Studio Portfolio 1 & Log Book

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Track 1 (Guitar-based band production)

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Pre-Production

I got in contact with an Indie Pop/Rock band who had a fully arranged, and well-recorded demo. The interleaving guitar parts fit the brief very well, and the tightness of the existing arrangement meant a lot of of the musical work was done for us, and we could build upon it with the guidance of Ben, the frontman and songwriter.

I sent the bounce to our studio groupchat so everyone could familiarise themselves with the track and set a date for our first session.

Track References

Song	Artist	Reasoning
New York City Cops	The Strokes	Raunchy and gritty guitar tone, just two live guitars panned left and right.
Fools Gold	The Stone Roses	Drums: Energetic and “groovy” pattern, with a lot of auxilliary percussion layered on top. It’s a 2 bar loop on the record as opposed the more naunced performance in our track.
You Get What You Give	New Radicals	Overall sonic style is very clean and timeless. Vocals are beautifully smooth in their compression level, the analogue/tape quarter-note delay and ~3 second reverb gives the perfect amount of space so the vocal can sit slightly lower in the mix without being lost.

30/10/25 – Drums and Bass Session

04/12/25 – Vocals and Guitar Session

Used an EV RE20 pointed at the centre of the speaker of a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Ben used a Strat on the bridge pickup, and changed from the “Drive” channel for the rhythm sound, to the “More Drive” channel for the lead.
I decided against a mic blend (ribbon and condenser, for example) as I wanted to simplify as much as possible and get the right tone before it hit the mic. The guitar was picking up electrical interference from the lights in the room, but we didnt want to swap to positions 2 or 4 on the guitar (the phase cancellation got rid of the noise) because Ben’s use the bridge pickup is essential to the sound of the song when he plays live.

Mix

Instrument	Dynamics/Tone	EQ	Space/Pan
Vocals	LA-2A Bus compressor to smooth out vocal envelope and makes the harmonies blend more seamlessly	Neve EQ insert while recording to get an initial 10k boost, and a 100Hz high pass.	1/4 note delay was very promenant in the demo as it fills out gaps in the verses, adds identifying character much like the New Radicals reference track
Drums	Used drum triggers to add punch and depth to the kick and snare that got us closer to the reference tracks.	The cymbals ended up being high-shelved at -3dB, the 8-10k band was nicely taken up by the shaker and tambourine, which felt more important to the energy of the track.	Relatively dry, low level send to a 1.5s plate. Panned drummer’s perspective.
Lead Guitar (Bridge Pickup)	Very raunchy gain level, a lot of bite. Used second gain channel of Fender Hot Rod Deluxe	High-mid focused	Sent to 1.5s plate, panned hard right
Rhythm Guitar 1	First gain channel used, only slightly less gain and most dynamic difference came from the performance	High-mid focused	Plate, panned hard left
Rhythm Guitar 2	Hi-Fi, slightly cleaner	Naturally mid-scooped from pickup selection.	Plate, panned centrally.
Bass	I used an 1176 at medium-input level on the amped bass, as consistent volume level on bass is vital to a rock track, and the absence of it takes away the power behind the performance.	I used a split EQ, cutting above 700Hz on the amp track and cutting below 100-200 on the DI track.	Central, low send to small plate bus

Stylistic Automation

Rhythm Guitar: The central and double-tracked rhythm guitar sits at -20dB in the verses, and is boosted up to -8dB in the choruses for a thicker sound. In contrast, the sparseness of the verses feels raw and has a lot more attitude.

Vocal Reverb: The vocal send levels to the large hall reverb bus is at a negligable -25dB in the first verse, and is then extremely ramped to +1dB at the last 2 bars of the verse. This creates a drowning effect that coincides with a held vocal note, repeated guitar chord and crescendoing drums. The same happens in the second verse, but starting with a slightly higher send of -18dB. For the choruses, the send level sits at -10dB, as this nicely compliments the thicker guitar texture and more melodic and flowing vocal performance.

Track 2 Live in the studio (jazz/folk ensemble)

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Recording Session – 24/10/25

Mix – 14/11/25

As soon as we had an appropriate level balance within each instrument (i.e. Bass bridge, body, pickup ; drum mics), we promptly made subgroups so simplify our mix and make it more authentic to the genre and the era of recording technology that it is known for.

Sub-Groups: Drums, Bass, Piano, Trumpet, Rooms

Instrument	Dynamics/Tone	EQ	Space/Pan
Trumpet	We attempted to record in with an LA2A for a smooth compression that wouldn’t reduce its dynamic character, but we couldnt as the unit had a fault that was causing strange EQ artifacts.	Medium width EQ at 1kHz, -8dB: Get rid of nasality and pokiness. Narrower EQ at 300Hz, +3dB to bring out warmth in the fundamental notes.	Started with a lower reverb send to match other instruments, found it sat on top of everything and had too much harshness. We increased the send level by 5-6dB which made it sit much better. Central Panning
Drums	No compression. Preserving the natural dynamics of the performer which is appropriate for jazz as a performance-based genre.	Almost all EQ was corrective (rather than stylistic) to get rid of harsh peaks in the cymbals and resonances in the shells. Kick In has a 2.5k 7dB boost, and Kick Out had a 100Hz 7dB boost. (One for attack, one for body)	Medium/low level send to lexicon Bounced in stereo with drummer perspective.
Double Bass	Parallel compressed using a Distressor rack unit ratio 10:1, high input. We wanted it to sound tactile and thumpy.	Compressed track: Smooth hump from 60-100Hz (We wanted more power from the bass than the kick). Muddy low mids 200hz cut Uncompressed: High end string attack boosted 7-8kHz.	Very low level send to the room reverb bus.
Piano	Recorded through the Neve Preamp at a medium/low level for saturation	Precise -5dB cut at 1k to remove nasality, no other changes to keep fullness of sound, filling the wide gaps between the trumpet, bass and drums.	Medium level send Panned 40% right for seperation against drums, as they are both rhymic parts which got muddied up at times when both central.

Track 3 Remix track

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Tracklist/Instruments

Vocal: The original vocal is largely maintained so that the structure is recogniseable, but with some repeated phrases and a harmony line using flex pitch and time.

Guitars: First recorded element, I used the UAFX Dream (Fender deluxe reverb emulation) and the Dawner Prince Boonar (Echorec drum delay emulation). The intro guitars are clean and have a high send level to the 6 second reverb bus (pre-fader).

Synths: Logic Alchemy for chords/pads, Logic Retro Synth for Arpeggio part going to its own tape delay bus, followed by a 3 second reverb only affecting the wet repeats, creating a soupy vibey texture.

Bass: Electric bass also ran through my pedalboard, lots of parallel bus saturation added. Layered with an ES2 sub bass for depth.

Drums: I used synth kick, hats and snare to achieve a consistent punch and drive, but with sampled toms for raw energy and grit. I recorded myself for a finger click as an isolated part in “drop” sections. Often layered multiple kicks and snares together, treating them like a snare top/bottom or kick in/out/sub.

Track References

Song	Artist	Reasoning
The Less I Know, The Better / Eventually	Tame Impala	Kevin Parker is a pioneer of psychedlic rock meeting with synth pop, famously integrating distorted bass and live drums with very complex and layered synth parts.
Through The Wire	Kanye West	Blending recorded, synthesised and sampled drums. The bongos first heard in the intro sound recorded and performed live, with sampled hihat and snare, and a subby synthesized kick drum.
Robot Rock	Daft Punk	Dance Track Outro contains a side-chained noise gate. The faux guitar triggers whether or not the lead synth is heard. I use a kick drum to trigger to open a noise gate on a bus, to which everything but the vocals and drums are sent.