RECORDING LOG: LITTLE SIMZ BIBI BOURELLY

Artist: Little Simz
Engineer: Nick Breton

RECAP:

Recording session number two with Little Simz ! We’d been trying to connect more throughout the week but I had all those sessions booked with Mick. We planned to have a 4 or 5 hour session but as the session went on it turned into an 8.5 hour session.

We started the session at 3pm, she arrived by herself and showed me the progress of the tracks we started last week. She started going through beats and landed on one that I put in Pro Tools and looped up for her. Within about 20, maybe 30 minutes she had her first verse and we started recording. I’d say it only took about 7 takes for her to land the verse the way she wanted to. We added two layers of doubles on specific words/phrases and one adlib track that I freaked out with some effects.

She came out of the booth and started writing her second verse which took roughly the same amount of time to write and record. We followed the same pattern for doubles and adlibs on the second verse as well. After she finished recording her verse I had a take recording while she was listening and she started singing a hook idea. It was pretty incredible to watch the hook be shaped in front of my eyes.. She started with a few words, worked out a phrase then sang that phrase into the next set of mumbled words until something came to her and so on until she build a 16 bar hook. I had to loop the beat on the fly as she was running out of space because I didn’t want to stop her creative flow. Once she worked it out (about 5 minutes of continuous recording) I brought her to the end of the second verse and she started running takes of it. Instead of just doing 16 bars and stopping I had her continue to repeat the hook over the extended beat. We eventually landed on three separate hook ideas for the three hooks on the song which came together surprisingly fast.

I spent some time cleaning up the track and giving it a rough mix. We both had ideas for additional sections, she put a bridge in the track between the second and third hook. I recorded myself singing a background vocal idea I wanted as a texture to compliment the music… Awesome creative session building this song together and the result is probably my favorite Little Simz song to date..

We decided to keep riding the wave, Simz went back to her batch of beats and landed on one that I was blown away by… Sounded so fucking cool to me, she loved it as well and decided to write to it. She wrote a quick hook and verse because she wanted it to cut off short and transition into one of the songs we made in our last session. This one also came together very quickly, and she killed the verse !

Bibi Bourelly arrived later at night (around 9) to work on the third track. The two hours that followed were really fun.. Bibi is a firecracker – her writing style was to hear the music and just start singing what came to her. Similar to how Simz wrote the hook on the first song, Bibi wrote a hook and verse by just repeating the section and letting the words flow.

Three songs (2.5 really) in one 8.5 hour session that was really only suppose to go 4 or 5 hours max just shows that we were all feeling it. We would have kept going had I not had another session booked at 10 (which got pushed back an hour and a half; thank you Poly).

Can’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday at work than to have fun making awesome songs.. Too spoiled, so thankful, grateful and happy with how this entire year has been for the studio and myself.

LITTLE SIMZ:

Rapper from North London.

GEAR:

Manley Cardioid Reference Microphone
Purple Audio Sweet 10 500 Series Rack
Great River MP500NV Pre Amp
Purple Audio MC77 Compressor
Dangerous Music BAX EQ
Lynx Aurora 16
Dangerous D Box
Pro Tools HD3 PCIe
Pelonis Model 42s
Focal SM9s

TRUTH STUDIOS PROFILE:

Truth Studios is a boutique recording studio located in the Fairfax district of Hollywood, Los Angeles California. We are across the street from the famous CBS Television City studios and down the street from The Grove. Truth Studios started in the bedroom of owner Nick Breton’s apartment making music with local Los Angeles buzzing artists. We have since grown into a small commercial facility where the studio currently stands. Offering studio rental, recording, mixing and mastering to independent and major label clients from every corner of the globe. Our culture has developed to include several of the industries top characters. Truth Studios is affiliated with acts such as Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa, Dom Kennedy, Asher Roth, Chuck Inglish, Freddie Gibbs, Alina Baraz, Ady Suleiman, Anatii, Joey Bada$$, Boi 1da, Macy Gray, Mr Hudson, Walk The Moon, Martin Garrix and hundreds of other musicians. This studio has become a landmark icon in Los Angeles and the music community worldwide.

SHORT DESCRIPTION:

Little Simz Bibi Bourelly Recording at Truth Studios Recording Studio in Los Angeles with Engineer Nick Breton. Little Simz Music.