Task 1 – WAV Mixes
Task 2 – Production Log Book
Track 1 (Genre Specific Emulation)
The pre-production of our emulation involved finding all the players, which I was successful at thankfully as I made lots of connections since coming to uni. Planning sessions with busy musicians at university proved a bit of a challenge, though achievable.
Mic’ing the drums was interesting as the drums on the track are really subtle. We used 8 mics to record, but only ended up using a few of them as more mics were too detailed for the sound. The Calrec CM1050 C was a good choice for capturing the hi-hats due to it’s responsiveness to mid to high mid frequencies, which are very present in the track.
We had difficulty initially matching the tones of the snare and cymbals, but I suggested we try swapping the drummer’s own jazz cymbals for some Sabian AAX cymbals, which sounded a lot brighter and more accurate to the original. We also put a cloth over the snare to muffle it heavily, which worked well to recreate the deadened snare on the record. The SM57 was a good, reliable choice for recording the snare.
We optimised our studio time by re-using the mics we had to record percussion (egg shaker and tabla). The 414s were good for this due to their pretty flat frequency response.
The vocals of any track are the hardest to replicate, though thanks to good connections and the WA-251, I feel we made a very accurate emulation. Due to the very impressive original performance of the record, we had to do a lot of takes and a lot of comping on the track to make it as close to the original as possible. Thankfully, with a lot of patience, determination, and skill from our singer, we managed to get it down. Though it was hard at first, you quickly develop a professional relationship as a producer between yourself and the performer, which (if done correctly) can aid you in being more effective and creative in the studio.
With every recording session we had, we asked the performer to come 30 minutes to 1hr30 after we began setting up, so when they arrived, we’d be ready for them to set up, then we could make our final adjustments around them. This saved lots of time.
I usually took the role of head-producer and each session delegated roles and tasks to each group member to help us organise ourselves and get the session up and running and keep it going smooth.
We mic’d the centre of the bass cab, in the middle of the two speakers with a DM1B. This worked well to capture a smooth bass sound and avoid harsher frequencies from the middle of the cones. The Audix D6 on the amp’s port helped add the warmth of the sub-bass.
Thankfully, we didn’t actually face that many challenges when recording, the most really being having to ask a performer to tweak their playing or thinking on our feet when having to choose microphones, if one was out of stock.
The most lengthy part of the whole process was sitting down and selecting, comping and editing the takes we recorded. A lot of our recordings didn’t need comping or many effects as we ‘got it right at the source’. Spending time and effort at the recording stage to ensure we got everything correct helped us further down the line, saving time and headaches.
We chose to add minimal EQ to this mix to reflect the EQ of the time, and many of our stems didn’t need it. We did add a fair amount of compression though due to some very dynamic performances.
We added a general reverb bus to ‘glue’ the mix together, as well as some more creative reverb on the guitar and vocals.
Finally, we saturated the master with a tape emulator to make it sound authentically 70s and again, ‘glue’ the track together.
Track 2 (Live In the Studio Stereo Recording)
For the stereo recording, we set up 4 mics – 2 Sontronics STC-3Xs as an XY pair in front of our singers, and a pair of Sontronics Orpheuses further back, wider and higher as room mics to get a large sound and some natural reverb.
We hard panned the mics on the left and right respectively to create a wide, stereo image. The XY pair were also higher in the mix to provide more clarity and presence, while the Orpheuses were lower as they were more ambient. We added a low-low mids EQ boost to these to give the room some warmth, and a cut in the high mids-highs to hollow out some room for the XY pair.
We sent all tracks to a bus which emulated an orchestral chamber for some final reverb touches. We chose to bus them as this would make the effects sound coherent.
Track 3 (Remix Track)
For my remix, I chose a house-style vibe. In the instrumentation, I tried to keep the funky 70s theme by using a wah-clav for the main synth line and a 70s bass. For the drums, I recorded my mouth making different sounds. There was a lot of trial and error in this exercise. The recordings were either way too loud and/or boomy or completely flat and quiet. I used an Audix D6 to record these as when I tried with an SM57, I felt the hits lacked the body of real drums and made the groove weak, the D6 helped give more of a thump to the drums due to the higher bass frequency response (see below).
This, along with finding the right mic positioning and beat-boxing techniques helped me create some ‘found sounds’ I was happy with. I used a sampler to help ‘chop up’ the drums and sequence them into a house rhythm.
I applied some FX such as a bit-crusher and subtle reverb to the drums to give them a ‘dirty’ tone. That was to help them cut through the mix, as – due to them being created by my mouth – they were really fighting to be heard in the mix. A little bit of distortion on drums can help them stick out a bit more when competing with bass frequencies.
I added in constant ‘teeth hi-hat’ eighth notes as part of the beat which gave the track a bit more of a pulse as it felt a bit empty without that. This was effective in creating the ‘trance-like’ rhythm of a house track. I intentionally mixed these a bit lower in the mix as due to their repetitive nature, it could have been easy for them to get annoying. Where they sit adds to the track’s texture and feel without takking the listener out of the experience.
Personally, I have never made this type of music before, but I feel I have used rhythms and harmony akin to a true house track. To make the track feel more ‘myself’ and more interesting, I decided to add in experimental sections to the arrangement as that is what I enjoy making and feel comfortable to do. They may seem very abstract in this track, but that was my intention – to create unease for the listener.
While those sections are abstract, they aren’t ‘random’. The morse-code-esq beeping is comprised of some of the same rhythms as those in the main house sections, to tie it together. It is all in the key of Bb minor as well. Leading into and out of the build ups, I reversed some of the tracks to create interesting textures and alter some of the melodies, indicative of trip-hop. This was effective to help seamlessly transition in and out of the sections rather than them feel like they just ‘happen’.
While the track itself is bizarre, I believe it keeps people interested throughout, with them not knowing what might happen next. The outro, for example, is an ambient vocal section with some subtle bass harmonics underneath – completely out of left field for a regular house track, but foreshadowed earlier in the song.
The bass harmonics were one of my studio instrument choices, the other was a Juno synthesiser running arpeggios in the end section too, very buried. I chose to add these to create subtle textures, potentially not consciously perceived by the listener but definitely sub-consciously felt and absorbed. This is a very common, sonic tactic in experimental and ambient music.
