t4.5 recording clients | write-up |

8/19/2019 T4.5 Recording Clients | Write-Up |

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T4.5 RECORDING

CLIENTSJoe Pearce


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Evaluative Piece 1

JammingOnce the mix had been completed, there were 14 tracks onLogic consisting of..

1. Kick - Audix F6 8. Bass – Direct Injection

2. Top Snare – SM58 9.Cajon – SM57

3. Bottom Snare – SM57 10. Lead/Rhythm Guitar – SM57

4. Rack Tom - Audix F2 11. Backing Vocals - Neumann tlm 103

5. Floor Tom – Audix F2 12. Lead Vocal - Neumann tlm 103

6. Left Overhead – Audix F9 13 & 14. Keyboards - MIDI

7. Right Overhead – Audix F9


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What went well & what went not so well..

RecordingDuring the recording period we had no problems working with our clientelewhich made this particular recording session as smooth as it could possibly befrom the off.

We started recording by first setting up the drum microphones in a spaced-pair

miking technique and got the drummer to play so we could adjust levelsaccordingly keeping headroom in mind. We then got the bass player to DI intoa DI Box in the live room which we set levels for so that we could record bassand drums at the same time, we did this to allow the drummer to have more ofa guideline to the song and know his queues. As well as adjusting headphonevolumes using the headphone mixer found in Studio 1.

To record guitar on this track we sent the signal using a ! jack from the guitarwhich was played in the live room into the stage box which was wired to comethrough into the vocal booth (in Studio 1) and finish the signal path byconnecting from the stage box in the vocal booth and straight into the amplifierwe had set up in there with a SM57 armed and ready to record. We chose torecord this way as to avoid bleed from the drums while also controlling the SNR

(signal to noise ratio).


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After recording the first guitar we decided the next logical step

would be to record the second guitar. Unfortunately this

recording didn’t make it into the final mix of the song due to theguitar not being in tune (and unfixable for us using Melodyne)

and therefore not working in the mix, no matter how low. We

quickly learned from our mistake, making sure we tuned every

guitar multiple times before recording; making sure this didn’t

happen again in any other mixes.

For the Cajon we used a Shure SM57 placed just inside of the

sound hole found on the back of the percussion instrument to

maximize the signal (although this wasn’t necessary as theCajon produced quite a high decibel signal when recording).

When we multi-track recorded the Cajon we also took the

opportunity to re-record the bass as the bassist said he wasn’t

satisfied with what he had played.


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After the Cajon we moved onto vocals, supplying the singer withheadphones so he could hear the backing music. While themusician was doing vocal warm-ups we again adjusted levels

leaving headroom for when the vocals pick up in velocity duringthe song. After recording a couple takes we got the vocalist backin and we decided on the best vocal track.

Backing vocals were recorded after the lead vocal and the waywe decided to do this was to try something we hadn’t beforewhich was to get both the girls in the vocal booth, one on eachside of the microphone and just sing at the same time. I think theoutcome of this was quite interesting but we learned from it and ifwe were to record again something similar we’d do it individually.

Finally we recorded the keyboard player’s parts separately as wecould not find a way to split the MIDI controller for differentsounds on different octaves. Together with the musician wedecided on the sound that he wanted and we just recorded thekeyboard using MIDI and then edited it in the piano roll in postproduction.


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MixingWe started the mixing process for this song by choosing tomix the drums first.

Beginning with what seemed like the most obvious choice,the kick drum.

Using a channel EQ we added a shelving EQ boost to thefrequencies in which the kick drum operates. Choosing todo this as there is also a Cajon recorded in this song, giving

the kick drum a boost to be heard clearer in the mix andattenuating these same frequencies from the Cajon.

Also attenuating the high end from the kick drum to make ita little more punchy and less drawn out.


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After EQ’ing the kick drum, we moved onto the snares,inverting the phase on the bottom snare using the gain

plugin to reverse the polarity of the two microphones facingtoward eachother.

Finally once we had EQ’d the rest of the drum kit allowingfor boosts to certain frequencies and attenuations of

resonance we moved onto compression.

Listening to the original song trying to replicate the energy

of the drums cutting through in the mix.


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The bass guitar was the next to be mixed, we had the basssolo’d on logic while we eq’d it and then un-solo’d it to hear

it playing with the rest of the instrumentation and decidedon a final eq. We then compressed it, listening out for

peaks in the signal and taming them using the compression

threshold, ratio & knee.

After we had compressed the bass we thought it would bea good idea to add some sub bass as we didn’t record the

sub kick and wanted the bass to be punchier.


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Once the bass had been mixed sufficiently we moved ontothe lead guitar.

This was pretty standard, eq’d to boost a little bit of trebleand then compressed it accordingly to finish it up.


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The Cajon was simple enough to mix, we firstly added anattenuated shelving to the low end because we had given

these frequencies to the kick drum. After doing this welistened for resonance or unwanted frequencies such as

the very loud sound of hands slapping against the Cajon.

We then compressed it accordingly. The signal we got fromrecording the Cajon was very strong so a decent amount ofcompression was needed.


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After the Cajon had been mixed it was time to move ontovocals, starting with the backing vocals before the main

vocals. Initiating the mixing process by eq’ing the backingvocals with a slight low end shelf as the two female backing

vocals recorded at once didn’t have a lot of bass frequency

to them. Then adding a moderate high end boost to pick upthe higher frequencies therefore adding a more natural airy

sound to them.

We decided then to add some tape delay to backing vocals

to gain more of a reggae/dub feel.


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Finally on this mix we chose to do the main vocals, saving them

to last as we felt collectively that this was one of the main

defining features of this song.

We started mixing the main vocals by EQ’ing a slight attenuation

shelf to the low end as the vocalist we recorded has a verydistinct voice and doing this caused the vocals to cut through a

lot easier by not muddying the same frequencies shared by theKick drum, Cajon and bass guitar.

We then compressed these vocals, reducing the peaks and bring

up the overall recording which added a lot of clarity to them.

Tape Delay was also added to the main vocals to further that

feeling of relaxed reggae/dub.


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Finally we added a small amount of chorus and decided as a group theright amount to further the mix and in turn make it sound as

professional as possible.


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Evaluative Piece 2

Ex’s and Oh’sOnce this song had been fully mixed there were 13 tracksconsisting of..

1. Sub Kick 10. Lead Guitar

2. Kick 11. Rhythm Guitar3. Top Snare 12. Vocals

4. Bottom Snare 13. Keyboard

5. Rack Tom

6. Floor Tom7. Left OH

8. Right OH

9. Bass


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RecordingThis song was recorded with almost no difficulties, the only thingwhich slowed us down was the vocalist being unwell on the dayof recording but she made up for this by recording a very goodtake the next possible day of recording.

We started this recording by setting up drum microphones in thedrum booth next to studio A while also having the bass DI’d intothe HI-Z port on the LA610 pre-amplifier and compressionoutboard equipment. We did this so we could record both at thesame time as well as allowing the drummer to have a bass-lineto follow to keep the structure of the song clean and tidy.

Both of these musicians played their part almost perfectly on thefirst and second take but we decided together to use the secondtake.


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Using the LA610’s built in setting adjustments we addedmore gain to achieve a more distorted tone which we

decided to do to try and match the original as professionallyas we could.

After getting the bass guitar & drums recorded we moved

on to the lead and rhythm guitars. For both of these partswe used electric guitars although the rhythm section of theoriginal song is played by an acoustic guitar. To remedy this

we decided to DI the rhythm guitar into the LA610 and got

the guitarist to continue playing while we adjusted the

equalizer to add more high & low end frequencies while

reducing the gain on the outboard equipment to avoid adistorted tone.


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Recording the lead guitar turned out to be a little bit trickier thanwe had first thought it’d be after the other recordings going sowell. The trouble was finding the right tone to make this guitar sit

nicely in the mix.

This guitar needed to be slightly distorted but nowhere near asmuch as the bass so on Logic we added one of the suppliedamps which was a “Small British Clean” and then modified theamplifier settings doing things such as increasing the gain and

the treble to help make sure that the lead guitar cut through overthe rhythm guitar.

Once we had agreed on the sound we recorded some highquality takes, although a couple of these recordings were

unusable due to the palm muting technique not being thoroughenough and in turn leaving us with a guitar recording that wasn’tquite good enough to be placed in the mix. We narrowed it downto two takes and ended up using half of one and half of the otheras the solo in one take was better than the other whilst the palmmuting in the second take was considerably better than the first.

We cut the takes and spliced them together on logic leaving uswith the one take we ultimately wanted.


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Once the vocalist was feeling up to it, we had her back inthe booth to record. While she was doing her practice take

we adjusted the levels and allowed for headroom as thereare parts in this song which rise in velocity. The vocalist got

her recording done in the first real take so we invited her

back into the mixing studio to listen back to herself. Weagreed that this was a high quality recording and there was

no melodyne (vocal tuning) required.

Lastly we recorded the keys which was played in through a

MIDI keyboard controller satisfyingly enough in one take.

We decided on the base Logic library sound of “Dreamy

Bells” with the keyboard player as this replicates the tone ofthe keys in the official song the most closely.


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MixingWith the drums on this track during mixing it all went prettysmoothly and to plan. We started by EQ’ing the drums in

the same order as Jammin’, from Sub Kick to Right

Overhead, attenuating and boosting accordingly for

resonance and helping certain drums to cut through in themix more than others.

Also not forgetting to invert the phase on the lower snare

drum.


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After EQ’ing we moved onto gating the drums where fillsand other resonant frequencies were not wanted.

We gated the snares to take out the cymbals being hit asthe compression and EQ we applied to the snares was noteffecting the frequencies of the cymbals being picked up.


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Once the drums had been sufficiently mixed down wemoved onto the bass which we left at a flat EQ.

We then decided to add a touch of sub bass to make iteven punchier, this along with the distortion gained fromadjusting the pre-amp we used to record this gave it a

much better position and sound in the mix.

When compressing this instrument, the signal we recordedwas strong enough that once the compressor had been set,

the amount of make-up gain needed wasn’t too high.


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After the bass guitar had been mixed and sat nicely in themix we moved onto the rhythm guitar which in the original

song is an acoustic guitar.We decided on an equalizer where the low end isattenuated and from around 150Hz to roughly 500Hz is

boosted to achieve a more acoustic sounding electric

guitar.

After applying compression we agreed that the sound of the

rhythm guitar in the mix was satisfying enough.


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Mixing the lead guitar for this song was slightly moredifficult due to us splitting one half of a recording and

merging it with a second half of another recording so thatwe could use the best parts of our recordings.

We decided that the sound of the guitar and where it sat in

the mix was sufficient enough that we didn’t need to adjust

anything in the EQ for this track.We went on to compress this guitar, making sure not to

over-compress the audio and therefore deaden it.


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To get a similar tone to the original song we decided onusing one of the built in Logic amps. We decided on the

amplifier settings and felt this was enough to create asuitable enough sound.


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Finally on this song we mixed the vocals, adding a a slightshelving boost to the low & high end to add a bit more

power behind the bass in the female vocalists voice as wellas adding a bit more of a natural frequency recognition with

the high end boost.

Compression was a normal affair, making sure to not over-

compress the vocals as they had already been compressedslightly when they were being recorded through the

outboard equipment.

Lastly we added the plugin SilverVerb to just put a slightamount of reverb on the vocals so they didn’t sound too drycompared to the rest of the instruments with their distorted

tones.


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Drum Replacement

Drum Replacement is a technique that can potentially be a lifesaver for an audio engineer when they are unhappy with thesound of a particular drum in a mix or if the signal recorded froma particular drum isn’t strong enough to be used due to SNR.

To make a drum replacement track you firstly have to create asoftware instrument track (underneath the drum you want to use& keep that drum track highlighted)

-then double click the audio file to open the audio window

-Click Factory-Audio To Score

-Adjust the threshold velocity until you can only see the signalyou want

"..........


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-Process

-You then select all by pressing down CMD+A

-Go to Functions > Transform > Random Pitch (Changefrom random to Fix Pitch) (For Kick Drums, C1)

-Select & Operate (Puts all notes on selected note)"........

-Function > Transform > Fixed Velocity > Select Velocity

(100 is normal)

-Open up the EXS24 sampler

-Under factory select the sound you’d like and Voila, yourdrums are replaced.


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Melodyne

Melodyne is a downloadable tool used for tuning recordedvocals and other instruments. Melodyne can be used within

DAW’s or as a standalone application when bought from

the official website.

When used in Logic as a plugin you can transfer the audio

from an individual track such as vocals by listening to the

audio file and then laying it out to you as musical notes and

the modulation & pitch within each note. You can theneasily adjust these factors within the software itself, either

by selecting all notes transferred to melodyne or you can

do each note individually by hand.


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Before Melodyne has corrected the pitch center and pitch drift


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After Melodyne has adjusted the pitch center and pitch driftBy 100%, the difference is highly noticeable to eye & ear.

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