Recording

Recording: ‘What Kind Of Privilege Is This?’ – vocals and percussion

By ronanfitzgPosted on
Time to Read:-words

After recording the bass and rhythm guitars in the last post, I put down some lead guitar at home with my Strat. So, now, it’s time for vocals and percussion for …Privilege…!

Although I usually would make separate posts for vocals and percussion, the setup is the exact same, so there didn’t seem much point.

What Kind Of Privilege Is This? vocals and percussion: rig run down

What Kind Of Privilege Is This? vocals and percussion: recording

Recording vocals at home

So, a recurring theme with recording …Privilege… is changing things up. And recording vocals and percussion was no different.

Previously, I recorded vocals over at Astoria SoundWorks. However, I’ve been recording videos of me playing and singing songs in the apartment with no complaints – they’re on the YouTube channel and feel free to subscribe, thanks.

Although I had avoided full on singing in the apartment because of neighbours above, below, and beside, I never received any complaints.

And remember: this is New York City – people here are not too polite to complain.

So, as nobody seemed too perplexed by by singing, I decided to save myself $10 that Astoria Soundworks would cost, and record it at home.

Further, I decided to record in the bathroom!

Recording in the bathroom

Again, this is something I’ve been doing with for the videos of playing and singing.

And, there are a few reasons that prompted the decision.

Firstly, this performance by Noel Gallagher from ten years ago:

Secondly, everybody know that bathrooms have a distinct natural reverb in them, likely from being mostly hard surfaces. Consequently, it was something we joked about once when I was recording with my band in the UK at Muthers Studio in Brum.

But, we never actually did it. It’s likely we didn’t want to faff around moving mics from the vocal booth, and just wanted to get it done.

Thirdly, I add a little bit of reverb to vocal tracks within the DAW – Dave from Muthers says it helps soften any minor pitchiness. But, doing so in BandLab was causing playback to lag, and eliminate vocals from the mix on the song’s playback page. So, I decided to have a go at getting my reverb in organically.

Fourthly, recording in the bathroom gave some wall and space between be and the apartment next door. So at least one less neighbour would have been bothered by my shenanigans.

Recording vocals

Before tapping record, I had to take my usual three steps:

  1. Set up hardware
  2. Admin
  3. Get a level

I think I noted in a previous post that the difficulty in recording with the BandLab app is step three – the only way to get a level is to record a little bit and see what the wave looks/sounds like, and repeat until it’s acceptable. Not ideal.

I did three takes for lead vocals. However, I didn’t have any ideas for backing vocals. But I opted for some awing on the choruses and did three takes of that.

Here’s a clip!

Recording percussion

Now, it was only ever vocals I thought about recording in the bathroom. But, I couldn’t be bothered moving my set up to another room. So, I opted to do the percussion right there while it was all set up.

Firstly, I completed the admin step linked above. It was my first time doing that bit on my phone. It was a bit of an extra fiddle, but ultimately fine.

Then, as with vocals, I had to record a little bit to get a level.

I recorded some shaker for the verses, as usual. But, to record the also usual tambourines for choruses, I went with a suggestion from my friend, Phil Cooper.

I my post about recording percussion for It’s Not Happening, Phil commented with a tip on recording tambourine. He suggested I shake the tambourine at waist height. So, I gave it a go. It turned out to be a great tip! The level was just right, and the tambourine wasn’t so “brash.”

While pushing boundaries, I also recorded some clave and maraca in some sections of the song. However, I didn’t really have a specific idea for where they would go, so I just played them when I felt like it.

vocals and percussion

Both of these were gifts from my parents from places they went on vacation. The claves are from Cuba and the maraca from Benalmádena in Spain.

As with the shaker, I just played these directly in front of the mic.

What Kind of Privilege Is This? vocals and percussion: conclusion

Pros
Cons
Reverb: using neither additional gear, nor digital plugins Water: lives in the bathroom – I can’t help but get nervous
QualityI think the sound quality is just as good as other recordings Leakage: I still need to figure out how to manage that

To conclude, …Privilege… currently sounds like this:

I don’t think it sounds bad – there’s an old saying that a good record will mix itself, and I feel that.

Next week’s recording post will bring it all home!

vocals and percussion

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