As you may have noticed, there's a new song on the playlist entitled "Sleep", by the local band Skylight Square. I'd like to thank Josh, Em, Phil & Kris for their effort and enthusiasm during the recording process, and hope that they're enjoying the resulting track! Checkout their MySpace for details of their upcoming studio/live "Sleep" single and supporting video...

This is the first of (hopefully!) many songs to be recorded for an upcoming local talent project backed by Signhills Junior School... watch this space!

Recording



Recording of all the raw material took place in a single location session, using BLS's mobile recording rig. The tracking involved capturing Em's drums first, followed by DI'ing Kris's bass guitar line. Once these were in place, Phil laid down the rhythm guitar parts before Josh provided his lead fills and solo. Finally, Phil's lead and backing vocal tracks were overdubbed. This gave a total of 24 individual tracks that were taken back to BLS for editing, mixing and mastering.

Editing, Mixing & Mastering



With the tracks back in the studio and uploaded to the computers, I cleaned up all the unnecessary noise and unwanted material before EQ'ing and levelling of parts to create a basic mix. Mixing notes for some of the elements included:

Drums were mixed using SSL channel strips (UAD 4K), with a parallel compression buss to provide a thicker texture. The snare drum was augmented with a sample (triggered from the source track) and an additional, slightly distorted duplicate track.

Bass guitar was re-amped in the studio by passing the original DI track through a Universal Audio 6176 preamp/compressor, with a duplicate track sent to a Sansamp PSA-1 analog preamp to add a bit of 'grit'.

Electric guitars were double-mic'ed (SM7b and Soundelux U195 mics on Marshall amps) to provide a blend of tones. All parts were EQ'ed using UAD Neve plug-ins and treated with VSS3 reverbs. Josh's lead guitar tracks were further sent to a UAD Roland RE-201 Space Echo to create a deep and lush delay.

Vocals were treated with multiple LA-2A and LA-3A compression/limiting and Neve 1081 EQ (UAD), effected with VSS3 reverb and a 'Cooper Time Cube' echo.

Mixing was done in multiple stems from the computer through a pair of Folcrom analogue summing units and finally via a stereo mix-buss comprised of Avedis MA5 preamps, E27 EQ and Drawmer 1968 Mercenary Edition compression. Once the mix was in place, the stereo version was recorded onto the mastering computer and treated to a final touch of SSL Buss Compression and Precision Limiting (UAD) before being authored to a finished Audio CD master.

All the best to Skylight Square; it'd be great to work with you again in the future, and thanks to all for reading/listening :-)

Cheers,
Rich