Introduction

I’m Noah, a first year songwriting student at Leeds Conservatoire. I am the lead singer and songwriter in a four piece alternative-rock band called Roscoe. We have recorded and released an EP and two acoustic singles, which gave me experience in studios and a professional recording environment. Recently, I began a solo artist project journey – writing, recording, mixing and promoting my own music. This is in a slightly different style than Roscoe, taking influences from my experimental/folk background.

I chose to study songwriting because I wanted to develop my ability to self-produce my own music and become self-sufficient enough to function without the help of a professional, I learned through studying music performance and production in Sixth Form that production is half the work when it comes to songwriting. The way things are laid out in a track, effects like reverb, delay and space designers can enhance and develop aspects of the song, and emphasise the style you’re going for.

Recording and production is the process of collecting, capturing, and manipulating sounds that correctly express the artists vision. The process involves an Audio engineer who should have knowledge of microphones and their positioning, and how to correctly capture sounds without interference, this is known as the recording process. Once the sounds have all been collected, a mixing engineer will manipulate the sounds in a DAW (Digital Audio Workspace) this is to further enhance the artists vision and experiment to create a unique sound. Once the track has been completely recorded and mixed, it will be sent to a mastering engineer to complete the process before being released through a distribution company. One of my creative practices is to record and mix my own music, this involves recording my voice, guitar, and other instruments and then mixing the sounds in my chosen DAW – Logic.

Kolb’s Learning Cycle

Kolb’s Learning Cycle is a model of reflective practice. It is broken up into four sections; Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualisation, Active Experimentation. It functions in a circle, a never ending cycle of development built to improve your abilities through these four stages. Concrete experience is what you have previously done/experienced in this activity, reflective observation is talking to other people, and critiquing your own work to get a wider perspective of possible refinement. Abstract conceptualisation is the act of forming theories on how to improve at this ability – involving analysis, and connecting new ideas with previous knowledge. Active experimentation means trying what you have learned, or trying the theories/advice in practice.

My concrete experience in recording dates back to July 2023, when I was 16. Roscoe went into a residential studio in mid-wales called Foel Studios (Llanfair Carineon/Welshpool) it was here I got first hand experience in recording, the engineer and owner of Foel (Mike) offered to walk us through the process, the knowledge I retained from this was in guitar tone (the use of different distortion pedals, reverb, delay etc) and how to record live. Our process in this week was to record live to a metronome, we all had headphones and played songs all the way through. The only thing we captured from these sessions was the drums, we then recorded the rest of the instruments as Overdubs, only hearing the drums we played our parts separately. This was the first time I had heard of Overdubbing, but it has become the most prominent skill I use in my current recording projects. Since this EP was recorded, Mike mixed all the tracks without us meaning I didn’t learn much. I mentioned before that we recorded two acoustic singles, these were done in Liverpool in a studio called Coastal Sound, we worked with a producer/engineer called Noah Roche, We worked similarly for these tracks – seeing as we didn’t have drums we recorded the rhythm guitar to a click and overdubbed the piano/vocals. Luckily, Noah let us watch him start to mix these tracks, He taught us a bit about phase, and the effective use of reverb on vocals. My next recording session was much more independent, I was lucky enough to attend LIPA Sixth Form College which had its own studio. For my final project at LIPA I needed to record a track to submit, I was confident enough to know to record drums to a metronome, and overdub the rest of the instruments. As I had the most experience in recording with this group, I took charge of the recording process – directing microphone type and placement, and organising the order of what was recorded and when. Since moving to Conservatoire, I have started to record by myself, I learned through trial and error how to capture instruments more effectively, and I’ve even started to mix my own music. None of this solo work has been released as of yet, because I don’t feel confident enough in my abilities, this is why I chose to write about production/recording.

Recording my own music means having a home studio, I don’t have much money so I have a pretty amateur setup. I have my MacBook with Logic as my DAW, this is connected to a Scarlett 2i2 interface (used to translate sounds from the microphone to the DAW), I have 3 microphones (SM58, 2x SM57) and a pop filter. My process is to record guide tracks, which aren’t audible in the final mix, just used as a basis to overdub things onto – I use my SM58 to record my vocal, and an SM57 to record my guitar. Playing along to a metronome to make sure everything is in time. Next I record drums/percussion, as I don’t have a drum kit (and I like to have minimal drums for the stripped, folky aesthetic) I normally record a cajon, maraca, and the occasional cymbal. Once these are in place I re record the guitar. If it’s acoustic I use an SM58 on the sound hole, and an SM57 on the neck to pick up the noise of my left hand on the strings. I use 2 microphones to create a thicker sound by using panning in the mix. If it’s electric I will use SM57 on my amp, placing it slightly left of the centre. Finally I’ll record lead vocals, vocal harmonies and other final touches to complete the recording. Once everything is recorded in time on logic, I begin mixing. Most of my mixing knowledge has come from hands-on trial and error experience, I have learned how to pan stems correctly to avoid a muddy mix, I have decent knowledge of EQ and Compression – allowing the individual instruments to sound clearer and more prominent where needed.

I have been recording by myself for a couple months now, but as I mentioned I am not fully confident to put my works out there. This knowledge is all known as concrete experience in Kolb’s learning cycle. I will use this task to develop my production ability.

Reflective Observation

I spoke to my friends about these tracks I’ve recorded, and even to some amateur producers/sound engineers about how I can improve in production. This is reflective observation. I have sent a few mixes to some close friends to work in sound engineering. They gave me some great advice, one friend taught me how to send tracks to a bus, and why this is useful. He mentioned with multiple vocal tracks, sending them to a bus can transform the soundscape. Once multiple tracks are in a bus, you can add the same effects to all the tracks simultaneously, with vocal tracks singing harmonies – I learned to send them all to a bus and add a space designer, this can make it seem like these vocals are singing in the same room at the same time. I showed one of the first tracks I recorded to my family in the car, my dad who is a music teacher told me it sounds very bass heavy. From this, I showed the same mix to some music students and they seemed to agree.

For my personal evaluation of my work, I am very critical. I listen to my mixes next to released music by artists I aspire to sound like, this has proven very useful. I think – I’d like my guitars to stick out more in this mix because I want it to sound like this song – and I’ll write it down to come back and change in the next mixing session.

I’ve been a musician for the most part of my life, I have always been almost afraid of audio engineering. I always used to think it would be far too difficult for me as a creative, and I’ll never get my head around the software and sequences. But it has been surprisingly interesting, and after seeing some progress to the point where I’d like to say I understand Logic Pro, and looking at it from a more creative perspective has allowed me to become immersed with the task. Knowing the basics of audio engineering has given me more power over my music, and I am excited to develop this skill further through the songwriting course at Conservatoire.

While I’ve experienced excitement, I have also been stuck with a few songs – particularly when I just started to self-produce. With the first song I recorded, I didn’t know much about input gains. This means I will have to re-record the song entirely because It’s impossible to get a good sounding mix from these stems, there is a constant hiss in the back of each stem which distracts from the instruments themselves.

Abstract Conceptualisation

I’ve noticed a few themes in my recordings. One of these is a heavy low end in the mix. After some reflective observation, I realised this is because I have used EQ to weaken the high end of some stems in order to get rid of a hiss. This is due to a lack of knowledge with input levels. I now know that when recording, an input signal should never be so high that a hiss is audible, from there I can EQ and Compress tracks properly without worrying about it, because it will never have been there. Unfortunately this also means I will have to re-record some of my songs.

I have also noticed that when I group tracks together in a bus, and add an effect to this to this bus it’s a lot more efficient. It also gives a clearer, more pronounced sound. Once I have done this, and made use of this new skill my mixes will be a lot clearer and more artistically refined.

I have been in studio’s regularly for a couple of years now which has built up a knowledge of the basics of recording/production. This has allowed me to begin my journey as an audio engineer. Now that I have started to record and mix my own music, I have reflected upon my failings and gained advice from friends, I will learn from my mistakes to improve by writing down this advice and using active experimentation to put this newfound knowledge into practice.

Active Experimentation

to put what I have learned into practice, I will stay aware of input signals when recording – this will allow for clearer audio. I will send stems to bus’s to create more space and have a more pronounced sound. I will continue to get advice from friends to build my capabilities as an audio engineer.

I think my practice could be more efficient if I had a wider range of sources for knowledge. In future I am going to watch YouTube tutorials to find out how to get specific sounds and effects – this will mean taking notes to revise what I will learn, and putting it to use with future sessions. I will continue to use Kolb’s learning cycle and even collaborate with other producers to learn from them. Eventually, I hope to be competent enough to confidently self-produce my own album.