Rosemary Recording Sessions - Day 1

Last Thursday was our first day in the new recording studios recording Rosie and her band.

It did not go smoothly.

Firstly I was just not used to the set up, working with the patch bay and routing the paths of all the microphones and wires for a project this big. It was also my first time in Control Room 1 (without a proper induction). This control room has a large D-Command digital mixing desk that, in essence, works in the same way as the Control 24 desk from the Tremough Studio, but everything seems to be in nonsensical and overcomplicated places - but that's almost definitely just because I'm used to something different.

When I could only get half the microphones to come through to the desk I started to get quite frustrated. When seven people are waiting around for you to set-up and start getting on with the recording and there's nothing anyone else can do it can be very stressful and embarrassing if things go wrong. Even if it's a smooth set-up the process is still long and dull for anyone waiting.

It turned out that there was a problem with one of the 192 pre-amps and that half the microphones wouldn't come through. This meant sacrificing a couple of the drums microphones and the ability to record drums, bass and guitar at the same time.

So, after wasting nearly three hours, I had to record drums (not having the time to take the care to get as good a sound as I'd liked) with a guide guitar and guide vocal in the control room. Then begin laying down the bass and piano separately - a much longer process. And, because we hadn't pre-booked a decent guitar amp we have to wait until next week for that.

Despite all this, things went well once we did get started - and the songs started to sound pretty good. We got the rough tracks down for five songs and next Thursday (starting at 9am and finishing at 10pm) we have guitar, piano, more drums then more bass and piano and then vocals to lay down. Hopefully things will go a lot more smoothly then.

We're also taking more care as to which members of the band come in at what time to minimise the amount of waiting and boredom.

The filming went well though, although I felt especially guilty making Grant and Josh wait around more than anyone. Apparently they got some good footage and hopefully that will be worth it in the end.