Jack Grimwood in

Studio 1

The Guitars where recorded with DI through the Focusrite ISA 1. The Guitar used was a Fender American Stratocaster. It was tuned to DACGGC using the Logic Tuner Plug In

The Bass Guitar was recorded through a Line 6 KB37, the Bass Guitar used was Fender American Jazz. It was tuned to DACG using the Logic Tuner Plug In.

The Drums were recorded with 4 Dynamic Mics and 2 Condensers. The Kit consisted of A Bass Drum, Snare, Rack Tom, Floor Tom, Hi-Hat, Two Crash Cymbals and a China. For the Bass drum a Audix F6 was used. The SM57 was used for the Top Snare, and the SM58 for Bottom Snare. The Rack Tom and Floor Toms were recorded with two Audix F2. Using Two Audix F9 Pencil Condensers in a spaced pair position. Studio Resonance Rings where used for The Snare, Rack Tom and Floor Tom. The Inputs Panel used was 1-8 and The Inputs were routed too : Input 1 - Bass Drum Input 2 - Top Snare Input 3 - Bottom Snare Input 4 - Rack Tom Input 5 - Floor Tom Phantom Power Switch from 5-8 was used to power, Input 6 - Left Overhead Input 7 - Right Overhead

Once the drums were recorded Overheads were panned -35 for Left and +35 for Right. The Bottom Snare was then inverted in Gain Plug in, this stops the Top Snare from being canceled out due sharing the same frequencies. The full snare recording was then panned to +15 and the Rack Tom and Floor Tom to -20 and -40.

In the mix I used EQ to help balance where each track would stand. You can do this by finding the frequency of the instruments using Analyser on the EQ this will show you readings of frequencies you can then boost signals in areas but then on a decrease somewhere else to bring it back to 0.0 dB. It is almost like a Jigsaw as different place in the EQ.

The Mix

I also used a Compressor for to reduce the dynamic range of the signal and then gives you the chance to increase the master volume of the entire signal. This will stop any peaking on that track. A Compressor was put on a Bus for all the drums to treat them as one.

Similar to the compressor I used the Adaptive Limiter on the Output this allowed me to stop the overall mix from peaking over 0.0db and popping or distorting.

The Vocals and Backing Vocals were both sent to a Bus and through this reverb was added. Adding effects through a Bus means you can create the effect which is Reverb in this case then control how much of that Plug in you need using the bus dial.

All photos of Studio 1 taken on a Canon 1000D Camera.

All work by Jack Grimwood.