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MPR5C001R~003 Studio Portfolio 2 & Log Book

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1500 words

Please use the sections below to evidence your personal contribution to the production for the portfolio. Please include details for all the tracks produced as a part of this portfolio.

Provide rationale for any of the production decisions that you made as a group. Include any multimedia (pictures, videos, audio recordings etc) evidence to the relevant sections.

Consider the following:

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Commercial Pop Track

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Pre- Production

The initial vision with the pop track was to bring in an artist with the bare bones of a song, and flesh out the instrumentation based on current chart trends. We met up to discuss the direction of the music, and listened to the demo material the artist sent. We decided the best plan of action would be to get the vocals recorded properly in the studio, allowing us to gradually replace and build up all other elements of the music around them.

We then spent several sessions finding reference tracks to choose the musical direction, ranging from ‘Good 4 u” – Olivia Rodrigo to Levitating – Dua Lipa. We made notes of the instrumentation and creative production choices and began recording guitars in the studio. We scrapped the first attempt, which became too pop-punk sounding due to the heavy guitars and drum patterns, and began to focus on a more funk/disco pop sound.

We remained unsatisfied, as we felt the song already had its own sound and felt uncomfortably forced into the commercial pop genre. It was also too slow, lacking essential pop song energy. After several failed sessions, I collated all our ideas into a brand new piece of music, incorporating the Nile Rogers style funk guitar, four on the floor beats, and constant moments of textural ear candy. I also wrote catchier parts and clearer divisions between sections to create a memorable, radio-friendly, accessible sound that could be chopped into short form content, essential for commercial viability (Lorusso, G, 2025). My primary references for writing and recording the first version of the track were Undressed – sombr, and Get Lucky – Daft Punk. sombr has had 6 top 40 songs in the last two years and four top 10s – an undeniably commercial artist.

I added vocals with doubles and several harmonies to emphasise the choruses, and created a layered descending melody line made up of a piano/string pad, guitar and wordless vocals, a focal point of the track from which I added 80s style fm synth arpeggiator (inspired by Sabrina Carpenter and the Weekend) plucked string countermelodies, and other small moments to hold the listener’s attention.

Recording

Once I had created the track, we rerecorded guitar and vocals in the studio, utilising a reamp box so that I could play my parts in the control room and tweak the signal processing. We used a WA-87 mic for my vocals, although kept a lot of takes recorded in my home setup on a Rhode NT1-A. I also recorded some tambourine and shaker at home to give the track more danceability. The rest of the track was made up of electronic MIDI instruments, or DI signals with digital amp models (used on the bass and guitars).

After showing my work to the group, we brainstormed some ideas and I added a vocoder section, and a breakdown in the bridge.

Mixing

The main challenge of the mix was perfecting the vocal chain to achieve the retro fuzz sound that is heard on sombr’s music, and is also used by mainstream pop artists such as Hozier, Wallows and Bruno Mars.

To get the sound, I used a Clip Distortion plugin, carefully adding high shelving and drive to get the sound of an overloaded vintage microphone without losing clarity of the words.

I added a hall reverb and 1/4 note tape delay, which were applied to all of the vocal tracks using a bus. I added some character to the MIDI drums with a tube saturation emulator plugin, giving them more body and compression that allowed them to cut through.

I created a gated reverb sound on the toms in the bridge using stock plugins, running a plate reverb into a noise gate which I experimented with until the reverb held just long enough – another 80s influence inspired by the recent resurgence of the era’s soundscape in modern pop music.

Project Management

I took the lead on managing this project, as my skillset is tailored to writing and arranging, and we did not have time to communicate with a second external artist.

Acoustic Track

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Pre-production

Kai proposed the artist for recording, and we began planning what we would add to her track, which was only guitar and voice. We brought her in for a session to record these parts, and then proposed that both the session drummer should record on this track, as the bass would be a far more simple, background part. She also had a demo of her ideas, which we used as a rough guide for the instrumentation. We made a pre-production document for each session, helping everything to run smoothly:

Recording

We chose to record the vocals and guitar simultaneously to maintain the folky, live atmosphere of the track. We used a Shure SM7b for vocal isolation, and recorded the guitar in stereo using schoeps omnis, inspired by setups of similar sounding artists including folk singer Laura Marling.

Mixing

I routed all instruments in varying degrees to a medium room reverb on a bus, to create a cohesive space. This allowed me to visualise the distance of each instrument in the mix. I also added a prominent tape delay signal to the whole string bus, to help them blend into the background and add an ethereal quality to the track (Maningo, E 2011). I hard panned the doubled backing vocals, and isolated the low frequencies of the bass to separate it from the low guitar strings.

Project Management

We each aided the track in different ways – I helped operate the desk while recording the initial guitar, and communicated the reference tracks with the drummer before he set up. After each drum take I would briefly discuss with the group in the room, and then summarise our thoughts through the talkback to get the best of his playing, and to trial some different approaches.

Jack was in charge of arranging the strings, and we planned a session to bring in a violinist. As we had not been given access to the strings until the day of recording, we discovered there were some out of key notes and odd timing choices between the five parts. We chose to record only the lead violin and viola line to avoid clashes, and to fix the situation, Flynn and I booked an emergency studio in which I recorded simple cello layers to fill out the chorus.

Location Recording

Pre Production

for our location recording, we were inspired by popular internet series ‘NPR Tiny Desk’, where artists perform their music in a living room style setup to get a natural, raw, intimate sound.

We did some research on the mic choices and placement used in tiny desk videos, including an official breakdown video from the channel, and found the key components involved two main steps

• close mic each instrument
• get as wide and accurate capture of the room as possible (NPR MUSIC, 2017)

we had a simple setup of two performers – Joe playing guitar and singing, and me adding some simple shaker accompaniment.

we did some test runs and decided to play to a click to maintain the pace of the track and stay in time with each other

We also found the shaker to be overpowering in the room mics, so i recorded facing away in the doorway to the room.

Recording

We used two rhode NT1s as a spaced pair in opposite corners of the room, and a close pencil mic on the guitar to capture the NPR style sound. We used a Brauner phantom C on the vocals for its detailed sound. Jack and I had headphones to monitor the sound and make small positional changes throughout the session.

Mixing

I ket the mixing simple, choosing only to add subtle additional reverb with a long predelay, to help blend the vocals and guitars.

I panned the shaker close mic to match its position in the room mics and added a subtle high pass filter

I removed the low end from the vocals to combat the harsh plosives caused by proximity effect, and added in air and presence.

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Bibliography

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). How to Sound Like NPR Tiny Desk. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQGSZVqip4

[Accessed 22 Mar. 2024].

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Music, N. (2017). How We Record Audio At The Tiny Desk – YouTube. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e07bI5rz6FY.

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Lorusso, G. and Lorusso, G. (2025). How Sombr became music’s next big thing – The Quinnipiac Chronicle. [online] The Quinnipiac Chronicle. Available at: https://quchronicle.com/90256/arts-and-life/how-sombr-became-musics-next-big-thing/.

Universal Audio. (2025). Universal Audio. [online] Available at: https://www.uaudio.com/blogs/ua/stereo-miking-acoustic-guitar?srsltid=AfmBOooQUGEBzMpuSJBYcH-4MX_5UxavryiQlYX52hIKsQPwYOrkReTg [Accessed 6 May 2026].

The Current (2025). Laura Marling – Full live session at The Current (2015). [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ohLz75MI9A [Accessed 6 May 2026].

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Maningo, E. (2011). Mixing tips for Violin in Classical Music Production and Pop Music Projects. [online] Audio Recording. Available at: https://www.audiorecording.me/mixing-tips-for-violin-in-classical-music-production-and-pop-music-projects.html.

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