Composition continued...& mixing

Date: 24/2/10
Duration: 6 hours

This was the continuation from the previous composition. The latter half of the composition continues on the tradition of prog rock but changes gear from the first half and now incorporates distorted guitars and heavier drums. The basic song structure was created previously playing along to a drum loop in Logic 8 and with the recording I improvised and re-recorded several times to get the timing right.

Recording

As this was not a formal recording, (will probably re-recorded in the future in better quality) I did not mike up drum fully or use multiple mics for the guitars. For the guitars I used a single large condenser microphone and for the drums I used 3 dynamic mics (snare, toms) 1 overhead mic and 1 condenser mic for the kick/ambient.
I experimented with microphone placement in the past regarding drums and was impressed with the quality of recordings using minimal microphones. (I'll cover these topics in a future post)

I recorded demo drums (simpler version) first then I recorded the guitars over it. I played the guitar through a couple of amps (one solid state another valve). I routed the guitars in Logic to my headphone amp on my rack which my headphones were plugged into and I played the proper version of the drums over it. I unfortunately couldn't record the bass guitar as it is in repair but plan to track bass in the future.


Mixing ..................................................................................................................................................
Once all the recording were done, I started mixing and realised early on that the snare drum was drowned within the mix. Snare sounded too 'fat' and wasn't cutting through like i wanted. I normally only use subtractive EQ but in this case I couldn't manage to get the snare to cut through so I decided to use combination of both subtractive and additive EQ on the snare.
I normally don't like using additive/boost EQ because they normally sound unnatural and tends to introduce unwanted artifacts.

I began by reducing the low frequencies from the snare (see above) past the 290Hz mark and started boosting past it. This increased the 'snare' sound drastically and made the snare sound cut through a lot better in the mix. The only problem left with the snare was its fluctuating dynamic playing which I wanted to reduce so I used a compressor.

I used the Empirical Labs Distressor emulation is great for drums and gives extra punch and bite. This made my snare cut through a lot better in the mix and I got on with the rest of the mixing.

I cut low frequencies off the guitars so the kick drum definition was restored and gated the toms, cut low freq from the overhead microphone but left the kick/ambient mic alone. After few automation adjustments I was finished.


Here is the video showing the snare before and after EQ (sorry about the sound quality)

snare


Here is the audio clip from the recording

Prog rock inspired composition

Date: 21/2/10
Duration: 6hrs


Being a fan of many progressive rock/metal bands, I felt I should compose something in the particular musical style of the genre. The composition I recorded here were inspired by bands like 'God speed you Black emperor!', 'Tool', 'Russian Circle' and 'Sigur Ros'.
One of the most important thing I wanted to get right in the recording was that of the snare drum. I wanted a particular sound for the snare which will be the backbone for the rhythm. I usually tune my snare tight for the 'snap' sound but I wanted for this recording something more loose and with more snare wires captured. So I when about recording the snare drum completely separately from the drum kit for maximum control during mixing

Great care was taken to insure the snare was tuned 'right' for this particular composition

Both batter and resonant heads were miked using dynamic microphones. I experimented with mic 
positions and angles to achieve the sound I wanted

I also used a AKG condenser microphone positioned above to capture the 'overall' sound of the snare drum. I always found the overhead mics to capture the 'snare' sound better than the resonant mics do in the past.


Before I laid down the guitars I had to make sure the snare sounded the way I wanted, then I made sure the bottom skin (resonant) signal was phase reversed so it won't cancel out with the signal from the batter head.

Phase invert switch is turned on to stop the two signals canceling each other out

After I was happy with the sound of my snare drum, I went about recording the guitar. I had a basic idea of what I was playing but I always like to experiment and create new ideas on the spot, playing over some drums. 

I recorded the guitars using the Line 6 pro xt originally for jotting ideas down then I re-recorded the parts running through a valve amp for more authentic sound.

After the guitar recording I encountered couple of problematic transients that refused to go away (even after several takes). So I decided to tame it using volume automation but ultimately I was unhappy with the result (the ducking of level was just too obvious) so I used a compressor emulation and some EQ to even things out and finally I was happy with the result.

Automation failed to tame the troublesome transients in the guitar recording

Using the compressor emulation of the Focusrite liquid mix I was finally able to tame the transients but also make the result musical and pleasing

Surprisingly I hardly needed to use EQ or any other shape shifting effects to make my recordings sit together in the mix. The snare drum in the recording hasn't had any eq or compression applied but I was totally happy with the result (especially at the beginning). Later on when rest of the drumkit is applied to the mix the necessary highs and lows cut were applied but I was happy with the way it all came together.

I was amazed to find out how much preparation before recording (ie tuning, mic position etc) can drastically affect the recording quality. In the past there were many occasions where I was unhappy with particular sound of the drum (eg kick drum) but instead of re-recording with a different technique I would over-dub using samples to get the sound I want. Although this is a useful technique and is relatively flexible, the overall quality of the recording is only as good as the original source. This composition has taught me that I should be more considerate of the sound source before I stick a microphone in front of it and spend just that little time more to get the sound I'm looking for.

Here is a extract from the recorded track:

'Miles to go' composition recording

Date: 16/2/10
Duration: 5.5 hours


I recorded a jazz/blues piece for a solo artist. One of the difficulties facing this recording was the artist never played along with a metronome for any of his music. He wanted drums with his piece but he doesn't play drums so I had to manually input drums for the recording. The biggest difficulty (beside the metronome) was figuring out the complex time signature of the piece of music.
I dabble in drumming but playing complex jazz time signatures were not exactly my specialty and the artist had little clue about drumming so together we inputted the drums until we were satisfied with the results (hopefully it will be replaced with real drums in the future)

(complex and unusual time signatures)

After all the time signatures were figured out and the drums inputted, we started the recording. Bass was recorded first then rhythm guitar and then lead guitar.
The recording so far sounded slightly sparse and I felt it needed more variation instead of repeating itself so i suggested to do some overdubs on the guitar. Although most of the overdubs didn't make it to the final mix, they gave the artist some materials to work on in the future.

The recording was quickly mixed, mostly adding compression where needed including EQ. For some reason the Focusrite preamps were not working as smoothly and I was ultimately not fully satisfied with the quality of the recording but I promised the artist I will fix the problem and to do a another recording with him in the future.

Here is a part of the recording:

Tracking Bass and Electric guitar

Jam session 06/02/10

Date: 06/02/10
Duration: 3.5 hours

Me and my friend who have had active projects in the past playing in the same band got together to throw ideas around. We jammed together for couple of hours, recorded nearly an hour length of material most of which we weren't so happy with so we didn't bother mixing them. We kept some snippets of audio which we felt could be useful.
We had no idea what we were playing but just improvised as we played. Every mini-session lasted roughly 10 minutes, we stop for few minutes dialing in new settings and played on.

All necessary recording setup were already set up from a previous recording session and thanks to the customised template I created previously we could get on with the recording.

After we finished recording we went back to parts of the recording we felt were worth keeping and we briefly mixed the audio. Other than some subtle EQ on the guitar, the guitar was left as it is. Snare and kick drum were heavily compressed and on both I reinforced the sound using samples I created on the same drumkit roughly 6 months ago.

 We bounced several audio tracks in AAC (compression) formats which I filed away for future reference.

Here is a small snippet of one of the mini-sessions:

Recording (Take the Fall) band

 Date: 30 & 31 Jan 2010
Total Duration: 11 hours

 I've been approached via facebook from a band called Take the Fall. I know the members personally as I have played in different bands along side members of this particular band. I have stayed in contact with the members since and have previously discussed the possibility of recording for them. They are recently formed band and have not yet played live but would like to record some songs so they can upload it to websites such as Myspace. They told me they were unhappy with the audio quality of their own recordings and they had little experience of recording music.

The band is 3 piece, guitar, bass and drums. The guitarist is the main vocalist and the bass player does backing. They have recorded some songs in the past but lack of equipment and knowledge meant they couldn't achieve the standards that they wanted.

Planning

In the past I have recorded bands newly formed who were eager to record their songs but once they entered the recording stage they became unclear on what they wanted and songs weren't completed. Many times I have musicians say it sounded good in rehearsal but when it came to recording they were clueless on bar lengths and tempos they wanted.
These problems are more common amongst 'less experienced' musicians but I always discuss in detail with the band before we start recording about what they want. I'll discuss song structure, tempo, time-signature, drum mics, guitar overlays/overdubs, MIDI etc. Discussing the details before the recording stage allows us to save time and effort and allows us to just get on with the recording.

Knowing the members of the band made it easier to talk about how realistic their goals are. In any recording there are compromises and discussing these areas with the band made the whole thing run a lot smoother.

Recording

Drums were recorded first on which everything will be based on. We mapped everything we needed and aimed to achieve the best performance possible with minimal mistakes and keeping to the click track. We decided on using my in house drums because of the convenience and the drummer brought in his own snare drums and cymbals.

 

With the guitar, we reached a compromise to achieve the guitar tones he wanted from the rig I own. This is because the sounds from the guitarist's amp cabinet had a low hum and a slight but noticeable buzzing sound that could not be removed. After spending time tweaking the EQ settings and getting no where we moved on. 

We recreated his pedal board settings on my Line 6 M13 stomp-box modellerand ran two amps simultaneously. We experimented to find the best tones possible for the song and decided on a combination of valve driven amp and digital modelling.

Blackstar HT-5 valve amp

Line 6 Spider digital amp

Line 6 Pod XT pro

For bass the bass player brought his own rig. There were issues to begin with hum but everything was corrected. I used a compressor pedal (he didn't own one) to tighten up the sound. The bass player doesn't use a plectrum and therefore there are huge differences in dynamics in his playing which is generally a good thing but when recording it can become difficult without a compressor.

Bass amp similar model used for recording

The signals of both the bass and guitar was split and fed into the Line 6 Pod xt pro. The dry signal is recorded into Logic 8 and that can be routed back into the pod for fine tuning of sounds.

Vocals

Vocals were recorded on the 31st Jan but neither of us (me and the vocalist) thought it to be great performance vocally and we decided to record the vocals separately in the future again. 

I used the Focusrite Twin track pro for the vocals and I used the AKG C214 microphone to record it.

We decided it be best for me to work on the materials recorded so far and hand over a rough mix for the vocalist to practice with.

Rough Drum mix

After deciding on taking a rough mix home I quickly processed some of the drums and the guitar. The main thing I did was to reinforce the bass and the snare drum by triggering samples via MIDI. I did this inside Logic 8 by taking a length of recording (ie snare track) and going > Factory > Audio to MIDI groove templates.

 

 This generates MIDI notes according to time and velocity of the recording. Adjusting the velocity threshold allows to discriminate between different sounds in the recording (ie kick drum sound is picked up on the snare mic but it is much quieter so increasing the threshold will mean MIDI event will not be generated for this particular sound).
I did this for both bass and snare. I chose a sample which most suited the genre of music and created a MIDI track with all the notes. Now if I play back the audio the sampled snare will sound at exactly the same time as the real snare and this increases its presence and punch in the mix.

 

After few careful EQing and comping I handed the vocalist the rough mix to take home in a mp3 file format.

I will be posting a post soon in which I record vocals with the vocalist and do a proper mix on the song for which to publish to the band's Myspace page.

Note

While we were recording I realised the Shure SM57 microphone the guitarist brought with him was fake. I have in the past been a victim of a Chinese counterfeit of the same microphone and spotted the fake early in the recording. The fake microphone has harsh mid-highs and high frequencies. It is for the most part void of proper bass response.
Fake SM57 can be spotted by its capsule grill, internal wiring (real=colour, fake=black) and weight (real=heavier).
I advised the guitarist to seek immediate refund from the seller who apparently claimed it to be 100% genuine.