There’s a few things that come up again and again in the studio:

Intonation,

If your guitar and bass are not set up right it’s likely to not sound as you want it, if you find yourself constantly adjusting the tuning but the guitar still sounds out higher up the fretboard then the intonation is out.

it’s easy to check (just check the tuning of the open string and on the 12th fret) and easy enough to fix here’s a link to a step by step guide .

Some consider this to be a black art, I see it as a simple mechanical problem and have set up dozens of guitars and basses in my time. Only if there are other things wrong with the guitar (worn frets, bent necks, floyd rose tremolo (haha)) is it a bit more work and you might be better off seeing a specialist.

all it will take is 15-20 min per guitar that can easily mount up to an hour in the studio and we prefer to work on your music than on your instruments…

Hi there,

we have added a few bits and pieces to out Arsenal:

Chris Hildebrand has done it again: he brought in more gear that i can’t see us ever living without: two AEA84 ribbon microphones. our t.bones and Beyers sound great (I recorded a new orleans style Piano with the Beyerdynamic M260s the other day-perfect! Sounded like we were in a bar…) but the AEA just give everything an extra sense of classic weight and smoothness. Brill.

Next up 8 channels of Oram EQ.

we are moving out of the box (less software and more hardware) the oram gives us a couple of channels to tweak things. Broad musical curves good for sweetening up smashed up drum subgroups and guitars.

and the new favorite:

Manley Elop

two controls and always a good sound. holds a bass or a voice in place without producing any artifacts and just does things that none of the plugins can do…

we are having more fun than ever….

x

We get people bringing in recordings for us to Mix and this is always a lot of fun though sometimes i feel the final result could have been a bit “better” (there is no right and wrong in how to record and mix!) if the recordist had follwed a few guidelines. You will find people disagreeing with some of this in forums and other spaces, but if we are going to work on your tracks we’d prefer you to stick to these guide lines:

file format:

Wav/Aiff/SD2 makes no difference to the quality of the recording, we use Wavs in house but we can read anything except those weird 32bit files that some version of cubase can produce so please avoid these. If you are sending non ProTools files then you could save some time by naming files starting with numbers (“1 kick”, “2 Snare”….) that way the tracks are ordered in a meaningful way when we import them.

24 bit!

please record your session in 24 bit as long as you computer can handle this but unless your on a G3 Power Mac or some very old PC you should be fine. 24 bit recordings have more depth and less mid range clutter. We will be using compressors to bring out little details in room mics and the more you have recorded the more there is for us to work with.

Level

When recording drums and vocals try and make sure to leave enough headroom to never clip the signal. Unless your going for a totally overdriven sound on the vocals leaving 12dB of headroom (your recorded signals should not go above -12dB). This means if there is a extra loud snare hit it still should stay away from 0dB FS. Try and spend 5 min with understanding the metering in your DAW. Many “look” like they are barely recording anything at -12 dB but if your recording at 24bit it’ll sound better (and louder!) once it’s all mixed and mastered.

DI

If possible record a DI signal of bass and guitar tracks. These can be used to re-amp stuff. If you got a Killer tone, recorded in a nice room and preferably tracked some room microphones then we will just ignore these during the mix. however if you are looking for a  tight bottom end on the bass coming from a bass amp then our 2×15 rig might give a nicer and more balanced tone than can be achieved in lesser circumstances.

Room mics

I’m a fan. Of room mics. On everything. Drums are the obvious but if you have the computing power and inputs record a mic (or two?) further away from what ever you are recording: Electric guitar, Acoustic, Vocals…. if it doesn’t sound good we can leave it out of the mix but a bit of room on a guitar recording can put some air and power around the close mic sounds. A middle eight vocal or intro can be made special without sounding reverb-y or fake.

looking forward to hearing your sounds!

x

here’s a video that was shot a while back in our live room. Hello…I love you perform an acoustic version of “Walk me to the Sea” for Lost notes. Rob Whiteley on the mighty Farfisa. Recorded and mixed in one afternoon. notice the exquisite choice of vocal mics (RE20, SM7, M99 and Beta58).

Hallo… i Love You Live From Whitewood Recording Studio

This next one is a feature Dolphine Music did on the Studio a while back. don’t take this one too serious…

Dolphine Music video

We have been very busy recording so it’s taken a while but we have put these pages together to give you a better idea what it would be like to come to Whitewood Recording Studio and record some music. Have a snoop around and feel free to message us with any questions you have. x