Late Sunday evening after work and less than 24 hours before his flight, Kian came to my house with an eletric guitar of his, as he'd left a small amp there previously. Setting up to record proved a challenge as the highest surface I could find to place the amp on without disconnecting it from a power source was my desk. This proved problematic as the vibrations from the amp as the guitar was played transferred through the desk, distorting the sound that was recording through the microphone. To solve this, I used a large pillow to sit the amp on which stopped the audible vibrations, but the angle at which the amp was resting on was somewhat disconcerting.
We recorded methodically; Kian would record between 2 or 4 guitar parts which I would pan side by side at around 50% if there were two. In most of the songs where there were 3 seperate guitar recordings, I panned one 70% left, another directly center and the third 70% right. Kian would then record his vocal contribution which I panned directly in the center. I set a metronome so that the timing and rhythm would remain consistent throughout each song and Kian suggested that we play it loudly so that it's not only audible for him playing but also to those listening to the mixed tracks - as rhythm had been an issue for other group members in rehearsals on songs such as "Golden Brown" which has an irregular time signature for a popular song.
I applied a Hard Limiter, Graphic Equalizer and Reverb on each track individually to give the cleanest sound possible. On the master track of each recording I also applied the Mastering effect in Adobe Audition (the program I used to record and mix the EP) which amplified the overall sound of each song, making them sound louder but without clipping at any point.
Screenshot of the "Time Will Tell" recording; showing the 4 guitar tracks, a single vocal track and the effects used on one of the guitar tracks (click to enlarge):
Finally, I edited the ID3 tags of each track so that when the other group members download the EP and add it to iTunes for instance, the song name will show up in the designated spot, the artist will be shown as Kian Vaziri, the album FMP and the genre will also be accurate. This makes it considerably easier to find the tracks in one's music library as they are ordered and tagged like a proper EP release. I even designed some quick cover art lightheartedly from a picture I obtained from Kian's Facebook page; as group morale had been bruised by the announcement of the holiday.
The cover art I designed for the EP:
I then uploaded the EP to my Google Drive and shared a link to download the EP in the group Facebook message which all of the group use daily to communicate. Here is the download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7J5dypzckmzZDhCeVM4ellKeTg/edit?usp=sharing
Despite the initial setbacks which prevented a clear recording of the guitar, I eventually managed to engineer an EP of high quality instrumentals which could be released if the metronome was not audible. Though a tiresome experience I realised just how good a sound I can create with limited equipment.
I feel these instrumentals will be a great and much needed aid in the rehearsal process while Kian, Dylan and Luke are away. The rest of the group can rehearse in group sessions with Kian despite him not being present but with the added conveniance of being able to pause, skip and repeat; plus the MP3 tracks can be transferred onto mobile devices as well as computers and CDs so the rest of the group can rehearse independently to them.
There is still a glaring downside and that is that the EP doesn't substitute for Kian, Dylan and Luke actually being present in rehearsal as they will still need to catch up on alterations that are made in their abscence. Another negative is we did not record "Kiss From a Rose" as Kian's musical contribution to the song is only vocal, so we will have to use a backing track to rehearse that as we did at the rehearsal that I housed, ironically.
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