PRODUCTION
WORK
REGRESSOR
'CRESCENT SPOON'
KING KING
'MAVERICK' (LIVE TRACKS)
KHAOS LIGHT
'COGNITIVE DISSONANCE'
DISPOSABLE
'SELF DISMANTLING PROCESS'
OLIVER WARDELL
'TAKE IT PERSONALLY'
GHOST DANCE COLLECTIVE
'GETTING BY'
STREAM
Fire us an email or contact us via social media to talk about the process of making a single/EP/album. From preproduction to release we can offer services to support all stages of a bands/artists release.
Mixing
Utilising years of expertise and a hand selected array of respected and industry standard software & hardware, Owl Shed Studios prides itself on high standards and quality of results, whatever the project!
Owl Shed Studios has and continues to cater to sounds and palettes across the musical spectrum, from singer/songwriters to jazz to folk to metal and so much more! It is always a priority through arranging and recording to present and capture the best possible sounds and sonic qualities of the instruments and voices on display. In mixing and mastering, this is where those characteristics are highlighted and accentuated!
At Owl Shed Studios, our approach with mixing has always been that of flexibility and playing to the strengths of the song and artist in question. Countless hours have been invested in exploring concepts and techniques that can be utilised to help the realisation of the sounds and goals of any client and song, be it achieving a personal and intimate sound for an acoustic ballad or perfecting the in-your-face guitar tones of thrash metal to convey the most aggression possible.
Owl Shed Studios takes a musical ear first to decipher and understand the goals of the client and of the song, then uses a strong foundation of technical knowledge to achieve those results.
At Owl Shed Studios, we mix everything 'in the box', as it were. This is to say, we record and mix digitally, with computers and DAWs (Logic Pro X being the favourite) as opposed to tape. We do this for a number of reasons;
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Extremely easy editing and manipulation of material - editing digitally is faster by an enormous margin than analogue. As such, it expedites a lot of recording processes and gives more time to focus on getting great takes and honing in the songs perfectly!
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Massive flexibility on tone and sonic characteristics of input - put more simply, anything that goes in (guitar/vocal/drums) can be altered and affected in just about any way imagined after recording. Recording analog, these sounds must be found beforehand and then once tracked, are there to stay, with very limited options. If you tracked guitars with too much reverb, for instance, they must be re-recorded or lived with. Digitally, there are a myriad of ways of rectifying this baked into the process! Recording DI only and using amp modelling software, one can change every imaginable parameter of guitar tone before, during and at any stage after recording. If, once the perfect take has been acquired, the feel and 'air' of a live amp is still desired, it is then entirely possible to re-amp these performances through any studio or client own amps!
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Massively more cost effective - through points highlighted above and many more unmentioned currently, from a mixing standpoint, working digitally allows much more time enhancing features of recordings rather than trying to repair. Even as far as repairing things go, digital workflow is enormously faster! In short, it allows Owlshed Studios to achieve great results fast, bringing costs lower!
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Analogue 'warmth' can be added - the main benefit to tracking to tape and by analogue means is the sound inherent to the tape (generally, a certain 'warmth' - added by circuitry of the machine and recording with higher gain - and compression in the low end, due to spatial limitations of the tape itself). There is nothing that tape adds that cannot the faithfully replicated by digital means at the mixing stage. There are a myriad of ways that clean, digital signal can be treated to achieve effects of tape saturation that we make full use of, across wide spectrum!
Taking full advantage of every one of these benefits and more, Owl Shed Studios endeavours to provide the most appropriate and most musical production to every project and artist that comes our way. From a mixing standpoint, having this level of control at each stage allows for an enormous amount of options and allows a mix to take any form it might need.
Mastering
The final stage in producing music is mastering. Not only is mastering used to get a mix to the same volume as you would expect to hear on streaming services etc but used to apply light & broad final touches to a track, providing extra brightness, punch, saturation and much more! At Owl Shed Studios, we utilise modern technology combined with time-tested techniques to achieve whatever result desired!
As with mixing, this works purely on a client and track led basis - the cues taken and the decisions made rest with desired outcomes and where the track wants to go!
Mastering can be done with instrument stems or a full mix-down. Owl Shed Studios also offers mastering for streaming, CDs and vinyl.
As with mixing, batch deals can be arranged for longer projects, such as EPs and full length albums!
Production
As part of our extended production services we also support bands/artists with:
Editing
If a client's track is a room waiting to be repainted and mixing & mastering is the new paint, the editing stage is the primer - when done right, an unnoticed part of the final product but no less integral to stellar final results. Few people will look at a well painted room and consider the job of undercoat application. They will simply appreciate the effects of that job well done!
When recording music, editing takes many forms and different styles have different requirements. At Owl Shed Studios, it is always with a musical ear that these decisions are made.
Common elements of editing are;
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Nudging and time correcting elements of a performance - bass came in a little ahead of the drums after the pre-chorus break? No bother! Just a nudge and it saves a re-track!
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Pitch correction on vocals/backing vocals - there is absolutely no shame in this! Especially when dealing with stacked vocal harmonies, even small discrepancies in pitch can create an unwanted cumulative effect. Using pitch correction to even these out can be vital to achieving the effect desired without having to spent quite so long tracking, searching for those perfect takes.
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Comping performances - this is often a process that is embedded with recording parts. Simply put, say a rhythm section goes for three takes through a song, it is going through the track and selecting the optimal parts of each performance. It is essential when multi-tracking to comp at each stage as each element in an arrangement benefits enormously from being recorded on top of the best parts of each previous element (ie it's important to track guitars on top of final drums, so as to be able to play tight with that performance).
Songwriting & Arrangement Consultancy
There are few projects that come through Owl Shed Studios that don't, in some way, shape or form, take advantage of having a different set of ears hearing their music and offering suggestions and options where appropriate.
Owl Shed Studios offers artists and bands full songwriting and arrangement services.
For singer/songwriters who lack a band but would like extra elements like extra guitars, keys, bass and/or drums recorded, Owl Shed Studios can help!
For bands who have their own parts arranged and recorded but know they'd love extra synth layers recorded to enhance the feel and texture of a song, Owl Shed Studios can help!
Owl Shed Studios have even provided drums for bands where the drummer does not live locally and live rhythm parts are required, so whilst engineering a session, our resident drummer Andrew also learned and tracked each song on the album!
Both Jack and Andrew are highly proficient multi-instrumentalists and well versed in song writing and music theory so are both fully able to engage with a client's work and provide options and support in whatever is needed! Just get in touch at owlshedstudios@gmail.com and we can get to work!
