Recording Rock and Pop party band Happy Hour

I started recording Happy Hour on Sunday 30th January at Alive Network’s HQ Recording Studios.  The band arrived around lunchtime after a long drive up from Essex.  They decided to rent a house for a week near to the studio, so they could get all of the parts down before going home on the Wednesday.

Once the guys had settled in and all of the sounds were set, I was then ready to start recording.  Like every band I record, I have the drummer in the live room, bass player in the control room and the guitarists/vocalists out in the back room.

For this session I was only focusing on the drums. Although the other guys were being recorded, their takes are only used as guide tracks and won’t be on the final recording. This ensures the band get to play together and get a vibe going, be I only need to focus in on the drummer, making sure we get a perfect take of each song, over which we'll overdub guitars, bass and vocals later.

I've been trying a few techniques recently to keep the band fresh and keen, so once the band had recorded a few takes and we felt the overall feel was right, I got the other guys to take a break whilst the drummer played along to their guide parts so he could really focus without having to worry about the other guys getting borded or losing concentration.

Happy Hour chose to record the following tracks:-

Runaround Sue (Dion)
A rock and roll medley
Jailhouse Rock (Elvis)
Baggy Trousers (Madness)
Summer of 69 (Bryan Adams)
Alright (Supergrass)

We started recording the rock and roll tracks first because these all have a very similar drum sound.  I then tweaked the kick and snare a little for the more current tracks.
Below is a list of mics I used when recording the drums.

As soon as I heard Spicer (the bands drummer) start blasting through the takes I knew we were going to get the drums down in no time.  His timing was spot on, and his technique was excellent!!  This meant that I had very little drum editing to do before the bass was recorded.

We managed to track the bass on the same day and for this I used the Drawmer Tube Compressor and an SSL E series EQ.  Tobit (the bass player) was using his Gibson Epiphone Thunderbird but he wasn’t too keen on the sound, so I offered him my Musicman Stingray, and he loved it. The Musicman had much more of a rounded sound and I knew this would sit well in the recordings.

The following day we tracked both Richie’s and Joe’s guitar parts, all in the one day.  We used the studio's Cornford MK 50H Valve Amp for both Richie’s takes and Joe’s, but changed guitars throughout to add different textures and sounds.  Richie mainly used his Fender Telecaster and Joe used his Gibson Les Paul, they both sounded great.

All that was left to record were the vocals.  We listened through the tracks and then through the originals and realised we had a lot of vocals to record, especially on the rock and roll numbers.

I used the Neumann TLM 103 mic and went direct into the Avalon Pre Amp.  I always put the vocal mic through the Avalon because it adds warmth, and the compression and EQ is outstanding!

All of the guys sing in the band and three of them take lead on different tracks.  We tracked the lead parts then layered the backing vocals down straight afterwards.  The only thing left to record was a little bit of percussion (tambourine) and some handclaps.

The recordings were finished and everything was tracked within three days which is a new record and a testiment to the bands tighness and professionalism.

I'm now mixing the tracks which will take about 3-5 days and they'll be ready to go on the Alive Network web site within the next week or so.