recording portfolio written summary

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Recording portfolio written summary Over the past few weeks I have been working hard to construct a portfolio of 6 songs to showcase my full range of production abilities. During the process I have written and recorded songs, I have recorded a song not written by me and I have also collaborated on two tracks. Follow your eyes: For my first track I wanted to record an acoustic/ambient feeling piece of music. I decided to create an unusual structure for the song instead of doing the standard verse, chorus, verse... I thought that would help give the song that ambient feel that I wanted to capture. During the recording process I experienced a lot with different instruments and combined sounds that I wouldn't usually combine such as acoustic guitar and harp and glockenspiel, I think that these instruments have worked really well together and I would defiantly combine these again in future recordings. I also collaborated with Lauren middleton to create the song she helped come up with vocals to the song and helped during the recording process. Recording process- The first instrument I recorded was the drums, I decided to use software drums as I only needed the kick drum for the song and I had a lot more flexibility with the different software tracks that I could edit to find the desired sound. After the drums I recorded acoustic guitar which has two parts I used a rode nt2a condenser mic on the omnidirectional setting which helped give it an ambient feel,I used the same set up for the second guitar part. I then recorded the bass track for the song which I used a di box and found a warm setting that I thought really complemented the song. Following the bass I added the harp and glockenspiel parts to the song these were also recorded using logics built in software tracks so I could have as much control over the sound I get as possible. Finally I recorded the vocals for the song, I again used the rode nt2a but this time used the cardioid setting so I could get more of a direct sound.

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Page 1: Recording Portfolio Written Summary

Recording portfolio written summary

Over the past few weeks I have been working hard to construct a portfolio of 6 songs to showcase my full range of production abilities. During the process I have written and recorded songs, I have recorded a song not written by me and I have also collaborated on two tracks.

Follow your eyes:

For my first track I wanted to record an acoustic/ambient feeling piece of music. I decided to create an unusual structure for the song instead of doing the standard verse, chorus, verse... I thought that would help give the song that ambient feel that I wanted to capture. During the recording process I experienced a lot with different instruments and combined sounds that I wouldn't usually combine such as acoustic guitar and harp and glockenspiel, I think that these instruments have worked really well together and I would defiantly combine these again in future recordings. I also collaborated with Lauren middleton to create the song she helped come up with vocals to the song and helped during the recording process.

Recording process-

The first instrument I recorded was the drums, I decided to use software drums as I only needed the kick drum for the song and I had a lot more flexibility with the different software tracks that I could edit to find the desired sound. After the drums I recorded acoustic guitar which has two parts I used a rode nt2a condenser mic on the omnidirectional setting which helped give it an ambient feel,I used the same set up for the second guitar part. I then recorded the bass track for the song which I used a di box and found a warm setting that I thought really complemented the song. Following the bass I added the harp and glockenspiel parts to the song these were also recorded using logics built in software tracks so I could have as much control over the sound I get as possible. Finally I recorded the vocals for the song, I again used the rode nt2a but this time used the cardioid setting so I could get more of a direct sound.

Post production process-

After the song was recorded I noticed there was a horrible frequency in the acoustic guitar part, I then brought up the channel EQ of the track and did some subtractive EQ by bring up the wave at 200 hz where I found the bad frequency I then brought the frequency down to stop it affecting my mix. During parts of the song I do some vocals, as I cannot sing very well

Page 2: Recording Portfolio Written Summary

at all I needed to edit them so they sounded to a decent enough standard. I used melodyne to edit my vocals by transferring the track onto melodyne and dragging the notes the I sang wrong to their correct pitch, I only sorted any vibrato issues with my voice using the modulation tool built in. After the vocal tuning was correct I added reverb to the vocal tracks to help give then the ambient feel.

Ocean side:

For my second track I decided to create an electronic feeling song, I am usually used to recording guitars but I decided to go for something different and more experimental to the usual sound I go for.

Recording process-

I first added a drum kit track to my arrange page and found the Paris house remix setting which I thought would work really well with the track. After I had tracked down the drums in experimented with some synth and found a setting called cloud chords I used that synth to create the basic layout of the song. I then added a sub synth bass along with a cello doing the same pattern. I experimented with some panning automation to see what affect it would have, I thought it worked really well and went with the idea of how I wanted it to originally sound. Finally I added the keyboard part to the song which gives the song a repeated catchy melody.

Post production process-

I experimented with some panning automation to see what affect it would have on the sub synth and cello, I thought it worked really well and went with the idea of how I wanted it to originally sound. After the recording was finished I noticed some problems with timing on my keyboard and cello parts so I decided to quantise the midi notes to make the song sound more in time. After everything was recorded and in time I sorted out to EQ for each channel giving each different instrument their own frequency space to work in.

Page 3: Recording Portfolio Written Summary

Misguided ghosts:

For my third track I decided to use one of my recent recordings that I didn't for the ad brief project. For the project I decided to mirror the paramore track misguided ghosts. The track is an acoustic piece which includes two acoustic guitar parts percussion and vocals.

Recording process-

The first thing I noticed when listening to the song is the panning of the guitars, the rhythm guitar is almost fully panned to the left and the lead is almost fully panned to the right. The second thing I noticed is that the song is a live recording and was not played to a click track as the track varies in speed, you can notice the track slowing down at the end of the song. One interesting thing I found out about the song after research into the songs production is that the drummer taps a magazine to give the song a beat that works well with the acoustic nature of the song. The vocals in the song are very soft and work really well with the other instrumentation. When I recorded the track I decided to play along to the song and avoid tracking the guitar in parts to capture the live feel of the song, I also decided to use a condenser mic to record the guitars. For the percussion I mirrored what I found out from my research and recorded me tapping a magazine also with a condenser mic. When it came to recording the vocals to the track I wanted to find a vocalist with a soft voice to help replicate the vocals on the original track. Once I found a suitable person for the job I record the vocalist with the horizon mic as it gives a really good clear sound which helped with replicating the original vocals.

Post production process-

Once the song was recorded I first decided to make sure the vocals were tuned 100% correctly I did this by using the melodyne plugin on the vocals channel strip, I then sorted any tuning issues by amending the pitches that were of of key and then worked with the modulation tool to help solve any vibrato issues with the vocalist. I then EQ'd each instrument finding the best place for them to sit in the mix with each instruments frequency range in mind. After I had EQ'd I decided to add compression to even out the levels on the vocal track as some parts were louder then others, I did this by bringing down the compression threshold to a reasonable point and increasing the gain to boost the overall level to make up for bringing down the threshold. I then also applied this to the acoustic guitar tracks.

Page 4: Recording Portfolio Written Summary

Give life back to music:

Once again I wanted to use a recent recording for another project on my portfolio this time I chose to use my groups give life back to music soundalike as the song showcases my ability to record a real drum kit.

Recording process-

We started out by recording the drums, the original drums didn't sound live so we decided to record them in a small environment, after we had miked up the kit we recorded one of our tutor who had learned to pay the song. We the experimented with di on the guitars and mikng up an amp with a shure sm57 to find the closest sound to the original, we decided to go with di' ing the guitar parts since we found we had got the closest sound from it. The piano parts were recorded using midi so after the recording We could find the correct sound. We then added some sampling to the track, we recorded claps, triangle and chimes using a condenser mic. To record the vocals for the song we got one of our tutors to use his electric guitar and vocoder pedal to get the closest sound to the vocoder in the song.

Post production process-

After the recording was finish we wanted to experiment with drum triggers. We did this by creating a tunnel and recording the sound and sampling it to create a trigger to back up the kick in the song, we did this as we thought it made the kick sound closer to the original. We then spent a lot of time finding the right EQ for each instrument by comparing each track to the original to see if it sounded close enough. During the process of mixing the song we realised the the vocoder part of the song at one point did the wrong melody. To fix this problem we decided to transfer the track onto melodyne and edit the wrong part, dragging the pitches to the correct notes. We then made sure each track had a perfect level using compression to take out any unwanted levels in the mix.

Heart strings:

On this track I decided to collaborate with Lauren middleton to write a song. We both wanted to create a slow, down tempo song, and experiment with the use of harmonies to create

Page 5: Recording Portfolio Written Summary

feeling in the track. We decided to keep the music simple and let the vocals stand out.

Recording process-

First of all i decided to create a drum track. i decided to use software drums so I had more control over what sound i got i decided to use the studio brush kit setting. After I had came up with the music ideas for the song we decided to track the guitar parts using a condenser mic and then tracking the bass by using the line out from a bass amp into the audio interface, this way I had more control over the input sound of the bass. We then recorded the vocals for the song , we decided to use the rode nt2a condenser mic on the cardioid setting to give the vocals a more direct sound, we then overdubbed the vocal harmonies into the song.

Post production process-

As We decided to record all the parts to the song separately we had to edit the parts, so we could arrange each section of the song so it all flowed evenly. We then experimented with panning the tracks to add affect to the song. We then had to sort out the vocal tuning with melodyne. During the process of tuning the vocal harmonies we experimented with dragging the notes around and then creating new harmonies. Finally we made sure each track was EQ'd correctly so it sat well in the mix and added compression to even out levels.

Crush crush crush remix:

For my sixth and final song I decided to use one of my remixes from the remix projectThat was recently set, for the projection had to choose a song and completely change the genre of the music. I decided to remix a song called crush crush crush as I could find the acapella to the song and play around with it. I decided to turn what was once a rock song into a weird sounding orchestral type song.

Recording process-

I first transferred the original acapella into my arrange page and found the right temp so the metronome matched to vocal track. I then started to experiment with different sounds that would contrast a lot from the original such as harp, cello and marimba. I recorded layers of harmonising parts with these instruments to give the song that weird orchestral/African sound.

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Post production process-

After I had finished tracking the different parts of the song I had to make sure everything was fully in time with the original acapella I was using, to test this I played everything together with the metronome along side the acapella and I heard that some of the instruments slightly deviate out of time so decided that I'd have to fix this by quantising them. I then EQ'd the instruments and experimented with

panning them to create interesting effects. 

Follow your eyes