Melrose Sessions Live: Porch Coffin
An artist-centered session that balanced creative vision, studio stewardship, and an isolation-first recording strategy.
Overview
For Porch Coffin's Melrose Sessions Live recording, I was responsible both to the band and to the room. I worked with the musicians early to understand their vision and the scope of the project, coordinated the logistics, and made sure the session remained within studio and library rules of conduct.
Problem or opportunity
Capture a convincing live-band performance while keeping the mix clean, respecting the public studio's operating requirements, and coordinating the recording with the video team.
What I did
- Aligned the session's creative vision and scope with the band before recording
- Coordinated schedules, arrival times, load-in and load-out, equipment setup and teardown
- Maintained compliance with studio and library rules of conduct
- Worked through recording requirements and room/equipment constraints with the video team
- Engineered the recording and made the call to keep live amplifiers out of the room
Process
- Established scope and logistics with the band and coordinated setup details with the video crew
- Captured live vocals and drums without live guitar amplifiers in the room
- Recorded guitars through DI connections and reamped them later for more control in the mix
- Oversaw strike, load-out, and room responsibilities
Deliverables
- Recorded live-session audio
- DI guitar recordings prepared for later reamping
- Coordinated studio session and audio/video setup
Results
The no-live-amps approach made cleanup easier and produced a cleaner mix while preserving the live vocals and drums. The session also met the studio's operational requirements.