Studio Sessions - Take an insight

Entry 1

Hey everybody, I’m back after a short break. We did some preperations for the upcoming studio sessions. I’ve already told you about the production of a new record which has now started. We want to take you on the road with our studio sessions, and present you different contributions according the project. Besides the blog part, we’ll shoot also short videos, and do some picture stuff on Facebook or Twitter. We hope you enjoy the insight into our new project. Stay tuned for more posts!

Like the past posts, I like to make in this post short reviews about our latest studio additions. For the occasion of the new record, we bought two Shure SM27 and two JBL LSR 308 active monitors. Let’s see how they perform. 

Shure SM27

Before I start, I have to mention that I didn’t try the beta-version of the 27. But as I can imagine, they perform just a little bit more precise than the SM-version does. Now, the great thing about the SM27 is that you can use it for different operating conditions, like for vocal recording, as overheads, or a cab-mic, and so on. It’s specialty to me, is the freedom you have with this mic to do everything. You even can use the mic to produce self-made reverb. As a condenser mic, it absorbs noise linear though you can adjust a three different kinds of low-pass-filters (linear / steep slope on 80Hz / moderate slope (rolloff). In addition you can pad the for -15dB.

For our project, we use the mic as overheads, as a cab-mic, for acoustic guitars, and also for vocals with pilot-tracks. For the live-use, we intend to apply the mics for Gilles’ drum as overheads. In sum, this mic is an all-rounder you shouldn’t miss out to have in your equipment.

JBL LSR 308

As I remember correctly myself, I once posted a list for future studio acquisitions for the band. On this list, I put Yamaha MSP Series as studio monitors. We decided to purchase the JBL LSR 308. But why?

Actually, there is no particular reason we decided to work with JBL. There are so many great monitors out there that in the end, it only matters what kind of sound you are used to, and further, what kind of sound does your monitor produce. I started to work in another studio with the JBL LSR 303 models. Their sound convinced me totally. It is a solid processed monitor, which guarantees a great adaption to the room’s acoustic you’re in. With two switches you are able to adapt high- and low-frequencies in a range of +/- 2 dB each. Same for the LSR 308. The monitor itself has a 56W D class amp for high tones and deep tones with a 1” tweeter and a 8” woofer. Besides the fact, that I’m already used to its sound, for our heavy metal sounds it is important to have wide range of frequencies also for high-frequencies as well for low-frequencies. Because I like to work a lot with 40Hz frequencies, it was important to have a gear which generates that without having losses there.

Of course, we can only evaluate validly the monitors after the recording sessions are done. If there were some terrible issues with the monitors, we would review again this post.

For the upcoming entry, I intend to give you an insight into our mic-set up for the recording session.

Keep on rocking.

Enjoy Seasplash!