Track 1 (Guitar-based band production) Nice Girls Never Win
When it came to planning the first thing we did was get together as a group and talk about what band we wanted to record to best suit the brief of a guitar-based track. We then came to the conclusion to contact this band I had heard that play indie-pop songs with some of them being very guitar centred which was perfect for this brief.
Pre-production planning
Once we had contacted the band and confirmed we were going to record them we got them to send over a demo of the track so we could hear it and start to think about how we will record them.
We put together this patch list to help know what microphone we want and where its going to speed up set up time.
To help speed up the set up time in the studio we also created a Logic project before the studio with all the channels patched so we could just plug the microphones in and hit record.
Once we had planned what Microphones we were going to use we then started to plan times and dates for the first recoding session where we were hoping to get drums and guitar done as a base guide track for the rest of the band to overdub on top of that.
To help us quickly work out days the band were all free we created a poll in our Whatsapp chat.
Recording
Due to pre-planning the microphones and patch list we were very efficient with setting up the studio ready for recording. As we had already created a logic project it meant we could all be in the live room setting up the microphones on the drum kit. Once the drum kit was almost set up I left Jaspur to finish setting it up whilst I help the guitarist of the band set up his guitar as we decided to re-amp the guitar live from the control room so he could be in the control room with us whilst he was recording. To do this we sent a DI from his guitar into the desk which we then sent out of the desk through a channel insert which went to the wall box into his guitar amp which we then mic’d up. This made the guitarist feel more comfortable as he could communicate with us and the drummer better whilst he was playing.
This also meant the singer could sing with him to help him with the structure of the song as he’s recording.
We also added a stereo delay effect on the way in of the guitar which gave the guitar a thicker sound as well as it working nicely with the guitar part he was playing.
When it came to recording the drums we ended up using a smaller selection of microphones on the kit purely down to time and making it easier to setup so we had more recording time but I felt this didn’t effect the sound too much and we still managed to get a good recording of the drums.
Photo from vocal recording, using a AKG C414 with pop-shield.
To make the chorus sound bigger I decided to add a delay to the vocal to add some depth, this was automated to only come in on the chorus.
The bass was then overdubbed using a similar technique to the guitar where we used a DI that then got sent to the amp in the live room which was mic’d up using a Shure sm57 and Sontronics DM1-B.
Mixing
When it came to mixing this track I wanted to start with the guitar and drums as they are the fundamental instruments of this track. As we only used 9 microphones on the drums it made it easy to mix together but it did mean that the overall drum sound wasn’t very big sounding and I needed to do some processing to make it sound larger. One technique I used to make the drums sound big was to do some parallel compression and blend it in with the original drums.
on the parallel bus I also added this EQ to take out some of the high end as when i heavily compressed the signal it made the high end of the drums very harsh.
All of the guitars that we recorded all had a stereo delay channel as well as the DI and the amp signal, this then made the overdubs of the guitar make the channel count of the track very large quickly. To help manage all these channels I grouped all the separate guitar overdubs to then process separately. After listening back to the recordings I realised that I didn’t like the sound of the amp so instead I decided to re-amp the guitar virtually.
To stop masking between the vocals and the guitars, I sent all of the guitars to a bus that had a spectral EQ side-chained to the vocal to duck any frequencies from the vocal on the guitar to let the vocal sit on top of the guitars.
Track 2 Live in the studio (jazz/folk ensemble)
Pre-Production Planning
When it came to organising the ensemble we were thinking about how each instrument would sound together as well as how we can record all of them in the same room and still get a good recording. After finding a jazz band we started to discuss what microphones we were going to use as well as where we would place each musician and what we can do to get the best isolation from each of them.
This was the room layout that we decided on to help get the best separation in the recording
Recording
During the recording process we gave ourselves different roles to help speed up the set up time, Oliver was setting up logic and the desk whilst the rest of us were setting up microphones and moving the room about to get our desired positioning. After we had everything set up we got the band to do a sound check to we could see how it sounded. We noticed we needed to do more sound isolation on the piano so we adjusted the screens and turned the bass amp down which made a big difference with isolating the piano.
In the images above you can see our microphone choice and placement on the drum kit, overall we were quite happy with the drum sound.
Guitar microphone choice and placement
Saxophone microphone choice and placement
Piano with acoustic screens
Mixing
We mixed this in studio 113 meaning we had a lot of options of outboard gear to use but we still needed to think carefully about what we used on which instrument.
For the drums we decided to use the EQ on each channel of the desk to do indivudual changes on each microphone then bus it down to do some overall compression with the Drawmer DL241 Dual Compressor.
The bass also had EQ on the channel from the desk but was also sent to Drawmer 1960 Tube Compressor to add some attack and tame dynamics.
For the piano we used the Drawmer DS201 Dual Gate to lightly compress it and EQed it using the desk EQ. We also sent it to a room reverb through an AUX to the Lexicon PCM92 Spatial FX. This meant we could use it for other instruments like the saxophone.
For the saxophone we used the Warm Audio WA-412 to compress it as it had lots of spike in dynamics, we also sent it to the same reverb as the piano but with a much stronger signal to give it more reverb.
To help fine tune the glue the mix together we used the TL Audio Ivory Series EQ 5103 on the mix bus as well as the bus compressor on the desk to compress the master channel.
Track 3 Remix track
When I originally listened the the vocal line it inspired me to write a dark indie funk song, a song I took inspiration from is “Just The Two Of Us” by Scary Pockets which is also a cover song.
I wrote and recorded most of this track using Ableton Live as that was the DAW I learnt production on and feel most comfortable, the only instrument that was recorded differently was the acoustic drums that was recorded in Pro Tools then bounced back to mix in Ableton.
setting up the drum kit to record
Mixing
Session overview in ableton
Due to the style of song the track count was quite low which helped when it came to mix.
Due to the vocal having lots of sibilances I used parallel de essers to counter it
All of the guitars were recored with a DI so I could choose and adjust my tone after the recording process which gave my mixing more flexibly.
guitar amp simulator
I recored the drums with a knee microphone which when it came to mixing i decided to use as a energy microphone by heavily compressing it to add more energy and depth to the drum sound.
Knee microphone
Overall I think I managed to remix the vocals into a different style effectively by listening to the style of the vocals and matching a backing track to that style. I feel my mixing has created the right sound for my genre choice and taking inspiration from reference tracks has helped to achieve this. If I was to do this again would be to add some more intruments to thicken out the texture of the song as some parts of the song lack development.
