Cirse Bi-polar Recording Process, sharing some recording experiences.
Gabriel Leopardi
Dec 19 2007, 03:27 PM
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Hi!! I don't know if everybody noticed me and my band Cirse have realised our fisrt album called Bi-polar!!

CIRSE BI-POLAR

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I would like to tell you about the recording process of our debut album to share with you some knowledge and experience in recording an album. I know that it's a bit long but I wanted to tell you all the details to help you with your own projects. smile.gif Let me know if you have any question about it.


The idea of this album started 4 years ago, when Luciana and I began to compose the first songs. Our composing process was done recording demos using Sonar software in my small home studio. When we had many songs that we liked it we started the musicians search. The bass player has been easy to find because he is my brother Ziva Leopardi who is a great bass player that have been playing in some local rock bands and also in metal projects with me. Then we had three drummers until we find Luisao Fernandez, the one that we finally choose. Luciana and I gave them the songs demo and they started to arrange the songs. At that moment we started the rehearsals and later we did some local shows.
A local producer’s friend came to one of our shows and talk about us to the producer who contacted us to record a 6 songs ep. By that time I was finishing my Sound Engineer Studies and I decided to buy some equipment start to doing more professional recordings at home. I bought a Mackie VLZ console (24 channels), a new and more powerful pc, a 24-bit audio interface, a tube preamp behringer, two professional monitor (Essi), and some professional mics (Shure Beta 58, shure sm 58, shure sm 57, SM-Audio condenser). I also get some new software like Nuendo, Reason, Soundforge and lots of plug ins. We decided to do a preproduction in my studio and then do the recording process in another one. During this process the band grow up and our arranging and composing abilities get improved. That’s why we decided to record a complete album when we finished the ep that we never realised. We used some songs of the ep and other new songs and we started the recording process of our fist lp.

When we finished the ep we discovered that we liked more the sound, quality and production of the music that we record in our studio than ep that we recorded in other most professional studios. That’s why we decided to do the complete recording process, except the drums, in our studios. We rented some mics like AKG 414 and Newman U87 for the vocals and we used Sm 57 for guitars. The bass has been recorded by line using Aguilar and Sansamp preamps.

When we recorded all the music three different and known engineers started with the mixng but we didn’t like the work of them. Once again the mixes in our studios were better for us than the ones that other engineers did I decided to do the mixing by myself.
Finally we send the cd to a mastering studio called “Puro Mastering” to do the mastering process.
With the cd finished we visited some record labels but their offers weren’t good for us so we decided to realise it with a local indie label called arte dark.

Nowadays we are thinking in recording an ep with some of these songs recorded with English lyrics.


bye.-

gabriel.-

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This post has been edited by Gabriel Leopardi: Dec 27 2007, 05:35 PM


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Kristofer Dahl
Dec 19 2007, 03:36 PM
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Very interesting Gabriel - thanks!

I have also found that the home studio will often give you a better sound - you have lots of more time to record + you know how to get the sound you want from your own equipment!

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Gabriel Leopardi
Dec 19 2007, 03:42 PM
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QUOTE (Kristofer Dahl @ Dec 19 2007, 11:36 AM) *
Very interesting Gabriel - thanks!

I have also found that the home studio will often give you a better sound - you have lots of more time to record + you know how to get the sound you want from your own equipment!



That's true. That's one of the most important things "the time". When you work in your own studio you don't have time limits and you can work until you get 100% satisfied. That's wonderful for obsessive people like me... laugh.gif

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rokchik
Dec 19 2007, 03:43 PM
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I can't wait to here the final result of all your hard work Gabriel. I'm really looking forward to my Cirse CD smile.gif

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Chris Evans
Dec 19 2007, 03:48 PM
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Yea I agree, many years ago a band I was in, we paid a lot of money to a studio to record, produce and mix a 4 track demo, it was a complete waste of cash, one of the members had a tascam 8 track and we produced a much better demo basically for free, the engineer that worked on it also agreed that ours was a better "sound", he had no previous experience of working with a "metal" band, and we couldnt get accross to him what we wanted.

Since then we have always done demo`s ourselves, although nothing like the quality of yours, the mixing and end production is fantastic! I`m really looking forward to your English versions. smile.gif

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Kristofer Dahl
Dec 19 2007, 03:49 PM
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QUOTE (Gabriel Leopardi @ Dec 19 2007, 03:42 PM) *
That's true. That's one of the most important things "the time". When you work in your own studio you don't have time limits and you can work until you get 100% satisfied. That's wonderful for obsessive people like me... laugh.gif


Exactly, somtimes nailing those 5 extra overdubs can do so much more to the sound that using the $100000 all-tube-mutliband-something-compressor in the pro studio ( blink.gif ) . But nailing extra overdubs can take time!

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Gabriel Leopardi
Dec 19 2007, 03:57 PM
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QUOTE (Kristofer Dahl @ Dec 19 2007, 11:49 AM) *
Exactly, somtimes nailing those 5 extra overdubs can do so much more to the sound that using the $100000 all-tube-mutliband-something-compressor in the pro studio ( blink.gif ) . But nailing extra overdubs can take time!





"all-tube-mutliband-something-compressor in the pro studio "

laugh.gif laugh.gif laugh.gif I agree.

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Toni Suominen
Dec 19 2007, 08:56 PM
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Very nice Gabriel, brilliant sound quality in the song on Circe's website! smile.gif And home-recording is just so cool, you can experiment with different sounds, and you have all the time you need smile.gif

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Ivan Milenkovic
Dec 19 2007, 10:44 PM
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That is great Gab, the equipment that you used for your recordings is pretty solid. Off course, the most important factor are the songs, and they do sound great wink.gif I'm glad that you've found your own place for recording and producing and wish you all well in the future. Rock on smile.gif

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Gabriel Leopardi
Dec 19 2007, 11:43 PM
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QUOTE (Toni Suominen @ Dec 19 2007, 04:56 PM) *
Very nice Gabriel, brilliant sound quality in the song on Circe's website! smile.gif And home-recording is just so cool, you can experiment with different sounds, and you have all the time you need smile.gif




Thank you Toni!



QUOTE (Milenkovic Ivan @ Dec 19 2007, 06:44 PM) *
That is great Gab, the equipment that you used for your recordings is pretty solid. Off course, the most important factor are the songs, and they do sound great wink.gif I'm glad that you've found your own place for recording and producing and wish you all well in the future. Rock on smile.gif




Thanks Ivan! I also believe that the most important thing when you are recording an album are the songs. If the have bad songs you can record with "all-tube-mutliband-something-compressor in the pro studio" as Kris said laugh.gif but you'll get a bad album.

gab.-

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N4085B
Dec 21 2007, 06:39 AM
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Awesome tune Gabriel. I know its alot to ask, but could you detail how you went about recording all the different parts..for instance the guitars...were they mic'd? did you record direct with a pod or something similar? Double tracked? (I hear a really good stereo spread) effects used such as compression? did you use effects in the software while mixing? if so what and how?
The vocals sound really good too..can you talk about how those were recorded as well?

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Jess

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Gabriel Leopardi
Dec 27 2007, 05:26 PM
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QUOTE (N4085B @ Dec 21 2007, 02:39 AM) *
Awesome tune Gabriel. I know its alot to ask, but could you detail how you went about recording all the different parts..for instance the guitars...were they mic'd? did you record direct with a pod or something similar? Double tracked? (I hear a really good stereo spread) effects used such as compression? did you use effects in the software while mixing? if so what and how?
The vocals sound really good too..can you talk about how those were recorded as well?

Thanks,
Jess




Hi Jess... I'll tell you about it:

Guitars:
I used three electric guitars (Gibson Studio, Gibson Standard & Ibanez RG520) and an acoutic Yamaha FG 441. The electric guitars has benn recorded using three differents head tube amps, Messa Boggie, Vintage Electric, Marshall JCM 900 and also a combo Marshall valvestate 8080. They have been mic'd with 4 diferent mic's but finally we choose two of them, a shure sm 57 and a condenser Audotechnica mic. I also used some guitar rig distortion to get strange sounds and distortions. The acoutic guitar has been recorded using sm 57 and AKG 414b. I always used a tube pre-amp behringer ultragain after the mic.
In the mixing I used lots of plugins as effects and process. (comp, rev, delay, chorus, etc).
The electric guitars have been doubled, but not digitally. I recorded two guitars playing exactly the same.

Vocals: I used Newman U87, Akg 414 and Shure Beta 58 conected to my behringer ultragain preamp. In the mix, I used waves compression, and some other plugins for eefects like reverb, delay, drive, etc.

Any other questions? smile.gif

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This post has been edited by Gabriel Leopardi: Dec 27 2007, 05:48 PM


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Twibeard
Dec 28 2007, 09:37 AM
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Hei Gabriel. Could you tell of your experiance using the Shure-58 with the Ultragain preamp compared to the Akg and Newman studio mic's please. Was it it worth renting the studio mic's? or do you think that you could have done all the vocal job with Shure-58's ? I'm asking because i'm in that situation with my own home studio. And I wonder if I should go for the Ultragain tube preamp or a high prised tubed studio mic.
Thanks smile.gif

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Gabriel Leopardi
Dec 31 2007, 09:39 PM
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QUOTE (Twibeard @ Dec 28 2007, 05:37 AM) *
Hei Gabriel. Could you tell of your experiance using the Shure-58 with the Ultragain preamp compared to the Akg and Newman studio mic's please. Was it it worth renting the studio mic's? or do you think that you could have done all the vocal job with Shure-58's ? I'm asking because i'm in that situation with my own home studio. And I wonder if I should go for the Ultragain tube preamp or a high prised tubed studio mic.
Thanks smile.gif



Well... You'll find a big difference between the sound of a 58 and the sound of a condenser mic like Newman or Akg. I think that it worth to rent one of this mics to get a great sound in the lead vocals. I prefered the akg's sound for Luciana's voice in this album... but we used Newman tube mic in some songs to get the warm tube sound. I definetely recomend you to spend some money in voice recording quality. You'll really hear the difference.

gabriel.-

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N4085B
Jan 1 2008, 01:03 AM
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Thanks for the response Gab. I'm also using Sonar 5 on a Win XP system...can you detail the specs on your computer and audio interface (soundcard). I'm also running a Mackie 1402 vlz into an MAudio 2496 sound card with the Behringer Truth monitors (1301's?). The Mackie has phantom power for the condenser mic that I have (Rode NT1-A)..but I'm not using a preamp for it (just the pre in the Mackie itself)...Does a tube pre make a pretty big difference? I use the condenser mic to just record my Classical guitar so far...I can't sing a note!!! I also have a SM57 for my spkr cabs..but find myself using the Pod XT staight into the Mackie and adding effects from Sonar. I recorded some cover tunes (Gary Moore, Rush, Rhoades)back in 2005...and it just sounds flat to me....Could be the mix...could be the bad playing?? I didn't use any of the automation on the faders so maybe that's why everything sounds the same? Anyways, check it out here and let me know what you think I could do to improve it.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=88046

Thanks,
Jess

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Gabriel Leopardi
Jan 7 2008, 06:50 AM
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QUOTE (N4085B @ Dec 31 2007, 09:03 PM) *
Thanks for the response Gab. I'm also using Sonar 5 on a Win XP system...can you detail the specs on your computer and audio interface (soundcard). I'm also running a Mackie 1402 vlz into an MAudio 2496 sound card with the Behringer Truth monitors (1301's?). The Mackie has phantom power for the condenser mic that I have (Rode NT1-A)..but I'm not using a preamp for it (just the pre in the Mackie itself)...Does a tube pre make a pretty big difference? I use the condenser mic to just record my Classical guitar so far...I can't sing a note!!! I also have a SM57 for my spkr cabs..but find myself using the Pod XT staight into the Mackie and adding effects from Sonar. I recorded some cover tunes (Gary Moore, Rush, Rhoades)back in 2005...and it just sounds flat to me....Could be the mix...could be the bad playing?? I didn't use any of the automation on the faders so maybe that's why everything sounds the same? Anyways, check it out here and let me know what you think I could do to improve it.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=88046

Thanks,
Jess


Hey Jess! Your equipment is very good! You'll hear an importan difference if you use a tupe pre amp when you record you guitar with the condenser mic. It's also very important to do try different mic's positions when you are recording. I alwqys preffer mic'ed guitars than amp simulators but maybe it's personal. Try also recording doubled guitars and then put them panned in the mix. Use compressors, short delays and rev to get interesting guitar sounds.

gab.-

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audiopaal
Mar 12 2008, 12:44 PM
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Love the album, especially Alma de diamante.
Very interresting read, thanks for sharing.

I also have the impression that you can get better sound in your homerecording studio.
I've listened to a few demos of local bands who were recorded at professional studios,
but I like what I can do at home better. Even more so if I get help with the mixing smile.gif

On a side note, it would be very very cool if you decide to record some of the tracks in English smile.gif

Keep up the good work Gabriel!

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Gabriel Leopardi
Mar 21 2008, 02:46 PM
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QUOTE (audiopaal @ Mar 12 2008, 08:44 AM) *
Love the album, especially Alma de diamante.
Very interresting read, thanks for sharing.

I also have the impression that you can get better sound in your homerecording studio.
I've listened to a few demos of local bands who were recorded at professional studios,
but I like what I can do at home better. Even more so if I get help with the mixing smile.gif

On a side note, it would be very very cool if you decide to record some of the tracks in English smile.gif

Keep up the good work Gabriel!


Thank you very much Paal! Yes, we are working on this. wink.gif

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This post has been edited by Gabriel Leopardi: Mar 21 2008, 02:46 PM


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Muris Varajic
Mar 22 2008, 03:01 AM
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QUOTE (Kristofer Dahl @ Dec 19 2007, 03:36 PM) *
Very interesting Gabriel - thanks!

I have also found that the home studio will often give you a better sound - you have lots of more time to record + you know how to get the sound you want from your own equipment!


Absolutely!!

There are many great producers and sound engineers
but they just cannot have 100% the same vision like you,the artist/composer.

Thanks for sharing Gabriel,great story and lots of info!! smile.gif

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Alexiaden93
May 9 2009, 08:55 PM
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Very interesting and inspiring explanation, Gabriel ! Thanks a lot smile.gif Very fun reading ^^

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