Interesting project for the BBC next week

[Aled Hughes]

This may be of interest, so I'll document it.

I have an interesting job coming up next week for the BBC Wales 'Horizons' project at the National Eisteddfod of Wales (if you don't know what the Eisteddfod is, it's a big annual festival of Welsh culture at a different venue each year. Its a lot of fun. It's at Abergavenny this year - pop in if you're in the area!)

I'll be running a studio set up in two shipping containers (one control room and one live room...it's going to be interesting if nothing else. I'm not expecting these containers to sound very good but hey-ho. The plan is three 2/3 songs sessions every day with different artists, ranging from singer-songwriters and electronic producers to full rock bands and a 9/10-piece hip-hop brass band! (They may have to go outside, weather permitting, as I really don't see them fitting in the container!)

For the set-up, I'm diving in and decided to try and run the whole thing on my Surface Pro 4 running Reaper.

I'll be using a Behringer X32 Producer as an interface and to take care of foldback mixes. It also doubles as an 8-fader MCU-protocol control surface, so alongside the Surface's touchscreen it should all be pretty hands on an immediate. In the live room there'll be a Behringer S16 stage box, so there'll be 16 inputs available in each container.

The plan is to also set up a few cheap headphones outside the 'studio' so passers by can listen to what's going on (I'm also routing the talkback mic here as I imagine it would add to the experience)

I've spent a while configuring Reaper and the X32 so I'm pretty much set to go (setting up saturday and sunday, recording monday to saturday). I decided early on that I wanted to commit to decisions early on so that the sessions were pretty much finished by the end of the allocated time slot. To this end, I decided that I'd record post EQ and compression on the X32 channels, so that I'd effectively have a channel strip going in to Reaper and would commit some EQ and compression 'to tape'. I'm looking forward to working this way, as I've developed and over-reliance on 'keeping my options open' and am often very non-commital and constantly tweaking.
This proved unexpectedly tricky on the X32... I could not for the life of me figure how to switch the USB recording sends from their default pre-FX configuration. In the end I found a workaround by routing the first 16 channels post-FX to the P16 outputs, then routing the P16 outputs to the USB card outputs. Same result in practice, but can only be done on 16 channels and not the full 32. As I said, an unexpected stumbing block. Everytime I've used the X32 for recording i the past I've wanted clean pre-FX feeds for later editing/mixing, so it hasn't been an issue.

It's a cheap and cheerful mic selection, mostly my own stuff - AT4050, M-Audio Sputnik, pairs of Rode M3 and sE1a, AKG D11, a handful of AKG D5s and TC Electronics hyper-cardioid stage mics as well as some Sennheiser 904 clip-ons and Orchid DI boxes. Enough to get the job done I think. Backline is being hired in so there won't be a lot of setting up for each artist.

I'll be doing most of my monitoring on my AKG K712 headphones, though I'm also borrowing a pair of small Alesis M1 520 active speakers for playback.

As is probably evident from the set up and environment, the idea is to get a bulk of material from the event rather than utmost recording fidelity. I'm looking forward and it should be a whole lot of fun. If there is interest I'll update this thread with some pics and updates (and some links to the recordings when they're available).

Aled

[damoore]

Wow. At this time of year that's going to be hotter than some hot place.

[Drew Stephenson]

Does sound very interesting, updates and progress reports please

[ConcertinaChap]

Ditto

CC

[Aled Hughes]

Yup, its going to be hot! I just hope the guys who have been settng tho containers up have managed to find some fans!

I'm actually hoping the weather won't bee too nice... I've already decided that some background noise will add to the recording so I can leave all doors open just in case!

Looking forward to seeing the containers tomorrow - I gave the designers a quick briefing ond basic acoustic treatment with mineral wool; we'll see how they've interpreted it!

[Sam Spoons]

Ditto too

The X32 is very versatile but, like any digital (or indeed analogue) desk some decisions are made by the designers regarding features and routing. At least with a digital desk future firmware upgrades can change some of those decisions. The P16 trick is indeed the only way to get post DSP signals to the USB card outputs at present and I have a scene setup just like that (although, like the OP I do usually record pre DSP into Reaper on my studio MacPro). I never have needed to record more that 16 tracks at once so the limitation is not a problem.

[Aled Hughes]

I never have needed to record more that 16 tracks at once so the limitation is not a problem.

I don't think I'll need more than 16 at once, but specific sources will be on specific channels ready to go so I don't have to re-patch. As it is, all live room sources (ie the 16 channels on the stage box) will be post-FX, but the local inputs in the control room will have to be pre-FX. Not a problem at all really.

I really like the X32 - very flexible as you say and I think a great option for recording too. I don't own one myself, but have used the Producer extensively and the full version a few times. If (when...) buying myself I'd probably try and stretch to either the Compact or full version - I think the lack of scribble strips really brings the Producer down. Not a problem in the small venue where it lives, but for this project and anything bigger I think the scribble strips would be very useful.

[Bob Bickerton]

Yes, will be interesting to see how you get on. I'd imagine shipping containers, without acoustic treatment, would pretty much be the opposite of an anechoic chamber!

You might want to start working on the musicians in advance to play down, I can't imagine what a full on rock band would sound like in that environment. You'll need an acoustic tourniquet to manage the bleed

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Bob

[Aled Hughes]

Yes, will be interesting to see how you get on. I'd imagine shipping containers, without acoustic treatment, would pretty much be the opposite of an anechoic chamber!

You might want to start working on the musicians in advance to play down, I can't imagine what a full on rock band would sound like in that environment. You'll need an acoustic tourniquet to manage the bleed

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Bob

There will be some form of acoustic treatment, but I don't quite know what yet - pics tomorrow evening hopefully!

Agreed, low levels will be a must. I'll also take a pragmatic approach and rely heavily on close mics (something I don't like doing if I can avoid it), so 'drum overheads' wil really probably be heavily HPFed cymbal spot mics etc. I'm planning on spending some time on Sunday doing a soundcheck of sorts to try and reach a fair compromise with spill, and encourage the bands to not tun the amps up much (I know pedalboards etc will effect this). Looking at my timetable though, it seems I only have 2 or 3 rock bands all week, and of those I'm not sure any are loud and hard-hitting. Overdubbing is also an option if we're up against it with the spill (and maybe shift an amp to the control room).

[dmills]

Top tip if the weather stays hot....

Get thee to a camping shop and clean them out of those foil emergency blankets, add gaffer tape and cover the side and top of the cans facing the sun, makes one hell of a difference (But it will still be ridiculously hot).
This is especially helpful if the cans turn out to be painted a dark colour.

One final trick (But it may be too late to sort out), a high pressure water line and misting nozzles operating a few meters upwind of the cans will cool the air (adiabatic cooling).

The nuclear option is to hire a type of container known as a Reefer, even if you don't run the chillers, they are at least well insulated.

regards, Dan.

[James Perrett]

Not sure how much you can get done at the last minute but our ROV control room is built from 2 shipping containers - take off one side of each and put them together giving you a control room that looks nothing like a shipping container from the inside. All air conditioned so no problems in tropical climates.



We also have insulated workshop containers for our other systems which we use in all kinds of climates. The biggest problem that I can see is that a single container is long and narrow so may not be great acoustically - most containerised control rooms have expanding sides to counteract this.

[The Elf]

Hot weather?!?! This is Britain, for goodness sake!

Fascinating project. I'm deeply jealous!

[damoore]

Heat is a real problem for keyboard players as your hands get wet and slippery. So best if you have a supply of dry towels.
Over here in the summer you would expect a keyboard player to have a towel as standard gear, but in England that may not be so common.

[Drew Stephenson]

You might expect them to carry a towel in the summer but just to dry the rain off

[Aled Hughes]

Quick update on my phone, in the pub after dropping the gear off.

It's much better than I expected! I had given some brief pointers to the workers/carpenters (ie. Rockwool=good, paralel reflective surfaces=bad). What they've done is amazing- good few inches of rockwool on the lng walls, and the perspex on the short walls is all offset as to not be paralel. I'm good frienda with the guys who did it as it happens, and its great considering they're containers. Keep bass levels low and we should be good!

They're quite warm...

Can you see pics here? https://www.facebook.com/FHFDaled/posts ... 1006472780

[mhaigh]

Quick update on my phone, in the pub after dropping the gear off.

It's much better than I expected! I had given some brief pointers to the workers/carpenters (ie. Rockwool=good, paralel reflective surfaces=bad). What they've done is amazing- good few inches of rockwool on the lng walls, and the perspex on the short walls is all offset as to not be paralel. I'm good frienda with the guys who did it as it happens, and its great considering they're containers. Keep bass levels low and we should be good!

They're quite warm...

Can you see pics here? https://www.facebook.com/FHFDaled/posts ... 1006472780

can see pics but appears the words got mixed up, there's too many consonants and not enough vowels...

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

Brilliant! Presumably if the weather allows, there's nothing to stop you moving the artists outside of the container and recording them in the open air from time to time as per any other live recording?

[Aled Hughes]

It's going quite well! I'm not allowed to post tracks at the moment. Today's sessions about to start.

Here are some more pics https://www.facebook.com/FHFDaled/posts/1437800099570204

[damoore]

Wow. Who'd have thought you could make the inside of a container look so nice.

[Aled Hughes]

And it's done...

42 tracks - 2.4 hours of music - recorded, mixed, delivered and deemed radio worthy in 6 days!

[Dan LB]

And it's done...

42 tracks - 2.4 hours of music - recorded, mixed, delivered and deemed radio worthy in 6 days!

Well done!! Congratulations on completing what looked to be a fun project!

Dan

[Folderol]

That's all.

[Drew Stephenson]

Good work! When / how do we get to hear any of it?

[Aled Hughes]

I probably shouldn't do this, but shhhht... here's a private link to a few of my highlights . Please don't share it anywhere.

[Drew Stephenson]

What link guvnor? Nuffink to see 'ere.