Task 1 – WAV Mixes
Task 2 – Production Log Book
Track 1 (Genre Specific Emulation) 4 mins 40 secs
To begin the Genre Emulation, Lucas suggested we recorded a singer that he knew. He asked the vocalist for the kind of songs he would be happy to sing; we did this to get an accurate recreation as it would be a song the vocalist was comfortable with singing. He suggested Elliott Smith and then decided on doing Pretty (Ugly Before) from his 2004 post-humous album From a Basement On the Hill. We also chose this song because as a production it uses the same techniques as those used in 90s Britpop, as in the assignment brief.
To create a guide track, we used Logic’s stem-splitter tool to extract individual instruments, providing the vocalist with a “karaoke” style track to record demo vocals on. We recorded the guide vocals with a Warm Audio U87 before anything else to audition the vocalist and give the other musicians a vocal to work with when recording.
Next, I arranged the guitarist and recorded him with the guitar directly into the Neve pre-amp, this was easiest as we just used a Logic amp plugin afterwards so we could fine tune the tone of the guitar to match that of the original song. During this session, we also recorded acoustic guitar with the same Warm Audio U87 as the vocals to capture the acoustic guitar cleanly with clear high-end like in the original track.
At the end of the track there is a guitar part that plays reversed and delayed, I worked with the guitarist to recreate this with delay and a mix of reversed and unreversed guitar parts that he played in. I also added a tremolo to this to match the original which moves around the stereo image slightly.
I also at this point worked on the mellotron synth part that pays throughout the track, listening to it and working it out by ear. I changed the tape speed and experimented with different sound to find something similar to the original.
After guitar, we recorded drums. Lucas found the drummer through the vocalist as they play in a band together. We used the Glynn-Johns technique with Oktava MK2 as overheads with an SM57 on the snare and AKG D112 on the kick. We then added a mic onto the hi-hat to capture it better in later takes. We processed the drums with methods used in 90s alt-rock productions, with compression and EQ, with a room mic and reverb on the snare. We also used snare replacement to improve the sound of the snare in our recording and bring it closer to the original. Then we grouped all drums together and added glue compression and EQ to brighten the high end like in the original. This session ran smoothly, and we got all the parts we needed to although beforehand, the drummer had not prepared his parts, which is a project management aspect we didn’t expect, next time we just need to be sure the instrumentalists are prepared.
After drums, we went back and re-recorded the vocals, this time adding backing vocals to be used in the final mix. This was done with the same Warm Audio U87 mic as before because the tone worked well with the vocalist’s voice. We also used the Warm WA-2A Compressor on the vocal to control the dynamics whilst recording in, we only used a little bit of compression as not to overdo it but just to use analogue compression instead of a digital plugin.
After recording drums, we recorded bass. This was very easy as the bassist had learnt the part beforehand and he played note perfect first time, we took two more recordings just in case. First, we just recorded it directly into the Neve pre-amp like the guitar, then on listening back, we found that there was some chorus on the original track, so we used a Radial Re-amp box and played the bass recording through a Hartke LH500 bass head into an Ashdown CTM-30 Classic Tube Amplifier, recorded with an AKG D112 (for the bass frequencies) and Shure SM57 (for the mids/highs) we then patched in the Lexicon PCM92 to simulate the chorus effect.
After bass, we finally recorded keys. We got the bassist to come back again to play keys as I knew he was more than capable of playing the parts we needed him to. This made the whole session very easy to manage. We recorded the Boston Grand Piano with two Schoeps CMC6 Omni microphones and the Warm U87 as a mono mic between these two. We placed both Schoeps equidistant from middle C to avoid phasing issues and the U87 in the middle of them.
We had mixed and comped the tracks as we recorded them, so everything sounded good individually when it came to the final mixing stage. This meant that we only had to adjust levels and make small EQ tweaks whilst AB’ing with the original track. We brightened the drums and guitars and gave the guitars slightly more bite through the Logic amp simulation plugin. Which left us with an overall very similar mix to the original track
Track 2 (Live In the Studio Stereo Recording) 2 mins 52 secs
For the stereo recording, I asked my friends on the Voice and Pedagogy course to sing something to be recorded. With the help of a guitarist, they decided to sing a rendition of American Honey by Lady A. They had both sung this song before and so were familiar with it which made recording easier.
To capture the performance, we used a space pair of Sontronics Orpheus to capture a wider soundstage. These were placed in the back corners of the room. Then we used two AKG C414 microphones (the top in figure 8, the bottom in cardioid) in a mid-side pair to capture the vocalists clearly, finally we used another mid-side pair made of an AKG C451B (cardioid) and a Sennheiser MKH30 (figure 8) lower down to help capture the guitar signal.
We decided to place the vocalists either side of the guitarist to help with the stereo balance of the mix, otherwise it would sound off-centre having the guitarist to either side, instead it felt more natural to have the vocalists placed either side of the guitarist, this also creates a better sense of space.
When recording, to make the mid-side pair, we took the figure 8 microphones, duplicated their signal in Logic, then reversed the phase of one and panned them both hard right and left to create the stereo image when mixed with the cardioid signal. For the space pair we simply panned them left and right. This track required little mixing due to the acoustic and stripped-back nature of the recording, just panning everything to the right places and adjusting the levels of different pairs of microphones was all that we needed.
Track 3 Remix track 2 mins 17 secs
For the remix, I started by loading the lead vocal track into Ableton Live and playing in simple notes underneath it with a Serum patch I had created. I hadn’t really used Ableton before this, but I knew many electronic producers often used it so I should try and see what it leads to. This led to my main idea for the track; from there I decided to turn the track into a more pop-centric track. To fit this, I added an arpeggiator and sped up the track. To add tension, I added an electric bass guitar to the pre-chorus, this was recorded directly into my Focusrite interface, I simply compressed this signal and added reverb to it via the bus to help it sit better in the track.
For percussion, I recorded me hitting my windowsill for a kick and then went looking for something for a snare style sound. I found a tool used for pulling keys from a keyboard and hit this against my desk to create the snare/clap sound, then I rubbed the same thing across my deck to create the “scratch” effect in the end. I put the kick through an EQ, then used the spectrum analyser and transposition to get the fundamental around 50/60 Hz, to finish this sound, I put it through Ableton’s Drum Buss to increase the attack and make it sound more like a real kick. For the snare sound I again used EQ and the Drum Buss but added slight saturation to the signal to boost the sound and make it sound more like a real snare.
In the chorus of the track, I added acoustic guitar in an alternate tuning so that it rings out and added a lead synth sound to create some sonic development between verse and choruses.
Finally, I felt inspired by EDM vocal production and so chopped up the vocal, sometimes pitching the vocal up or down a few semitones to create a more interesting melody, and added delay. I just chopped up the audio inside Ableton sometimes adding pitch automation to create the tape start/stop effect. I also created a second vocal track with a random LFO to automate panning and Valhalla Vintage Verb plugin to create the feeling that the vocal is “bleeding” into the chorus.
Mixing this track, I found quite easy as I generally mix things like this as I go along, just making sure every track sounds how I want it to as I listen through. I added compression to the vocals to create the processed effect of electronic genres as well as delay and reverb on the main buses to make the whole track more coherent.
