Task 1: Three Minute Song Production (70%)
Task 2: 1000 Word Write-Up (30%)
Pre-Production
I was approached by a shoegaze/alternative band to produce, mix, and master their debut single. Only one member of the band was available for pre-production, meaning I had to adapt my usual approach, where I would attend rehearsals and discuss the track in depth with the band. They could only provide me with a phone recording as a demo for the track, but I could still get a sense of the track’s feel from the references they provided (shown below in the notes I took during the pre-production session).
In an ideal scenario, I would have hoped to receive a roughly recorded demo, but this didn’t seem to have a significant effect on the success of the end product. Here is the first video of the track I received:
When considering the vocal production, the band referenced Breather by Chapterhouse. I noticed that the vocals were rather sibilant, sat quite far back in the mix, and played an equal role to the instrumental parts, also typical of a lot of shoegaze and grunge music, such as Sonic Youth:
I also considered how I would approach using sampling techniques in the track during pre-production. I noticed that the bridge section of the track felt relatively hollow, so I suggested padding out the texture with tambourine samples and a feedback tape echo effect, which fed off of a loop of the guitars from the chorus. I also decided to dedicate some time during the recording sessions to experiment with some guitar feedback and sampling, which I would go on to use for the intro of the track.
As a debut single, we edited the structure of the track to shorten it (under 3 minutes) to make it more commercially viable for radio and editorial playlists. I also suggested approaching the production more in the style of mainstream bands, such as Fontaines DC, to make the track more palatable for a wider audience, as opposed to experimental, niche shoegaze.
Recording Sessions
We chose to record the drums and bass together as the track’s foundation, without a click track, to capture the natural ebb and flow of tempo you might hear in a live setting. I was aiming for a weighty drum sound but wanted to maintain the punchiness of the drums despite tuning them deeply. I therefore partially muffled the snare drum with a tea towel and the toms with some tape and tissues.
Above is my mic plot for the drums. I used multiple kick mics so I could capture both the clicky transient of the beater with the kick-in mic as well as the body and depth of the drum with the kick-out. I also dual-miked the snare so I could capture the body of the drum but also the fizz of the snare wires. The room mics also played an important role in the drum sound. I walked around the room to decide on my placements and, to give myself flexibility with the mix, I set up a front-of-kit mic, one at the back of the room and one in the corridor. I noticed when I was tracking that I was struggling to get much signal from the corridor mic and much colour from the room, so I asked the drummer to play louder, but in retrospect, I still think that there could have been considerably more life from the room mics if the drummer had performed more dynamically. I DI-d the bass as I didn’t want an amp to bleed into the room mics. While tracking, I ran it through some EQ on the desk and some light LA-2A style compression.
The next block of recordings I did was dedicated to guitars. We spent a considerable amount of time dedicated to dialling in guitar tones because we knew this would be integral to the character of the track. One interesting technique we used was running the rhythm guitar through the preamps of a Tascam cassette recorder to get some breakup before the amp. The lead guitar was also heavily processed with reverse reverb feeding into a distortion before running into the amp.
Finally, we tracked the vocal with a choice of two mics: the WA-251 and the Aston Spirit. I immediately preferred the Aston Spirit more because the singer was very quiet, thus requiring more gain, which brought out quite an aggressive but enjoyable colour from the mic. I also noticed that the singer was quite timid, so I faced her to the wall instead of having to contend with looking at a control room full of people while performing.
I used some granular sampling techniques to create a texture as an introduction. I resampled a phrase from the lead vocal into a plugin called gRainbow. This is the dry vocal:
I created a dense texture of a singular note, then modulated the tuning spray (randomly detuning individual grains) to make the pad progressively dissonant. I also processed the sound with distortion and reverb. I think this was effective in creating a bittersweet foreshadowing for the track; however, in reflection, it may have been better enhanced when layered with some melodic elements, though I didn’t get the opportunity to try this with the band.
I also played around with resampling and reversing reverb decays from the vocal, which led into vocal phrases in the chorus.
Mix
One notable method I used while mixing the drums was a relatively heavy utilisation of bus compression. I did this to bring out the washiness of the cymbals in the chorus and glue the drums together. I also then saturated the drums using a tape saturation plugin to give them some grit.
I noticed when first approaching the mix that the guitars were overwhelming the lead vocal and that I needed to create some space for the vocal to shine through. I did this by using a mid-side EQ on the guitar bus, which dipped at around 2-3 kHz where the clarity of the vocal lay. I also used compression, which was sidechained to the vocal, so every time there was singing, the signal was subtly compressed.
The lead guitar in the verse also played a more harmonic role, slightly encroaching on the rhythm guitar, so I used a studio room emulation to make it more ambient and establish it as a background element. This was enhanced with stereo widening, which set it further apart from the rhythm guitar.
