1500 words
Please use the sections below to evidence your personal contribution to the production for the portfolio. Please include details for all the tracks produced as a part of this portfolio.
Provide rationale for any of the production decisions that you made as a group. Include any multimedia (pictures, videos, audio recordings etc) evidence to the relevant sections.
Consider the following:
Pre-Production
- Rehearsals
- Track development
- Demo recording
- Arrangement decisions
- Session planning
Recording
- Microphone choices
- Room setup
- Musician management
Mixing
- Mix plan/concept
- Balance
- Pan
- Tone
- FX
Project Management
- Time management
- Planning
- Roles and responsibilities
- Structure and organisation
Track 1 (Guitar-based band production)
Firstly, we recieved a demo from the band Cab Driver that contained basic parts for all of the tracks. This was extremely helpful during the recording as we were able to gradually replace the tracks with the ones we had recorded in the studio, while having tempo information and a real live performance that enabled all the performers to really lean into the part and deliver the best performance possible.
For tracking most of the guitars, we used a RE-20 as they can get very close to a speaker cone without encountering the proximity effect, making it perfect for rock guitars where you want a very direct and punchy sound.
Opted for a Stereo XY pair for lots of the percussion in order to pan them accordingly and widen the mix.
We also decided to use small diaphragm condensers for the percussion section as condesners are capable of capturing a high level of detail, which would be perfect for capturing the delicate sounds of a lot of the tiny percussion that ended up on the track.
As for the bass signal, we opted to capture a cab with a mic as well as a DI signal at the same time. This allowed us the most flexibility with post-processing.
This is the DI box with a pass-through that allowed us to take the dry DI signal while sending the original signal to an amplifier.
We taped a wallet to the low tom in order to control the resonances and deaden the sound for a more seperate and clean recording.
We’ve angled the ride microphone away from the rest of the kit in order to minimize bleed and help with seperation.
Stereo overheads are placed facing away from eachother roughly aimed toward the cymbals for more of a wider capture.
Snare bottom placed right under the wire for a very bright and snappy timbre.
Ride microphone angled away from the rest of the kit in order to prevent bleed and help with seperation.
Kick in is aimed at the beater for more of a ‘clicky’ sound.
The overall drum setup was meant to achieve a modern indie rock sound, with plenty of detail and prescence within the snare, toms, cymbals and kick. We ended up achieving this sound on the recording with plenty of clarity and seperation due to the good capture and powerful performance.
When I decided to EQ this track on my own, the main things I wanted to change was narrowing the dynamic range of the vocal, adding saturation and thickness to the guitars, adding more punch to the kick and the snare, making the bass less tinny and having the harmonies balanced nicely compared to the lead vocal. So for the main vocal I opted for dual compression, one for colour and balance and the second one to catch the peaks. I also utilised a DeEsser on all of the vocals to get rid of sibilances. For the guitars I used a low cut to prevent them from muddying the mix and used a tube overdrive for saturation. I compressed the snare in order to reduce the dynamic range and add colour, while also busing the drums through a vintage optical compressor for dynamic range again. I EQ’d the bass in order to reduce the clicky attack from the pick and have a warmer well rounded sound. And lastly I compressed the harmonies in order to have them balanced nicely against the lead vocal. Lastly I put a tape emulator onto the master bus for a slightly vintage and more saturated sound.
Track 2 Live in the studio (jazz/folk ensemble)
As for the preparation for the jazz ensemble was concerned, the musicians arranged prior a couple of standards that they wanted to play and rehearsed them prior to attending the recording session. Before getting the takes we ended up using in the mix, we also let the musicians rehearse a couple of times in the room to get comfortable while we did onboard EQ or while we were patching and configuring outboard gear before we decided to commit anything to a take. One problem we ran into that we had to account for was that the piano was ever so slightly flat compared to A=440Hz. This was fine for the bass player and drummer as the bass player just needed to adjust the intonation to their ear anyway while the trumpet player struggled to adjust their intonation. This resulted in a slightly pitchy resulting recording that we were unable to fix in post, however they are quite minor in the context of the full track.
For the Live in the studio recording, we opted to go for a jazz recording. We agreed as a group that we wanted a more ‘modern’ sound while still trying to maintain the aesthetic qualities of jazz music, so we opted for a Kick in, Kick out, Kick sub, Snare top, Snare bottom, Rack tom, Floor tom, Hi-hat mic, Ride mic, and lastly two overhead microphones. The end result was a stereo drum sound however in hindsight it may have been worthwhile to experiment with a simpler setup with less mics such as a mono overhead.
Sub kick placed in front of the front skin of the kick in order to capture the sub frequencies.
As for the toms and snare, we decided to angle the microphones towards the centre of the skins in order to capture a more natural timbre, with less rim sound. You can see that the snare mic has been backed off as well, in order to capture a less direct sound with a softer attack.
As for the Hi-hat mic, you can see it has been angle away from the rest of the kit in order to pick up less bleed, and more seperation between the individual parts of the mix.
Here you can see we’ve also placed the snare bottom mic equidistant from the snare in order to pick up the rattle from the snare wire, we’ve also inverted the phase on the snare bottom track in order to prevent phase cancellation between the snare top and snare bottom mic.
As for the double bass, we opted for a mic in the bridge of the bass, as well as a large diaphraghm condenser positioned further away from the body, capturing a softer attack and more of the overall room sound. This helped contribute to the overall sound and meant we didn’t have to do much post-processing in terms of reverb, which helped us achieve or goal of a very natural and open-sounding recording.
We also suspended the microphone in between the bridge which meant it wouldn’t pick up any vibrations from bumping into the body of the bass.
We also draped a cover over the lid of the piano in order to minimize bleed from other sources.
We also opted for a stereo pair on the piano in order to increase the width of the mix.
As we had to mix purely with the console, I decided to mix on the way in with the trumpet as there was a resonant frequency in that part of the room I decided to reduce with the onboard EQ.
We also sent the Piano mics through the Neve preamps in order for some added warmth on the way in to the desk.
Here you can see the routing for the Neve PA as well as the wall box near the drum kit.
We also opted to use ribbon mics in the Blumlein pair so we could pan them in stereo, we also used a ribbon for the trumpet due to their high sound pressure level.
Track 3 Remix track
For my remix track, I aimed for quite a trancey electronic song with autotuned vocals and ‘spacey’ synthesizers with live guitar and bass for my two live instruments. The way I have mixed this track is to ensure that the vocals take the main stage with plenty of clarity, while the instrumentation acts as more of a backdrop and later on in the song become more of a rhythmic staple, I have used samples for the drums while I created the synth sounds from scratch. I have utilised reverb and delay on this track in order to give it more space and more width.
