Andy Rogers Live Lounge Style Session
During Industry Week 2017 Confetti got Andy Rogers to come into EM to do a studio session. The session consisted of a day in the studio with him, doing a Live Lounge style setup. Andy Rogers is the producer of the Live Lounge for Radio 1 so doing this kind of session with him was a good experience and I learnt a lot.
Andy got us to set up the live room for the recording of the band, which included a keyboard player, drummer, guitarist, 3 vocalists and a bass player. There was a lot going on in the studio and Andy gave us free rein to setup how we all wanted. he asked what we would usually use to record different instruments around the studio and gave us alternative choices which do a similar if not better job. It was a great experience talking to a professional and working with him doing the same job.
Confetti got in some musicians to play in the studio for us, who got together and arranged a few songs which they could play as a group.
We got them into the studio to see how the quick setup we had done sounded, and overall it wasn't too great. Andy suggested ways in which could improve it and we changed it to suit. He asked us what we think needed to be changed and let us try things to see the outcome.
Overall the session with Andy was a good learning experience and I learnt a lot about what not to do in the studio, including learning to know that if something works, leave it alone. This is something I found key as it takes time to try different techniques of getting the same result, whereas if there is one method that definitely works, you should stick with it to not waste your time when doing a live show.
This is something I released when I went on to do the TEDx Talk for the University of Nottingham because there is a very tight schedule that needed keeping to. It meant that we needed everything ready to go and setup just to move into place as we needed it rather than rushing to get it done just before it was required.
A few of us stayed behind at the end of the session to talk to Andy about the Live Lounge sessions he runs and to add some extra processing to the recording.
After discussing the Live Lounge with Andy, he said that he would be happy to have some of us down to Radio 1 to help run a live lounge session in the future. He gave us his email and said that we should just send an email and he will get back to us and set it up for us. This would be a great opportunity and I will be looking into this further as the academic year comes to a close.
A picture taken in the Andy Rogers Live Lounge session in EM