Recording Boot Camp – Day 3

Day 3 is already upon us here at Ronan Chris Murphy’s Recording Boot Camp.

Today we began to look at potential ways to record vocalists.

“How do we record in a way that gets an exciting and interesting performance?” – Ronan Chris Murphy

Fun gets recorded

If there was any doubt I was awake this morning there wasn’t after Ronan Chris Murphy’s vocal performance which would have easily given David Lee Roth a run for his money. We were blessed with front row tickets.

Demonstrating with two mics, Ronan busted a myth I’ve held for decades about how vocals can be recorded. It appears most of the great albums and artists are recorded this way. If it’s good enough for Metallica and U2 it’s likely to be good enough for us DIY musicians.

It’s all about the performance

The punches just kept coming today. The day was full of energy.

A huge, that’s HUGE, insight for me today was that recording production is as much as about the mood and environment of the recording as it is to with the technical aspects.

Demonstrating and explaining, in great depth, ways to work with vocalists, Ronan Chris Murphy provided us with an Italians gelato helping of tricks and techniques we can use as recording engineers to get a great performance from almost any vocalist.

It became clear that one of Ronan’s great many skills as an engineer and producer is his ability to coach. It’s given me a lot to think about.

Coaching vocalists, working on their performance and understanding how to deal with really bad ones, is possibly one of the most important aspects to creating break-through recordings.

Selecting the right microphone

Moving on from the psychological aspects of getting a great recording we began to look at the technical side of matters going in to some detail of the characteristics of condenser, dynamic and ribbon microphones.

We also learned about the dangers of phase problems using vocal booths. We learned about a technique which helps us to select and choose exactly the right mic for any given vocalist and the importance of the difference in characteristics of each type of microphone.

“The human ear is so particular to human voices..” – Ronan Chris Murphy

We discussed phantom power, tube microphones and microphone pre-amps before going into some detail about how Ronan uses a trick called double-blind testing to decide which mics are best to use in any given recording situation.

We explored the differences between R.M.S. and peak signals and a technique Ronan calls audio judo to get a better performance from a microphone. We ended the day beginning to look at how to record great drums. More of that tomorrow.

One of my greatest insights today was how Ronan, and I’m now guessing most great producers, know the rules but, more importantly, know how to break them.

Recording Boot Camp – Day 2
Recording Boot Camp – Day 1
Recording Boot Camp – Introduction
Recording Boot Camp
Abnegat Studios
Ronan Chris Murphy

Photo Credit: © Agenda Red