Recording clinets

His unit of work was all about recording bands, we used two different studios to record the musitians. One of these rooms was used for a multi track recording the other being a live recording room with the exception of vocals which were overdubbed.

For recording in studio one we used the following setup:

Kick- Audix Top snare 0 sm57Bottom snare – sm58Rack tom – audic f6Floor tom- audix f6 Overheads- audix penisl condercers Hi hat- penisl condercer Guitar – sm57 – vox night train Bass – berinhger di box- focrousrite isa1 preamp

Recording setup in studio a:

Sub – rewired speaker Kick- akg kick drum Top snare – sm57Bottom snare- sm57Overheards- nauman pansil condercers Guitar- mesa di box Bass- la-610 Vocals – sm7b/ condercer

Boots are made for walking:

This track was recorded in studio 1. This is the studio we used for the mutli tracking. 1st we got the mustians to set up. Originally we had the drummer , bass and guitars all playing at once. We recorded the guitar by micing up the amp in a different room and sending the singal through the mix control software back out to headphones. The reason why we chose this because it allowed us the best signal to noise ratio while doing a live recording of these instruments. We had the bass running through a di box into a focusorite isa 1 preamp. We chose to run it into the preamp to add warmth and character to the bass. All mustians ran on headphones so that they all could keep in time while using the click track. This also worked in our favous because it lowered our singal to noise rastion even more because we did not have any bleed from the guitars on the drum mics. This is something which has chaged from last time because when we last done a live

recording we had a lot of bleed and I feel that running the mutians on headphones has in the bigger picture has made my mixes better cause I don’t not have to contend with any bleed from other mics and a lot I have a great singal to noise ratio.

Once recorded the 1st thing we chose to do is to get basic levels of the drum kit. After this we decided to drum replace the kick, snare and toms.we kep the original audio files for this track and used the midi drums to thicken up the sound of the drums. We used logics own drummer software to choose what type of drum we wanted. We also changed the pitch of the drum and used there drum dampner to gain a lounder more pronounced kit in the mix.

Here you can see how we doubled up the drums

to double up the drums we had to follow a different process as we recorded and mixed this on logic pro x.

How to make midi representations of audio:

Firstly you select the audio file you are trying to make midi Then you click on track After track you go down to replace or double drum track After this you will see

you set the relative threshold according to the drum track you are trying to double up.

After doing this for the drums we started to add eq and compression to the drums.

Kick- on the eq of the kick drum we scooped in the region of 300 hz to add more of a scooped sound to the kick. We also added compression to the kick drum. To dreduce the dynamics of the kick drum. We ony took about 3 db worth of reduction off the kcik but as you can see we have boosted it on the gain on the way accordingly, so that there is no loss of singal. This blended with the midi kick blneds perfectiky together to thicken up the kick and making the kick stand out in the mix.

Snare – we boosted 160hz to add some extra weight to the snare we also boosted 3 kHz –this added Addedpunch to the snare bring it more toward the forfront of the mix.

However we had a problem with the top snare as we was getting a buzz where the mic dropped half way through recording and after resting on the snare stand. This because aperent more and more toward the end of the song . so in this instance we made the whole snare drum in the mix the midi signal. This is why we chose drum replacement because It was the logical way to solve the problem.

We had also treated the toms in the same way adding eq and compression to them with also doubleing the drums up with midi.

Vocals- for vocals we used an exsteral plugin called meloydine. This plugin is a pitch corrections oftware. However the reason why this software is so popular if because they way it tunes vocals it does it in a way where you cant hear that the vocal or the guitar has been tuned. This is a big advantage and has a great benefit which other software does not and that is that the software does not make it sound like it has been auto tuned.

We were 1st introduced to melodine on the track no where id rather be by jess Glin. We used melodine on the lead vocals and the harmoes which come and go through out the song. We carefully wnt through every bit of the vocal track trying to find the notes the singer was meant to hit. Although this process is slow and matuculus it makes it better in the long run when you have smooth and in tune vocals. On the software there is a autio tune function where melodine itself will just put every note in pitch. But sometimes this does not work because the conpuert will only ajust it to the nerest cent and sometimes if the singer is that far out it will drag the note to the wrong note. This is why its always best to go through the vocal line but by bit so you can analise th audio and see where the singer was meant to hit.

This software is very easy to get the hang of and after afew hours of using the software you qwuickly become aware of its functions and how easy it is to pick up. What I found helpd is seeing a visual replersention of the notes on a piano roll so after a while you will start to notice parrterns of where the notes are meant to be.

here you can see the piano roll thses are the notes which are being picked up my melodine.

Is the note is in key it will be at the centre of the grid another way of telling how far out you are is if you look at the tiop left hand corner and it will tell you to the nerest cent

young hearts

this song was recorded in studio a so we took a slightly different approach. Because this was the multi track room we had more time to focus on the individual instrument. When recording the drums for this track we did not use a click because it kept on throwing the drummer off and we as a group chose to let him play along with the original song. Alothough commonly this wou;ld not be used a lot we though we would get the best performance from the drummer if he was playing a;ong witht the orignaial track. After a few takes on the drums we chose the best take which was take 3. We felt that take three was the best because it was not only in time but I feel that in that take we captured a good performance from the drummer.

When mixing the drums we used the same method as previous tracks and created midi representations of the drums to give size to the kit. However on this track we used the midi in a slightly different way. Because of the style of the track we used the midi to push the track in more of the edm/ rap gernre by adding big sounding kicks and snares what cut through the mix. Personally I would preferred it to keep a classic sounding drum kit but having being asked to chaned upp the song abit we added these sunds in to make the track sound more like the original.

After this we added eq and compression to all the kit.

Kick -

This is where it displays how far you are out to the nearest cent

Here you can see how we doubled up the kit in toatal we had a combination of 4 kicks. We had a sub mic to pick up the low frequencys of the kick drum. Then also we had a kick drum mic placed inside the kit, this was pointed towards the beater so we would get the “slap” of the kit. Also you can see we have a midi representation of the kick which we have loaded logics pro drummer and damped the sound. Also we used a minimalistic pad to add more low frequency’s to add to the sub mic.

Here you can see that I have done the same 300hz cut to give the kick that “boxy” sound

Here you can see the setting of the compressor you can see that I have a fast attack so that it gives the kick drum some “punch” and lowers the dynamic range of the kick to make the kick cut though.

AS you can see we have lower the kicks we recorded in the mix so that the midi would come through more than the original kick. We did not way to completely get rid of the kick because we felt that it added charter to the mix but we lowered it in the mix so it wasn’t the main kick you could hear. All four of these kicks happen at the same time.

We used side chain compression on the kick drum aswell along side the synch which playes through the track. To really come through in the mix.

Snare-

Also on this track we dohled up the snare in the same way. 1st of all we had made a midi versionon the snare after that we then used eq and compression to bring the snare to life. When recording the snare on the way in we flipped ther faze of the bottom snare so that the drums are in faze. Recording with the faze flipped in the 1stplace was easyer to do because on a last terms project we forgot to flip the faze of the snare until later on.

I chose to pan the snare slightly off centre. The reason why we done this is when the drummer plays his fills we wanted the audience to actually hear the drums from the drummers perspective, so the audio represents how the drummer plays around the kit.