Our Cellist in the studio 2020

Gareth Skinner has contributed Cello parts to many of Sons Of Korah’s recordings since Rain in 2008. Here Gareth is recording one of many cello layers for Psalm 99b. Working with him is our producer and bass player Spike Avery.

A common recording technique for recording strings is placing an ensemble of players in quite a live-sounding room and placing the microphones to record a more spacious sound. We quite often record strings in our small booth, with the microphones closer to the instruments to capture more of the individual nuances of each part. For this part we used a ribbon microphone to soften the harder edges of the sound a little, but for more rhythmic cello parts (like the “I am counted with the dead” section of Psalm 88b) we’ll place a condenser right up on the bridge of the instrument to capture as much of the bite and rosin of the cello as we can, inspired by the cello sound in the Beatle’s song Eleanor Rigby.