Recording binaural soundscapes in the studio for Wrong's album Liber AL vel Legis

in #music2 years ago (edited)
Authored by @alex-rourke

gm #music lovers, music makers, mixers and recorders!

We are done recording instruments for @wrongband 's album Liber AL vel Legis and we're down to recording the final details. Today, we are recording some instruments and voices with Gin, a sound therapist.

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source


First order of business is the welcome ceremony. The welcome committee came out to say hi to the boys:

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It's Gin's first time in the studio, so she was a little bit nervous and giggly at the beginning. So we took a few minutes to learn about the instruments we were about to record and talk about sound healing. We've found that this step is incredibly important in the studio to help the artists relax and get the best performance from them.

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Some of the instruments she brought included an oceanic drum, a spirit rattle (or shaker), some koshi chimes
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And some swinging chimes we were able to hang from a photographic backdrop structure
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Our very expensive Neumann KU binaural dummy head doesn't exist right now...
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Photo by EJ Posselius: source

...So we made due with two stereo paired microphones (Neumann TLM 103 condensers) and a gobo in the middle to simulate a head. We placed a baseball cap on the gobo to help the band visualize a human being in front of the instruments.
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After the photo session, We all stepped out of the recording booth to let Gin do her thing.

She was fantastic!

First she played all the instruments in front of our listener. Sometimes moving about while she played a rattle, drum or chime. Even with small movements you could feel her walking around the space.

The transition from the first track to the second has the listener lost at sea in a storm, so After the instruments, she recorded some magical siren voices to layer on top.
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The binaural effect is best appreciated using headphones, So I gave everybody a set of headphones so they could fully experience the effect.

These are the faces of awe:

Mono
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Claudio
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Pepe
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Another soundscape we are recording today, is a sort of coven with a fire crackling in the middle and some drums and chanting happening.

If you can imagine something like this:

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Art by Borja Pindado; source

We left the microphones exactly as they were, again, to simulate the ritual being performed around a spectator, and the boys went to work with the drumming and the chanting.

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We had tons of fun in today's session, and will share updates on the mixing as soon as we get a chance.

Stay awesome everybody!

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