I’m currently immersed in the research for the book Changing Tides and right now, it’s all about storms at sea. It’s a fascinating subject that has taken me in to the world of meteorology as well as search and rescue operations. Getting the facts right are so important to me for this book. While the story and characters are fictional, the events that take place are based on fact. If we cast our minds back to the 1979 Fastnet race, we are reminded of the incredible force of nature. A violent storm rolled in across the Atlantic in August with a speed and ferocity that took many people by surprise. Force 10 gales whipped up huge, mountainous seas with 40 - 50 foot waves. The deadly storm raged across the Irish Sea and caused havoc for the crews of the 300 plus yachts in the Fastnet race. Sadly, 15 lives were taken by the storm. Incredibly, given the horrendous conditions, 136 crew members were rescued. This was the biggest rescue operation launched by UK authorities in maritime history. I recently read a book called ‘Left for Dead’ by Nick Ward who tells his harrowing but inspiring memoir of how he survived the storm on the stricken racing yacht, Grimalkin,. It is well worth a read and I was gripped from start to finish. My research has been about the weather systems that create these huge, destructive storms. It also about how experienced yachtsmen deal with these storms, the techniques they use to ride out a storm and the risks they face such as capsize or pitch poling. Another element of my research looks into the rescue missions of the coastguard and Search & Rescue when they are called out. These are truly brave people who risk their lives to save others.
0 Comments
I was at Earthworm Amber studio yesterday at their Drum Recording Workshop with Rob Brian and the team. This was a fantastic session covering all aspects of drum recording in the studio and also an insight into being a session drummer. We had Rob Brian’s vintage Ludwig kit and the mighty DW Collectors kit for the day. It is the DW kit that features in The Storm. and we'll be using this again on Out at Sea and The Rescue. We spent a lot of time looking at microphone choice and placement with both classic and modern mic techniques. This is really important to get the best recording from your drums but it’s only part of the equation. Getting the tuning on the drums right is really important too. On the Ludwig kit, we changed the sound from a delicate jazz sound with 60’s style mic set up to something much bigger just by tuning down the heads and dampening the drums. From the control room, you wouldn’t think the sound coming out of the monitors was from such a small kit! It was a huge sound. The acoustics of the room are so important too. Generally, in an untreated room, there will be way too many reflections so you end up with a really boomy sound with excessive reverb. This isn’t conducive to good recording and is pretty tough on the ears too. The acoustic treatment in this studio is excellent and ideal for recording drums. So when we’ve got our drums tuned, the mics in place and our levels set, we are ready to start recording. The drummer gets a click track and some of the music from the track in his/her headphones to play along with. The click track is so important to keep the timing tight. Back in the control room, the producer is ready to start recording. In Amber studio, they are using the Soundtracs mixing desk and a Pro Tools HD rig with a whole bunch of modern and vintage outboard FX units. We recorded the drums into ProTools and once we've got everything into the digital realm, we can start processing the various elements with EQ and compression for example, to create the desired effect in the mix. In the afternoon, we were dropped in at the deep end with the introduction of a new piece of music. The first job to do here is to listen to the music to get some references. In other words, what other tracks are you familiar with that are similar to this? What can you reference it too? When you’ve got a handle on this, it time to create your chart. This basically means timing track so you know where to come in with the drums, where the verse starts and how many bars there are in the verse, where the chorus begins and how many bars are in the chorus and so on. As you can imagine, you've got to keep count while playing. Normally, you’ll have some time to prepare for this rather than being dropped straight into it. But there may be times when you’ve got to think on your feet if you are a session player. All in all, this is a fantastic workshop for those interested in learning more about the drum recording process including tuning, acoustics, mic' choice and placement, the recording chain as well as getting an insight in to being a session player. Finally, I’ve completed The Storm, from my forthcoming album Changing Tides. It’s has been a bigger project than I anticipated and took way more time than I planned but it’s been an epic journey with quite a few ups, downs and detours. It’s been worth it though and I’m happy with the final result. The mastering engineer for this track is Pete Maher and he has done a great job of this. Pete is known for his work with U2, The Killers, Rolling Stones and many more so I’m privileged that Pete was able to do this work for The Storm. You can check out Pete's work here: http://bit.ly/1Ual9o6 Last week, I was down in Porthleven in Cornwall and I dropped in on John Boyle at Shark Bay Films. John has got some great footage of storm Hercules in 2014 that will work well with this music so we are discussing plans to produce the video to The Storm in the next few months. We are also looking at capturing some additional footage for other tracks on the album. Shark Bay Films have been established for over 25 years now and they have produced many documentaries for National Geographic that have won multiple international awards. They have also produced videos for music so it made sense to me to combine John’s talent for filming nature and my music. You can check out Shark Bay Films here: http://bit.ly/1tcOKnh I’m back in the studio this week working on the next few tracks - Out at Sea, The Rescue and Homeward Bound. Once again, I’ll be working with Rob Brian over at NAM studios to record the drumming sessions for these tracks and I’ll be recording and producing these through the MTA desk in to ProTools. Keep you posted on this. Thanks for reading. |
Tim HardwickI'm a composer, producer and author. I've been creating music for many years now and over the last 8 years, I've been focused on the fusion of electronic, orchestral and acoustic music that tells a story. Archives
April 2018
Categories |