This composition is my own song, originally composed on acoustic guitar with the simple chord sequence. In the studio, similarly to Phil Spector, I got the musicians (electric guitarist, pianist, bass player, and drummer) to rehearse this chord sequence several times to a click. Once they knew this chord sequence confidently, I then told them to play around and experiment with this. The electric guitarist was told to start with the sustained notes of each chord, and to then build this up. The pianist was given a melodic line which he could then play around with using different octaves and passing notes. The pianist was also told to experiment with the chord rhythm. The bass player was told to begin with sustained notes and to then play the bass notes of each chord in a steady rhythm of his choice. And the drummer was told to keep to the tempo of 4/4, to start off with a simple beat with a few fills which builds up to a guitar solo which needs excessive drum fills, From these instructions, the musicians had time to practice and experiment to just a click (to create more of an impression of the instruments being played together, rather than being layered on top of one another). I then double-tracked the piano parts to create a fuller sound on the more clear and defined instrument sounds.
Once this was recorded and arranged, I played this through two speaker in a medium-sized hall. I placed a DPA microphone almost to the centre of these speakers, further towards the opposite side of the room, facing up. This microphone picked up the song coming through the speakers, and the natural reverberation created in the hall. This was then fed back to the overall mix to create a natural reverb effect. I then double-tracked the reverberation recording to create an even fuller sound.
The microphone set up for the drums in the same hall:
The DPA microphone set up in the hall, picking up the natural reverberation:
