Not Bad For a Girl: Katie is getting the best sound in her studio

By Katie Marie, on Thursday, June 17, 2010

What a wonderful week for sunshiney stuff! Every summer should be a bit more like this, that’s what I reckon anyways.

And with the World Cup well and truly underway I’ve been spoilt for matches to check out (just don’t talk to me about the England USA… I’ve been mocked by many already!).

But my week hasn’t just been taken up with football and sunny stuff, oh no. I’ve been working away like a crazy thing on various bits ‘n’ bobs in my lovely little studio.

I’ve been having to do a lot of ‘pooter work this week, which has involved me sorting all the film and tv tunes I wrote into order and then putting each one onto a DVD. I then have to create different versions of each song (ie version one with all instruments, version two with drums muted etc, etc) and make stems on the DVD so it’s all easy peesy for the Music Library to file away. Unfortunately, for me it is as dull as it sounds and isn’t nearly as exciting as writing and recording the tunes in the first place lol *But* it is all part and parcel of the job so I have to do what I’m told (on this occasion ).

In between me doing my ‘pooter stuff I thought it would be lots of fun to have a bit of a jam with Karon (my Cajon) and my two Conga drums. The aim was to try and get some sort of groove going using all three drums at the same time, I touched upon it a tiny bit last week but this time I thought I’d record my random noodlings for you all to hear.

I also thought this would be a perfect opportunity to mess around with room mics in my live room, ready for when I start to record my new album (yay!)

Not Bad for a Girle

congo drums and cajon

I set up Karon and my Congas and started to have a ponder about mic placement. It’s much easier to record someone else as I always ask them to play something so I can wonder round the room and hear where the sweet spots are. When you’re on your own it’s a real trial and error thing which can take bloomin’ ages to get right!

A sneaky SM58 room mic!

So with Karon I used my trusty SM57 in the soundhole with an AKG D-112 about 20″ from the back and then my Sony ECM 22P on the side. For the Congas I used my Behringer C-2 mics (one micking up each drum) and then for room mics I used a Rode NT1000 in front and an SM58 in the corridor that’s next to the live room (may seem weird, but when I’ve recorded my drum kit it usually sounds pretty good having a mic outside the room, acting like an old style reverb).

I had to place the Congas at a bit of an awkward angle as I needed to make room for being able to play Karon with my left hand. I also had to program my little brain to do my Cajon playing with the left whilst playing Conga type beats (heel and toe etc) with my right hand, but with a bit of practise I just about managed to do it – even if it did make my hands and brain hurt!

Katie Marie in the studio
What’s going on?!

In Katie Marie's studio
Wires n leads n stuff…

Katie Marie's Dual Valve Compression Unit
My trusty TLA Dual Valve Compression unit

And as promised I’ve added the audio to this article so you can have a listen to my random noodlings

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One other really kewl thing I’ve been doing this week is arranging a couple of my old songs for re-recording. So far I’ve had a bit of a mixed reaction about this as one of the songs I’m going to be re-recording is a song called Change which many people (including me!) like it just the way it is.

But I have to stress I’m not going to be getting rid of the old version or anything crazy like that, I just wanted to have a mess with some ideas. I’m also very lucky to have a great keys player on board (Mr Paul the keys man) who’s been working with me to try and get it all sounding really sa-weet (plus he’s put up with my nit-picking and ‘can we just try this….’ talks amazingly well! lol).

So I’m going to have to love and leave you for another week. Hope you have a great weekend, mine is pretty action packed – it’s band practise with Miquid Licks tonight and then it’ll be five gigs in three days – wooha! Bring it on