La Bête Blooms Producer Research

After the first meeting with La Bête Blooms it was clear that I should begin my research by exploring practices used by producers, and practices used on landmark recordings in the aforementioned post.

Firstly I decided to research Steve Albini, famous for his work with grunge artists such as Nirvana and The Pixies.

My research lead me to a soundonsound article (Tingen, 2005)  on the producer which can be viewed on the link below;

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep05/articles/albini.htm

It was particularly interesting to discover his view on the engineer/producer-artist relationship and how he feels about putting the artists interests before anything else. He is 'averse' to the role of the record producer and sees his work as 'purely technical, rather than artistic'.

I feel that I will adopt this approach during the process, however I have been informed that two of the tracks that I will be recording for La Bête Blooms are new tracks, I will offer suggestions If I feel certain elements of the tracks don't work or would work particularly well in a different way.

The article features a synopsis of his favourite microphones in different applications, I found this particularly useful when trying to inform my own choices as regards microphone choices in the recording process.

I also decided to research other producers who may inform my practices when recording La Bête Blooms. I decided to take a look at producers who worked with Nirvana on their other records. Nevermind, arguably one of their most commercially successful records was produced by Butch Vig.

I also discovered an article (Buskin, 1997) about Butch Vig and working on Nevermind which can be viewed below

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/mar97/butchvig.html

Initial Meeting with La Bête Blooms

For my recording portfolio I have decided to work with La Bête Blooms, a band whom I have previously worked with. I aim to record, engineer and produce an accurate representation of the artists sound through appropriate production techniques based on the artist’s direct influences.

The first step involved arranging a meeting between myself and the band to discuss initial considerations of the recording process. I first discussed what approaches the band have usually taken when working with other producers and which approaches they are most comfortable with as artists in order to get what I believe would be the best from them as performers.

 They informed me that they usually begin by recording bass and drums together to a click track and then follow suit in a typical multi-track recording manner, adding guitars, followed by vocals and any extra instrumentation. 

I followed this by asking key questions which may help me pin-point my research focus for this project. Firstly, I asked what key genres they would associate themselves with as an artist. They responded with;

‘Shoegaze, Grunge, Indie and Post-Punk’ 

I also asked which artists they consider influences on their sound, they replied with; 

'My Bloody Valentine, Pixies and Nirvana' 

I also asked if there are any producers the band were particularly fond of. Jack, the bass player informed me that they particularly admired Steve Albini who produced In Utero, by Nirvana.

The band also informed me that the main focus of their sound would be their 'wall of guitars' otherwise known as a 'Wall of Sound'.

I believe the following information has given me enough information to form a valid research focus to inform the practices I wish to employ during the recording, mixing and mastering process.