Production Log (MPR4C001R~003)

7th February

In our two-hour studio session, I suggested that we take a vote so that we could all pick as a group what song we were doing. This way, everyone would have a say, and no one would be making all the decisions on their own. I don’t have a screenshot or anything of me actually doing this because it was all discussed in person, but I have screenshots of us doing the vote, which I have included below.

21st March – Our First Studio Session

During this session, we decided to record some vocals and piano for our skeleton track. Since I am a classically trained vocalist, I performed both the vocals and the piano, which saved us time in finding separate musicians. The part mainly consisted of block chords, making it manageable for me. I suggested we use a microphone akin to the U87, and after talking with the technicians, we opted for the Brauner Phantom 1C, a large diaphragm condenser mic that mirrored the U87’s qualities well. We recorded the piano first to give me a reference for my vocal take, utilising a click track set to 82 BPM to maintain timing. We set up one close mic and one room mic for both the vocals and piano to capture both detail and the natural acoustic character of the studio.

25th March – Second Studio Session

For this session, I organised for a drummer friend to add drums to our skeleton track. The recording went smoothly, and Sam provided a mic list of equipment he regularly uses, which resulted in a great sound. The mic list included:

• Kick in: Beta 91
• Kick out: RE20
• Snare top: 57
• Snare bottom: 57
• Toms: 2 MD421
• Sonstronics: DM1T
• Overheads: Pair KM184 

After achieving a solid drum take, Sam laid down the rhythm guitar using a C414 positioned on the cone for a brighter sound, and we also used an SM57 for added brightness. After this, I was away from the Conservatoire until the 23^rd of April, so I couldn’t participate in any group work during this time period. As far as I have been told, my group managed to record the missing parts and re-record the Guitar and Drums.

Mixing the Project

I don’t have a precise timeline for mixing since it was done whenever we had availability. In our first session, Ollie, Sam, and I met in a Mac Lab to begin mixing. Sam took the lead on basic levelling and slight EQ adjustments on the drums while Ollie and I focused on other components of the assignment, such as preparing to develop a PowerPoint presentation, and discussing the Stereo Pair aspect of the assignment. We also checked Sam’s progress, gave second and third opinions, and when we were done, shared the file in the Teams chat for others to access and contribute when they could. Below, you can find screenshots of the EQ and compression settings used for each drum channel:

Kick In

Kick Out

Snare Top

Snare Bottom

Rack Tom

Floor Tom

Overheads

In our second mixing session, it was just Ollie and me in the Mac Labs. Ollie concentrated on the mixing this time, especially effects and guitar adjustments. As he worked, I provided input to help fine-tune the effects and the mixing on the guitars. We applied EQ to the rhythm guitar to emphasise frequencies around 1 kHz, emulating the original track’s sound. 

Screenshots of our EQ settings for the rhythm guitar and the parameters for the two reverbs and delay can be found below. The delay settings used varied decay times, with reverb 1 having a short decay for the drums, creating a sense of space, while reverb two and the delay were primarily used on the vocals to replicate the original track’s ambience. Before ending the session, I did a quick EQ and compression setup on the vocals to mimic the original voices, applying a high-pass filter on a 7-band EQ, which worked well despite lacking the processing of the final product. For the piano, I boosted the high frequencies, recognising in hindsight that cutting the lower frequencies is a preferable way to achieve a cleaner sound.

Rhythm Guitar EQ

And here are the settings we used for the two reverbs and the Delay.

Delay

Reverb 1

Reverb 2

In the following session, I worked on the Vocals, and levelling the track. This is where I chose to use the Fabfilter pro Q-4 EQ. Having been in studios and mixing for a total of 5 hours prior to this session, my ears were quite tired, and I was in desperate need of a break. However, my stubbornness, a fatal flaw in this session, made me keep working with tired ears, causing me to miss the levelling issue.

As seen in the screenshots below, the lead vocals had 2 EQS due to one characterful EQ emulating Noel Gallagher’s tone and another corrective EQ cutting out whistling frequencies recorded during the backing vocals in 109, right before Sam, Tom, and I recorded the stereo pair assignment.

I chose to use a rather harsh compressor because the dynamics were very varied in parts where the vocals should have been solid, and so I made the EQ quite harsh, but also barely noticeable. This was thanks to my use of make-up gain, fast attack time, and the slower release time, which allowed the vocals to still feel natural, and also keep the level at 0 on the mix window post-compressor.

When recording the backing vocals, my friend Joe Manson recorded one part in the final two choruses, while I recorded the other, standing further back from the microphone. We used a C414 for its narrow cardioid pattern, allowing better control over the backing vocals, and by using a different microphone, the tone was slightly different, which helped in preventing some phase issues.

The backing vocal EQs are as follows: 

1. Joe’s backing vocals 

2. My backing vocals 

To match Joe’s voice to the track’s tone, used a high-pass filter and boosted some of the higher frequencies to get a tone that blended well with my own and emulated the original track. My own EQ mirrored the lead vocals but was less detailed. I realise my error was levelling; the vocals were too loud while the backing track was too quiet, diminishing the quality of the overall sound.

Some of the overall things I think could have been better are things such as:

1. Communication
2. Time management
3. Effects used on instruments such as the guitar and the vocals
4. My personal time management and allowing myself to take a break.

These issues caused various setbacks, complications, and if we were more cohesive and cooperative as a group, I feel as though not only this assignment, but the whole year could have gone a lot more smoothly.

6th May 2025 – Recording the Stereo Pair

We recorded a jazz trio (bass, soprano sax, drums) using:

• Km184 xy pair for the drums,
• a pair of c451bs for the soprano sax,
• a pair of oktava mk319s,

We also tried using a blumlein setup with two C414s, but unfortunately, we couldn’t get one of the mics to work.

After recording, we sent the drums and sax to a reverb track, solidifying the bass and widening the overall track, giving a nice atmosphere and a higher quality to the sound.

One issue we had was that we didn’t communicate how long we needed the track to be before the musicians came into the studio, and so they were playing tracks that were 5 to 6 minutes long, allowing us no time for the remix. However, we were able to communicate that we needed the track to be shorter, and so they managed to get a take that was 3 minutes and 42 seconds long, allowing us more time for the remix part of the assignment.

The remix

For the remix, I turned “Don’t Look Back in Anger” into a dance track. Starting with chopping the word “So” from the chorus, I created a rhythm with it.

I then set about finding drum sounds, including a kick, snare top and bottom, shake click, and hi-hats. The kick sound came from dropping my mouse pad on my suitcase, which I processed with a low-pass filter. I compressed and gated it for an even dynamic. For the snare top, bottom and click, I recorded a semi-full Pringles can, filtered it, and balanced its low and high frequencies. The hi-hats were recorded from my kitchen tap. I then chopped the audio and cleaned up with fades.

For sampled audio, I used the “Aurora waves” synth sound to create simple repeating chords, layering it with a more attacked synth sound from the ES2 synthesiser. I recorded bass guitar, layered it with a sampled synth bass sound for more depth, and recorded a trumpet for the track’s background. I incorporated other features like an arpeggiator and sampled vocals to prepare for the bass solo, pitch-shifting the sample down for a dropping-like effect.

ES2 Synthesiser:

Arpeggiator settings:

Sampler settings:

One other notable feature I used was the ringshifter, which provides a sense of the audio moving around your head. I have always wanted to experiment with this, but I never had the opportunity before I had Logic.