Recently, a couple of other engineers and I tracked a friend of mine, Ryan Hunter, a guitar player and vocalist, here at Capital University. The session went well for the most part. There was the inevitable troubleshooting issues, but we got through them. Patching through to the external preamps was probably the hardest part, but in the end we decided to just go through the board's internal preamps instead. 
We set up levels through the board into Pro Tools as usual. The mikes we used were AKG 414 and Rode NT2. We set up two of the AKG 414s in an XY recording technique for a stereo image on the guitar for the rhythm section. Then the Rode NT2 for a mono image for the lead guitar section.
We did a few practice sessions before making any takes, then finally got to recording. We were in the studio from 8 - 11 pm for this session, and it honestly went well aside from one minor slip up on the chorus that I fixed later in the mixing session. Below are some pictures of the recording session.

The mixing process was a little more simple (in my eyes) than the recording process. First I got a good pan and volume level going before diving head first into this mix. Then I start with a single band high pass filter on the guitars to try and get out the external headphone bleed. 
The main mix includes a 7-Band EQ, compressor, Futzbox distortion plugin, and a bypassed reverb plugin on the drums. Then the rhythm guitars received 2 1-Band EQs, 2 compressors, D-Verb -- reverb -- plugin, and a ModDelay -- delay -- plugin. Finally, the lead guitar received a 1-Band and 7-Band EQ, BF-76 compressor, the same D-Verb plugin as the rhythm guitars, and a Chorus plugin on top of that. You can see my mix and edit windows inside ProTools below. You can listen to the final mix here.

Recently, I received a few drum tracks to mix to sound similar to "Can You Feel My Heart" by Bring Me The Horizon. Before getting into the mix, I read up on a couple of articles about using Bus Compression in a mix:

The two compression articles that I read up on before the mix can be found here and here. The gist of both articles is that they explain what compression is, how to use it, and different types of compressors that are used in mixes. Both articles point out that over compression is a common mistake a lot of engineers face when mixing a track. To avoid this, you want a low ratio when compressing (preferably less that 10:1). Each article mentions that (bus) compression will flatten your signal's peaks and reduce the dynamic range of your track, so you must monitor the amount of compression you're using. They also give a short list of compressors that engineers will normally use, or compressors that they (the authors) use themselves. They also mention that you don't want to over compress the mix just for the fact that when sending the mix to the mastering engineer, that you don't want to send a lifeless, over compressed, mix for them to master because the dynamic range will be nonexistent.
I found both articles to be very informative and useful. My only little gripe about it was the compressors that they mentioned. I believe that in my mix I didn't use any of the compressors they mentioned, but I did take into account to watch for over compression and to keep a low ratio when compressing any of the tracks when mixing. Of course, I have my own go to compressors that I generally use whenever I mix in the first place, so I kept in mind some of the technical aspects of what the articles were telling me; fast attack, fast release, low ratio, make sure the sound isn't just loud (louder doesn't always mean better), etc. Overall, I would suggest that any beginning to intermediate mixing engineer should read these two articles as they have very useful information that could definitely save a mix.

Above: (From Left to Right) Pro Tools Edit and Mix windows for drum mix

When comparing my drum mix to the one in "Can You Feel My Heart" by Bring Me The Horizon, I think I did a decent enough job. I wouldn't say I got it perfectly, but I feel like I was pretty close in getting a similar sound. The hardest part of the whole mix was definitely

For any up and coming sound engineers, there are certain terms when it comes to recording a band or artist that you should be aware of. Below is just a few terms that would be beneficial for every sound engineer to know. Peep it.

Polarity - the positive and negative parts of a signal. Within a speaker, you want everything to move properly together. (in/out +/-)
Phase - the time relationship of a sound to a known time reference. When two identical waves are in phase that sound will have twice the amplitude. When out of phase, the audio has a delay that can be clearly noticed.
3-1 Rule - When you use 2 microphones to record, you'll mostly get the best results when you place the second mic three times the distance of the first.
Dither - Adds white noise to an audio recording to reduce distortion of quieter amplitudes.
High Pass Filter - A filter that ducks down all lower frequencies to boost the highs.
Microphone Pad - A switch on a microphone that decreases the gain of the input, usually by 10 dB.
Latency - a small period of delay between the input and output of an audio signal. When recording, this distorts the timing of any audio track you are recording. In Pro Tools, you can change the latency by going into the system preferences and changing the buffer size.
Ways to Record Drums - this link will send you to an interesting video of different ways to record a drum set.

I hope this information is useful to any beginner audio technicians/ engineers, and happy recording!

It's been awhile since I posted here, and hopefully that will change soon, but this summer has been awesome for the Young Kings as all of us released a project, and Young Kings Season had commenced. 

The first of the 3 was Fanaticus' project, Awakening. He released this project back in May, and has been getting a lot of good reviews on it. Personally, I believe this is his best project to date, and it's definitely worth the listen. This is more of a self reflection project about where he's come from and where he believes he's going as he spent his first year living alone in Chicago.

Then, I released my own project, the third installment of my S.A.D. Volume series, a quick stop halfway between Vol. 2 and Vol. 3, S.A.D. Vol. 2.5: West and Main St. This project is a compilation of 3 separate EPs I had been planning on making, but at the rate I was making these EPs, I decided to put them all together as a 3 part album. The first part is 2.5 West St, and its a continuation of my last project, West St, and it was made because I felt like that was a happier project and I had some more darker sounding song ideas that never made the cut. The next part is 2.1 Main St. This is a mini story about the beginning of my sophomore year dealing with heartbreak from a girl that just strung me along. We're friends now that school is over, but that first semester, she made my life hell emotionally and mentally, and it almost caused me to flunk out of college. The last part is 2.9 Extras, which are just 3 bonus tracks that I made throughout the year.

Finally, there is Jamil's highly anticipated Season 3 Part 1. Along with this project, Jamil, launched his official website thejamilshow.com and you can check that out in the link within Season 3 above. Jamil's project is also a self reflection about his time at Xavier University into his decision to transfer and about his self doubt in his music to remembering why he started music in the first place. 

I recommend listening to all three projects as the uniqueness of each project shows a different sound that compiles the Young Kings as who they are as a whole.