This session had a very interesting setup. I was excited about it from the moment that the band proposed the idea to me as one of the main things that I love about production work is the many different challenges that it presents. Any given project is essentially just a series of problem solving until completion.
The main challenge with this project was the fact that it was outdoors, this by itself presents many issues, I’ll break it down into the three main ones:
Getting power to the amps/audio equipment.
Plugging the microphones/headphone boxes into the interface.
Potential noise complaints.
With these issues being present from the get-go, this was always going to be an interesting shoot.
A BTS shot taken during one of the takes of the session. (Photo by Jack Dutton)
Getting Power to the Amps/Audio Equipment
The first thing to think about before all else was how to get power to the amps and headphone boxes, as without this, there would be no sound to actually record, and no way for the band to monitor themselves while playing.
There were two ways to go about this in this situation. The first would be to get our hands on a generator and power everything with that, but we opted to go for the second, which was to choose a location that was near to our studio space, solving half of the power issue. Luckily, the space outside suited the raw aesthetic that we wanted for the session anyway. The other half of the issue was how to get the power from inside the studio (to the right on the above image) to the carpark outside. We opted to simply use a long extension cable, as this was the fastest option and wouldn’t be carrying too much charge (only powering two amps and headphone boxes, not the computer and audio equipment inside the studio). Being as fast as possible was essential to avoid noise complaints as I will talk more about later.
Before/After colour grade from the session.
2. Plugging the microphones/headphone boxes into the interface.
As the interface was set up inside the studio control room, it was the furthest thing away from the microphones. To solve this, we used a stage box with a long snake that reached out of the studio door, behind the caravan and van pictured above and it came out just behind the drum kit.
We also ran into another issue opting to use this method. The longest stage box that we had available was an old 16-input box, which unfortunately had a few broken inputs. This left us with 9 inputs altogether. More inputs would have been great for the mix/safety ideally but this wasn’t essential. This was the best method for this situation as it was a compromise between speed and quality.
The control room in the studio used for all of my audio projects.
3. Potential Noise Complaints
The third main issue was the potential for noise complaints, as the whole project could have been shut down by people in the surrounding area. No complaints were made in the end (surprisingly). Everyone keeping this issue in mind was essential to everything going as planned. We limited ourselves to 15 minutes of noise, which equaled to four takes of the track in the end. The guys in Layover were well rehearsed and killed it in every take which was also crucial to success of the session.
Summary
After a couple of small problems in setting up and hoping for no complaints, the session went as planned and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! Go and check out Layover and show them some support.