Recording "Blue Judy" with Ensemble

by Roger Robindore

Like every other engineer I know, I've always wanted to have my own studio where I had everything I needed to make a great record. Back when I started as an engineer, the only way to get "record quality" results was to work in a large recording studio (or inherit a fortune). But with the digital audio revolution, my hardware requirements have been getting smaller and smaller by the year. After this session, I can definitely say that with an Ensemble, a few good mics and maybe a great compressor I'm ready to make a record!

We chose the Los Angeles based band Blue Judy to make our recording. First, we recorded a scratch guitar and vocal. It was Sunday morning and we were all a bit sleepy. I connected the Ensemble to a laptop and was able to record these tracks on the couch.

Recording Drums

The first "keeper" instrument we recorded was drums. Here's a list of the mics I chose, all pretty standard choices:

bass drum - Shure SM 52
snare - Shure SM 57
toms - Sennheiser 421
overheads - Neumann KM84s
room mics - Neumann KM86s

Keeping in mind I had a total of 8 inputs, I debated whether I should use a hi-hat mic and a mono room mic, or stereo room mics and no hi-hat. After speaking with Brian about his part, in which he played lots of toms but not much hat, I went with stereo room mics. In the end, the hi-hat came through just fine, and the stereo room definitely made a difference.

The four close mics were routed through the API mic pres, while the two overheads and two room mics were routed through the Ensemble mic pres. The bass drum signal was routed through an API 550A EQ before being routed to Ensemble's channel 5 line input. To be honest, I insisted on including 2 API equalizers in the rack, thinking that this would be the bare minimum for getting a drum sound that I could be happy with. But when I pushed up the (virtual) faders, i realized that EQ would be hardly necessary. In the end, I did just a bit of kick drum shaping (+1 at 60hz and +2 at somewhere between 2 and 4k, (I don't remember), but otherwise there was absolutely no EQ during recording. Even during mixing, drum processing consisted of minor EQ tweaks on the close mics and a light general EQ. I also added some compression to the stereo drum bus with Logic's Compressor set to VCA. One feature I like about Logic's compressors is the ability to mix processed and unprocessed signals right in the plug-in; click the disclosure triangle in the bottom left hand corner of the plug-in and set Output Mix to balance the compressed drums with the uncompressed drums. With this control, you can get fast-attack thwack and transients at the same time!

Download aif file (24bit/44.1kHz):

Drums: Stereo bounce

Recording Bass

Bass was next, and the recording couldn't have been simpler. Cable from bass to Ensemble Instrument input, Empirical Labs Distressor connected to the insert, record to Logic. Chris (Apogee's videographer and a fine audio engineer in his own right) suggested that I try a Distortion setting on the Distressor, and indeed it helped add some midrange presence to the pure bass tone coming from Luke's Fender Mustang bass.

Download aif file (24bit/44.1kHz):

Bass

Recording Guitars

Next we recorded Gustavo and Matt's electric guitars. For electrics, I like to combine a ribbon and dynamic mic to get a sound, but I prefer to mix the two mics in tracking and not postpone the decision until mixing. Because I didn't have a mixer on hand, I took advantage of Ensemble's internal low latency mixer to blend the two mics and record the mix onto one track in Logic. This is a feature that most Ensemble users don't know about - on Maestro's Input routing pane, there are two columns labeled Mixer A In and Mixer B In. Since Mixer A is typically used for low latency mixer I used Mixer B, set up the desired mix of inputs on Mixer B, and set To Hardware to an unused output (I used out 3/4). On the Input pane, I assigned a software input to the Mixer B In I used.
Sure, I could have recorded each mic on its own track, but I think the workflow advantages of deciding on a sound while you're tracking far outweigh the advantage of re-mixing the two mics later.

Gustavo used a Vox AC-30, while Matt used his collection of heads and cabinets to create a different sound for each part. I used an SM-57 plus a Royer R-121, placing the 121 right on the center "dust cover" and the 57 right next to it. I make sure to align the capsules of the two mics. The mics were connected straight to Ensemble's mic inputs, no EQ or compression inserted. For each part, I'd change the balance of the mics to best capture the part, mixing the mics to one track.

Download aif file (24bit/44.1kHz):

Guitars: Stereo bounce

Recording Vocals

Finally we recorded Gustavo's vocals. We used a Neumann U67 through Ensemble's mic pre, with a Urei 1176 connected to Ensemble's analog insert. No EQ, of course, during the recording, and only a high pass filter was added during mixing.

Download aif file (24bit/44.1kHz):

Vocals: Stereo bounce

Mixing the Song

Mixing was really quite easy, because the sounds from the tracking session were so good. I connected my Duet to an Intel Core Duo Mac Book Pro and added the finishing touches to the mix from the comfort of my couch. Funny, that's were the session started...