Mufaro: Vocal Session #2

This past Monday Night, Mufaro and his producer Lachlan came into the Neve studio to finish off some vocal takes, Callum was not present this session due to restricted booking times. The session was created to finish off the lead and backing vocals to his songs Don't Come Back and This Must Be Love. We managed to achieve both vocal takes but not without multiple hick-ups throughout the session, to avoid rambling on about how we tracked each section of both songs, I am going to focus on a few things in detail that happened, both positive and negative.

The Impossible Vocal Line

What Happened?

On the track, Don't Come Back, Mufaro sings that exact line, though he found it nearly impossible to sing without singing it too flat or inconsistent. This caused him to start to get annoyed and visibly agitated, this had been the reason this song wasn't recorded or released on his last project.

How did it Happen?

It came down to his own vocal ability to sing the line and obviously the writing of the song. But to dive a bit deeper, I think It could have had something to do with the environment he was in and my sudden lack of confidence on the topic. I found that when this difficult situation had arose, I was a bit shook in my place as he looked to me for a way to record the session or go about recording it. I had felt that he was ultimately in charge as I didn't know what we would rather sing to; Backing vocals first to sing lead over or vice versa. I feel that my lack of confidence had shined through and might have made him feel a bit less confident while in the studio.

What was the Solution?

We finally were able to get the vocal take he wanted, but upon review he felt that all of the lines were off or not good enough for recording. We settled on putting myself in charge of fixing this in the post production, through chopping the takes up, timing them correctly and doing some vocal processing through melodyne.

Reflection:

Though in the end we reached the right position we needed to be in to finish the recording process, it still isn't the result we had been hoping for with this session. Though The Must Be Love ended the session on an incredible high note with a great performance, I found that it wasn't as amazing as it could have been due to previous hick up. Noticing that my lack of confidence causes Mufaro's to then drop is something I am very happy to learn while at university. The idea of having a client become concerned and loose hope in their own work due to my lack of knowledge is something that I don't want to encounter while in the work force. In this session I am very proud of my ability to realise this and take a break, this allowed everyone to get level headed and ready to finish the session on a strong note.

So, If you find yourself in a tough situation and tension is in the air, Take A Break!

The Right Sonic Decision

What Happened?

We used two different microphones on both track for Mufaro to allow each vocal take to have either a warm or bright vocal quality. This was done through the VE RE20 and the Neumann U87

How did it Happen?

When grabbing the gear for the vocal session I felt that I should grab both the VE RE20 and the Neumann U87 just to be sure we can get the right microphone for each performance. What this resulted in was having the ability to create a dynamic shift in Mufaro's voice when mid song he could track a verse in a different microphone.

What was the Solution?

Mufaro was hoping to track his third verse of Don't Come Back in a way that would allow him to sound "different" to the chorus, thus, we used the RE20 for the verse, and the U87 for the rest. We also ended up tracking the backing vocals on the RE20 to give it a unique feeling to the track, using the microphones to give different saturation and compression to his voice.

Reflection:

Though this was something subtle, It ended up giving the vocals that clear distinction between vocal takes, especially when Mufaro was able to create a unique voice in his tone. This was something that greatly improved the vocal take that we gained on This Must Be Love, though it was more heavily used on Don't Come Back. I felt like this small attention to detail is what being a producer or engineer is all about, even though it is so minute and really nothing overly special, its the ability to know what would work an how to achieve a desired effect. This past session explored both positive and negative aspects of my work as a producer, being able to coach Mufaro and know what to use to harness his ability but also shined through a lack of knowledge I didn't know that I had. Something for me to take away from this is to be prepared and have a plan to achieve everything you need to, maybe not as extreme as a Pre-Production Plan for every studio session, but maybe just the knowledge to know how to tackle something.. Or even the ability to keep calm and collected to allow the artist more self confidence.

Summary:

Although this blog and its contents might be small, it is a good representative of the session. We did not encounter major set backs or technical difficulty, the session went quite straight forward with only a couple hick-ups. I feel as though explain to you, my audience on how I went through recording each take into a playlist then selecting the best one would be quite boring and not represent how the session went. All in all, I learnt a lot about my own position as an engineer and producer, as well as my ability for recording and aesthetic choices.

Thanks for Reading!

#neve #Mufaro #ProTools #Session #Reflection