recording Archives - chrishancock.network

Doldrums Singles

October 29, 2025/in academic, art, news, recording mixing mastering, sounds, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

Back in August 2024, the Doldrums and I headed into Stranded Recording Studios.

The Doldrums hail from Wombarra, on Dharawal country, and consist of two long-time friends, neighbours and musical compadres; Michi Hirzel (Sealife Park, Spiderling) and Matt Steffen (Decoder Ring, Toby Martin, Jim Moginie’s Electric Guitar Orchestra).

We first started talking about recording their sound in early 2024, and jointly felt that a live to tape machine session at their local South Coast studio Stranded, would be best to capture their dreamy, meandering blend of guitars, drones, drum machines and hazy vocals. We felt that the Doldrums‘ sound would be complimented by the vintage tonal warmth of Stranded Recording Studios‘ MCI JH24 16 Channel 2” tape machine.

As the duo’s rhythm section is based around drum machines, it allow me to set up Michi and Steff and their guitar amps in the live room at Stranded Studios. Their amps where placed left and right, firing up the length of the live room. I used some baffles down the centre length of the room to reduce the spill at the close mic stage (see the below image). This studio positioning helped to facilitate a nature stereo image of the two guitar sounds, Michi left and Steff right. This was captured via stereo room mics placed left and right at the end of the room. Blending the close guitar mics into the room stereo image was a particular fun aspect in the mixing stage of the record. A full list of the mics used can be found at the end of this post.

The main beds of tracks were captured on 2″ tape and then recorded to Pro Tools. Any further guitar solos and vocals were recorded directly to Pro Tools. The mixes were then taken to completion at my home studio, with a few visits from the lads at the studio.

My main reflections on co-producing the record with Michi and Steff include:

It’s both extremely satisfying, and tricky, to work with guitar tones that are breaking up at the amp level. The lads pull some great guitar tones and aren’t afraid to push there small diaphragm amps to the point of breaking up. Heroes in the production suite to control such edgy tones were firstly, the medium of 2″ tape , and then within the mixing phase, modern plugins such as Fab Pro Q3, and frequency specific dynamic control in general.

A second take away would be, not everyone wants or needs Hip Hop drum fatness! Hearing the lads drum machines driven to tape and coming back with a fat, warm tape saturation initial inspired me to make the drums huge via some EQ, compression and parallel compression. Michi and Steff had to tell me to settle down on at least one occasion, and to sit the drums more equally in the mix. At the end of the day the client is always right, and their vision needs to be delivered.

Another reflection would be, it’s a fun challenge working with introspective musicians come vocalists! Steff occasionally graces the tracks with some heartfelt vocals which are meant to act as both a lyric and another instrument layer. Steff was definite that the vocals had to not stand up front like a Pop vocal, but rather, sit right back in the mix and be as hazy and washed out as possible. In this balancing act, I had to incorporate quite a few extended mixing techniques. Firstly, to keep Steff’s vocal audible while using so much reverb and delay, I used side-chain compression on the FXs so that the vocal ducked the FXs volume just a bit to keep Steff’s vocal from being swallowed by the said FXs. Further, to keep the vocal from getting lost in the wall of guitars, I resorted to using Waves F6 on the Guitar Sum Bus, and routing the vocal as the key input/ side-chain compression signal for the guitars, so that the guitars ducked slightly when Steff is singing. I particularly like the F6 plugin as it’s easy to set the compression to occur only in the mids/ and or sides, and at whatever frequency band the vocal is most dominant. As Steff was panned centre, I applied only frequency specific compression in the mids, and at around 2-3kHz.

Michi and Steff, have been active musicians in some notable Sydney bands, see their credentials at the top of this post, and as such, were very good at communicating their aesthetic and sonic desires. They were heavily involved in directing the mixes and co producing this record.

For more information and music from the Doldrums, head to their Instagram, or check them on Spotify. The tracks are being released one by one as singles on Spotify, and the Doldrums’ Bandcamp.

Here are some pictures from the studio sessions

INPUT/ MIC LIST:

Drums:
Radial stereo DI –

Steff Guitar:
Close mics – Shure SM57, Neumann KM84, AEA N-92 ( 1 foot back – to one protect the ribbon, amps were LOUD, and to reduce proximity effect)
the 57 gave bite, the Neumann gave full frequency pick up and shimmer, the B-92 ribbon gave warmth, body and glue.

Michi Guitar:
Close mics – Shure SM57, Neumann KM84, Royer R-121 ( 1 foot back – to one protect the ribbon, amps were LOUD, and to reduce proximity effect)
Similarly, with this array of mics, the mix had tonal options, the 57 gave bite, the condenser the upper brilliance, and the ribbon gave warmth, body, and glued the other mic sounds together.

Live Room Sound:
Neumann U87 stereo pair
as mentioned these were placed at the back of the room, and captured the stereo spread of Michi and Steff’s amps, and provided a natural reverb that was used in most of the mixes.

Steff Vocal:
Neumann U87 and Shure SM57
I love blending these mics. The U87 give a full classy body and clarity, whilst the SM57 give that almost nasally mid poke when a sound needs a bit more rawness.

Steff Acoustic Guitar:
Neumann U87 and Senheisser MKH 8040 stereo pairs
Both condenser types worked well, but I think the U87s mostly made the record due to it’s crisp and slightly vintage tone

Making Sense – Podcast recording

October 25, 2024/in academic, art, news, recording mixing mastering, sounds, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

Over the tail of 2023 and deep into 2024, I collaborate with the Make Shift creators, Caitlin Marshall & Lizzie Rose, to create an audio courser delivering their great knowledge about creativity and it’s role in our sense of well being.

The audio course is titled Making Sense, and is a nine part audio course on creative first aid, designed to listen to while you’re walking, driving, cleaning the bathroom, cooking dinner…. Making Sense explores what creativity is, the neuroscience of what happens when we practice, the role of the nervous system and the five elements of creative first aid.

A free episode can be found on substack.com here https://substack.com/home/post/p-147355790

This was an very interesting job. The content was great, the hired talent Elana Stone (intro track) & Tom Maclachlan (Narrator/ Voice Over talent) were excellent, and there was a lot of music and sound to create.

As this is my production blog, I will keep the post nerdy, and most relevant to aspiring creators of Podcast like material and content.

My mic choice(s) for the vocal/ voice over was a Neumann TLM107 + Shure SM7B + Pop-shield. The Neumann lent clarity and upper frequency sheen, whilst the SM7B gave a warm and intimacy. The mics then hit a signal chain of Vintech 573 pre-amps, Warm Audio WA2A compression and then into my DAW on the day, Ableton. The recording was done @ Stranded Recording Studios in Bellambi, see pictures below.

Once all the editing was finished, my vocal processing chain in the DAW employed the following concepts: (in order of processing) High Pass Filtering unwanted low frequencies, boosting presence(5-6kHz ish), boosting air (10kHz and above), compressing to control dynamics, de-essing to control sibilance, de-reverbing to remove reflections, more EQ to sweet the vocal, limiting for volume boost, mouth de-clicking, and finally more frequency and band based compression to control any final sibilance and harsh resonances.

The exact plugins used in the process are pictured in the below audio effects chain screenshot

The settings can be seen to some degree in the below screenshot

Beyond the vocal recording and production, about 2 hrs of original music had to be written for the audio series, this became somewhat reduced as I realised the comfort in recurring themes and songs/ sounds to evoke the right atmosphere. Generally though, as the audio series in reflective, more gentle genres were engaged, such as ambient, folks and chilled beats. When juggling a range of foley, pre composed music and music gestures that were required to be composed within the mix session, I found having Bus or Groups enabled in Ableton very valuable. My main groups were Music, Foley and Instruments, as can be seen below. Such a process allowed me to control the automation of more macro level fades, reverbing and filtering out of sonic elements so ensure the most fluid delivery of the content.

The audio series is a paid series, but the generous folks at Make Shift have made available one of the episodes for free, see below

Read on Substack

More information about the audio course can be found here, https://www.makeshift.org.au/making-sense

Recording and mixing Elana Stone

October 25, 2024/in academic, art, news, recording mixing mastering, sounds, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

At the end of 2023, Elana Stone asked to record a single, Eyes with myself at Stranded Studios in Bellambi.

Over a high paced session, Elana laid down an assortment of haunting keys, synths, vocals, harmonies and even great vintage drum machine parts. She was a delight to work with, effortlessly jumping from layer to layer, capturing the sound that was in her head.

Early 2024 I was in the mix process, the track was shaping up beautifully with a misty Twin Peaks 80s favour. Elana, however, could hear the possibility of the second half of the track lifting with a layer of some organic drums and bass. Elana’s longtime collaborator, Kieran Parker, quickly recorded some great new bass and drum layers, and then came the tricky job of finding space for two bass lines and drum parts.

Production-wise, we got there with some aggressive EQ shaping, sidechain compression and more conceptually, really allowing each of the basses and drums to have a unique character. The new drums eventually adopted a quite psychedelic layer. It was fun to be treating a whole drum bus with flangers, phasers and over-the-top psychedelic treatments in generally.

The result is below

Come the release of the track within an album setting, it was amazing to find myself in the album credits alongside a host of my favourite Sydney-based engineers and producers, such as Tony Buchen, Antonia Gauci and Richie Belkner, as well as a gun line up of musicians, including Josh Pyke, Luke Moseley, Justing Stanley, Zoe Hauptmann, and Keiran and Lachlan Parker.

Below are a few images from the session. Elana’s album tour dates are also below.

Bass Ventura single mastering

August 10, 2023/in news, recording mixing mastering, sounds, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

Across the last few month I’ve been doing a bit of Bass and Afro House mastering for the Sydney / Gold Coast artist Bass Ventura.

Bass Ventura aka Sean Brodnik, is an old student of my from SAE Sydney, and therefore that history puts a great spin on the client/ mastering engineer relationship. Across the last four singles his production has gone from strength to strength with the subtle feedback that both mastering and mastering engineers can give re total mix balance and dynamics.

Here are the first two singles from this first batch of 4 masters. Enjoy and follow Bass Ventura at any of the below locations:

Sweetie – Punch The Shark EP released

August 10, 2023/in news, recording mixing mastering, sounds, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

Back in Feb 2023 I was the recording engineer for Sweetie and producer Jono Boulet. The 5 tracks recorded over the 3 day session, have now received the Jono Boulet production, and are now available on a cracking new EP titled Punch The Shark. The EP is receiving some great reviews.

Check it all out at the below locations:

<a href="https://sweetiebandie.bandcamp.com/album/punch-the-shark">Punch The Shark by Sweetie</a>

Back in the studio w Nic Cassey for his 3rd LP

April 6, 2023/in news, recording mixing mastering, sounds, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

I’m excited to say I’m back into the studio with old friend and client Nic Cassey. Across the years we’ve made two LPs together, and are now working on his 3rd record from Stranded Recording Studios in Bellambi on the South Coast of NSW.

Nic is an artist that effortlessly taps into a sound and songwriting style that one could place as a 60s / 70s singer songwriter style. He’s a multi-instrumentalist, first learning drums and then piano and guitar. Vocally, he’s a great poet with a beautiful unique voice. You can check out his back catalog on Spotify.

On the first two tracking days at Stranded, we were joined by Scott Leishman and productively recorded the drums, piano, guitar and bass beds for 9 tracks. The Input List is as below.

Piano – A/B Pair – Rhodes pencil pair – BA JLM preamp
Piano Room – U47 (Chess Tools) – Great River Preamp – Smack Compressor

Acoustic Guitar – Sennheiser 4080 spaced pair – EZ1290 Neve Clone
Acoustic Room – same U47 as Piano

Kick In – D12 – Vintech 573 – Clark 1176
Kick out – Condenser (can’t recall the European brand) – desk pre
Snare Up – SM57 – Vintech 573
Snare down – SM57 – Desk pre
Hat – Beyer M160 – Desk Pre
Rack & Floor Toms – Toshiba Ribbon RB1 – Desk Pre
OH L & R – Coles 4038 pair – Telefunken V675
Crotch Mic – Sennheiser MD441 – Neve clone pre – Smack Compressor

Our third day at Stranded focused on vocals, and after a huge day, we had all vocals recorded and comp’d for the record. The studio had just invested in a few more mics and compressors so we had the fortune of recording in 4 fine mic flavours to give options during the mixing phase; the Input List is as below:

Vox 1 – Neumann U87 – Vintech V573 – Warm WA2A
Vox 2 – Neumann TLM 107 – Vintech V573 – Chandler EMI TG1
Vox 3 – Shure SM57 – EZ1290 (Neve Clone) – dbx 165A
Vox 4 – Chesspiece (?) U47 Clone – EZ1290 – Chandler EMI TG1

Recording Sweetie with producer Jono Boulet

March 3, 2023/in news, recording mixing mastering, sounds, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

Early Feb 2023 I had a three day session at Stranded Recording Studio, recording a new EP for the band Sweetie, and the producer Jono Boulet.

Sweetie are a solid 4 piece rock band, so the mic tactics were somewhat standard, but the presence of the producer, Jono Boulet, always gives the recording engineer a bit more time and leeway to focus on the sounds.

The mic input list can be seen below from the studio pics. Stand out combinations of mic, preamp and compression that come to mind are as follows.

Firstly, the inputs at Stranded are restricted to 16 channels, so some compromises were made, that including just one mic for the kick drum. In this case we used my AKG D12 and Jono pushed it in further than usual to get as much beater sound as possible. This combined with the preamp choice of a Vintech 573 and some punchy 1176 compression was one of the best kick sounds I’ve pulled as yet. It also help that we were using the beautiful in house Gretsch drum kit.

Beyond, the kick, the toms were recorded with Toshiba RB-1 ribbon mics. I’ve become a fan of ribbons on toms over the years for two reasons; They have the ribbon thick, fat tone, and further, being a figure 8 polar pattern, they reduce the bleed from cymbals and other drums. The RB-1s worked a charm on this record as expected.

One last interesting mic combo worth mentioning was Jono Boulet’s stereo crotch mic technique. Rather than standard options for a crotch mic, such as Sennheiser MD 441, Jono likes to use a stereo XY pair of Neumann KM-84s. It was a cool stereo close pair, and whilst it takes mixing a record to really love and appreciate certain mic techniques, it looked like it was going to be a great option in the mix for Jono to dial in.

Last reflections, Sweetie were the first band I’ve recorded that wanted to start at 8am in the morning. Unusual, but productive! The two baffles pulled together in Stranded forms a quiet dead vocal booth.

Below are a bunch of pictures from the session.

Electric Korma recording session

July 15, 2022/in news, recording mixing mastering, sounds, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

On the 14th of July I had the pleasure of tracking a rather curious band by the title of Electric Korma at Stranded Recording Studios.

Effectively they are a red hot trio that do abstracted, rocked-out Hindi Hits / Bollywood covers. A bizarre niche, as admittedly by the front man George, but profitable, and popular amongst the affluent Australian Indian community.

The emphasis of the session was to get great drum takes, and possibly some keeper bass takes and guitar takes. But band leader George and Bass player Joey, stated at the onset that they might do overdubs after the fact at their home studios. The Input list below confirms such, the emphasis being on the drums with minimal mic’ing of other elements.

ELECTRIC KORMA – 14/7/22 INPUT LIST

Kick In – AKG D112
Kick Out – AKG D25
Snare up – Shure SM57
Snare Down – Shure SM57
Hat – Rode TF5
Rack –
Floor – Sennheiser MD – 421
OH L – Coles 4038
OH R – Coles 4038
Room – Gefel – Um-70
Bass DI
Bass Amp – M88
GTR Amp – Shure SM57 – LP 3
Scratch Vox 1 – Shure SM58 – LP 4
Scratch Vox 2 – Shure SM58 – LP 5
Scratch Vox 3 – Shure SM58 – LP 6

The band wanted to play live, and this has informed and directed the mic choice to focus on dynamic and ribbon microphones to minimise bleed between instruments.

The mic choices are fairly standard, but a few things excelled or impressed me during the session.

Firstly, I’m loving the Beyerdynamic M160 double ribbon mic on toms. They have that ribbon warmth and have great rejection past 110 degrees (according to the manufacturers) which keeps down too much cymbals or other drums getting into the mic.

Secondly, The Coles 4038 ribbon mics are such a warm lovely choice for rock drum overheads, and in this particular application, really minimise bleed from bass and guitar amps compared to condenser mic options. They also respond so nicely to a bit of a high shelf lifting those higher frequencies that aren’t so pronounced in ribbons generally.

Lastly, a bit of an AKG overkill, but the D112 and D25 made for a solid, warm thumping kick drum sound.

Below are a few pics from the session.

M. McCosker Fith Studio Session

September 23, 2019/in news, recording mixing mastering, Uncategorized/by chnetwork

A graduate of SAE has set up a studio down the road from my newish residency in Thirroul, namely, Fith Studios.

I’d been looking forward to taking a session down there, and some vocals and guitars for Michelle McCosker’s debut album seemed the perfect combination.

Fith Studio is a small, one live room, one control room set up, featuring a TLA Audio console, a small selection of outboard, and owned and run by some lovely crew.

How did it sound? The room was small enough, and live enough that when the vocalist hit their louder notes, the room sound became quite present in the recording when using condenser mics. Fortunately, the room reflections suited the tracks, sounded pleasant, and therefore the recording became a recording in the old fashion sense of the term; a record of a particular performance in a particular room / acoustic environment.

The stand out signal chains from the session included Fith’s in-house Neumann TLM 49 combined with their Neve 1073. The TLM 49 shares the same capsule as the famous U47 & M49, and approaches the warm sonic signature of the tube-based U47, but from a transformer solid-state technology. This into the legendary 1073, was a lovely coupling for a classy vintage vocal tone.

Also sounding great was a combination of gear that I brought down to the session, that being a pair of Sennheiser 8040s, coupled with a pair of Telefunken V672 preamps. The warm, classy definition of the 8040s combined with the vintage quality and character of the V672s was a great stereo A/ B micing combo on acoustic guitars.

Reflections; the studio is cool, but suits louder music generally. Those TLA preamps in the console need a bit of volume to get them going as they have a max of 60 dB of gain. Further, the slight sound bleed from outside noises and weather means that again, loud sources are the safest best for recording in this space.

Nevertheless, stoked to have such a studio within walking distance from home, and stoked to be recording the great vocals and songs of M. McCosker.

Below are a few shots from the session.

The Grove Studios

September 12, 2019/in academic, news, recording mixing mastering/by chnetwork

Recently, I visited The Grove Studios, Studio 1, to record drums for a client’s record. We stayed at the studio over two days, loved the studio, pulled some great sounds and had a great time. A big thank you to Scott, Izaac and Owen for having us.

The input list for the session is at the end of this post. Stand out signal paths from the session include; the Crunch / Crotch mic, our Gabriel Roth / Daptone, one mic technique, and the Kick Out signal.

For a crunch mic, I usually will use a Sennheiser MD441-U (left), but went with a MD421 (right) as despite The Grove’s great mic locker, they were without a 441.

The mic worked well, but the real gold within this signal chain was a Neve 1064 (Pre-amp and EQ), and DBX 162 Stereo Compressor.

The Neve 1064 has that lovely colouration that has been commented on by many, and the DBX 162 can be driven into harmonic colouration as well. All up, it was a tight, warm and coloured signal that proved very punchy within the overall drum sound.

On a similar one mic technique, we used Gabriel Roth’s one mic trick, that being a mic placed side of kick, almost under the snare. The mic chosen was a vintage Reslo ribbon, notorious for a mellow lo-fi high-end frequency content, or lack thereof. The Reslo was patched into the SSL 4000 G console to balance the mellow top end of the ribbon with the brighter SSL preamp and EQ options. Further, an 1176 Silver Face was inserted to smash the signal, apply colouration, and to compress the signal and bring forth all the drum sounds into a tight image. Again, within the drum mix, this particular mic gave us access to a punchy, lo-fi, coloured overall drum sound.

The kick-out signal was comprised of a Rodes Classic in Omni (for a larger bottom end), a blanket to help the kick have separation from the rest of the drum kit, and the Neve 1064 preamp for a coloured and thick low mid. The signal was then routed to Empirical Labs Distressor; a slow attack, quick release applied. The high pass button was engaged in the signal detector to allow the bottom end under 80Hz to not trigger the compression and result in a larger uncompressed low end.

In conclusion, what a live room and control room. Very highly recommended for any studio needs. Lovely grounds, functional kitchen, and accommodation to boot. Below are some pictures from the session and the input list.