The song was produced and mixed by Tony Newton, engineer for Iron Maiden
As I am sure you will know, we recently ran a competition in conjunction with DV247 to find a band for “RME Sessions” project that was to take place on November 5th 2012. There were 35 entrees and the judges eventually chose the 4 piece semi-acoustic act “Nick and the Sun Machine” to perform and be recorded at Air Studios in London.
We used 3 different RME set ups throughout the day to record the bands single “Mountain”. The first was an RME Babyface with Logic Pro on a Mac Book Pro, the second was the RME Fireface UCX with an Apple iPad using the new, rather amazing Auria from Wave Machine and the third set up was an RME Fireface UFX with Pro Tools on an iMac.
RME's flagship interface the Fireface UFX on recording duties at the RME Sessions
We used a variety of Lauten mics including the new Lauten Atlantis FC-387 on lead vocals, Horizon LT-321 on guitars and overheads on the “mini” kit along with Torch ST-221’s and Clarion FC-357’s on other sources. All were running though an RME Micstacy and Octamic II.The band monitored their live mixes on Ultrasone headphones.
I know many (including myself) would consider the fact that we bypassed Air’s custom 72 channel Neve 3106 as a crime to sonic sensibility, but we wanted to demonstrate just how good the RME mic pre’s and conversion actually are, and this was apparent by everybody’s reaction in the room.
Once the track was recorded, the band recorded a few little changes and around 6pm, Tony went about mixing “Mountain”.
One of the most exciting parts of the day was once the mix was “tweaked” by Tony and the band, we uploaded the finished mix along with credits and artwork (a picture taken earlier in the day) to a previously configured FTP. Our friends at Ditto Music then had the “Nick and the Sun Machine’s” song “Mountain” live on iTunes within about 30 minutes.
This was truly an exciting and worthwhile project which resulted in a band actually performing, producing and promoting a song within a matter of hours, and is now available on iTunes for anyone to buy and enjoy. And the band will see 100% of the royalties. Not a bad days work eh?
We would like thank the following for all of their help on RME Sessions:
Tony Newton : Engineer / Producer
Tom Bailey : Air Engineer
Laurence Anslow : Air assistant engineer
Caleb Hill : DV247 Session manager
Dan Sherratt : DV247 Video
Jay Kerr : Ditto Music
Chris Miller : Auria – Wave Machine
The Synthax Audio team
And of course Nick and the Sun Machine.
There will be more features and a video to follow
Thanks to all who took part and made the day such a success!