Production week day 1- Recording live musicians at Goldsmiths university, London,UK.

As mentioned and announced a few weeks ago, I am producing an album for Alex Jeffrey; A talented sensitive singer songwriter from London, UK. It is a collaboration project as part of our MA course at Goldsmiths university.

The project will be finished by August 24th 2011 and will be released around Fall 2011.  This past week was dedicated to recording some wonderful musicians. The story of the production will be told over the course of this summer before the album is released and reviewed.

Day 1 – Monday July 25th 2011

Recording Janie Carter on Piano

Dedicated to setting up the studio and getting ready to record the basic piano tracks with professional classical pianist Jenny Carter.
I used a couple of vintage Neumann U87’s that were available at the EMS at Goldsmiths and placed them in a rather unconventional pattern; At the centre of the piano facing opposite directions. This was suggested to me by Ian Stonehouse (Head of the electronic music studios at Goldsmiths) and it worked great.

I got a full rich sound from the piano and the division between the Low/High end was not so distinct, which I liked. Jenny recorded three songs for the project. “My name is Jesus” and “Gently Gently” without a click track. I had Alex sing the guide vocal in the control room so Jenny would get the feel of the song but still keep it alive and not too rigid. The last song “Monday Morning” was recorded with a ready made guide track. It is honestly quite simple for a pianist on Jenny’s level to play there songs and it gave us the opportunity to focus on performance rather than just getting the right take. That’s what I love about session musicians. Audio examples will follow on the next post.