WAV Mixes
Log Book
Track 1: Mac DeMarco – Chamber of Reflection
Song was chosen based on availability of a singer, and what vocal sound they could replicate. It has some interesting production techniques related to the drums and synths, but is not too complex that it could become difficult to manage.
I mixed the project, we had some sessions as a group where we improved the sound of the synth and worked on the Kick sound.
All drums are outed to a drum bus:
| Track | Microphone | Pan | EQ | Compression | Effects | Routing |
| Kick | D6 | 0 |  | bus3(delay) | ||
| Snare | Sm57 (bottom) Md441 top/knee | +5 |  | bus3(delay) | ||
| Knee | Md441 | -10 | bus3(delay) | |||
| Mono OH | Schoeps Omni | 0 |  | |||
| Room | Schoeps Omni | +20 |  |  | ||
| Drum Bus | -20 |  |  | Bus4 (reverb) | ||
| Drum reverb (bus4) | +26 |  | ||||
| Drum Delay (bus3) |  |
I panned it in this way to try and match the sound of the originals stereo effect on the drums, so the knee is panned further left as it picked up more of the snares body, which is more prominent on the left in the original, for example. I used a different reverb than what we did in the studio as that reverb sounded to clean and had less low mids than the original.
| Bass |  |  emphasising low mids, higher mids and saturation |
I made the lead sound using the Juno-60, which Remirez played, I also made a pad sound which we didn’t record due to time, so Billy made a good emulation after.
For the lead I used the Saw and sub waves, it needed a lowpass around the high mids and a relatively strong resonance to create the ‘sparkly’ sound. It almost sounds like there’s a subtle glide on the original, we couldn’t replicate but having a longer attack and decay worked well enough.
| Synth (pad) | I changed it to mono |   Bringing out some highs that I felt were missing |  | |||
| Synth (lead) | Centre |   |  to emphasise tail |   to widen stereo image and add more decay |
Christian and I organised and recorded the vocals, I did research what microphones DeMarco uses on his vocal, however just using an SM58 worked very effectively as it complimented the vocalists voice well as well as keeping to the Lo-Fi sound.
| Vocal | SM57 | centre |  emphasising nasal quality and reducing mud/rumble |  |  de-esser  reducing feedback and time to 0 makes a tape emulation  Plate reverb suits vocals and this has a similar sound to the original  | reverb and delay sends |
Track 2 (Live Studio Stereo Recording)
For this recording me and Christian organised the musicians. We both contacted the group and I booked and organised the session. I planned and did background research before the recording which I shared with the group before. I set up the ORTF in the session, chose the mics and set up the desk, Christian handled pro-tools and the others helped with cables and packing things up/down. Ramirez was very helpful with communicating with the musicians.
| Track | Microphone | Placement | pan/level | notes |
| ORTF (left) | Schoeps Omni | ORTF | left +0 | moved further back to capture a clear left and right |
| ORTF (right) | Schoeps Omni | ORTF | right +0 | ” |
| Room (left) | Sontronics Delta 2 | XY | left +5 | low level, with +5db they are about 3db quieter than the ORTF |
| Room (right) | Sontronics Delta 2 | XY | right +5 | ” |
Some Background research I did beforehand. This is based on some work I completed before making classical recordings with a minimal microphone setup. This is a document I shared with the group a few weeks before recording. We didn’t use the same room mics I suggested in this, christian set up the XY which worked well.
ORTF, XY and track sheet
To improve on the recording I would use the Schoeps cardiod in the ORTF then the omni’s as an AB pair much further away, id try putting them in the back corners of the room and the strings at the other end.
After the recording I made a rough mix, we decided to mix it in the studio after which was much more successful:
Studio Mix:
- Eq removing harshness and to bring out some low end
- Very slight compression to keep a more consistent dynamic range without destroying the dynamics of the track
- Used a concert hall reverb preset to emulate a larger recording space – Then used Eq to reduce mud and build up of harsher high frequencies
- Then sent it all out through the Neve to introduce some harmonics
- I set it to ‘Lo’ as this has a slightly warmer sound which helped round off the highs
Track 3 Remix track
| Percussion sound design: | |
| Track | Description |
| Kick | – Recording of me hitting a chair with a pen – microphone directly against the cushion to pick up more low end. – Moved it further away to make it peak around 50 – 60hz as well as avoiding clipping. – Behringer C-2 as its a small diaphragm condenser which will pick up the low end well and emphasise the transient. – layered with a recording of me hitting a book to replicate the higher end punch of the kick around 800hz and 2khz. – In post I lined up the transients and used Eq’ed it to emphasise around 55hz, 800hz and 2khz. – I used channel Eq for precision but also uad pre-amp and channel strip plugins to colour the sound and Eq it further. Then on the master I used saturation, Eq to reduce some mud then used an 1176 to emphasise the attack In the song I played the part using logic’s sampler, where I used the ADSR to emphasise the punch as well as used the oscillator to slightly randomise each hit to make it feel more natural |
| Snare | layers of me hitting different objects: – pinbox- created a decent sound of the attack and ‘snare’ sound which could sit under the whole – pack of cards – which plasticy material made an attack around 500hz – a couple layers of keys to supply the ‘snare’ part – a can which i pitched down to recreate a subtle ring – Eq to emphasise the frequencies I was adding with each layer – Eq and a noise gate to reduce noise – I then used channel strip plugin to saturate it slightly and attenuate around 1500hz, this helepd glue each layer. – 1176 emulation to really emphasise the attack and bite. |
| Low Perc | Comes from the snare sound, without the keys or can. Pitched down in Logics quick sampler, then eq’ed to bring out the lows and remove some of the highs. |
| High Perc | Comes from the Low perc sound bounced and put into the quick sampler, and then pitched up again. |
All drums are outed to a drum bus, and each track is sent to reverb and delay at different levels. drum bus is sent to a parallel compression
I Didn’t do much to the drums as they were heavily processed in the sound design stage
| Track/instrument | EQ | Compression | Effects | Routing |
| Kick |   – adding clarity in highs – boosting punch in lows – creating space for bass in low mids – removing ‘floppy’ sound in mids |  Emphasising attack | drum bus | |
| Snare |  | D_delay D_verb drum bus | ||
| Percussion 1 | D_delay D_verb drum bus | |||
| Percussion 2 | D_delay D_verb drum bus | |||
| Drum bus |  bus compression |
The bassline is heavily inspired by King Tubbys ‘roots of dub’ as it uses a very similar chord sequence, but also took a similar rhythm from ‘no, no, no’ by Dawn Penn.
| Track/Instrument | Pan/Level | EQ | Compression | Effects | Routing |
| Bass DI | mono | cut around 50hz to make space for the kick, but keeping the sub | 1176 (uad) used to emphasise the attack | Bass bus | |
| Bass Room | mono | attenuates lows and low mids heavily emphasising around 500 – 1000 hz to increase clarity and resemble a mic’ed up amp. | ran through an amp sim and quantec reverb (studio) to emulate a studio recording | ” |
Bass and drums out to a D&B bus:
| Track/Instrument | EQ | Compression | Effects |
| D&B |  glue compression |  saturation emphasising low end and high mids |
I used a spring reverb guitar pedal to emulate a more vintage/DIY sound and create that splashy sound of a dub track I also sent some bass to try and make them sound like they were in the same space. Tape delay set to ‘used’ to emulate that DIY sound.
| Track/Instrument | EQ | Effects |
| Guitar DI | Cut low end rumble and around 200 hz as this gets picked up more on the DI | uad channel strip which pushed slightly to warm the sound. i cut some lows and brought up around 2 – 4k to replicate the bright sound common in reggae and dub |
I have three more guitar tracks during the bridge, I use similar settings just with some stronger delay to emphasise the atmosphere.
| Track/Instrument | sound design | EQ |
| Keys 1 (chords) | using a couple sine waves tuned by a couple cents and chorus | attenuated at 500 and cut below 100 |
| Keys 2 (lead) |     |
| Track/Instrument | EQ | Compression | Effects | Routing |
| Vocal |
Horns use Logics ‘studio brass’ plugin. This was inspired by King Tubbys ‘roots of dub’, I used one layer to play the chord, then another panned wider the play the melody.
| Track/Instrument | Pan | EQ | Compression | Effects | Routing |
| Brass1 | -20 |  clip distortion to reduce harshness in the highs   Spring reverb | Bus6 (reverb) | ||
| Brass2 | -37 | uses the same FX but with a stronger decay and wet mix on the delay and reverb | Bus6(reverb) |
To reduce processing I bounced down tracks I could once they were mixed, things like guitars as the delays were slowing the project down, and the drums due to the samplers and all extra mixing steps I had to do on them, I kept notes of what I did.
I sent a lot to a reverb bus. I used Logics Quantec room simulator using the ‘studio’ preset to try and make each part sound like they came from the same room.
