multitrack Blog

This week was me mixing our final version of the song in our own way and still including the very basics of mixing.

Some of the things I focused on will mixing:

• Panning
• Levels
• Compression
•  EQ
• Reverb

The first thing I did to the final recording was to adjust the levels of certain instruments, for example for me the most important part of a song to me is vocals and this case the vocals were extremely quiet and had to brought up to the same level as everything else. After I arranged the levels I then worked on fixing the drum sounds to make each drum actually sound like a drum. I thought that the over-all track sounded a little to dry and need to be filled with reverb, I do feel that I may have over done the reverb and if I was to do this project again I would take that in to consideration. After adding reverb to everything I then worked on panning all the tracks that needed it, overheads, top and bottom of certain drums, DI Vs. the real instruments, keyboard, claps etc.. When working on the claps in this song I wanted to make them sound like they were part of the song which I found extremely difficult as I haven’t mixed something with claps in before. I had to adjust the EQ several times and add some of its own reverb.

One of the thing that I found difficult was balancing the level out of the whole song, which meant going back and bringing levels up and down all over the place. Personally I feel I created an equal balance of instruments and made the right decision bringing the vocals forward.

Basics of this week!

The aim of this weeks session was to complete the prosses of tracking the different parts that are going to make up the rest of our project. We then worked together as a group to put the studio together, so the mics we needed, the rooms, the communcations, controlroom mix, basic mix buid and foldback.

Signal processing!

We hadn’t used this yet until today, its another part of ‘tracking’. You use the audient EQ ‘prior to the recording’ and the outboard hardware compresstion.

Recording process and extra instruments!

We wanted to add keys, djembe, claps and a trombone. Sam played the trombone for us this week, we used 2 AKG C414 mics and spaced them away from each other and away from the trombone, so we had a stero trombone. Charlie, Joe, Filip and Anson recorded the claps in the liveroom, again we used two AKG c414 and placed one to the left of them and one to right of them but we did not have the microphones to close the claps as we didnt want a horrible clicking sound but a more realistic clap. When Charlie recored his djembe we used two dynamic mics, one places facing the skin to capture the slap and the other places at the bottom to pick up the bass sound.

 

Join me next week were I talk about my mixing process.

This week we recorded the vocals and learnt some basic techniques of how to record decent vocals.

The basics of this week!

• We recorded the vocals into our track.
• We learnt the basics of proximity and axis when postioning the microphone.
• Experimented with basic compresstion on the vocals.
• Like last week we checked to make sure everyone understood what was happing on the desk and in Pro-Tools while recording the vocals (including the vocalist-in this case me).

Basic set up!

Before recording into the session we had to do our set up. We set up a control room mix, then set up the talk back for the deadroom. This week we used the AKG C141 (which we also had to set up in the deadroom) because its the most popular condenser mic used for vocal recordings due to its recording quilty and polar pattern choices. Finally we had to be sure that the gain was set right and route it into a channel (more specificaly channel 13) and into Pro-Tools.

Vocal Recording placement!

As I mentioned above we looked at the importance of proximity and axis. First of all I will be explaing the basics of why we use Axis positioning. If you were to place the sing on axis (so directly facing the microphone) it can create problems like poping sounds and may increase the emount of low frequancy within the recording. Where as if you put the singer off axis (slightly to the side) then it reduces popping and low frequancys. Moving onto the Proximity effect, this technique is more about the distance from the microphone the vocalist should stand. If the vocalist were to stand to close to the microphone it increases the emount of bass that the condenser picks up while recording but if you were to bring the vocalist bak away from the microphone it decreases the proximity affect and reduces the emount of bass being picked up. Both of these tecniques could be used as alternatives to using a pop-sheild. Using this information the group was to test these techniques by standing the singer (me) in the different postions.

Using vocal compresstion!

After I had recorded the vocals I joined the rest of the group in the studio were we had a look at the importants of compresstion. By using the compresstion we are able to reduce the dynamic range, so the difference of the weakestr and strongest parts of the vocal. Its also useful to apply when recording vocals that have a large dynamic range, but either way its recomened to but atleast a little bit of compresstion on the vocals. Its adviceable that you should not over do the compresstion otherwise it will be difficult to add more when working on the final mix.

Next week I shall be talking about all the extra features that we added to our track.

This week we recorded the guitar for our cover of stevie wonder. Joe was playing the lead for us this week and did a brilliant job.

The basics of this week!

• We recored the guitar into our track.
• went threw some very basic guitar recording techniques for both accustic and electric guitar.
• We wanted to make sure everyone had a fair go on the audient consol and recording in ProTools.
• Experimented with the EQ on the audients recording strip.

Communtion and control room set up!

Again its very improtant that we re-lable all the correct imputs on the desk with the tracks on ProTools and make a decent mix of the track. Then the next step was to sort out the talk back from the live room (which Joe was recording his guitar in this week) and then create a foldback (A) and also send thatr into the live room.

Mini recap!

Last week I talked a little bit about the DI into the desk aswel as recording from the guitar amp itself. Well this week we are usin the same princples as last week but with a guitar, so the guitar goes into the imput of the DI box and comes out of the XLR and into the desk mixer and then it goes out the DI box out of the guitar amp.

After we finished connecting the Di into the mixer etc we then had to mic the up the guitar amp. For this we used the SM57 and set the levels in the desk and into ProTools for recording.

The basics of recording electric guitar through an amp!

The best way to get a really realistic guitar soubd while recording through an amp is to think about about mic placement. Today we learnt the best methord for that. As we were using and SM57 and the best way to postion this is placing it between the centre of the speaker cone (some amps are different and have their speaker cones placed in slighty different places) about an inch or twoaway from the amps ‘grill’. This is a very basic but simple way of achiving a decent guitar sound. But make sure your mic parrallel to the cone!!

The basics of recording accustic guitar using a condenser!

We may not have actually used this methord as we only recoreded the electric guitar. But we had a little look at the technique and thought it would also be a nice idea to include this in the blog. So to get a decent sound the best thing to do is to point the condensier mic at about the 12th fret and get it fairly close to the guitar as possible.

Well thats everything we did this week! Next week I’ll be talking about the recording of vocals!

What we did this week!

This week we recorded the bass for our Stevie Wonder song. In a way it was also a bit of a recap of some of the tasks we had to do last week. We had to set up the desk checking the levels and labeling the desk correctly. Our next job was to set up everything in the live room, the bass amp, the microphone and the DI connection and get there imputs running through the desk into Pro-Tools. We also set up a talkback mic so Anson (who was playing the bass for us this week) could also communticate with us in the studio. Finally we gave Anson a set of headphones so he could hear the playback and the talkback. Once our levels were correct we began to record Anson. On of the problems we knew we were going to face was the fact that Anson propably wouldn’t be able to record in just one take, or might be doing a good job but then make a mistake near the end. Thats were the punch tool on Pro-Tools come in. Punch works by being able to record over the mistake you’ve made so you don’t have to record the entire bass part again, its also an alternative to using the playlist on Pro-Tools.

Learning about DI and why we record it aswell as the bass amp!

Setting up the DI was simple. Using the DI box ables you to but the bass as an imput through the box and XLR out into the dext and it also sends a signal to the bass amp.

Using the DI helps great a cleaner and simple version of the bass guitar. Mixng both the DI and the guitar amp together gives the bass a real but accurate sound of a bass. It can also be quite useful if your wanting to re-amp or use a plug in.

Overall What We Learnt!

• How do mic up a bass guitar
• Using the puch function in Pro-Tools
• Learning how the DI box works and why
• Applying some of the tone shapes on the audio by using the boards EQ.

Thats it for this week! come back next week for recording Guitar!