Student Number- 25104152

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MPR4C001R-003 Portfolio: Production & Log 2 Template

Task 1 – WAV Mixes

Please add your uncompressed audio files to the block below

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Task 2 – Production Log Book

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:

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Track 1 (Genre Specific Emulation)

Our group chose to emulate ‘Come Together’, a rock’n’roll song released in 1969 by The Beatles. We decided on this due to its practicality- we had already been shown an example of this from another group emulation, heard how accurate they were in the instruments and processing they used, so we knew it was doable with Conservatoire facilities. Tom in my group also had previously studied the making of this song and instruments used. It is also very well documented. When recording, we tried to recreate exactly what Ringo Starr’s setup during abbey road sessions. We therefore had an audix D6 and a WA47jr mic on the kick, we used a Neumann KM184 underneath the snare and no mic on top to highlight the snare ‘sizzle’ and get a bright crisp sound without the thwack of the top head. We had an SM57 for the hi hat , and a single overhead – we used The Beep mic, which is a coles 4038 replica, a ribbon mic always set to a figure of 8 pickup. For the toms we used an RE20 for all 3, placing them underneath to use the same technique we did for the snare. We didn’t have a room mic as we wanted a very dry, punchy sound. The bass was plugged directly into the desk through a goldmike tube preamp, meaning the sound was a direct injection and uncompressed. I think, however that this actually worked out for the best- we still managed to emulate the sound closely.

Tom in my group played the guitar on the track, he used his Epiphone Sheraton II which is the closest sounding guitar we had to Lennon’s Epiphone casino and also Mcartney’s Les Paul. He played it through a cracked fender twin reverb, and we recorded this with the trusty WA47jr. For the keyboard we plugged it directly into the desk with a mono input into the Goldmike preamp again. Lottie in my group performed the keys for the song, which allowed for further practicality and ease. Finally, for vocals we used the warm audio WA-67, which captured the vocals clearly meaning we had a good starting point to be able to add processing and effects to create the telephone, far away sounding vocals Lennon displays. We did run into a problem, however, when we set out emulating the vocals. We couldn’t find anyone who could closely replicate Lennon’s voice, we trialed some of our group members voices and none seemed to work, so we had Lottie sing his part. She is a very professional singer and managed to replicate Lennon’s accents and style, but obviously couldn’t fulfill the part to the full extent. So the vocals proved to be the least accurate part of this task, but other than that, due to extensive research into the Abbey Road Studio sessions, I think we emmulated the drums, guitar, bass and keys well.

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Track 2 (Live In the Studio Stereo Recording)

For our studio stereo recording we recorded a three piece jazz band in 104, which is where we have our seminars so we were already very comfortable with the acoustics of the room and setting up equipment in there. We decided to use a mid/side mic technique to best capture the natural ambiance of the room. For the mid mic we used a Neumann KM184 condenser, and for the sides we used a single AKG C414 condenser, configured in the figure of 8 polar pattern. The singer was positioned infront of the 184 with a pop filter attached to a seperate mic stand so we could move it around individually to the main mics. From the singers perspective, the double bass player was on the left and the pianist on the right. They were both directly facing the capsule of their respective side of the 414. Then we just had to press record and the song pretty much mixed itself. No members in the jazz trio used or wanted headphones, and they played each take all the way through, meaning we could extract the appropriate sections from the best takes and combine them. They essentially just played the song live and we recorded them, which added to the natural ambient feel of the song, there’s some speaking at the start which we decided to keep in to highlight this authenticity, making the listener feel like they are in the room. We did also use the Drawmer 1968 MKII compressor to lightly control the dynamics during sound tracking, making sure the channels maintained a clean sound and volume and didn’t peak over a threshold, but this was mainly done to just to polish the sound a bit. Finally, after tracking we duplicated the AKG C414 middle room mic and flipped and phase reversed them, panning them hard left and right. The result was a very direct vocal with a perfect amount of instrument bleed and a good amount of space for the insrtuments to sit in without feeling crowded.

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Track 3 Remix track

For the remix assignment I knew I wanted to create an electronic version of Come Together, and challenge myself by picking a genre that is very different to rock and roll. I decided to use UK Garage songs and artists for inspiration, making sure I established different baselines in the track and made them the most prominent feature. Regarding use of the vocal, I knew I wanted to give the remix lots of space, so I hard panned each phrase left and right, applied lots of reverb, echo, a bit of flanger and also some compression and EQ, boosting the high frequencies. This gave the vocal a spaced out, echoey feel, but it also sounds rigid and electronic to compliment the other components. When had established the sound I wanted and the layout, I used a drum loop to mimic the sounds I wanted for when I sampled, so I knew what to aim for and try out.

Unfortunately the remix attached to this post is not the finished product of what I created. I shook a tub of gum and layered it with the sound of a pen whacking my water bottle for the high hat, then I used the sound of a jar hitting a carpet floor for the kick and it sounded good. I also added a build up before the ‘come together’ line, with a swell and added reverb on the bass. Lastly, I added a drop where the bass got louder, more saturated and I added tremolo, I then added a piano part and more intense drums. Unfortunately due to a corrupt USB I lost a lot of this progress very recently and had to attach my last saved version of this song from quite a while ago to this assignment, but I wanted to submit something. If I were to do this assignment again I would save my project onto multiple USBs.