Recording: completing 'Dawn and Tim'

It’s been a wild song to record, taking in some of New York City’s most iconic sights. But today, we complete Dawn and Tim. Let’s do this!

Before we go, let’s recap the ridiculous places this was recorded

Firstly, the scratch track was recorded at Astoria Park
Then, the Hummingbird was tracked at Central Park, where it picked up a tour guide
Next, the Taylor TSBTe was tracked on the N subway train, where it picked up a perfect announcement at the end, and became a meme
Next, the Gibson C-1 was recorded in a parking lot in Astoria, where it picked up lots of screeching trains
Finally, vocals and percussion were tracked on Governors Island, where it picked up helicopters and seagulls

Rig run down

Completing Dawn and Tim

Despite the minimalist instrumentation on Dawn and Tim, I found myself leaving all the micro-mixing until the end of the tracking.

Therefore, completing the track largely followed what’s outlined on this page.

Firstly, I edited the samples in each instrument section; in this case, guitars, vocals, and percussion
Secondly, I mixed each instrument section
Thirdly, I created a new project – just like in usual admin – and imported each of the micro-mixes
Fourthly, I completed the overall mix of the project
Next, I added some compression
- Here’s a compression cheat sheet for light audio recording in BandLab that I use as standard.
Finally, I saved it, and mastered it

Very straightforward and simple!

However, as an additional step, I added just a pinch of reverb to the vocals in the overall mix.

Perhaps it was the nature of the recording session for vocals, but there was some wavering in my voice. So I used a little reverb to try and soften that. And I think it worked.

Completing Dawn and Tim: conclusion

Pros	Cons
I tracked it all over NYC: therefore proving the versatility of light audio recording	I tracked it all over NYC: despite the lols proving the versatility of light audio recording, a song that should’ve wrapped up in an afternoon took weeks of work
The end result: although it sounds predictably LoFi, I think it came out better than many might have expected	LoFI recording: this might well be the least professional recording to date; but, at least it was fun to do
The simplicity: because it only really had three sections, it was easy to edit and mix	Introversion: I think I’m more comfortable keeping my recording sessions more private

To conclude, here’s what the completed Dawn and Tim sounds like.

It’s currently due to be available on Spotify and other digital channels on September 20, 2019.

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