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The two had chatted with a whole crowd of ex-school leavers and, upon Nigel's suggestion, Rhiann came along for an informal chat about what we could do for her and her band. The idea of getting involved with some original material from the band was discussed. However, Middle C was keen to have a go at capturing Rhiann's voice on something well known and agreed to start working on an arrangement for the Sting track 'Fields of Gold' - from 'Ten Summoner's Tales'. After a couple of days of arranging and recording, a moody backing had been created on the multitrack. A combination of percussion, sax and bass guitar on the Korg Trinity, and a lush string part from the Roland MKS70 laid down the foundation for the vocal parts. A date was booked and Rhiann went through a couple of warm-ups before putting in a great performance at the mic. Insisting on getting the best from our clients, we asked Rhiann to deliver us a total of 6 takes - she delivered the goods like a true pro without a single complaint! To capture the purity of her vocal tones and natural vibrato, Nigel chose the Rode NTK valve microphone which imparts a nice warmth to a singing voice without over-colouring the character. The choice was definitely the right one - as you'll here on the MP3 file. A couple of shots were grabbed on the digital camera for Rhiann's CD cover and these were emailed across to our design & printing company. Last on the list was to add the all-important guitar solo. After listening to Sting's original (which features Dominic Miller on guitars) we auditioned a few guitar samples on the Korg and within 30 seconds we decided it had to be a REAL spanish guitar - no samples! As luck would have it, the studio has a Yamaha classical guitar on hand and this was duly restrung in preparation for the recording. Allowing 24 hours for the new strings to settle, we then mic'd up the Yamaha and played the solo as the original.
For the mixing and mastering
- just a touch of Lexicon reverb on the vocals & guitar solo, some
creative dancing on the faders and another one was in the bag - enjoy! |
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Original song written by Sting ©1993 Blue Turtle Music Ltd |
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