Unit 2: Evaluate your project (Final draft back up)

Recording engineer Andrew O’Brien talks about his cover of ‘Hello’

“When I was given the opportunity to record and produce a cover of this song for another artist, I was excited to see what could be created.”

Adele: Who is she?

Adele has become a major phenomenon, and one of the most successful artists of the 21^st century. Over 100 million records sold across the world in her ever growing career, her second album 21 became the fourth best selling album in the UK of all time, going 16 times platinum.
Her latest music triumph, 25, has seen her charge straight back to the top of the charts, going straight to number one across the world. The lead single “Hello” has led the “Rolling in the Deep” singer to new heights, smashing records across the world.

The Recording Process

Andrew O’Brien is a music producer and sound engineer based in the Midlands. He has worked with several bands and has re-mixed, sequenced and composed.  He has just completed a series of covers of Adele’s phenomenally successful global hits. With the help of a small team Andrew recorded this cover in a local studio, which he hired out over a period of time. “The reason Kate and I (The artist) picked this song to cover is because of how relevant it is music lovers at the moment and from a business perspective, we knew a cover of this popular song would help Kate gain attention as an artist.” Kate is an upcoming singer songwriter, also from Tamworth who approached O’Brien and asked him to help her record this cover.

“The recording process was really simple because everyone knew exactly what they were doing and were really professional” – Andrew speaking about his team

From the studio in Tamworth he provided some insights into the process. “Well…I suppose I like to sit down with the artist first, to see what direction they want take the song in”. Seems very relaxed, I then went to proceed to ask him about what equipment he used.
“Obviously it depends on what I am recording. For instance for the vocals I used a Rode NT1, as this gave the best capture”. Although after a slight pause he then added, “Okay admittedly it was the only mic I had access too! I’m not that rich you know! But I’m still happy with the way the vocals turned out in the end, with some reverb added they were great!”

                                                                                         

“The drums are were the most difficult and frustrating to record,” Andrew explains as he clarifies how he recorded the drums. “I used two AKG C100s for the hi-hats, Shure SM 58 for the snare and a AKG D112 for the kick”.  Despite having difficulty recording the drums, it seems that mixing them was a lot simpler than he had originally thought. “As long as they don’t clip when they are recorded, they are not to bad to mix. I adjusted the levels of the EQ and applied some compression to make sure the drums were balanced.”

With regards to mixing and mastering I went to on to ask how O’Brien he approaches this process, especially for this cover. “I think like anyone, the process is different for everyone. For me I start by mixing the most complicated section, in this case it was the drums”. He also likes the artist, who he is working with to be present. “At the end of the day it is their song, well cover, and I want them to be happy with it.” “For ‘Hello’ it was really simple to mix and master, its quite a simple song to be fair, for me simplicity is the key!”

Gaining Permission

For those who want to record a cover and release it to commercial market it is essential that you have gained permission. I questioned Andrew to see how he managed to gain permission to record and release this cover. “It wasn’t easy,” laughed Andrew “As soon as Kate told me the song, I was like ‘How the heck are we going to get permission for this!’” But he did it “I applied for a mechanical license, which allows us to release the cover, but all of the royalties go to the original artist”.

“It was never about making a lot of money, Kate just wanted to establish herself as an artist and gain attention from record labels” Since the release of their cover, Andrew exclusively revealed that he is back in the studio with Kate working on more music. “I’m super excited! We are working on some original material now, as a producer I am starting to experiment more, for instance I just purchased my first synth it’s a Moog Voyager.

                                              

                                                                       44 key True analog Performance 

                                                                       Synthesizer with 3-dimensional

                                                                       Touch Surface and MIDI

Reflection on Simplicity

To end this interview I asked O’Brien to look back on his first major recording and production. I wanted to know if he would do anything different knowing what he knows now. “Oh yeah completely” he said, “I would defiently experiment more in the mixing and mastering stage. For example I would experiment with reverb and delay more. However we only had a short time frame before we had to release the cover, it was defiently a learning process for both Kate and myself.”
But it wasn’t all bad for him. “Even though it was difficult I think the project went extremely well, the instruments that were recorded were great, there was no clipping and the capture was perfect”

“I guess now with more confidence, I would go back and try different recording techniques, to see if there was a better way to gain the capture of something, for instance the drums” and what has overall learned from that time and experience. “I think going forward I am not going to be as ‘simple’” he states laughing “ Being more confident and taking risks to gain a new and better sound”.

Feedback from our Sound on Sound audience has been really supportive and positive of this upcoming producer. One reader commented, “I really enjoyed this cover because it was more stripped back than the original, it was nice to hear”. Another added “This song is so popular at the moment, it was very clever to release a cover of it now”. What about Adele herself? Well unfortunately we couldn’t get a comment from her, but the fact this cover is being played on local radios sure is a good sign. Let us hope Andrew’s and Kate’s success continues.