Live Lounge Session Plan
Our production team has arranged an acoustic live lounge recording session with local folk artist Euan, taking place in the Neve studio on saturday we will be recording a live set of his track Brilliant Mistake Machine as promotional material for Euan to market his new release, as well as for ourselves to promote the start of our Sociodelic Live Lounge Sessions.
This session will require some preparation, being a live lounge we intend to record both the audio and visual of the set. Going into this there are a number of roles and responsibilities we’ll have to undertake to ensure a successful session.
Those in the production team include myself, Das, business liaison Tioma and camera operators Dan and Darris.
Going into the session in the roles of recording engineer, desk and daw operation and session set-up, we will as well have a number of other tasks to complete. Following is a list of all tasks to complete before the session -
Studio live-room setup - The studio will have to be tidied and prepared aesthetically for filming first thing on the day, bringing in mood lighting as well as backdrop arrangement (organ + plants + baffle board with tapestry)
- Microphone and input setup - we’ll pick a microphone according to the artist's taste of old school and visually classic style which doubles as a visual symbol of quality, as well as for the quality sound which it’ll produce. Likely a tube condenser mic for vocals and 414 condenser microphones for the acoustic guitar.
- Desk setup - the desk will need to be setup for the session, using the neve we will have to ensure that the sample-rate settings are set, we will also have to ensure the rednet interfaces are setup with the primary set + the expansion setting disabled. There will be a total of four inputs, details for this are attached. These will need to be routed into the corresponding live room stage box for each channel, sound-checked and pre-gained beforehand by myself while Das takes the artist chair.
- Daw setup - the protools session will be setup with a clear project session with inputs set and record ready, the bpm will be set to match the track and the input and channel count will match against the desk inputs.
- Camera organisation and setup - As this session will be a live lounge recording of both audio and visual, we will have to find and organise for a camera operator who’d be available on the day. They will be responsible for setting the camera shots across two or three cameras, record arming, and lighting, and cover responsibility for the visual recordings of the set. As the producer I’ll be overseeing this to ensure we get the visual right for the set.
Responsibility of the roles will be shared between myself and Das, covering the overall record production including the engineering, desk and daw operation and setup. We work very well as a pair, and we look forward to the session outcome to reflect that we have the capability to produce quality work. After our recording and mixing sessions with 4-piece band The Stamp we are confident going into this stripped back acoustic singer-songwriter set and welcome the additional challenge of running the session as a filmed live lounge. This session has sparked a project idea for myself, and after this session I intend to arrange more going forward with more local artists. More detail on this will be in a follow-up entry on the Sociodelic Live Lounge Sessions.
