SHR4C004M-003 Song Prod. & Write Up Template

Task 1: Three Minute Song Production (70%)

Task 2: 1000 Word Write-Up (30%)

This song is titled “I’m in love with you”, in which it focuses mainly on lyrics rather than instruments. I decided to use minimal instruments for this reason, and in fact lacks traditional live instruments as most if not all were created by synths. This was recorded on Logic.

Melodic and Chord instruments

I recorded all of this in room 109, using the Korg Minilogue. I played around  with the presets, and found a sound I liked. However, I changed the attack, sustain, and delay as I wanted to produce a soft sound that correlated with the atmosphere I was going for in the song. 

I used the same synthesiser to create a bass, in which I turned off most of the LFO and poly to avoid getting double voices. I wanted to keep a unified and simple sine wave tone.

I also added a ghost whistle synth that added some melodic harmony on the top, that in my opinion added a ‘nostalgic’ tone.

Drums

The drums were recorded using a drum pack of microphones. However, I decided to use the Glynn John’s method in micing, a method I learned during the Genre Emulation Assessment drum recordings. I thought this created quite a soft and unified sound with the drums, with still some complexity that I would get from micing up all its parts.

Instead of a complete overdub, where I would record the drums through out the song. I decided to only record some parts that I needed, like in the chorus and the second verse. This gave me some flexibility to add the drums wherever I wanted. Though in retrospect, it made it difficult to blend the drums in with the rest of the track.

The microphones I used are the : AKG D112 (Kick), Octavia Mk12 x2 (Left and Right overheads), Shure SM57 (Snare top).

Vocals

The vocals were quite easy to record, I used the AKG C414 to do so. Because I wrote this song myself, I had all the lyrics down and it took me less than 10 minutes to record the lead vocal.

However, I had some trouble getting the harmonies correct, therefore having to do retakes for them, especially for the lower harmonies that I just couldn’t quite reach at first. 

For pre-mixing sessions. There were a lot of things I needed to correct such as some notes that were quite pitchy. This was done solely on flex pitch, using the ‘Vibrato’ edit tool and fine tuning the cents. I had to do it this way because having the vocals and the lyrics be the focus of this song made it so it was easier to hear discrepancies in pitch. I had to do the same thing on the harmonies as well.

A problem that arose from this however were odd clipping issues, which I deduced was from fine tuning some notes and having the breaths in between be warped in some way. I remedied this issue by cutting out most of the breath sounds and some silent regions.

Sampling/ Evidence

For the sampling, I used a part in the vocals where I was humming. This is to use for harmony purposes, to add an extra layer. I used Quick Sampler in logic to do this. Instead of cutting the sample short, I decided to keep it on for 9 seconds as I wanted to keep that sustained note going. There was minimal interference when it comes to sonically editing this part, other than increasing drive, adding resonance, and adding some phase. I manually double tracked this sample and panned it left and right, just add more stereo depth. I finally added the Ensemble Plug-in, which helped to add more voices and again, depth, without have the need to create complex chord blocks.

I then went on to use another sample, this time from the Korg Minilogue synth. I wanted to use it as a soft lead in later parts of the song. I used Sample Alchemy in logic instead of the Q sampler as it gave me more options. I increased the playback speed, added some density, reduced the size, and added two sources of sound within the sample. This is to add some dissonance, as well as create a phase effect. 

MIXING

The instruments were individually equalised, as there weren’t too many. I didn’t feel the need to add an EQ bus to the drums either as I wanted some parts to be focused such as the Kick drum and the snare. However, I added a drum bus for parallel compression just to blend the drums a little better. In some drum parts like the left and right overheads, I did add minimal side chain compression to the kick just to add more dynamics and rhythm.

I created a reverb bus with the plug in ‘Space Designer’ and most instruments had this as one of their sends. This helped create the soft vibe I was going for.

For the vocals I added a Compression bus instead of individual compression. I wanted the harmonies to blend well together with the lead vocals, hence this decision. The vocals were also individually equalised

There was some automation done, but it’s very minimal as most volume issues were at the beginning and at the end of the clip, and therefore the easiest fix was to add either a fade in or a fadeout.

Evaluation

In retrospect, I would like to have added some more instruments especially to the chorus. I think this would add a lot more dynamic change to the track. I think perhaps some melodic violin and rhythmic guitar would’ve elevated this song.