production credits

Alex BeasleyUnit 35/52

Production creditsWithin this assignment I have been tasked with the opportunity to act as a studio manager and producer, towards developing my own skills for working in a recording studio. This assignment will also demonstrate how confident I am to run recording sessions independently and to make artistic and technical decisions in the studio in order to capture recording I am aiming to create. I will also be documenting this long term process to show what I have learnt throughout this experience but also to show the mistakes I have made along the way contributing towards more competent studio management in the future.

PlanningThe band I have chosen to record for this assignment is My Mother Lie (external to the college), a five piece that despite being a relatively new band have play plenty of gigs and love to perform popular among core fans who watch and follow the band and speak very highly of them. I have seen this band perform a handful of times and have been impressed every time and have never had a bad night doing so. I am also quite good friends with the the members with the band and had already been discussing the opportunity to record them at the Gloscol facility which made it easier on me as a producer and engineer to work on the recording early, effectively and professionally. I now have a fully mixed version of the song ‘Restart (Motivation)’ which has effectively captured the energy My Mother Lie has during a live set jumping between the hardcore choruses, funky verses and swing that the vocals and guitar’s contributes to the track.

Other examples of My Mother Lie’s tracks can be found Via this link:https://soundcloud.com/mymotherlie

https://soundcloud.com/mymotherlie


This is the message I received from the Rhythm guitarist which explains the main basis as to how the recording had taken place, a number of the member’s had previously attended music Teck courses so they feel confident enough to show independence as to how they would like heir recording’s done which I more or less agreed proceeding with.

Rhythm Guitarist

Drummer

Me

From there we discussed our first session which was focused around Drums and Bass only, as this is a very popular method of building a recording as drums provides the foundation of the mix with keeping in time to the BPM


(Beats per minuet). The date we set for Drum’s and bass recording was the 29th

of January which I arrange with Glenn (drummer) and Alex S (bassist) in person roughly the week prior, which I then checked up with Steve the studio manager in person, either the following Monday or Wednesday as to whether the studio was free (which it was) and then I booked it from 9am to roughly 5pm, which is when the college required us to finish us using the facility due to closing up.

Lead Guitarist

To which then we discussed the following session that will include guitar tracking which became quite an issue and had to be rescheduled a number of times, due to Max’s and Joe’s and my otherwise responsibilities. The date we finally did accomplished the guitar tracking was 11th March but it wasn’t until our first session then we planned this on the 29th.


Finally managed to get a date set after a month and a half since Drum and bass tracking, which I booked on either the 1st

or the 3rd and those were the day’s I was in college prior to the session in which I could verify with the studio manager Steve as to whether the studio was free. Guitar tracking was a success to which that left tidying up the recording stems of all instruments with mixing ready for the vocal recordings (careful not to over mix the instrumental aspect of the song so that when vocals were tracked it would not be to much trouble to make it fit in the mix).

An attempt to book vocal tracking wasn’t made by me until April the 13th, as I had put it aside while I worked with the mix and other external responsibilities. Ruabon Lovett Is the vocalist of My Mother Lie, which Max the guitarist told me it was hard to get a hold of him online so he gave me his number instead, and between the intervals of silence due to shoddy signal we managed to set the date of April the 22nd which was another Friday, to which I emailed Steve on the 21st to ask whether the studio was free but he said it was book all day, but as the guy who originally booked it off didn’t appear we set our first vocal recordings in the vocal booth in one of the lecture room’s and moved to the studio around mid day (as the studio was still be utilized for a lecture in the morning).

Session plans


As this was my first time recording a whole band I felt that it was best to resort to fundamental recording techniques that I hear a lot about and am confident will capture pleasurable and accurate representations of was to be recorded, this includes methods within microphone positioning, artist separation, microphone choices and signal paths. There were also a number of experimental idea’s that I wanted to put to the test as I went through the recording and editing process, which I will highlight as explain through this write and evaluate the pros and cons of those experimental idea’s.

As illustrated with the discussions with the band artist elements were to be recorded on separate days due to complications such as not enough studio time in a day, band members non-linier availability (such as mine) but also to give me a chance to take a steady pace focusing on each individual element and analyse how they would form into its final product, especially with the mixing & editing stages. The order of artistic elements is as follows: -Drums -Bass-Both guitars simultaneously recorded -and finally vocals

Drum planningAs I’ve been closely associated with the drummer for many year’s we discussed how I and he would like to record the drums in our spare time, which more or less were linier in that we wanted to mic up each individual element implemented in his playing with appropriate methods in mind. Rough notes on the next page illustrates the way in which I originally planned out the: kinds of microphones, what they were capturing, signal paths/channel orientation, making techniques, where on the percussive element the microphone was aiming and other rough notes involving the imagined process.


I chose to assign the kick mic to the first channel as I feel that the kick carry’s out a lot of the fundamental structure of songs (alongside the snare), making drums so essential in some aspects in regards to keeping a song in time and making the beat/time signature apparent to the listener (which in turn is why I also decided to mic it up). Reflecting on that I find it is either the kick or the snare that carries the beat of a song more commonly a mixture of the two, so by assigning it to the first channel this will be the first track that I will be editing/mixing, further assisting me to gain perspective of the song and aid my artistic decisions. I also show plans of placing a pillow on the lower surface in the kick drum, as this is a popular techniques between drummers and engineers to ‘deaden’ the sound of a kick meaning to reduce the severity of it lower overtones and reverberation (in short it’s ‘boom’), to make the smack or snappiness of the kick skin more prominent which is appealing to both me and the drummer. The choice of using the AKG D1-12 is biased on the fact that it is made to have a good low frequency response able to withstand the force residing inside a kick drum while accurately recording the present sound. I had planned to position the microphone so it was aiming towards where the kick pedal meets the skin and half way inside of the drum through the sound hole, to further capture the snappiness of the kick instead of further outwards where the sound of the kick is more muffles and less snappy with more low frequency presence.

The snare is similar in this regard in that it carries the structure of the song mainly on the bar of a time signature, also the drummer and I are fans of drums with a lot of forceful punctuality as they are struck as it adds a pleasant characteristic to then cut through the mix. The reason I chose to mic the top is because it captures ghost notes, blast beats, and other low-volume hits, when automating its level in post-production it can help pick up snare hits that do not get captures as much through the microphones, also depending on the placements of hit’s on the drum skin the top can generate punchy snaps to its sound emphasising its place in the mix. This is also why I decided to use a Shure 57 on the top skin, as it has a higher frequency response I felt this would enhance the capture of the snare’s attack.


With micing up the bottom of a snare it is typically that it is always paired with a top snare microphone as common practice, while being careful the two microphones are not out of phase due to their arrangement, they should both remain equal distances away from their respective skins. The bottom snare is there to pick up the crisp rattling of the snares against the resonant head, which adds a bright buzz from the bottom. This is also why I chose to use a Shure SM 58 on the bottom skin, as it has a lower frequency response compared to the SM57 I felt this would add more brightness to snare whilst smoothening the harsher punctualities considering it has a slightly muffles diaphragm to counter this.Combined with the attack of a top snare this can be used to balance the lows and highs of an initial snare sound when trying to find the ideal sound during mixing, and experiment with automating these different characteristics through the changes of a song for artistic affect.

I chose to put the Hi Hat next in the channel listing as it is considered the following most fundamental aspect of a drum kit there really is no other reason, especially as the Hi Hat was only being used in the verses of the recorded song.Despite this Hi Hats use primarily short, high frequency bursts effective for time keeping, and most times the overhead mics (which I do use) will provide enough response to the high hat to eliminate the need for a separate hi-hat microphone. With this in mind there was no destructive reason why I could not mic it up, because if the takes were not beneficial to the drum sound then I could simply take it out and resort to the sound the overheads pick up. In which I planned to place a mic away from the area in which puffs of air appears when hi-hats close or get struck closed, angled towards the middle of the top cymbal to which angle the Hi Hat is struck from, also pointed to the opposite direction from where the rest of the kit is to reduce the amount of bleed through the microphone Primarily the snare and crashes close by. This additional mic when planning was hoped to reinforce the kit through the songs verse to add a new character and the context of the song changes


dramatically. I decided to use a Red 5 RVA (small diaphragm condenser) as this is popular choice when micing up Hi Hat to use a pencil microphone to capture the higher frequency range more efficiently, which is present in this particular Cymbal.

Next was micing up the Hi Tom and the Low Tom which has Identical set ups in this scenario, by placing a clip on Red 5 RVD9 (small dynamic microphone) 2 or 3 inches over the head and above the rim, positioned at a 45 degree angle and aimed at the centre of the top drum head, this method is constant in obtaining the most attack from Toms while still capturing the pleasant low frequency decay of a Tom. As neither Toms were planned to adjust parallel with the floor for drummer playability, this aid’s in reducing bleed from the metalwork’s above it as the sound reflections are more likely to cancel each other out, considering the fact that it will be recorded in a sound absorbing chamber this further aids this method. The reason I chose the RVD9’s is because they were made to be specifically Tom mics although that is not all they are restricted to respectively, they come with their own drum-rim clip’s which will make positioning them easier and reducing clutter without having to utilize more microphone stands.

Finally to smoothen all of the channel contributions and to capture the cymbals nicely we have the overheads, which I chose to run as a Stereo pair in an X/Y position, which the diagram below represents. Because the two capsules are so close together in this position, the sound waves from every drum and cymbal element arrive to the two mics’ diaphragms nearly


simultaneously if measured accurately, which avoids risk of frequencies cancelling each other out due to partial differences of out-of-phase waves when the two overhead tracks are heard in mono. This technique is considered to result in a narrow stereo field even when the two Overhead tracks are panned hard L/R, but this does not concern me as I felt more comfortable in confining the drum sound in a realistic space to how it is in person, which I felt I could achieve through this technique while still able to pan out individual elements. As we were restricted as to how far we could raise or stretch these overheads (due to the walls and ceiling of the Drum room), both of them are to be measured 4 feet from the centre axis of the drum kit biased on spatial restrictions. Although this worked with in my favour as lowering the microphones and using an angle less than 90 degrees can result in a more direct sound of the kit, which was the main point of utilizing the Drum room to capture the direct sound.

At this moment of planning I was debating whether I would be reducing the distance of these overheads of 4 feet to then mount the array directly or closer above the snare drum, to ensure that the snare is cantered in the stereo image which further would enhance the it’s character of carrying the structure of the song. Also I decided to use the same microphone being use on the Hi Hat which was the Red 5 RVA Pencil mic, to draw out more focus on the cymbals biased on the fact that these microphones have a higher frequency response which is the bandwidth cymbals reside within. This aspect also will add a brightness to all of the other aspects that are miced up, smoothening them out and creating a natural level balance between them all.

Bass planning


I will admit I am less experienced when it comes to what makes a good bass ‘sound’ compared to drums (not to say that I’m amazing at that either), but I do realise the fundamental that a bassist supports a mix massively and is often not given enough credit from the casual listener, especially how it find itself in a territory where it provides pleasant overtones that harmonically work with a guitars sound while still being able to give it identity in a mix through varied melody to what a guitar or vocals is being played. The idea I had in mind for the bass was to provide that fundamental support and also to bring through the mix more rather than hide it, which led me to the plan of using multiple microphones on a Hartke combo base amp we have at the college, the rough notes and plans I had made previous are on the next page.


Alex Stringer the bassist was fond of enhancing his mid and high-mid range which he found to achieve through using his personal bass drive pedal and his active bass (which became such a hassle because his battery kept on dyeing on us in the middle of takes!), with this in mind I’d imagined that I would be able to capture a lot of string noise from him alongside the attack of the notes he plays. To which I planned to set up the Aventone CV-12 as a room mic roughly 5 to 7 feet away from the bass amp, as lower bass frequencies tend to decay quite suddenly from amps I used this method to capture the room sound of his playing. From previous experience with the microphone as a room mic it tends to add a natural element back into a mix which is ideal for this band, as their rawness and energy live is quite enjoyable to see so through this method I hoped to capture that roughness back into the mix.

Next I wanted to further stretch the intent of enhancing the mid and high-mid range of the bass which I decided would be attained by using a Shure SM 57, angled to the cone to capture the ‘crackle’ of the amps sound also referred to white noise which adds a harmonic harshness to a sound, which is a more common technique to use on guitar amps I would imagine but I felt this could capture Alex’s desired sound as well as capturing some string noise (add more of that raw element to the sound).

The next microphone technique was based on something someone said to me once about putting a microphone in the back of an amplifier which can enhance a bassier brightness to a sound and in a sense give it ‘girth’. As this was to be my first time recording from a bass amp this seemed like a promising idea to achieve a good bass foundation, to compensate for the lower frequency band the other microphones would be otherwise neglecting. Conveniently the Hartke Bass amp did not have an open back but otherwise a sound hole roughly 7 inches wide in the centre, meaning the sound produced in the back of the cabinet would be reflecting all of the inside surfaces and focusing at one centre point, instead of most of the sound being lost


as it scatter in multiple directions.

Through this I could capture I felt that I would be able to capture an enhanced representation of the desired sound, to which I planned to place a AKG D1-12 in that sound hole to both counter the enhanced sound and airwaves it will have to encounter, to capturing it accurately and also because this microphones is idea for capturing lower frequency bands which was illustrated earlier discussing the plan for the kick drum.

The next channel is not biased on enhancing the overall sound by adding appealing elements, but more on the bases of having a safety net to rely on if there ever were to be a problem in post-production not realised in the recording stage, which is to send the audio from the bass through a DI box. This will leave me with an audio recording of what Alex plays before it is affected by his pedals, the amp and the microphones that interpret the sound, so that if there were for some reason the takes weren’t fitting with the mix well there would be an option to run that audio back through the amp differently as a sound file or through a virtual bass setting if I were to find a pleasing setting whilst leaving me with more control over its sound. This is another trick I heard someone talk about which in turn is quite clever, also this raw audio can be used to add the natural element back into a mix if that were to be artistically beneficial.

Guitar PlanningSimilar to what I wanted to achieve with the bass recordings I wanted to create a real sense of space with the guitars, as in my head I like to imaging the centre of a song spatially to be the drums to be the fundamental spine of it all, with the bass surrounding the centre and the guitars panned either side taking it’s form in the same area as the bass … if that makes sense. Reflecting on this the way I planned to record the guitars is similar to the way I planned the bass recordings, mainly through the use of a room mic, but I also decided that it would be best that the main takes be recorded with both guitarists playing at the same time, as often guitarists react to how the other is playing which often help’s them relax and play as normal and even add more emotive character to their playing. Especially if they are not a very experienced guitarist that finds a recording environment abstract to how music should be played. Rough notes of the recording process can be found on the next page.


Channel 1As mentioned I planned to resort the Aventone CV-12 condenser microphone to create a sense of space in the mix, with the microphone in the centre against the wall facing both guitarists and their amps. It’s worth a reference from notes that I planned to use the wooden side of the tall panels available in the studio to reflect the sound back and forth to create more of a room sound and natural reverb. This plan was also constructed to also focus the guitars more in their particular sections within the mix’s space, as the panels weren’t used for the bass so that it could branch out more I wanted to experiment and see if this could provide a sense of realism, so that the finished song sounds like a live performance rather than a massively produced song.

From here the channels are all planned picking up tonal characteristics that I imagined would affect create a fat sound of the mix while still giving the guitars definition, there is a rough drawing on the notes (previous page) illustrating the micing up technique that I made Identical that I planned for both amplifiers to record with, with a Shure SM 57 Horizontal with the grill of the amp pointing the rim between the cone the centre spherical membrane, with a sER1 Ribbon microphone identical to how the 57 was positioned but on the opposite side of the cones inner rim (although the 57’s were brought slightly backwards to be in line with the capsule’s membrane in the Ribbon microphones).


It is a very popular option to use a SM 57 to record a guitar amp and for a good reason too, its frequency roll-off and characteristic pickup off guitars is efficient in capturing the harsher and higher frequencies of its spectrum which to many engineers ear’s efficiently gets the job done, whilst to counter act the harsher takes I planned to make I also made the plan to use these Ribbon microphones, because of their warm and rich characteristic I imaged the combination of the two microphones in identical perspectives of the amps would create a nice even spectrum to work into the mix. Also as all Ribbon microphones are assigned to a pickup pattern of figure-of-eight this added to the effect of creating space as it picked up reflections in the opposite side of the room.


Vocal PlanningI had not started the plan for vocals until Guitar recordings were finished and a lot of the track was already mixed (leaving headroom for the vocals to fit in of course), to be honest I don’t even know if you can call them plans! But I did work out prior to the recording process for vocals what to do whilst there were some changes to these that were amended in my notes, mainly how I did not know where I was able to use the recording studio or if we would have to resort to the vocal booth that was in one of the lecture room which was perfectly able to do the job none the less.

The majority of the vocal takes were recorded using a sE 1000 condenser microphone, as the studio was in use and wasn’t able to use the Aventone.I worked this out prior to the recording process with Steve as I asked him his opinion on what microphone I could use instead which was the sE, and then once the studio became available we resorted original plan of using the Aventone.

Other than the technical side of things I set the aim to make everyone comfortable in this environment so that they felt now stress getting their takes down, and what better way to do that is to get everyone a bottle of water to keep hydrated with and a Kinder Surprise to lighten the mood


DrumsThe drum session had a rocky start as I got in I think at half 9 or 10-ish, Glenn the drummer wasn’t going to come in until later which left me the opportunity to load a new project, make sure the studio was tidy to avoid any hazard risk, as we would be carrying heavy equipment into the facility if anyone were to be injured in the process it would be my responsibility as they were visitors from outside the college. I had also arrange to book out the microphones recorded in the notes and planning, and had stupidly started micing up the kit in the drum room without realizing that the drummer would come in with all his equipment and move everything around anyway … drummers.

In reflection that time could have been used more efficiently to arrange all appropriate stand, leads, mic clips etc. neatly to one side until the drummer had finished with arranging the kit to his liking, also this time could have been used to organize the Logic project better as I was naming tracks at the same time as doing levels once we had finished micing up. Another issue was that there was not a lot of room to stretch out the mic stand for the kick mic to go into the kick drums sound hole, at least not as much as I wanted it to and I was unsure whether there was a more appropriate stand that could reach down lower to achieve this, had I taken the time to look for a more appropriate stand I feel that I could of achieved a more appealing kick sound as I have now come to the mixing stage where it feels like I’m trying to polish something unpleasant.Another issue was that the Tom mic’s were not staying in the position in which they were secured, the low Tom mic would twist 90 degree’s half way through a take meaning it was now recording towards the ceiling, and the hi tom due to the movement from the kick drum kept sliding down slowly making it point towards the rim of the tom more than the centre. Had I taken the time to search for some duct tape around the studio or asked Steve the studio manager whether he had some available we could have solved this instability problem and continued with the session smoothly.


This is the Project in the earliest stage where tracks were aligned and levels were being set, where I would instruct Glenn to play particular elements such as the snare and overheads to reach an average Db level of -6, so occasionally reaching the Amber LED on the channel faders. One issue I found in this process was that the gain adjustments in the control surface were lax until a certain point near the end where it would suddenly clip and raise unnaturally in Db, which made doing levels for quitter elements harder as I had to make sensitive adjustments, seeing as Glenn wasn’t shy of playing as he normally would compared to him doing his takes (which helped with level consistency).

By this point we sorted out levels and had made the first take which was considered Glenn’s warm up, although the take was legible so we kept it for editing.


The session progressed fairly well from then on, I made sure to keep an eye on the levels constantly in case of any changes or major peaks in which I did adjust levels as I went, or to make mental notes of nice part’s or part’s that are not likely to be used (also he played to just a tempo of 180 BPM with monitoring headphones). Those two smaller sections at the end are versions of the verse that Glenn wanted me to edit and drop in which was done on the ride instead, instead of the verses he had already recorded which included a Hi hat (he didn’t like the colleges Hi Hat sound, and the sound from the Hi Hat mic was too great either).

The Problem with that was not apparent at the time apart from the fact that it meant more work for me to do when we could of done another take of him just doing the verses differently, but Alex and Glenn felt like they were in a bit of a rush to get it down … or maybe that was me because I didn’t want to have to get kicked out of college having half done the job (seeing as it was a Friday we had less time to do this in) I’m not too sure now. The problem with this is that the verses to be dripped in didn’t fit in time weirdly with the second verse slot despite a lot of editing, to which I told him recently that it couldn’t be done and we’ll just have to go ahead with the takes including the Hi Hat.

Bass


After we had made three takes for me to play with later, we took out the mics we needed for bass tracking from the drum room (the AKG and the SM 57) with their stands and leads, and started to set up the bass amp in the main part of the recording room. Alongside this we set up the Aventone in its planned mic position including the DI box taking a direct out from the bass guitar to record a raw version of what Alex plays.

Problems that we ran into the Bass recording session was that the DI signal

was either extremely faint or was not coming through properly despite max Db and faders to the highest setting, meaning that once the session ended I discarded the DI channel in confusion and decided that I will try to experiment with this more in my free time for future recording benefit. Another problem was Alex’s active bass, which I mentioned earlier was on a flat battery which resulted is an unpleasant distortion arising hallway through the takes, which we found out that if you take the battery out for five minutes it would be alright for a little longer, so we would to this multiple times in which I give him the cue to do his take and he would rush to put the battery back into the bass and hope he could do the whole take.

It wasn’t until the next hour that I considered whether the IT department would have any to spare which they did luckily, in which we used for the rest of


the session to capture some cleaner takes and then returned it with the microphones once we have finished with them. Another problem with the bass session what that Alex was sloppy with keeping in time with the tempo/drums, which just flew right over my head at the time but now it is much more noticeable with the rest of the part in the song together. With that in mind I don’t feel there could have been a lot to do if I had noticed unless get to do more takes and hope he tightens up his timing, as a lot of artists don’t usually practice their material to a metronome I am prepared to have artists such as Alex to record that has a hard time keeping in time. Other than these flaws I was pleased with the clean takes and the tone that came out of it I was impressed with, especially the AKG in the sound hole produced a very appealing low end that catered to the bands grungy nature.

Since that session I worked on adjusting EQ on the individual tracks and

generally tidying them up (etc. applying light compression to the snare channels and noise gates to kick), nothing was that enhanced as I wanted to leave headroom for the guitar session coming up.


Here I had started to remove sections of stems that were not being used in the drums such as the toms and the Hi Hats for the verses, signs of slight mixing on the Snare Bottom channel as there is an EQ curve and a compression plugin.

The same follows for the Bass recording’s, as I listened back to the individual tracks I looked at which frequency band that the recording sounded the best and reduced frequencies in which it did not.


GuitarsWhen it came to guitar track it felt like there was less of a rush as we were recording both guitarists at the same time it conserved what time we had available (as this was also a Friday), but there was the odd couple of hitches such as not being able to acquire a amp cabinet as I thought we had one on the campus (I was wrong). seeing as they both cam with amp heads and only one cab we resorted to using the Marshall combo amp for Joe that was available in the studio, which made to massive difference to his sound as he was going to use a Marshall head and besides he acquired his tone through his range of pedals so it was all fine but it did waste time, had I asked whether there was a cab available on an earlier date this hurdle could have been dealt with a lot quicker.

We proceeded through the takes pretty swiftly with the odd couple of takes that we ended up scrapping, again doing at least three whole takes to which then they wanted to multi-track some guitar to add melodic and harmonic context in the verses, alongside Joes guitar solo which took a couple tries to do as he struggled to carry the piece out with enough resonance.


We then finished the session after that which we then started to clear up and put things away which they help me with (good lads), making sure the studio was ready for the people who use it next and then put college equipment away alongside helping the guitarists get their gear into their car. Max then told me that it would be best to get hold of the Vocalist Reuben by calling him to then arrange the next session, instead of messaging him. I left this while I started to tidy up the instrumental track I had on my hands before I would get Reuben in for his contribution, as Reuben is very emotive when it comes to his singing if felt it would be beneficial if he was doing his recording to the song at a relatively good quality. The next couple of screenshot’s illustrate the work gone into it before vocals


I then started to colour code certain instruments so that it was easier to navigate between editing tracks, such as Red being drums and Blue being Max’s guitar takes

The other block of audio was the second version of the song that I was trying to work on for the drummer, Where I dropped in those verses instead of the ones that included the Hi Hat. The problem was mainly that the kick and snare sounds different between the two takes making it obvious that it is two different recordings which is not what I wanted, also fading in and out the two different overhead track to where they sound the same was near impossible, hours spent on that when we could of just done another bleeding take with the version he wanted.


Vocals


As highlighted earlier Vocal recording was pretty freelanced, since vocals for example has more varied articulation and timbre Reuben wanted to get multiples stems dancing from one channel to another so that it was easier to perform and respond to the feel of different point of the song. Such as the intro where he adds unintelligible backing sounds to emphasis the build up to the climax, and when the song gets a bit heavier he adds his screams in between his clean vocals to further emphasis punctuality of the heavy verse. A lot of takes were not used in this process as they did attain what Reuben was


trying to achieve in certain parts of the song, but in some takes that weren’t used fully, there are certain moment’s that we felt were appealing to which we then dropped them in at appropriate. Such as the occasional harmony and the chaotic vocal outro as Reuben purposely remain out of time through three different takes, to create a sense of disorientation towards the end of the song.

Reuben also filled in the Vocals that Alex would of otherwise performed had it been a live performance, which mostly consisted the screaming part’s which saved the time of getting Alex back just to do a little bit of vocals.

The Mix-down


Through this recording process I have proceeded with producing a finished stereo mix of ‘Motivation (Restart)’, through the use of various mixing tool on Logic X such as: automation (a lot of it too!)-noise gating-EQ curves -reverb/Delay - -Definition of all of these!compressor-Busing-Headroom- Level control- talk about -12dB limit

I will be explaining track by track why I have implemented techniques such as these to obtain the overall result of a more professional aesthetic to these recordings.

Drums


The red tracks shown here are the Drum tracks, alongside the other tracks everything is Colour coded to quickly identify each element of he mixes for a faster workflow and efficiency, alongside naming each track appropriately to identify what element they are (e.g. Multi tracked lead guitar or varied styled vocals).

I have taken upon myself to heavily automate the

recordings within the mix so that I could utilize majority control of levels, aimed between creating more headroom within the mix or to increase/decrease artistic focuses of individual recording throughout the song.

Kick Drum Track


To attempted to make the kick drum snappier as I applied a noise gate to reduce bleed which mostly including the snare drum, with an aggressive attack to increase punctuality. A moderate release was applied to allow the ‘boom’ of the kick to be present including all of it’s sub frequencies and overtones to add to the kicks character. The High Cut off also helped with reducing the higher pitch elements such as the snare and crashes to be less apparent when the gate opened.

I applied EQ to the kick drum to achieve a more pleasing sound out of the recording, as we had trouble positioning the AKG D1-12 in it’s desired mic position due to cramp space. With a cut of a 35 Hz this reduced the unnecessary lower frequencies that to human ears are typically not process able, alongside the bandwidth between 50 Hz to 1K to reduce the ‘Boom’ of the kick as is became too prominent to be aesthetically pleasing to the track in my opinion. I increase the bandwidth between 1K and 2K to enhance the impact the kick pedal had when it met the drum skin, making it ‘snappier’ and then enhancing its role to be rhythmic support for the song. The cut off from 6K Hz onwards assisted in reducing frequencies that were otherwise not requires to assist the tonal character of the kick which left more opportunity to open up head room in the mix

Compression was applied also to assist in making all kick drum hit’s more consistent as it reduced the level of peaking kick hit’s at roughly -10 of a ratio of 2:1, with a makeup gain of 7Db to enhance the kicks overtones and bring it to a more appropriate level for the mix

Snare Drum TopThe same concept follow with the snare drum as a noise gate is applied, to further reduce unnecessary bleed from the rest of the kit, especially as snare microphone positions tend to


be one of the most troublesome when trying to reduce bleed from the equation. The noise gate was adjusted to the appropriate threshold as typically the snare hits peaks at -20Db, with a %100 reduction to fully cancel out bleed. I would have liked to reduce the threshold to then be able to capture the lighter hit’s (or ‘ghost notes’ as they are referred to) on the snare, but I had assumed that the overheads would compensate to be able to pick these elements which I was mistaken with as ‘Ghost notes’ through out the song are hidden under the rest of the mix. I am not aware of a solution with this problem as many engineers seem to also ponder over, but in my effort to continue studio recording I will search for a solution throughout my experiences. Reflecting on keeping the drum kit’s ‘snappy’ I continued to apply a aggressive attack and hold meaning only a brief opening of the noise gate, but with a reasonable ‘release’ to capture the natural decay of the snare drum as it progresses from its it’s impact to it’s brighter ‘buzz’.

In the recordings’ EQ I reduced the majority of lower frequencies (0Hz – 150Hz) as I purposed the top snare mic to pick up the higher frequencies adding to a snares ‘snap’ and ‘ring’ as the energy from the skin ripple back and forth to the metal rim, with a slight reduction in the snare tops’ mid’s to leave headroom for the snare bottom mic, with enhancement near 2KHz by 4.5dB to boost the snares ‘ring’ with the eventual frequency decrease 3Khz onwards so that I could still capture the snares higher frequencies while reducing the severity of the Hi Hat and crash bleed. To counteract the issue of not being able to pick up lighter notes, I automated the threshold on the compressor in one point (on the top snares track) to emphasis a snare role in the outro.


This track was heavily compressed as the drum was inconsistent with some drum hit’s, meaning sometimes the tracks would peak. This resolved the issue as the knee and ratio curve was aggressively reducing the level as it reach roughly -18dB by the ratio of 11:1

Both the top and bottom snare mic were also sent through a bus channel, the intent of this was to apply a subtle compression to both tracks outputs to make the both sounds seem singular as their levels were closer to matching through this method, but mostly to add reverb to the snare sound towards counteracting how severe the noise gate cut offs are, helping them to sound more natural in it’s presence and decay as it matches with the sound capture through the overhead

tracks.

I also like to pan my drums in a way that it sounds like you’re in the drummer’s seat, so typically a right handed drummer would have the snare slightly to the right of the kit which Glenn was, further creating a sense of space realism in the mix.


Snare Drum Bottom

This track similar to the snare top has a very active noise gate but not as much in this case, considering how the physical snare absorbed most direct sounds from other elements such as the Hi Hat, the bleed on the recordings are nowhere near as saver. This left the opportunity to give the snare a more graduate presence and decay as the snare is struck, bringing all of these aspects closer to a natural and pleasing snare sound.

I did proceed to cut of the far lows and high’s in the EQ’s, but less so on the lows up to 35Hz as I felt this affected the tonality of the bottom snare sound which I wanted to retain. Apart from that the rough 5dB enhancement between 1 KHz and 2 KHz added to the snares warm rattle whilst also making it sound clearer to the ear.

The bottom snare track was quite consistent within its waveform after the attack of the snare, with the decay adding to that feature in which case I only used light compression to reduce the severity of the occasional hard hit’s Glenn played which created peaking issues.


TomsAs shown below I cut up the audio tracks for both High and Low Toms to only play the parts in which they are played, otherwise the tom microphones were picking up a much muffled version of the rest of the kit which served no beneficial purpose. Although I do realize this same result could have been obtained by using a noise gate similar to the other drum kit parts, but I felt that I wanted to be free in editing each hit/s individual attack and decay appropriate to where they are artistically in the song which I achieve also through automation. Also another beneficial factor through this method is that there is less data for the desktop to process in real time despite a noise gate silencing the unnecessary part’s, reducing the risk of lag and system/software error.

Volume automation, with varying levels and decay rates.

Panning automation, for artistic affect latter in the song due to the drum fill.


In a general sense I aimed to reduce every track by an average of -5dB in the hope that creating headroom will be a bit easier to do, as peaks in all signals will at least be smoothened down in slight margins, which helps to still retain the naturel level of a track despite the reduction. Which as you can see hear as this screenshot of the Hi toms compressor was captures when the initial attack occurred, comparing the input level to the output an average of -5dB was taken out of the track peaking at -3dB

Overall I was pleased with the original capture of the toms which led me to only apply slight alterations in their EQ’s, with a wide bandwidth boost from 30Hz to 300Hz to add more character to the decay or ‘boom’, which the habit of hitting the major high’s and low’s as they are often irrelevant frequencies that fill up the mix to no benefit most of the time, due to our human hearing having difficulty to register these frequencies identify a pitch in which these frequencies portray.


The lower tom was compressed heavier compared to the higher tom, due to the sub frequencies merging with the kick drum and bass tracks too much creating a difficult-to-process mix of sounds through these merged frequencies. Although the sound was still appealing in the mix which is why it is still recognizable as I did not want to fully cancel it out, only to reduce the severity of this problem.

To draw more appealing tones from this recording, I canceled the un-process able sub frequencies while enhancing the low end band width between 30Hz and 300Hz, similar to the High toms EQ although more consistent in it’s dB enhancement across this bandwidth to further capture the low toms decay presence.

The reduction from 500Hz to 1K was to further assist in creating headroom in the further mix, while the enhancement from 2kHz to 8KHz is to increase the impact the drumstick has when it meets the drum skin to be snappier, separating the attack from the decay to further create a more contextual instrument.


Overheads (L=R)I was overall pleased with the original capture of the overheads, and as I have not researched heavily into mixing drums and only heard technique here and there, I resorted to panning the L and R tracks appropriately to where the rest of the kit’s aspects were located spatially (as for example, it’s no good hearing two direct snare sounds coming from different directions in a song!). I did not space out the drums extremely through the hole mix space so that I could leave room for the guitars to have their own spatial location.

I then continued with the habit of applying compression to these overheads but only to reduce the tracks by an average of -5dB, while most of the time keeping the signals below -12dB which the L overhead attempt to reach anyway through leveling, but the R overhead was reaching this threshold in which compression assisted in getting to my mixing target.


Bass guitar As mentioned earlier there was originally 4 tracks to play with but the DI signal somehow did not work, I have a feeling it is because DI signals require a pre-amp but I will further research into DI’ing techniques so I can utilize them in future recordings.

Alongside the drum tracks I automated the tracks volume, to either enhance a different timbre to the bass during certain sections or to counter unappealing signal peaks or a misplayed section as the bass player often was out of time or miss played a riff.

In which case the whole bass guitar is constructed from a Room mic track, aimed to add natural room noise alongside string noise, with the SM57 positioned 45 degrees to the bass amp cone to capture the higher and mid frequencies in the bass sound, and as there was drive applied to the track also white noise. And finally a AKG D1-12 in the back of the cab where the lower frequencies were residing as it resonated within it’s amp casing, and then concentrated as it escaped through the sound hole at the back.


I attempted to work a balance between all of these tracks throughout the song, with differing levels to achieve a ‘fat’ bass sound to support the rest of the mix, creating the illusion of the mix being ‘louder’ as all instruments overtones harmonized, while also implementing the attack on the bass strings through the mid and high frequencies, so that the bass has more punctuality in the song and in tern more noticeable while still achieving mix support.

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