Commercial Pop Track
Pre-Production
When we approached this section of the portfolio we began by discovering what pop music is to us.
I voiced that to me the height of pop was the early 2010’s and an iconic pop song is ‘Get Lucky‘ by Daft Punk ft Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers. I love this track as it contains a groovy, funk bass-line, a catch melody and simple yet effective lyrics. I wanted this to be the heart of our track, I reminded my group that the brief states there is to be “Clear influence”. We then created a simple demo track in order to start organising our ideas. The main reason for a demo is to start putting the ideas in your mind into a physical format, this allows us to review it and when new and better ideas spark we can then add them in to create our end product.
After revisiting the demo I created a list of ideas I had to alter it and contribute to our final product. I immediately wanted to change the tempo from 140BPM down to 120BPM as this is the ‘sweet-spot’ for pop / funk music and felt more natural to the song.
I also drafted some vague lyrics so we could start testing different melodies. I suggested this next as I find once a solid structure and melody are established, other elements such as: drums and synthesizers, naturally filter in.
Recording
Sadly for this track I wasn’t able to be around for a lot of the creative development / recording as there was an unexpected family bereavement which caused me to miss out on a lot of this tracks process.
We knew for this song the vast majority of the instrumentation was going to be electronic / synthesized / created in the box (our chosen DAW for this project was Logic Pro X).
- Electric Guitar – Sennheiser MD421
- Bass – DI
Project Management
- This song was left until the last minute to sort so a lot of the workload was rushed and unsatisfactory. If I were to do this portfolio again I would start with this track as it ended up being the most consuming. Also in hindsight I’d like to have more of a say in regards to the musical dictation of the song and the way the sections of the song work together as I think there a few parts of this song that are unnecessary and actually clash and damage the smooth, funk aesthetic we started with.
Mixing
Drums:
Pitch shift – For the tom’s I wasn’t happy with the tuning of them as they didn’t sit well in the mix.
EQ – Overall I just added simple EQ to boost the frequencies that sat the best in the track and remove any muddiness. I didn’t need to do any extensive work on these parts as they were midi / electronic drums.
Guitar:
EQ – For the guitar to muffle harsh frequencies. I didn’t remove them as the overall tone of the guitar was rather high so removing them would’ve killed the guitar track.
Synths:
Reverb – I added a very airy reverb to the synths as it helped make the track sound less stagnant.
Acoustic Track
Pre-Production
For this section of the portfolio I wanted to use an already established band with an original song we could put an acoustic spin on. I have been working all year with an artist called Sohini Kaur, who has a very versatile portfolio with a lot of soul. I got in contact Sohini and offered her the idea of working with us to create an acoustic version of her song ‘Before You Go’. After I had spoken in person with Sohini I decided that before our first session I’d send a copy of her demo to the group so they could familiarise themselves with the track. I then thought it would be best to do our first session just vocals and acoustic guitar so that we could develop the track around those crucial segments. Sadly we didnt have time to go back and rerecord the original guitar and track.
Recording
Microphone choices
- Vocals – Shure SM7B.
- Piano – Schoeps CMC5U (stereo pair).
- Acoustic Guitar – Neumann KM 184 (stereo pair).
- Kick – AKG D112
- Snare – Shure SM57
- Hi-Hat – AKG 414
- Rack Tom – Sennheiser MD421
- Floor Tom – Oktava MK-012
- Over Head – AKG 414
Room setup
For this song we decided to overdub all the elements as our main concern was bleed between instruments since this is an acoustic recording.
Mixing
Drums
Noise Gate – For the floor tom, to control the bleed.
Pitch shifter – For the floor tom to tune it as we didn’t have time with the session musicians to do so.
Reverb – For the piano to fill in space in the mix and EQ to tailor the sound to settle the mid range as it sounded too central.
Vocals:
I made an bus send for the vocals so they all have the same level of reverb and same compression, they were separate takes and needed levelling.
Location Recording
Pre-Production
There were a lot of planning issues leading up to doing our location recording as we couldn’t figure out a date when it would be appropriate to do our location recording however, we decided to do it in my living room and imitate the set up of Tiny Desk, which is an intimate live performance recorded and uploaded onto YouTube. I spoke to one of my housemates to see if his band would be down for it and what style of music they do to assure it fit our chosen environment, we deciphered that their stylistic genre was Neo-Soul and that it would fit perfectly. They agreed to do an acoustic arrangement of their song “Love You So”.
Recording
There was an issue with facilities and all the equipment we required wasn’t available so, below is our original compared to our allotted equipment list.
Original Equipment List:
- Vocals – SM7B (with pop shield).
- Bass – Through amp then DI.
- Acoustic Guitar – SM7B Placed in front of soundhole.
- Acoustic Guitar – SM57 Placed towards the fretboard.
- Slaptop Cajon – DI for the snare and D112 pointed towards the kick sound-hole.
- x2 AKG 414’s as room mics.
- x6 Mic stands.
- x12 XLR cables.
- Zoom 8 hard disk recorder.
Final Equipment List:
- Vocals – SM57 (with pop shield)
- Bass – Through amp then DI
- Acoustic Guitar – SM57 placed in front of sound-hole
- Slap top Cajon – DI for the snare and D112 pointed towards the kick sound-hole.
- x2 AKG 414’s (one placed off to the side near vocals and bass and the other more central facing the guitar and cajon).
- x6 Mic stands.
- x12 XLR cables.
- Zoom 8 hard disk recorder.
Project Management
Planning:
- I chose where we did the location recording
- I chose who we were recording and the date/time.
- I also made the equipment list and submitted the request to loan it.
Roles and responsibilities:
- We all assisted with the set up and pack down of the equipment.
- Acoustic guitar set up: Eloise
- Cajon set up: Eloise
- Vocals set up: Jamie
- Bass set up: Shelby
- DAW engineer / sound engineer: Shelby
I took charge of the Zoom 8 hard disk recorder as I was the only one who knew how to operate it. I also did level checks and PFL for all the channels
Structure and organisation:
Before the recording we collected the equipment from the desk at 4pm and I had pre-arranged with the band to be at the house for 6pm, this gap allowed for us to collect and transport the equipment in a decent amount of time as well as check we had everything and discuss how we were going to set up the living room. I suggested we have the vocalist sat on a chair of her own as well as give the bassist his own settee leaving the guitarist and percussionist to share a settee. I chose this arrangement as we could have better control over the bleed between microphones. The SM57 set up for the acoustic guitar picked up a nice natural reverb from the snare part of the slap-top cajon.
Mixing and Mastering
For most of these tracks I decided to use Logic’s built in stem splitter to remove a lot of the bleed as it was done in a small space. My intentions for this mix was to so, I kept most of my techniques quite minimal and simplistic as to not damage the sound picked up by the room mics.
Vocals:
Reverb – I chose these settings to match the size of the room we were in and allow the vocals to sit more comfortably in the mix.
Compression – At 1:08 I had to compress the vocals as once the singer had done a couple takes and settled into the song, this area started to clip and needed to match the rest of the vocal levels.
Acoustic Guitar:
EQ – I wanted to try minimise the fret buzz the SM57 picked up and boost the low end to give it more acoustic presence.
Compression – To avoid the guitar was getting lost in the mix so I compressed it to life the level up.
Reverb – To match the reverb that I used on the vocals to give it the same room sound.
Bass:
EQ – to control the low end before adding any extra plug-ins and also to highlight the mid section where he played more melodic patterns.
Compression – On the bass DI to bring the gain up a bit more and control any clipping.
SubBass – To give the bass some more rumble and feel.
Cajon:
Pitch Shifter – to lower the pitch of the kick element of the cajon as it made the overall drum sound more punchy.
EQ – For the D112 on the kick sound hole, to try eliminate any bleed and boost the low end frequencies as this is the range the sound waves sat in.
