Recording piano and the sentimental croon of Scott B Mackay
Recorded at Berlin’s iconic Famous Gold Watch Studios and engineered by Bob Spencer, this Aim Audio Artist Session spotlights the sentimental croon of Scott B Mackay.
Our INSPIRE and ESSENCE microphones were used throughout the session—adapting to the demands of the room and the one-take performance in real time.
Vocals were tracked with the cardioid pattern ESSENCE, mounted in our ORBIT shock mount and SENTRY pop filter.
Switching between the Transformer/FET output stages found the slightly accentuated lows and sparkling highs of the Transformer output perfectly complemented Scott’s vocals and was used as the final setting.
Sent into an ISA 430 MkII preamp, the result was a clear and true-to-life vocal chain that enhanced Scott’s natural vocal character without getting in the way of the performance.
Usually the studio mics up their Bernard May upright piano, a lovely restored Berlin made instrument from the 1960s, at the rear. However for this session a pair of INSPIRE microphones were positioned over the hammers and routed into Neve 1073s to provide an intimate, wide spread and glassy soundstage.
Additionally, two more INSPIREs were used, fed into Cranborne Audio Camden 500 preamps to capture the articulate tone of the rear soundboard.
All INSPIRE mics were set to cardioid patterns in BACK mode, keeping the front panels easily accessible for any control changes. Processing was kept intentionally minimal: basic EQ and compression, with delay and reverb – letting the performance take the lead and the microphones do the rest.
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