Groomlake is a local rock band from Las Vegas, NV. They were real excited about coming into the studio to do their upcoming EP. We had planned two full band songs and two acoustic songs in 2 days with 8 hour sessions. We started with drums which included a kick drum, a snare, one tom and one floor tom and a ride, a crash and a hi-hat. The microphones I used were RE20 for the kick drum, SM57 and MD421 for the snare, another MD421 for the tom and a samson Q for the floor tom. I also had the SM81 matched pair for the overheads and the AKG 414 for the room mics. The drummer came prepared so we recorded only to click track with barely any mistakes. He knew his songs top to bottom and performed them to the best of his ability. Everything was tracked to separate channels on the SSL Duality Console into Pro Tools. 

 

Once drums were done and edited we moved on to bass. We connected the signal directly to the Avalon U5 DI to the SSL Duality to Pro Tools. The final instrument was the guitar. It was a Gibson guitar connected to the EVH head amplifier into the Orange cab. The microphones we used on the cab were an AKG 414, the Neumann u87 for experimentation and the SM57. It turned out that the best choice in the mix was the SM57 with a bit of the AKG 414. The guitarist had a complete pedal board so he controlled all of his effect, we captured them directly form the mic. The guitar was also went directly to the SSL but it didn't make it to the final mix.

 

The mix went by smoothly, the snare just got a bit of EQ for more of a transient sound and very slight reverb on the high end. The bass was fine and groovy and perfect for their sound, no treatment there. On the guitar, everything was doubled tracked. Panning was interesting to make the mix sound fuller and not just with one lonely guitar on the side. Mastering gave very slight change in dynamics to the song to give it more punch.