Vodoo Child Remke by Griffon Quartet

Audio Evaluation Briefly

Well I have now finished working on my tracks that will be handed in, these are a selection of covers and own material. I have used 5.1 stereo midi and real instruments to complete this task and feel have now mastered the system and programs that we use in the university studios.

I recorded the midi/5.1 track on my own however as was performing on a couple of the other tracks Lauren gave me a hand to record them. She has also used some of the tracks for her portfolio but mixed them in completely different ways.

The MIDI song was recorded in 5.1 as to kill two birds with one stone, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, as the deadline crept up we had not learnt the techniques until three weeks ago which allowed us to either convert a stereo mix into 5.1 or record a song from scratch in 5.1. When recording we set the i/o settings to surround and set up midi and audio tracks this then left the writing of the song which was inspired by the music from a computer game but also I may use the audio to create a hip hop song when I get time to get a mc into the studio to rap on top of the tune.

There is no real difficulty when using midi as long as you get the midi channel and audio channel linked up together properly with the correct midi synthesizer plug ins that you wish to have.

I recorded this song trying to use as little effects upon the channels as possible a little reverb on the piano track however most of it was the instrument plugin I used.

The three other tracks have been recorded just using analogue instrument; these are all mixed in stereo. Unfortunately I had to record these songs twice due to the loss of my work on the faulty hard drive in the Bonnington studio; however, I now know the importance of backing up my work.

I recorded the tracks in one day as a live session which I then overdubbed the vocals on top of mix.

I decided to record the bass and guitar with several mics to get an ambient, both amps had a close and distant microphone, I put the drum kit in the other room as to reduce over spill. I used minimal mics on the drum kit I used two condenser overhead a d112 on the bass drum and a sm57 on the snare and high hat. For the bass guitar I used a d112 as a close mic and a sm57 as the far. For the guitar I placed a sm58 just off centre of the amps cone and another behind the cab to pick up more off the bass frequencies.

When over dubbing the vocals I used a rode NT1A which is one of my favourite condenser mics as for the money it gives a wonderful representation of what ever instrument or vocal line you are recording. Diagrams can be seen in the appendix.

To edit I took all the tracks home and worked on them using adobe audition which is not as good as protools however it was simpler as most of the tone I wanted from the instruments had been captured by the use of the amplifiers. I find editing in the studio or the booths difficult as when editing I need to be really relaxed and just sink into it easily and go and come back to it over a weekend, this is not really possible in Uni as everyone needs to be able to access the booths therefore time is of the essence. When editing I only had to EQ, compress and generally make sure the tracks sounded accurate. I also used automation on the panning and gain control of the channels this I feel gave a sense that the track you are listening to could be live with wailing guitar solos that move across from right to left and vice versa to giving the illusion that the guitarist is walking across the stage giving it his all. For the 5.1 I had to edit and master on the g5 in Bonnington as I have no DVD authoring software on my own pc, plus audition only allows you to edit in 5.1 if it recognizes a 5.1 set up on your pc.

After exporting the edited multitrack mix I did a little mastering in audition to do a final EQ and Compression to get the best sound to bounce onto a CD. Audition also has a editing tool that’s similar to Sound forge this just gives the end track that little bit extra.

End results are that the songs sound pretty good I am happy with what I have learnt over the year. The new plugins and different pieces of software used, the use of the desk in it 5.1 settings etc. Problems that arose whilst recording was using the midi section as I have never been a fan of the sound or the techniques used to create the music. On the Hey Joe Cover there are no drums this was deliberate as our so called drummer found it very hard to get himself two miles into the studio the band did not use a click track and therefore the timing becomes quiet interesting in places I tried to play my own drum loop underneath it however this was impossible whether the use of a real drum kit or that of a midi sequenced kit with a groove swing quantization upon it.

If I could do anything again it would be re recording the stereo tracks with the drummer being in the live recording as the band would sound a lot tighter and I would not have to play the drums. Then I could possible do overdubbing if there is too much over spill on any of the microphones. I would also like to be able to record a prog song which would be far longer than 3 minutes but incorporate many different aspects with Foley and other sound effects.

I have not included any of the work I have done for films that I have made this year or that of the Foley I am doing for some design students however will incorporate these into my end of year presentation.

Recording in the studio

I have now been into the studios several time both with classes and on my own and have recorded one song which still need a little work but is getting there this will be a simple description of how i went about recording the instruments and then how i EQed paned Quanitized if necessary i.e. for midi tracks.
To begin with it is always a good idea to turn on all the desk equipment, whilst it is turning on; then i set up the microphones on the drum kit guitar bass and any other instrument that would be good to record as a beginning mix; if there is a keyboard it is better to DI two channels on for left and right. Once you have all the Mic's set up and you have labeled then correctly into the desk. then you can set up the recording session in pro tools set up a head phone mix then; invite the band in and record enable the tracks and let them do a first take.
Once recorded safety all the tracks and allow the band to have a listen; if they are not happy then get them to do another take until they like what they have recorded. Once this is done you can then take each performer on there own and see if they would like to record it again or just to record small sections to over dub.
Once all the Instruments are sounding Good then invite the signer in to have a listen and get him/her to do an initial take as a guide line then you can change the set up of the mic position or anything else, some times a little reverb helps if the singer is slightly out of tune. Then continue recording until the singer plus the band are happy with the outcome; then you can go and record backing vocal.
Once you have done this you are prity much done on the whole recording, now its just down to you to either simply add a few tweaks or make a masterpiece out of pure crap.
first edit the drum kit maybe a compressor on the bass drum with little eq to get a nice sound boost around 150Hz, most tracks will require little or alot of EQ but for each mic placement make sure the track sounds good on its own so you can here it individually and not pick up other instruments which you normally get when recording a session. For the vocals it normally a good idea to to set up an aux track to put the reverb onto which you can then just re root the vocal channels via a bus to the aux track, this will take less of the computer memory and allow you to have better control of the general mix. Once Eq Maybe Amp farmed or any other plug ins you have added or want to add you can do a general mix and see what levels you have.
Instrument i like to keep quite high are the high hat, kick drum and bass guitar. The bass is normally the quietest instrument so it needs more gain than most of the others.
Once you have a mix you can then Begin mastering, so on the master fader its a nice idea to use a little compression to make it sound tight. Then you can Turn up until you can hear the speakers distorting then turn it down so you can no longer going to hear that sound and bounce it down onto a CD as a Wave file. Then you can go into sound forge and tweak it some more to get an end resulting song.

Dangerous Things

I have been in the studio, And been recording a cover of a song Called Dangerous thing by Strange fruits.
This
includes Lead and backing Vocals, Rhythm and Lead guitar, Bass A Drum
Kit and Some electric Organ. I have not yet recorded the organ as i am going to use a midi keyboard with a plugin of an organ in Pro Tool.
I have done a basic mix on all the instruments and added amp farm to the two guitar plus some reverb. I set up an aux track for the vocal reverb sending them to the aux track via a bus. I Have used Compression and EQ on parts of
the drum tracks but need to continue to add to all the tracks to really
clean everything up. The vocals need some compression to make the top
end clearer. The Bass Guitar has been EQ'ed.
I
am Going to have to rerecord the middle eight of the interlude as the
guitarist forgot it, however this will be easily overdubbed.
I recorded most of this song by multi-tracking each instrument on its own however recorded the bass and rhythm guitar at the same time to get the correct timing.
Once i have finished the mix i will put it onto this web page.

Micing Up a drum kit and a guitar or Bass cab

This i how i would mic up a drum kit for recording purposes. if playing a concert i would always mic the bass drum and depending on siz of the space add microphones to give better clarity.

To mic a guitar amp you could do as seen below or you could direct injection through a stage box straight into the recording desk.