Remote Protools Tracking for Artist Rebecca Folsom

The Gig:

Setting up and commanding a remote multitrack protools session for artist Rebecca Folsom coming to town to work with Grammy Award Winning keyboardist Shaun Martin, his hand selected choir, all produced by Grammy Winning producer Tom Wasinger. Wonderful, let’s go. Location was Sanctuary Dallas, a lovely historic building once St. Paul’s Methodist now converted into a residence. Already familiar with the building, I knew it sounded amazing and was excited to track such a stellar ensemble.

Needing sonic coverage were Shaun on a Yamaha Grand, a nine person choir and soloist Rebecca Folsom. 24bit/96Khz was expected along with class-a pre and mics so we built our rig as followed. Sound Devices Mix Pre10 ii as our main interface/pre amp with two extra channels coming from a Sound Devices mix pre 6. We chose 2 Neumann U87ai on piano tops, an MKH50 under the piano for lows and a crown pzm on the hood. For the choir we set a three mic array of Schoeps cmc6 mic, 2 with MK41 sup cardioid and center cardioid  (a nice spread of the choir but tight enough to offer some rejection of piano). A vintage U87 special for soloist Rebecca was provided and the room ambience was covered by a stereo pair of AT4050 mics in omni, half way back in the room and way up high on telescopic stands. They sounded fantastic! Also provided was a monitor cue to the pianist for click, headphones all around for overdubs and stacks, and timecode to camera.

We set up a makeshift control room off to the side, running a macbook pro interfaced with the sound devices, wingman app monitoring input and avid mix control on ipads. The small but mighty configuration proved to be excellent in function and sonics. Wonderful people came together for two evening of tracking an amazing song. We can’t wait to hear it released.