- “Play Audio” – listen to the first full live track recorded by The Elyan Fernova Blues Quartet titled “Cleopatra”
Smokestack Studios Gembrook has completed its first official live recording session with a full blues/rock band, “The Elyan Fernova Blues Quartet”. The band plays covers of blues/rock tracks from artists like Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Gary Moore, Stevie Ray Vaughan – check out the rest of the session tracks on our Soundcloud Channel.
The band recorded 6 tracks, engineered using the studio’s ProTools 11 set up, RME Interface and Octamic II. After a few attempts at recording live with standard microphones and varying degrees of success, it was decided to port the kick-drum skin and place a Sennheiser drum mic inside. We also used a Sennheiser snare mic on a piccolo snare and two XY pattern Rhode overhead drum mics, all of which created a much better result. The vocals were recorded using a Shure SM7B vocal mic and bass guitar was DI’d straight to the RME pre. Everything you hear on this song, and in all the other songs on our Soundcloud Channel, were recorded together, live, in the one room at the same time. The only overdub on these recordings were backing vocals and nothing else. Just a basic mix and compression.
While our multi-track recordings are of broadcast quality, live recordings such as this one can be tricky to engineer to a flawless finish. We’re constantly updating equipment and finding ways to improve the sound quality on live recordings – the mic techniques used in this recording are just one example of recent changes that have made a big difference. We’ll continue to work on these challenges in search of even more awesome sound.
Read what Pete, Elyan and Mal had to say about their rehearsal and recording experience at Smokestack Studios Gembrook