Pre-Production

I had been requested by the artist (Gracie De Wolfe) to record their debut single and decided It would be a good fit for our studio group to complete the acoustic recording task.

I attended her debut gig, recorded the song we were recording on a voice note and asked the artist if she would play on the recording as he had already helped write and arrange a part that had been approved by Gracie. Unfortunately this guitarist fell Ill on the day of the session so I called another guitarist who I knew was capable of learning the parts by ear.

Gracie created a demo using splice samples and logic pro but she had added software synths as the only arrangement feature which we would not be able to use in the final song, we tried to get around this by performing piano and flute in stacks to serve the same role as the synths in the demo.

I made a very large majority of the creative arrangement decisions, planning studio sessions and organising session musicians for sax, flute and piano to come in for sessions, rearranging and/or finding new musicians when they cancelled or went up to scratch.

Recording and Mixing

For this song, I understood the artist’s sonic vision was for an indie pop vibe. From my research and reference playlist I found that a defining feature of this sound is acoustic instruments treated and processed heavily, to sound consistent among other commercial pop songs on playlists and radio.

The original demo utilised splice guitar samples which gave the recording a modern, pop sound that Gracie liked. When recording, arranging, editing and processing the guitar I kept this in mind.

The initial recording session was with two professional session musicians, a mostly pre-decided microphone setup and two hours so although it was a rush, Gracie and I were able to direct the musicians to achieve parts she was happy with, Gracie also clarified she would rather have double bass than acoustic bass.

We used the piano to create risers and impacts where we couldn’t use electronic sounds

Project Management

Unfortunately she had a lesson at the same time as our studio group weekly so I took the role of artist liason, communicating with Gracie regularly, sending bounces, receiving notes and ideas and integrating that into our next sessions as we went.

Examples:

Pre-Production

We as a group all brought suggestions of artists that we knew who’s style was commercial. Some of the suggestions would’ve worked but taken longer to record and/or couldn’t be organised to come to studio sessions as they were from outside Leeds.

We settled on Tonii as I had written with her before and therefore knew her to be a very quick and talented singer, songwriter and producer. This meant that in the initial and only recording session, we left with all the parts recorded and almost arranged.

Recording

I used a Shure SM7B microphone for all Tonii’s vocals as we had done a microphone shootout between this, a WA-251 and a WA-87. The only element recorded with a microphone was the vocals but some of the synth parts were played in with a Korg Minilogue and the drum parts were all programmed in Ableton.

Mixing

References:

Although Tonii was using lots of hyperpop and alternative pop references, to make it sound more commercial and “charty” we decided on less creative/experimental synth sounds and drum samples, processing them with this in mind too.

As this song could be described as dance, i made sure to keep the stereo field quite narrow and keep the track mono-compatible.

Project Management

I planned the session, attended the session, wrote and arranged all instrumental parts and edited the parts afterwards for ease of stem-sharing.

Track List

Drums

Percussion Loop

“Billie Jean” style main drums

Techno Kick

Programmed drum samples to ‘beef up’ main parts and transition between sections

Classic “Pop Clap” to keep in line with the ‘commercial’ genre

Bass

‘Chorus Bassline’ – synthesised and sequenced on a Korg Minilogue.

‘Formant Bass’ Bass loop with heavy processing, including a envelope-mapped formant filter, inspired by Jorg Kuning.

‘Formant octave’ – the same as the above without the formant filter and pitched up an octave, used to provide momentum before transitions

‘Formant double’ – same notes as the above, sequenced on a cleaner bass sound for low-end definition

‘Chorus Sub’ the same notes as the ‘Chorus Bassline’ sequenced onto a sine filter an octave below the normal bass range.

Other Synths

‘Saw Keys’ – Juno-like saw synth with distortion, vibrato and echo

Blip Lead – Simple minilogue sequence with LFO automation to give rhythm and groove

‘5ths bass’ – minilogue patch with manual cutoff automation for momentum

‘Disco Lead’ – Arp made on minilogue

‘Reso Riff – Arp made on minilogue

‘Rhythmic Saw Strings’ – Minilogue saw string patch with gate sidechained to a drum loop to give groove

‘Vibe pad swell’ – pad made on minilogue

‘Saw Arp’ – Arp made on minilogue

Pre-Production

Nat had made a contact at a local folk jam that said they would be happy to be recorded, we found a date that we could all make and then sent a message to the ‘folk jam group chat’ stating what would be happening when and where and that we would bring snacks for those that attended (we had heard from previous attendees that they sometimes struggled with numbers and so used food to entice the folk musicians to come). This technique work and resulted in the jam having more than twice the attendees they had had all year. We were not quite expecting this many people which let to problems down the line.

We knew that another student had had a first attempt at recording the same folk jam and had told us that if he could do it again he would use more directional microphones with closer mic positions as he had suffered from a lot of bleed between mics, creating an unclear, muddy final sound.

Another consideration for equipment was the fact that, due to the natural course of a folk jam, we didn’t know which musicians would be turning up or what instruments they would be bringing if they did.

Our goal for this task was to record and capture the atmosphere of a folk session, rather than record a release ready version of a particular song.

Recording

Using this knowledge we decided we wanted to try and book out the most directional and versatile mics available, preferably with pad, tone and filter controls. Due to this we landed on primarily requesting AKG C414s and Sennheiser MD441s. As we wanted as many microphones as possible, we also decided to get a stereo pair of KM184s for extra close mics and a stereo pair of Beebs to act as room microphones. We requested stereo bars for all microphones except for the Sennheiser 441s as we had been informed the space was small and wanted to be as invisible as possible so that the folk jam could continue as close to normal as possible. This meant we had to be on top of cable management, have minimal microphones. and allow the musicians to sit in a tight circle, making it very very tricky to move microphones between songs or at all. Because of this, we began by placing the microphones around the inside of the circle, facing out towards the musicians, hoping that through the directional microphones we would have a clear recording of at least most of the instruments in the circle. We made small adjustments to mic position where possible during the session

Unfortunately, we were only able to get out four C414s and two MD441s so swapped out 414s for Oktava 319s, on recommendation from the facilities desk, and we swapped the MD441s for SM57s

As we were line-checking the microphones on the day, I saw that despite showing no input on either of the interfaces, we were receiving a very loud signal, clipping the last four preamps (and sometimes more) of the ADAT extender. We are still unsure as to what the problem was but presume it was an internal issue with the ADAT extender, this meant we were then limited to 8 channels of recording.

If I were to do this again i perhaps would’ve brought a spare 8 track interface as this hiccup not only slowed down the setup but significantly reduced the quality of capture of the recording.

We pressed record at the beginning of the session, adjusting microphones between songs to suit the players coming and going, and depending on who knew which songs. We hoped that through this method, we would find a song or combination of songs that filled the time we had left in the portfolio.

Mixing

I used slow, transparent compression on some of the tracks to maintain the natural dynamics of the style/genre. I also blended microphones/tracks in and out depending on the focus at that point in the song, hoping to emphasise the narrative of the song, more musicians joining in as they learn the song.

I was careful with panning and spectral space, finding a compromise between a stereo field that was true to the room and a stereo field that complimented the tone and composition of the instruments.

I used EQ, stem-splitting and de-noising to clean up signals where the microphone had received a lot of audio spill.

Project Management

Nat Handled majority of relations with the folk jam organisers before the session, with arrival times and destination. I made a track sheet and supplied snacks for the performers, making sure to stay at the jam once we had finished recording out of respect for the performers, to say thank you, and to discuss who wanted the recordings and what kind of thing they would want from the recording.