“Endorphins” is a pop track recorded with live musicians––always a plus. There’s an organic quality to the song that I find appealing, with fine performances by the singers and musicians.

The tune begins with a single electric guitar and voice, but as the song grows, lovely textures appear––acoustic guitar, programmed percussion, and some nice pads. I also appreciate the arranging of the background vocals; they help to build the song without overpowering or distracting from the song. The bassist and drummer deserve special mention; their performances enhanced the music without ever being distracting.

“Endorphins” was recorded and mixed in a nicely equipped room, with a pretty nice selection of outboard equipment that included gear from Tube Tech, SSL, Heritage Audio, and Analog Addicts, along with a raft of in-the-box processing from UAD, Manley, and Waves, and others. Logic Pro was the recording platform.

According to the equipment notes, a Neumman M 147 and an Aston Spirit were used simultaneously on the vocals. Given that the two microphones have different sounds (the Neumann is a tube mic, while the Aston is solid-state), there are a couple of ways that this could be configured; the quick approach would be to set them up side by side (always checking for phasing issues that would need to be corrected by making sure that the capsules of each microphone are perfectly aligned), record the vocals using both mics, and choose which one to use on the song after the fact (the advantage is that you don’t have to make the decision on the spot and then live with it).

Or they could have used one mic for verse vocals, another for the chorus and the bridge vocal (which means that the vocal tone can change the vocal tone for each section while capturing the live performance in real-time). If the setup paid attention to the potential phasing/cancellation problems), then both microphones could be used in the final mix, combining the two tracks in a way that allows for some of the tone of each microphone to be combined. In any case, it’s a fun but non-destructive way to experiment with vocal sounds without slowing down the recording process.

The guitar tones and processing was very nice; the introductory electric guitar has an “Eventide-vibe,” while the acoustics (which were recorded direct rather than miked) had a bit of space around them––most likely with either a bit of delay, a short verb, or a combination of both.

I like that the song didn’t use just one electric or one acoustic guitar sound; instead, when the instruments showed up, they sounded like they were designed to fit a specific role.