TRACK 1 – GUITAR BASED PRODUCTION: REVERIE BY HILDEN PARK (4:10)
Pre-Production:
For our guitar-based production, we chose to produce a track called Reverie by Hilden Park. Before selecting this track, we spoke about our different options in great detail. Myself and Fin had a few different bands in mind, all of whom are second-year conservatoire bands. After playing different demos from each of the bands, we eventually narrowed our options down to two bands: Cab Driver and Hilden Park. We had multiple tracks with demos that we could produce from both bands, but we confirmed Hilden Park because they were more available than Cab Driver, and had the added bonus that I am their current session bass player, which would help with communicating between the band and our production group. Once we had confirmed, we allowed the main members of the band to select which of their songs they wanted us to produce – “Reverie” was the track that was chosen.
Production:
When we planned out how we would produce “Reverie”, we decided initially to record the whole band together in one session, then overdub parts afterwards. We set up a meeting before that session to create a plan, and figure out all our microphone choices and job roles within the session. We recorded the session, but later found issues with one of the microphones, and more embarrassingly, we didn’t record the track to a metronome and relied on the band keeping in time. You can listen to that recording here:
After realising our mistakes, we decided to have another go, and record the band separately. Our first session was going to be laying some guide tracks down for the drums to record to. Before the session, I set up a new ProTools session, and configured the BPM and all the tempo changes in a click track, and synced it up to the demo track that had been provided. We then recorded the rhythm guitar, vocals, and the main lead parts as a guide for the main drum session. For the next session, we planned to record the drums. I then created a session sheet that we then used in the session to help us. The sheet outlined every detail that we would need to speed up the setup process, and not confuse. It contains information like what equipment we needed, where all the inputs/outputs are, and what wall box they correspond to, microphone placement notes, and if we had any inserts that needed to be patched. When planning, we decided to keep the drum microphone setup mostly the same as the previous session with only a few small changes to microphone choices and placement. During the session, Lily and I set up all the microphones around the drum kit whilst Fin and Brooke patched everything, set up ProTools, and line checked all the microphones.
Our next session was to record the final bass parts. As I was the bass player of the band, I didn’t have a huge amount of involvement during the actual session, but I did contribute when we were deciding how we were going to re-amp the bass as we recorded. We decided that we would record two amps simultaneously – a bass amp running as usual, and a guitar amp (specifically a Fender Hot Rod) that was heavily driven to give the bass more bite in the upper register.
I then took some time to overdub all the guitar parts for the track. Mike’s rhythm guitar was recorded in stereo using a Fender Twin and a Roland JC-40, both with an SM-57 and a condenser on the cone. For Ryan’s lead parts I used a Fender Twin with an SM-57 and a WA-251 on the cone, then the same for Max’s parts, but with a Roland JC-40.
Once we were all happy with the guitar parts, we moved on to overdubbing the vocals. Everyone was present for this session, but Fin took the reins mainly guiding Mike through his vocal parts, giving him pointers on how he could get a better sound. Meanwhile, myself, Lily, and Brooke ran the mixing console and ran ProTools. For microphones, we used a Warm Audio WA-251 for the main vocals, then a pair of XAudia The Beebs set up in Blumlein for the backing vocals (I would, however, only use one of The Beebs in my mix).
Post-Production:
Once we were confident we had all the parts recorded, I spent a few hours trawling through different takes of each part, comping together good takes for each part in the track. As I am the only person in our group that uses ProTools, I bounced out all the comped parts and transferred them into a Logic file to send to the rest of the group as we were all going to do individual mixes of the track.
After every session, I took a copy of the latest ProTools session and roughly mixed each part as we recorded them. Once all the parts were recorded, I fully mixed the track and mastered it to -10 LUFS as per the brief.
TRACK 2 – LIVE STUDIO RECORDING: JAZZ TRIO (5:34)
Pre-Production:
For our live studio recording, we had two options to pick from: record a jazz ensemble or a folk ensemble. For our recording, we decided to record a jazz ensemble as we have more contacts for jazz musicians than folk musicians. We had a few options of bands that we could use. I had two drummers that I know that have jazz bands that could play for us, but Lily had a contact with a jazz pianist that had a trio with a drummer and double bass player. Myself and Lily then had a meeting to discuss how we wanted to record the trio. I created a session sheet for the session that outlined where everything needed to be so the session could run as smoothly as possible.
Production:
When producing a live studio track, the biggest problem is always bleed from microphones. This can create many problems further down the line when mixing, and as this track was going to be mixed completely analogue, we wanted to minimise as much bleed as possible from the source. We had three instruments to mic up for the session. For the drums, we decided to use a fairly standard microphone setup using 11 microphones in total. As this is a jazz piece, we decided to use a Sennheiser MD-441 on the snare top instead of the standard Shure SM-57 to give us a slightly fatter snare sound. We also added a hi-hat microphone as most jazz drummers use the hi-hats more frequently throughout a track. For the double bass, we used two different microphones, and a DI output that was on the double bass. We used a Sontronics Orpheus in front of the bass, and a Neumann KM-183 suspended in the bridge as a closer microphone with a rubber band. We also used the acoustic panels to surround the bass player to help with bleed from the drums, but to also help absorb some of the lower frequencies from the bass itself. For the piano, we used the grand piano that was in 113. We also brought a Nord electric piano to the session because we knew that the piano was slightly out of tune at the time of recording; however, the player wanted to play the grand piano. We enclosed the piano with acoustic panels, turned the piano around so the open lid would face the opposite direction to the drums, and put the cover over the lid and any gaps to help mitigate bleed. For the mics, we used a spaced pair of Schoeps MK-2 omni-directional mics, and a single Warm Audio WA-251 placed around middle C on the piano. After we had set up all the microphones, myself and Lily ran the console whilst Brooke ran the Logic session.
Mixing:
We chose this track to be our track that we would mix fully analogue using the mixing console and some outboard gear. Myself and Brooke spent a bit of time selecting which take was the best of the few that we did with the band, then used the equalisers on each track to EQ them individually. We then created a stereo reverb channel, and sent the whole mix through the Lexicon PCM-92 set to a preset that we both liked. We then added some light compression using the Warm Audio WA-2A to all the bass channels, then used the Drawmer DL-241 to add some compression to the snare drum. We then printed all the channels individually into Logic, then recorded a stereo output from the mix bus on the console into Logic.
TRACK 3 – REMIX PRODUCTION: HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE DISCO REMIX (3:07)
For my remix track, I wanted to create a disco remix. The vocal track that was provided wasn’t synced up to a metronome, so I chopped up the track so it was in sync with a metronome. I then sat down with Ben, my mate who is a guitarist, and came up with some ideas on how we could remix the song. We ended up creating a guitar line that was inspired by “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk that had an iconic Nile Rodgers guitar part in it. The part consisted of a rhythm guitar and a picked riff that would be layered to create a bigger sound, although I would later remove it as it clashed with other parts I wrote. I then recorded a drum track using a very basic drum mic setup and placed towels over the drums to make them as dead as I could get them. We then recorded some percussion parts over the top to add a bit more to the mix. We then added the guitar part that we had written, and I created a bassline inspired by “Gimme Gimme” by ABBA and added some small piano parts to add more to the texture. I then added some reverb and delay to the vocals to thicken them up and make them more present in the mix.
