CS4044 Final Mix Report

Gin n’ Juice - Constellations

Group 18

Patrick Shanahan (10003406) Killian Vigna (10129758) Killian Stone (09005157)

Introduction Before we could begin recording we first had to choose a band to record. After a little confusion and losing one band due to poor communication we finally landed ourselves a top class band. We had a drummer, a bass player, two guitarists and an excellent vocalist. Our band were very eager to record themselves in a real studio as opposed to recording in their garden shed and so they were extremely helpful in the set-up and recording process. We had each musician come in on a separate day, except the two guitarist which we managed to record in one studio slot. As we were dealing with musicians who often performed live gigs they had much of the equipment we would require such as mics and amps prior to entering the studio. This gave us a chance to decide what equipment would suit best for the recording. In the end we mainly used the bands personal equipment including a full drum kit with mic set-up. The band is called ‘Gin n’ Juice’ and the song they decided to play for us was an original track that they wrote themselves called “Constellations”. Drum Recording When it came to recording the drums our chosen drummer supplied his own mic set-up. This was extremely beneficial to the quality of our track as our drummer was able to tell us exactly how he felt it should sound and how the mics should be set up. We faced the drum kit towards the Live end of the recording studio and then we set up 3 small mics on the drum kit itself as well as two overhead condenser mics pointing at opposites sides of the drum kit which used phantom power. This set-up was to catch all of the noise coming from the drums and allow us to adjust levels of certain pieces later in the mixing stage. We then laid down a click track and began our recoding. As our drummer was rather professional we ended up being very happy with the second take.

Guitar Recording The second instrument we decided to record was the guitar. As we had two guitars in our track we had to record them separately but we were able to use the same mic set up for each. We first set up a mic stand low down by the amp, basically touching off the amp itself. We then connected the guitar through a DI to the amp and finally placed the mics into the stand and connected the cables. Once this was done we began to record. We found the guitars the hardest to record, mainly due to minor mistakes being made by the musician and having to re-record a few times in order to get the perfect take. Once we had the first guitar recorded we repeated this entire process for the second guitar. Microphone setup The mic stand was set up first and then the cable was laid. The mic was placed on the stand and the cable ends were connected. A DI unit was used to connect the guitar to the microphone input. The DI performs level matching, balancing, and can also minimise noise and distortion. We listened to the amp and guitar combination on microphone-level -- that is, where the microphone would be placed when recording being careful not to place it too close to the amp as the low-end will be artificially boosted with a microphone placed close to the source, something called proximity effect. As we wanted a louder more treble filled sound we placed the microphone towards the centre cone of the amp. The amp was recorded at the highest possible level while still achieving our desired sound. A dynamic microphone was used to record the guitars because of its ruggedness, it's ability to withstand high SPL volumes and not needing any power to operate.

                                                                                     

Bass Guitar Recording Microphone setup The mic stands were set up first and then the cables laid. The mics were placed on the stands and the cable ends were connected. A DI unit was used to connect the bass to the microphone input. We followed the same rules for a good guitar amp mic setup: closer to the center of the speakers themselves for more high end, and farther away to the side for more lows. An ambient microphone was placed across the room, far enough away from the sound source to capture more of the room sound (the reverb and delay) and with placement being key we took time to find to best location for the mic. Phantom power from the mixing room was used for the ambient mic. We were aware that using two microphones can cause phase issues and we kept the relationship among the mics correct; otherwise we may have had problems with the phase of the recorded waveforms. Recording The bass recording was straightforward with our musician playing the whole track through twice. His first take was the cleanest and we used this for our mix. The fact that the track was jointly written by the band members helped in our recording as they were very familiar with the music and professional in the studio set up.

Vocals Recording The final piece we decided to record was the vocals. This was due to our singer being kept rather busy by exams but we eventually got him into the studio. We set up a mic stand and a pop filter approximately 30cm from the mic, we then placed the mic in the stand and connected the cables. A large diaphragm microphone, requiring phantom power, was used which helped to give the vocalist a "deep" sound. The pop screen was used with the condenser microphone for the vocals because they are sensitive to transient noises that will cause distortion. We sent what we had recorded so far through to the singers’ headphones so that he could keep time in the song. In order to get a clean recording we had to ask the singer to stop tapping his foot as we could hear it in the recording. After the third take the singer was happy with the sound and we began recording some backing vocals one octave down from the original vocals. Once a few harmonies and backing vocals had been recorded we had all of our tracks and were ready for the mixing stage.

Mixing Stage Once all the tracks had been recorded it was time to edit and master the tracks. We began by syncing up all the tracks and then trimming and fading the tracks. Next we added level balance, gates and equalizers. Compressors and limiters were then added to the tracks. Finally we began panning certain parts of the tracks to particular areas which we felt added more depth to the track. We then added some final FX and the track was finished. The editing process itself did not turn out to be too difficult and we thank a good quality band and recording for this. Once the final mix had been completed using ‘Protools’, we burnt a CD of our song and compiled this report to go alongside it.

References http://www.mixonline.com/ http://www.ehow.com/ http://duc.avid.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8PBpxGBIKI http://therecordingrevolution.com/