SHR6E033F~001 WIL23084334 Practice Based Research Project

Audio Files

Upload your audio files below using the file blocks. Make sure it is clear which files pertain to which projects.

Ensemble Recording by Bradley Wilmott WAV Download

Ensemble Recording

Synopsis

After recording a choir in my second year of this course for one of my assignments, going into this assignment I knew that I wanted to do the same thing but just better. I took 8 microphones, bag of XLRs and the location recording Focusrite interface and had them all plugged into my MacBook running FL Studio and recorded the Ipswich choir practicing for an upcoming event. The recording contains not only the choir but also an organ and the conductor directing the choir and organ player. This assignment captures a live location recording of the Ipswich choir, performing Requiem Faure, a composition by Gabriel Fauré. The ceilings of the church provide an ethereal sound to the heavily talented choir helping provide a beautiful natural reverb and atmosphere.

Research

Going into this I wanted to make sure the best microphones were picked to better catch the ambient sound I was looking for. The microphones furthest to the back were the Sontronics Orpheus and a Neumann km183. I wanted to use the Orpheus purely for how good it is at capturing indoor ambience quite beautifully. It was placed quite close to the organ, which wasn’t an issue for the choir sang at a very good balanced volume along with the other microphones spotted about. I had a stereo pair of Neumann km184 by the conductor, I did this because they are cardioid microphones and would help capture sounds of just the choir and less of the organ and ambience and more of the performance, perfect for the ambient sound I was going for. I had placed the Neumann km183 in the middle sides. I placed those there instead of by the conductor as it is an omnidirectional microphone and can capture sounds from multiple angles. This meant the microphone could not only pick up the performance but also its ambience, the organ and the conductors speaking. Another microphone I had in the back of the church was the AKG C414. I picked this microphone because it is known for being ideally used to capture a more acoustic / ambient sound. It also has quite a few settings on it known as polar patterns which meant i could change the microphones capture. I had set it to omni to again capture the ambient sound I was looking for. For the interface I had already had plenty practice knowing how to use one from using one in my home studio. I had the microphones plugged in all monitoring into my headphones and I was constantly adjusting the volume before recording to avoid any sort of clipping / digital distortion. Another thing I noted down was the acoustics and what the actual church was made out of. Rather than something like Leeds Minister where everything is made of stone, this church was made of wood. I took advantage of this as in wooden rooms, voices are more clear as wood absorbs more sound than stone. This helps the recording sound more realistic and helps make you feel like you are there, giving a more intimate feel to the recording.

Project Management

I didn’t want to record any choirs in Leeds because I had already done so last year, so I decided to travel to Ipswich and record the local choir. I was able to scout this opportunity as my friends nan sang in the choir, she helped me with somewhere to stay and was able to ask the church if I was allowed to come in and record them practice. I had placed the microphones in suitcases along with carrying a bag of XLRs and the Focusrite. I had to transport it all on the train from Leeds all the way to Ipswich. Before the trip I asked my friend if he could help me with setting up and transporting the microphones to Ipswich which helped me massively, It would have been impossible to do on my own. I made sure to do deep research in the microphones I wanted to hire. I wanted a good mic of cardioid mics and omnidirectional mics for then ambient capture. Scheduling it was also very important, recording day happened to be the same day the choir was showing a performance to someone’s father whose son passed away. It set the tone for the whole session, it was quiet but then the room was suddenly filled with singing and organs. Another thing we had to take into consideration was the safety of everyone else in the church. I had brought some tape to put on top of the XLR cables that were in the carpet. We also had to make sure the mics were properly secure and screwed on to avoid them falling off and possibly breaking. When I had arrived and had about 4 microphones work, I made sure to record something to test it out while everyone in the church was talking before practise. I wanted to make sure all I could hear was voices but no actual words, and it worked. I was able to capture the ambience of the room. I made notes on my phone during the recording process to make sure I knew what microphones were used, where they were, what post processing i’ll need to do and how it could’ve been done better in the future. I also had to contact the church and make sure I was allowed to come to one of their practices and record it all. I wanted to make sure the performers were comfortable and aware of their surroundings, making them aware they’re being recorded helps the choir feel like they’re performing rather than just practicing.

Evaluation

This part of the assignment, this project, was probably the most difficult one out of all of them. I had to deeply revise my knowledge on microphone placement and how omnidirectional and cardioid mics work. When I do this again I need to make sure to revise my knowledge on phantom power and which microphones do and don’t need it. For about the first hour of the recording session I had no idea why the Neumann km184 stereo pair I had placed by the conductor wasn’t working, until I turned phantom power on. It wasted a lot of precious recording time and further proves I need to widen my microphone knowledge. It would be great to improve this also for my time management, more time saved means more recording time. The ambience of the room was captured very well, you can hear the natural reverb of the wide and tall church and echoes of the conductor speaking, even the sounds of people coughing. The location choice was spot on for the ambient sound I was looking for. Some of the microphones could’ve been placed better, specifically the sontronics orpheus microphone. Rather than placing it at the back of the room I will most likely put it in the middle of the room to capture more of the whole church rather than just the back of it because it is a omnidirectional microphone. The location was a perfect choice for an assignment like this, the natural reverb of the church really complimented the choirs singing very well. Although the recording is clean and is easy to listen to, there was a lot of unwanted sounds featured. For instance, part way through one of the takes someone in the church had coughed. Another instance was when the conductor had continuously stopped during practice to correct certain parts of the choir. When I do this again I will be sure to communicate with the conductor and ask him to play more better rehearsed songs so there is more performance recorded.

Found sounds composition

Synopsis

For this composition I had to think of what sounds I could record on my own. Rather than relying on a band to record or a choir I had to record my own sound effects. In this sound I have used a variety of sounds I recorded on my phone accompanied by heavy automation involving plugins such as Fruity Delay 3, Gross Beat, Fruity Parametric EQ 2 and Fruity Soft Clipper. The track includes sounds of my saliva, out of breath singing, groaning and birds chirping while I was camping. This assignment help me learn how to make new sounds naturally rather than sampling and/or using VSTs which has proven to be a very good skill for my producing going forward. With this piece I’ve been able to bridge the gap between normal everyday sounds into something you can dance to and get stuck in your head, adding plenty of textural qualities such as sounds of water and birds chirping. This song sounds like you are underwater being guided through the depths of the ocean by the voice of an angel.

Research

Going into this project I had taken inspiration from a lot of different artists. The first one I looked at was Imogen Heap and her performance at tiny desk. She was able to make a beautiful melancholic song with only her voice. After seeing this I immediately went to work on singing and harmonising in different keys over different synths to find which key and sounds I preferred. Whilst playing Silent Hill 2, you hear a plethora of sound effects scattered about. One sound effect though that always stuck out to me was the sound that plays when you select an item in your inventory. It’s a short pad like sound that caught my attention very quickly. This and the video games ambient sounds such as walking and the sounds of the water I had screen recorded on my MacBook to later sample in this composition. I had also made sure to get a cutscene of the game too. When I was out nine public I paid close attention to sounds I could hear around me, especially when I was out in the woods. Whilst I was camping I had captured some audio of birds chirping at 5-6 am on my mobile phone. Before starting this track I had also done extensive in sound design on FL Studio whilst incorporating knowledge I already had. I had learnt about this FL Studio plugin called Distructor, which looks like only a distortion plugin until you use it more and more. I was able to figure out you can actually add bit crush to whichever sound was in that mixing channel. I also practised delay automation and played around with turning off the tempo sync to make wobbly and ear candy sounds with one shots. I also learnt Edison extensively as that is a very important plugin to use for sampling and recording. I had learnt how to take specific sections of a recording and slice them into one audio file and even put them in as patterns on the piano roll. Another important feature in FL Studio to incorporate whilst doing a composition like this is time stretching. It’s a fun and easy way to take a sound and stretch it to properly suit the sound. I also did some research into layering especially for things like ambience and vocals / harmonies. I had a lot of layers and automation in this project but needed to make sure it added to the song instead of making it overwhelming. The found sounds needed to be the vocal point of the track.

Project Management

The first thing I did when making this track was the ambience, I air dropped the bird chirping sounds and got the silent hill sound effects from my laptop and put them into FL Studio. All the composition was for a while was those sound effects repeating over and over, until 2 minutes into the project this looming foggy bass I programmed on Surge XT comes in. I didn’t incorporate the side chain volume automation i had on the bass until later on in the song. After I had this ambient landscape complete, I added one synth playing a simple 4 chord progression, something for me to harmonise over. It was after this that the recording process became very interesting. I sang and improvised lyrics about depression, suicide and forgiveness for 2 minutes until eventually the bass came in. These vocals were recorded on my phone on band lab. The tracks feature multiple channels, some lines in the song would have no autotune whatsoever until the last note of each line. This is where the Imogen Heap inspiration had come from, she messes with vocoders and autotune at the end of her phrases and notes and I wanted to do the same. After recording these vocals I exported them and air dropped them to my MacBook where I added further compression and EQ’d out any lows in my vocals to avoid frequencies clashing with each other. At this point I only had vocals in the first half of the track until the bass came in. So I decided to add drums. The drums I had gotten from a free drum kit I found on reddit, playing a repetitive but easy to dance to kick pattern that would switch to a jersey club pattern every now and then. The drums made the song far easier to understanding and listen to rather than some ambient track with no back bone to it. I was stuck on what to do when the bass came in until I added Gross Beat to that bass. I automated the volume to mimic a side chain to accompany the thumping kick. Along with this I resampled my vocals harmonising and chopped them up and layered them with different vocal takes to make my vocals sound like synths. The song ended up becoming a beautiful landscape with groovy drums and a hard hitting bass, despite the synths being literally only my voice with heavy delay and rhythm automation.

Evaluation

With this project I managed to take boring found sounds such as birds, water, auto tune improv and sounds of my literal spit to create a track that is easy to dance to and keeps your interest throughout. New sounds come in constantly, when you think you’ve heard everything, bass suddenly comes in after you’ve been listening to nothing but drums and ambience the whole time. It grabs your attention and makes you want to listen to it again to properly appreciate every sound you hear. One thing about this project I would have done differently is the drum sounds, I wished I had recorded my own instead of just using drum kit sounds I found on the internet. Nearly every sound in this project has heavy automation and never truly stays the same, especially the vocals. A lot of people were quite surprised when I told them those sounds were my voice when I had shown this track to peers for feedback. With the song being called, “In W4t3r 3nding” I wanted it to sound like you are underwater. The sound effects I recorded such as putting a microphone next to a shaking water bottle and quite literally putting my microphone into some water, I was able to give an uncomfortable atmosphere to the whole song. It is only fitting as the lyrics are very depressing and poetic. This track shows my knowledge of automation and effects. In order to turn my voice into synths I had to use varied rhythm based plugins such as Gross Beat and plugins to help build atmosphere and space such as Fruity Delay 3. With these plugins I took sounds of my saliva and sounds of me singing and made new melodies with them by automating delay, reverb and their rhythm. One major thing about this track that could be improved is its structure. Whilst being rich in different layers, sound design and automation there is not very catchy or repetitive hooks but very danceable and advanced. Because of this, in future when I try making a track like this I will consider structure and lyrics more than I did this time.

Audio Documentary

Synopsis

On January 31st, I released a mixtape titled, “Born, Never Asked”. February 6th I did a listening party for that tape, then later releasing the Born, N3v3r 4sk3d D3lux33 all under the Tim Mothem name. I wanted to interview people about the mixtape and also create a sense of atmosphere by sampling various sections of the tape while also recording interviews on location such as directly after the listening party and outside in areas such as garages and camping out in the woods. This is not only a documentary about my music but also a opportunity to intrigue other people to listen to an album from only hearing other peoples words on it and short but attention grabbing parts of the project as a whole.

Research

Things to keep in mind is audio quality and how the sound is captured. Specifically making sure every word said in the documentary is clear and can be heard on their own rather than needing text accompanying it. You need to build a sense of atmosphere and making sure you can make the topic sound interesting now matter what it is. For reference for this audio documentary, I had taken inspiration from movie trailers and album trailers you would hear on the radio. Constant changing dialogue with varied voices and accents and music to grab the listeners attention with an easy to listen to voice narrating and guiding the documentary. I made sure to ask open ended questions to leave for longer and more open minded answers. Whenever I had the opportunity, especially after one of my shows, I’d ask new and frequent listeners of my music about the questions mixtape. The same two questions I had asked everyone was, “If you could only take 3 songs from the Born, Never Asked Deluxe which would they be and why”. I used this question as it helped give listeners information about the mixtape with varied song names, whilst showing a snippet of a song said by one of the interviewees. The second question I asked everyone, “What are things about the album cover that stand out to you”. I used this question to help a listener who hasn’t heard of my mixtape start envisioning what the cover looks like based on how other people see and interpret the cover. Questions like these are not only open ended but also very informative for the listener. Whilst out at my gigs or afterparties of those gigs I made sure to record audio of the environments with my phone whilst I’m there. For instance, at the beginning of the documentary you can hear sounds of cars and people chattering which is audio I had recorded as we had left a listening party for the mixtape the documentary is about. The sound of this location is important for building atmosphere and bringing the listener to that experience. There I interviewed a couple of people who were at the gig accompanied by my voice narrating and carefully explaining the sounds you can hear. It eases you in and makes sure you aware of what’s going on, helping the listener visualise what the streets of Leeds look’s like. Before asking fans these questions I planned out how I was going to structure the documentary and how they’d transition into each other and thinking about how I can involve music from the mixtape in a subtle but cool way.

Project Management

The theme for this audio documentary was very important, the idea sparked when I was walking to an afterparty for the listening party of my album. All I could hear was cars passing by and people talking about the event and other random things. I interviewed a lot of people that night as the music was still fresh in their minds and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to do so. Whenever I was anywhere that wasn’t my room I wanted to record and ask people about my album. I wanted to include many voices as possible including accents which is why I included the voice message with the artist as he is from Brazil and he had recorded his message while working in his tattoo shop. When I was in a garage with one of my friends all I could hear was sounds of cars and devices working which was a great atmosphere in the background to have for an interview. Each voice contrasts well with each other and keeps the documentary engaging. I got a wide of range of different answers for peoples favourite tracks and parts of the album cover which gives the listener more interest in mixtape to lead them to figure out what a song like heavenly tweed sounds like or what the album cover looks like. When structuring this assignment I wanted the two main questions of the documentary to transition into each other smoothly. For instance, when one of the people said a track name after being asked their three favourite songs. At the end they say one of track names, “Spl4toon”. Following this answer is an intro into the next song to bring the listener in. This is how I transitioned the first question into the second question discussing the album cover. Because this documentary is just audio my goal was to help the listener visualise the album cover and what it looks like based on other peoples interoperation’s of the art. This transition was helped by my voice introducing the artist of the cover followed by other peoples favourite aspects about the cover. When I started working on this audio documentary I knew I wanted it to be 5 minutes long, this was difficult yo fit in that amount of time but with the snippets of music I had produced with it along with the different accents and answers it keeps the listener intrigued. I am trying to leave the listener wanting to hear more of the actual mixtape rather than just reviews of it.

Evaluation

With this documentary I am advertising my mixtape to the listener. When you hear other people talking about something they are passionate about it makes you want to get involved and that is what this audio documentary does successfully. Each section of this documentary is easy to follow, with clear and concise narration followed by various voices with different accents and different answers to the same questions. Transitions are smooth and you get to hear the mixtape but not too much, only enough to make the listener want to go find the mixtape and listen to more. In one way there is an advantage to working with only audio when you have multiple different voices describing the album art. I included a question about the album cover to get the listener to think about the cover and wonder what it looks like, which I was able to do successfully with the open ended question I had pre planned and the voice note from the artist himself. If I were to do an audio documentary again, one thing I’d do better is microphone selection. I had limited myself to only using my phone to record interview questions as they were in the moment after gigs and random conversations. In future I’m going to try and use a more varied amount of microphones for better audio quality and no random distorted sounds. One of the answers to the questions (the garage location recording) sounds like it was recorded on a low quality microphone, while it adds to the listen it makes the words said difficult to hear.

Appendices and Bibliography

Bartlett, B. & Bartlett, J. (2017) Recording Music on Location: Capturing the Live Performance. Burlington, MA: Focal Press.

Schoenstein, S.E. (2002) ‘The recording studio as an instrument’, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 50(3), pp. 123–135.

International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) (2021) Classical Recording Practice and Microphone Array Use in Reverberant Spaces. London: IFPI Technical Papers.

Eargle, J. (2012) The Microphone Book. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.

Imogen Heap (2017) Tiny Desk Concert. Produced by NPR Music.

Image-Line (2024) FL Studio Producer Edition User Manual and Plugin Reference Guide. Belgium: Image-Line Software.

Chignell, H. (2009) Key Concepts in Radio Studies. London: SAGE Publications.

NPR (2020) Storytelling and Sound Design in Podcasting. Washington, D.C.: National Public Radio.