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The recording of One Large Magnetic Cartridge took place in one session. Philip engineered and produced the session, setting up the studio space for a live recording. The trick was to keep the trio in physical proximity with each other as well as allowing eye contact for signalling, so no baffles were possible.
The drums were the key determining aural field due to their acoustic nature, and the levels of guitar and synth amps had to match the drums' projection. Mic placement was then distributed to capture the amps' sound within the drum field. To achieve this, Philip designed a series of interlocking stereo fields that overlapped direct and non-directional perspectives of each of the instruments in the studio space. The amps for the guitar and synth were miced close from the front and the rear of the speaker cabinets. Two large cardboard boxed were also turned upside down and each had a single mic threaded through a hole and suspended. These boxes were placed to the left and right of the drum kit, resonating and capturing the synth amp lower frequencies in one, and the guitar amp lower frequencies in the other. The breakdown of the stereo field is as follows:
Drums Left Centre Right - snare (over) snare (under) floor tom metallic percussives mid-toms hi-hat ride cymbals crash cymbals - kick - overhead drums L - overhead drums R Guitar Left Centre Right guitar amp (close/frontal) guitar amp (close/rear) - room perspective away from guitar amp - mic-in-box near guitar Synth Left Centre Right - synth amp (close/rear) synth amp (close/frontal) mic-in-box near synth - room perspective away from synth amp Overdubbing of some extra guitar and synth parts were done on "Topless barmaids" with a view to work on all tracks similarly, but it was felt that the rest didn't need anything. Mixing employed minimal effects, though some fuzz-wah dub noise was employed on a few drum tracks.
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