Slight shoot
On Friday April 5th, myself and the intrepid Camera-folk of TVM headed up to Van Horne in Montréal to do a video shoot with local Synthy Kraut-Rockers Slight. It was organized as part of the ongoing CKUT FM/TVM collaboration that I am the principle engineer for.
We got set up in their magical rehearsal space, the Plant, and the boys let ‘er rip with some glorious, reverb addled sonics.
We only had time for 4 takes, but on the last one the band nailed it.
Check out the video below, and read on for more about the sound setup!
Precision Percussion
The band has two drummers, which presents a unique challenge for live off the floor recording. Unlike many two drummer bands, Slight’s percussionists do not have a hierarchy. They perform together, as a unit, weaving in and out of each other’s rhythms with precision and grace. It makes for a seriously impressive display, but it also makes for some tricky mixing.
I have two pairs of condensor microphones that I take with me on mobile sessions, but usually I like to save one or two for room microphones. This time, both were tapped for drum overhead duty. Luckily, Slight come equipped with a mic or two of their own, so I was able to have a room mic for ambience.
I decided to try out two different overhead positions for this shoot, to help put each kit in its own auditory space. For one kit, I used my Josephson C42’s in a spaced pair configuration about two drumstick lengths from the snare. For the other, I went with a Glyn John’s type setup using my Apex 435’s.
Here you can see the second drum mic setup, complete with drummer.
Slight-ly Overwhelming
As the band have 4 vocalists, 2 drummers, a guitar and 4 keyboards, my inputs were at a premium for this session. Working with the PA at the plant, we were able to route all the keyboard tracks to a single aux, allowing Danji to adjust his levels independently on the fly while keeping my track count under control.
They utilize a rack-mounted reverb and delay unit to keep their vocals swimming deep in a psych-rock-soup, and instead of taking a feed from their unit, I simply mimicked it’s effect in the box during the mixing stage.
All in all, it was a great shoot, and everyone involved was super happy with the outcome.
Stay tuned for more,
-D