Estudios Abdala is a modern, fully equipped studio, situated off 5th Avenue, just out of the centre of Havana, Cuba.
The Control Room looks out onto a large wood panelled room of 153 m2. Equally as high as it is broad, the room offered us enormous scope for recording very warm ambient tracks as well as space for the erection of several sound "stages" for the Drums and the various Conga combinations and the placement of strategic mics for Surround Sound* recording.
Likewise, the "Live Room" found at the back of Studio 1 (at approximately 50 m2) offered a similar possibility to record in Surround Sound*, with a brighter ambience due to it's inbuilt glass and ceramic construction. This suited very well the more 'cutting' percussion like the Timbales, Bongos and Carnival Bells (Agogos).
Instruments such as the Maracas, Clave and other small hand held percussion were recorded in mono in the two small booths off of the main room. This allowed the musicians to play together to capture the all-important 'groove' of the pieces, and we felt that this was more important than trying to capture everything in Surround Sound*.
The studio houses an impressive array of equipment that we used to record the percussion, most notably an SSL G Series desk and Studer D 827 Digital DASH tape recorder, we however also brought our own equipment that we also backed up onto, namely, a Titanium Mac G4 and MOTU 896 Firewire Interface, recording onto Digital Performer Version 3 which we also used to create the "Tempo map" for the recordings, synchronising to tape using a MOTU MTP AV timecode reader.
Little if any EQ was used, and a minimum of compression employed to create as transparent a sound as possible, for the benefit of future users to add their own "stamp" (if required) to the pure sound source. Great care was taken into the placement of microphones and the use of any external devices into the audio chain to achieve recordings with the greatest possible quality at the least intrusive cost of the musicians playing.
Studio Monitoring
was by Genelec 1031 and 1035 Monitors, with additional configuration of 4
x Yamaha NS10's surrounding the consul to give the impression of the Surround
recordings (A little improvised, we know - but this is Cuba!).
* Please note: The original recordings made with 5 channel surround mic ambience
positions, have been mixed down for ease of use into stereo pairs, including
the surround ambiences, thereby facilitating a 4 channel surround configuration
possibility for the end user.
Please note: All microphones run Left to Right from the musicians' perspective including the ambience, thus giving the instrument positioning inside the surround field from the musicians' point of view.
Studio 1 (Sala A)
a) Drums
b) Congas
c) Room Ambience
Live Room (Sala B)
a) Timbales
b) Bongos
c) Carnival Bells
d) Room Ambience
Booth 1 (Sala C)
Dry small room used for small hand percussion. Set up choice of 2 x Microphones for use as appropriate.
Booth 2 (Sala C)
Optional second dry small room also used for small hand percussion. As per Booth 1, set up choice of 2 x Microphones for use as appropriate.
The Recordings
All instruments were recorded using the SSL G Series desk. Minimal EQ only added where necessary.
Summitt Audio DCL 200 Tube Compressor used on the following instruments direct mic channel paths in "insert" mode:
DBX 160 Tube Compressor used on the following instruments direct mic channel paths in "insert" mode:
All microphones recorded to separate tracks. Some mixing down was necessary
in the post production stages to provide uniform "Stereo" or "Mono" files
for sample and loop handling capabilities. ie: In cases where 3 components
constitute an instrument or part of an instrument (When a Conga part requires
3 x differing Congas for example), these have been mixed down to a stereo
pair so as not to need 2 different loops to play one instrument.
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