Make The World Your Stage by Shure is a campaign designed to support up and coming artists by giving them a platform to share their music and story with the world. The sonic goal of these sessions is to capture a live and honest recording with Shure microphones, while simultaneously giving artists a platform to raise their voices.
The spaces we choose are driven by the artist and the visuals, which means we record in very challenging spaces with long reverb times. Separation of audio sources isn’t possible. This is raw and honest recording and means the microphones have to work extremely hard to get the results we need. If there is drum spill, it’s embraced wholeheartedly and goes in the mix.
All live elements are tracked in one take with no overdubs straight into a DAW. Everything is then mixed down with very little processing. There is no vocal comping or gating and very little in the way of audio automation. The signal chains from the mics involve a very small amount of corrective EQ, compression and a bit of reverb where needed but that is it. It’s all about how the mic is performing in the space, and how the artists express themselves.
Each artist is very different – this time we have a subtle neo soul vibe with Sharlene and a hard-hitting rock sound with Holocene. The spaces are also very different to work with and present dynamic and changing challenges. We purposefully allow room for spontaneous decision making on the sessions, choosing the correct mics for the correct space. This is sometimes a massive surprise, like when a Beta 27 large diaphragm condenser becomes the hero mic for the bass amp over a Beta 52.
A group of extraordinary artists headlined the stage last year with stunning performances recorded in unique locations that inspired the artist in some way. With this connection we were able to bring the music and their story together to amplify the messages they want to share as an artist.
As a company, we have always supported young musicians but when the pandemic hit, the world changed for them, and we couldn’t just sit by. This is where MTWYS was born, and since then we’ve received such a great response from both the artists and from our audiences across the world and we’re extremely excited to bring you another round this summer!
This article originally appeared in issue #269 of TPi, which you can read here.