MPR4C001R-003 Portfolio: Production & Log
Jimmy Critchley 24101273
Task 2 – Production Log Book
Track 1 (Genre Specific Emulation)
When deciding on which genre we wanted to emulate, we focused heavily upon the ‘1990’s Britpop’ brief, taking a liking to bands such as: The Stones Roses, Oasis, and The Charlatans etc. The songs that stood out within these groups were ‘Stand by Me’, by Oasis, ‘Shoot You Down’, by The Stone Roses, and ‘North Country Boy’, by The Charlatans. However, due to an inability to choose, we switched focus to ‘1960’s Rock and Roll’ deciding on ‘Taxman’, by the Beatles, and having studied the ‘Revolver’ album for my first assignment, I felt we had an upper hand in creating a very similar sound.
Before recording anything, I researched a lot on how, not just this song, but the whole album was produced. Being the first of their albums to be recorded by Geoff Emerick, and not George Martin, they experimented a lot with recording techniques, utilising; ADT (Automatic Double Tracking), close miking techniques, and tape-recording manipulation to achieve a genre bending sound, and we aimed to use these practices to achieve a sound as close as possible. The Beatles recorded this track over three days, recording the basic track on April 21, 1966, moving onto the overdubbing session on May 16, and finally completing the song on June 21. The track features Ringo Starr on the drums, Paul McCartney on bass, the guitar solo, and backing vocals, George Harrison on rhythm guitar, and John Lennon on rhythm and backing vocals too.
The initial attempt, beginning on March 5th, files corrupted after recording all but the percussion and vocals, we weren’t too bothered by this as we wanted to start from scratch anyway, however, it was a blow to the progress of the project. The entire project was recorded over three sessions, with the first at the beginning of the easter holidays, where, me and Jamie booked a six-hour recording session in 422, initially hoping to get the entire song recorded, however, the drummer wasn’t available. The session began with bass guitar, played by my flatmate Rupert, Jamie and I recorded the bass through a DI box, as well as miking the bass amp with an SM57. After the bass, we went on to record the rhythm guitar, which Jamie played himself, using a DI box, and miking the VOX AC15 C2 with an SM57 and a Sontronics Halo. Jamie used his own guitar for the recording of the rhythm, a Music Man JP100D, running through an overdrive and distortion pedal, and finally into the amp to get the desired sound. We then went on to record the more intricate guitar part, which follows the bass notes later on in the song, as soon as we finished the rhythm, in order to keep the tone of the guitar the exact same.
The last thing we recorded in that session were the vocals, that I performed, deciding to use the JZ Vintage V67 microphone due to its honest sound, very minimally effecting the soundbut having a warmer/vintage feel. After this session, we booked another about a weeklater, where we aimed to record drums. Due to studying this album for my first assignment, I was very familiar with the Geoff Emerick drum miking technique, however, we also took a lot of inspiration from Glyn Johns drum miking method. Traditionally, Johns’ miking technique utilises 3 mics, 2 overheads and 1 kick-out mic, however, in order to get a more present snare, we added another mic to the snare bottom, resulting in a sound that takes inspiration from both Johns and Emerick’s techniques. The mics we used were: an Audix D6, positioned close to the drum skin, an SM57, underneath the snare, and two large diaphragm condenser microphones as the overheads, an AKG 414 and Sontronics Orpheus. Within this technique, the overheads are positioned oddly, one being around 3 feet above the snare pointing directly at it, and the other being to the right of the drummer around shoulder height, and again, pointing directly into the centre of the snare around 3 feet away. Finally, Jamie performed the lead solo, originally performed by Paul, using his same guitar, through a DI box as well as an SM57 recording an ‘ORANGE’ amplifier, and turning up the distortion– achieving an extremely similar sound.
When we got to the point we started mixing, we began by panning each aspect first, as The Beatles’ songs are known for peculiar panning, we paid close attention to where we thought the different instruments were coming from, by soloing each instrument we had recorded and matching it to the original. When it came to mixing, we acknowledged that the recorded sound was relatively similar, however, each component needed a bit of EQ and compression, especially the drums. Emerick has stated, during this album, he began pushing the drums through a Fairchild 660 compressor, in hopes of finding a new sound for Beatles records. When mixing the vocals, we began by ADT the lead vocal, something that they would’ve utilised during the time of recording. To do this, we doubled the lead vocal, and by shifting them slightly off grid, it sounds as though it is two different takes of the vocal, due to the slight differentiation in pitch when played. This finished the song perfectly and helped us achieve an extremely similar sound.
Track 2 (Live In the Studio Stereo Recording)
For our live recorded track, we recorded a flute trio, sourced by Jamie. We booked out room 109, and using two stereo miking techniques, recorded the group performing two movements from the same piece of music. To begin with, we had to clear out the room, as the live room isn’t the biggest, we had to move the drumkit into the control room, giving ourselves more space to record. In hopes of achieving the desired sounds,
we used a spaced pair of Schoeps CMC5U omni pairs, and a middle side technique using the ‘figure of eight’ pickup pattern on an AKG C414 to capture the ‘sides’, pairing with a Calrec CM1051 as the middle mic. The session consisted of around 4 takes of two different tracks, however, when it came to mixing, we decided on the two movements. Next, when left as is, the ‘middle side’ pair is actually not capturing a stereo image. To change this, we needed to copy the C414 signal to another channel, pan one left and the other right, and then flip the phase on the copied signal, which finally gives you an actual stereo recording. Finally, we set the levels accordingly, adding very minimum reverb through an aux channel to each microphone, further gluing the sounds together.
Track 3 Remix track
When deciding on which direction to take my remix, I was interested in the genre – hyper pop – specifically an artist called ‘2hollis’. To begin with I recorded my ‘found percussive elements’, using my phone to record, I captured my hand hitting the table, and layered that with my foot hitting the floor for the kick. Next, I recorded a rim shot, using a screwdriver and a skinless/broken snare drum from my cellar, a shaker by dropping a pen on the floor, and finally, a hi hat by hitting a loose cymbal with the same pen. To take inspiration from my reference track, which was ‘Jeans’ by 2hollis, I used two arpeggiated chords in two different patches of serum, both being ‘plucky’ sounds. I follow an ABAB structure, however, taking influence from the song ‘Jeans’ in particular, hyperpop music often has bridges that offer something different – such as a genre change – so I decided to do that with my own piece. Next, I started adding FX to my found samples.
Firstly, I matched up the kick samples as close as I could, bounced in place then added an EQ and a saturation plugin called ‘VERVE analogue machines, in hopes to make the kick warmer and more present. Next, I knew I wanted the snare to have a unique/electronic sound, after listening to a song called ‘Shut Up’, by Nettspend, I was inspired to add a resonating delay to my snare giving it a unique sound. Then, to further edit the snare, I added ‘Shaperbox 3’, a multi-effect plugin that alters pitch, time, rhythm, and timbre automatically, giving my percussive layers a very futuristic sound. Finally, the effects I added to the other percussive elements were very minimal, adding just EQ and compression to each, and adding reverb/delay through aux channels applying to taste.Then I sent all the drums through a drum bus, adding compression, saturation, and limiting, to achieve the sound I wanted.
For the live recorded instruments, I used the synths in room 316 to add chords and a lead to the ‘bridge’ of the remix, as well as the ending, lifting the track to a climax. Further taking inspiration from ‘Jeans’, the synths I used were very futuristic sounding, using the polybrute and the prophet to create an interesting and unique collection of synthesised sounds. Finally, after the bridge there is a sporadic vocal chop melody, I achieved this sound by applying the entire lead vocal to a ‘quick sampler’, setting it to chop, and analysing the transients. After I did this, I played around for a while to find a melody I liked, recorded it into the bars after the bridge, I felt this helped bring the energy back down to begin another crescendo.
