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Recording Serendipity

Updated: May 20, 2024

I have got to start this blog by saying that the recording process has been a whirlwind. A lot of things have changed throughout this process.


The style of my EP has largely stayed the same throughout this project but I have seen some developments and improvements in my technique and playing. My very first 2 demos in December 2023 were recorded with my phone before I acquired an audio interface. They were ambient in style and for one of them I made use of a hand strumming pattern and the delay pedal to mimic the effect of a loop pedal. It gave me a good starting point for pinpointing the style of my EP.




My initial plan for recording this project was to record into an audio interface using signal from my harp pick up which I recorded onto Audacity. This spanned from December 2023 - April 2024. Disaster struck at the start of this as my pickup broke, but I got it soldered back on and was able to carry on swiftly. I decided to record into an audio interface instead of in a studio with mics as I needed to be in a creative mood to improvise. It was handy to be able to record a quick recording with my setup without needing to set up a studio to record. I got some lovely tracks down with all of them having their own individual character. I was worried that there wouldn’t be much variety among the tracks as I use a toolkit of extended techniques and simple chord structures to form my improvisations. However, I noticed that my technique improved and musical ideas developed throughout the time recording with the audio interface.


My tracks started to really come together once I acquired my loop pedal, I was able to layer up lots of different sounds. But a lot of the initial demos were quite long at the start with some being 15 mins long each. Although this is ideal for performing soundscapes to an audience, I knew I had to try and cut down for my EP. I worked on this by trying to cut down the amount of layers in my loops and aimed for a short build up of layers before getting to a solo. This worked over time and most of my demos became 3-6 mins long instead. I realised that less is more and because I want my tracks to be ambient as well as minimalistic, I need to leave some space.





Things changed when my coursemate suggested that I get some mics into my setup. After Easter break, we were recording for our band’s EP and at the end of the session, my pickup stopped producing any signal and my delay pedal broke too. Luckily I had recorded a lot of demos through my audio interface over Easter to use. However, we tried to use a mic as well as the pickup before it broke to compare the sound against my demos recorded just with the audio interface, and the sound was miles better. The microphone captured a more natural and beautiful tone compared to recording with an audio interface. I was apprehensive about this new process of recording improvisations in a fixed studio setting. However, I feel that I am more confident in my ability to improvise on the spot in a timed studio setting than I did at the start of this project.


I still had a problem.. no pick up! How was I supposed to get the signal from my harp into my pedals? One of the music department technicians Mario came up with a solution:


  1. AT4050 Multi-Pattern Condenser Microphone capturing the harp

  2. Mic signal goes into a mini mixer desk

  3. A copy of that signal is sent from the mixer into my pedalboard

  4. Finally, the pedal signal goes back into the mixer then into the interface and logic


I had a trial of this method and it picked up the signal of the harp and pedals well, but I found that when I looped a phrase, it was very faint when it continued in the loop. To solve this we changed the final part of this setup to go from my pedalboard to a DI box (instead of back in the mixer) then into the interface and into Logic Pro X. This solved the problem and I also found that room noise was a lot quieter.


All my tracks heard on my EP were recorded in one session on Wednesday April 17th. I was confident with how they sounded, I thought they captured my sound perfectly and decided that this was my final recording.


Thanks to Mario Cáceres for your help with solving the many issues throughout my recording process! And to Alfons Russell for sticking around in my final take to make sure everything was going smoothly.


Check out this folder to hear my demos I recorded along the way:



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