Commercial Pop Track
Pre Production
For the commercial pop part of the assignment we decided to wright a piece of music as a group. We first spent some time listening to some tracks from the current top 50 discussed what sort of thing would be most appropriate and manageable. we settled on basing the track of ‘End of Beginning’ by Djo.
We started by working out the chords to the song as a group and then wrote a different progression based of that that still fit the mood of the track. We used the stem splitter tool within logic to isolate the drums, for the purpose of playing along to, and settled on using the structure from the original track. We recorded a quick take of our progression on acoustic guitar just using the di with it plugged into the gold mike preamp. I then recorded a scratch bass line, again just going into the desk through the gold mike preamp. We used this along with the isolated drums and vocals as a rough outline of the track with the intention of later recording the drums and rerecording the bass with the session musicians. After this session Lucas added some synth layers and Ollie recorded some lead electric guitar.
When the session musicians came in we wrote a rough chart for the bass and drums outlining the structure and chords of the song.
Recording
For the bass we used the Ashdown amp with a Delta 2 and an Audix D6 that were ready set up for the session as well as capturing the DI with a radial reamp box. We positioned the D6 slightly of centre from the right speaker cone and the Delta 2 more centred on the left.
We discussed with the Bass player what we wanted for the track and settled on keeping it very simple and just following the root notes of the chords. We recorded a couple takes without a pick and a couple takes with and decided to use the takes with, for the more pronounced attack and energy it gave the the track.
For the drums we again used what was provided for the session that being a … as a kick in a D6 as a kick out, two sm57s one for a snare top and one for the snare bottom, an md421 on the rack tom and the floor tom and two AKG 414s as overheads.
We played around with hight and position of the overheads to try and get more of the symbols as well as making sure there were no phasing issues. We again decided on a simple drum part to serve the song and recorded roughly three complete takes as well as recording a ’round robin’ of the individual parts of the kit so that we had all the samples with no bleed in case we needed them later.
The vocal was recorded later with an sm7b.
Mixing
The kick out mic had alot of bleed on it and ,even with a gate, was basically unusable so we took to sample we got of it from the round robin and used the audio from the kick in mic to create a midi part to layer this sample with the kick in mic. we also used the midi to layer another kick sample ontop of this for an overall bigger sound.
The snare is also layered with a sample being triggered by a midi part made from a gated snare top. all the close mics on the kit are gated to eliminate alot of bleed that was causing the drums to sound ‘boxy’. All the drum channels are being sent to a room reverb to give a sense of spase with more of the snare being sent as it fit the style.
All the acoustic guitar parts are being processed mostly as a group. I used a compressor with a fast attack and relatively low ratio to even out the sound a bit and to try and lessen some of the attack and string sound. I also eqed them to remover a low rumble and make room for the vocals a bit. They are also being sent to a plate reverb. The main guitar part is also panned about + and – 30 right and left to give a sense of the stereo image captured. With the chorus guitars being hard panned.
The bass is made up from a blend of the two mics as well as the di captured. This is just eqed slightly to help it sit in the mix, with a 4 to 1 ratio of compression and a slow enough attack to let the transients pop a bit.
The electric lead guitar part has just been equed slightly to remove some unwanted ringing frequencies. The reverby tremolo guitar part at the end has a compressor with a fast attack just to control the sound a bit as well as an eq to some some annoying resonance.
The main vocal has a subtle noise gate to remove some headphone noise and breath sounds between lines. There is some subtle eq boosting from around 100 to 800 hz to add some body as well as a boost around 3 to 4 khz which helped to bring the vocal forward in the mix more. There’s a compressor with a fast attack to even the level out a bit and a small amount of saturation to add a little bit of warmth. The main vocal is also doubled in some sections with roughly the same processing being applied on that track. the vocal is also being sent to a plate reverb channel. There are also backing and harmony vocals present in the choruses of the song, these are processed similarly although pushed a bit further back and panned around.
Acoustic Track
For the acoustic track we listened to a couple students demos and discussed what would be most suitable for the acoustic track part of the assignment. We decided on Raph’s song ‘Grounded Lark’ as the demo was already mostly acoustic and would translate well.
For the drums we luckily had enough time after recording the previous track with the session drummer to get a few takes of this track too so the set up is the same.
We decided to add a string arrangement, layering a viola player over himself to create a bigger sound. We used an AKG 414 as well as a pair of KM184s in an xy pair to capture a stereo image.
Mixing
The drums have been left quite natural sounding as a stylistic choice. The kick is a blend of the in and out mic with no layered samples, there is a noise gate to stop unwanted bleed and a little bit of eq to take out some very low noise as well as a very low ratio compressor just to even the level a little but trying again to keep a more natural sound. The snare is again a blend of the top and bottom mic without any sampling. There is an eq removing some lower frequencies. The toms and similarly do not have much processing going on. all the drum tracks are going through a drum bus with another compressor with about a 4 to1 ratio and a subtle bit of eq.
The vocal chain starts with a gain tool to bring the level up a little, there is then an eq removing some low rumble. There is then a compressor with a 5 to 1 ratio to help level out the signal and bring the vocal up a bit in the mix. There is a de-essor to remove some sibelensis and an exciter to bring some energy to the higher frequencies. I also added a small amount of saturation to bring some more warmth to the vocals. They are also being sent to a plate reverb in which i automated the send to increase in the later, busier parts of the song to stop the vocal sounding to dry in comparison.
Location Recording
Looking back we could have got on with organising the location recording a little sooner, as we initially planned to record a gig but this fell through along with some other set backs. Eventualy we ended up choosing to just record a track at one of our accommodations.
We took out one of the location rigs and set it up in the living room. We used a pair of KM184 in an xy position pointed at about the 12th fret of the guitar with an AKG 414 for the vocals. the electric guitar was captured with an sm57 positioned of centre of the speaker cone in a small fender combo. We used a Sontronics ORPHEUS as an omnidirectional room mic to capture a sound of the space.
Mixing
In terms of mixing and processing we mainly used the desk and outboard gear to give the recording some character. We ended up putting the vocals through the distressor after not being completely satisfied with the sound through the compressor, we liked the character this added to the sound. The acoustic guitars are going through an outboard compressor, we also played around with the eq on the desk to try and bring out some nicer qualities in the recording for more musical sound. We also sent a bit of everything to the Lexicon reverb and blended this in before printing everything back into logic. Whilst we were playing around with the Lexicon we came up with this really big lush reverb and decided to send the vocal through it and record a take turning up and down the send to use at particular bits of the vocal as a creative effect to make the track a little more interesting.
