Recording a backing track turned into a nightmare

Zoom R16 recorder saved the night

Blue Christmas Diary part 2

The first step in recording Blue Christmas was to get a backing track with everyone playing the song in time. Sonar wouldn’t work so it was done on a small digital recorder instead.

After that we would record each part separately so it could be mixed and balanced without worrying about bleeding between microphones.

I spent Wednesday getting the studio ready. The mic’s were checked and then the headphone amps to make sure each musician got his own mix. We didn’t have enough headphones for 4 musicians and the engineer.

The guys started to arrive around 7 pm Thursday . They were getting tuned up and we ran through the song a few times. It sounded sweet with a light country flavor.

Tom LeClair brought his upright bass which was inspired. We tried a few mic set-ups until I settled on a large condenser for the bass.

Ronnie brought himself and brushes. Turned out his boss just closed the shop due to health and Ronnie was in transition to another real estate office.  

I dug out a snare from the garage which turned out be a pristine Yamaha Stage Custom with a Premier stand. I didn’t remember that piece of gear. Ronnie quietly set about following Tom’s practice.

Denis arrived from work and started playing a Gibson Les Paul DC through a tube Marshall amp mic’d with a Shure SM57. He was working on getting that sweet tone through his pedal board. The amp developed a hum at anything but the lowest volume so he had to feather it.

An old hi-hat and Sabian cymbals were moved from the kitchen where they amuse little kids who come to the house. Ronnie was mic’d with a Neumann 184 on the cymbals and tambourine and Shure SM58A over the lip of the snare drum.

No sound

The band was warming up but no recording was happening. Argh! I could see the audio chain – from the mics to the Millennia pre-amp, to the Aurora AD/DA and even see it on the on-screen AES mixer.

Not a peep was going into the Sonar DAW software however. All the tracks had the correct inputs. I tried re-booting and nothing fixed the problem.

The heat was on. The band was ready but nothing worked.

Denis said this week he felt sorry for me struggling with the computer.

We hit on the Zoom R16 digital recorder instead of Sonar. We only wanted to get a backing track so top quality wasn’t important.

I started swapping cables around the room, unplug the pre-amps and plug into the R16. Another sound check and mic move since only 2 channels on the R16 support phantom power.

Cables failed. The Rode NT2 condenser developed an unfixable hum. Would frustrated be a good word here? I went into the closet and took out the baby – a Neumann U87. It worked like a charm on Tom’s upright.

It must have been 9:30 before we got calmed down and started to lay down tracks.

I just put my head down and started to sing and play the Martin. You could hear the guys come in behind me. I don’t like to give direction. I start playing and you follow. These guys are all pros. They knew what to do.

There were the usual flubs in takes one to three but by the fourth take we had agreed what the song was and where to end it.

The fifth take was near perfect except I was getting tired and my voice was failing.

We listened on the headphones and it sounded OK. I hooked up the USB cable and pulled the tracks into Sonar, turned on the monitors and hit Play.

The guys all started to smile. They were either happy, tired or both.

We listened again and decided it was a wrap. They night was over. We had a backing track. The weekend would soon be here and the party recording.

The recording problem would have to be fixed.