Task 1 – WAV Mixes
Track 1 (Genre Specific Emulation)
For this track we chose the 1990s britpop song ‘There She Goes’ by The La’s. We chose this song for its relative simplicity in regards the song’s instrumentation. In pre-production we recorded some rough guide guitar tracks to play the final ones to instead of the original. We also stem split the original track into drums, guitars, bass, and vocals. Which helped us to identify different melody lines and chords for the individual parts.
We recorded acoustic guitar using a mid-side stereo recording technique (as seen in the images below), with the ‘mid’ microphone pointing to around the 12th fret of the guitar. we chose this method of recording to enable us create a large space for the four guitar parts to fit into.
For drums we recorded the full kit. We preferred the sound of the kick when just bordering between inside the hole and outside. We did this to capture a balance of the two sounds that can be achieved from outside and inside the drum. This can also be seen below.
We recorded vocals with an MD441 as it fit the vocalist’s voice well, this was a call from one particular group member who knows of the vocalist well. We used a pop filter to minimise plosives and sent the audio back to the vocalist with reverb as was requested for their comfort.
In the mixing process, a ‘concert hall’ reverb was added and automated in at the start of the song to replicate its usage in the original material. We couldn’t quite match the exact guitar tone. However, I believe we managed to sufficiently blend both the acoustic and electric guitar parts together quite nicely. overheads were panned left and right to the corresponding side.
Track 2 (Live In the Studio Stereo Recording)
For this stereo recording we used a mid-side stereo pair and a spaced pair. The idea was for the spaced pair to pick up most of the acoustic bass guitar and then obviously the piano too. However we noticed that the ‘mid’ mic was picking up more of the bass guitar than the spaced pair. Overall the techniques we used worked well together and created a great overall sound in the final mix. The song we chose was ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ by The Beatles.
Track 3 Remix track
For the remix I used my pop filter as a kick sound and boosted the low end frequencies to create a more ‘boomy’ sound as there wasn’t much from the recording of it. I used a vitamin d tablet tub as a shaker sound as a substitute for a snare sound as I thought it was the best sounding thing I would be able to find. These can be seen in the images below. I used the smart tempo tool to slow the vocals down to the tempo of the track (110bpm).
