Greg Lester

I am currently watching the recently released Hans Zimmer online masterclass which can be purchased for 90$, it contains 31 video tutorials in which Hans talks about various subjects such as how to tactically choose a key for your composition, creating sound palettes and templates, scoring to picture and many more. Hans Zimmer is one of the most influential film composers in today's film industry he is one of my biggest idols. His credits include iconic films like: The Lion King, Gladiator,  The Thin Red Line, Crimson Tide, The Dark Knight, Inception, Interstellar, etc. He has won one Academy Award, four Grammy Awards and a number of other Awards. I have started watching the masterclass and I am enjoying it a lot, his insights about the industry and small tips about communicating with directors or other industry professionals really help and I feel like I can always take something away from each video episode. The production team really did an excellent job on making the experi...

I will pick "Exercise 1: Using the sweepable EQ Method and Inserting multi-effects via a bus send" because I enjoy mixing and have explained how to use EQ and multi-effects to some of my friends and thus I am quite confident in it. The second one I will pick is "Exercise 4" because I would like to explain how I would go about starting to re-scoring the soundtrack of a video game. In the process, I would elaborate on how to create a certain vibe for the game using different techniques and explain the psychology behind why humans feel creeped out by some soundtracks. I think this would be a very fun and challenging.

The assessment as a whole went very well, the band's performance exceeded all my expectations and they were very confident and having a lot of fun on stage which carried over to the crowd who enthusiastically clapped and cheered when they finished. After mixing and syncing the track to the video I feel like the end product is of a high-quality standard and could be used as a demo for the band which they would be able to send to labels, music blog's and magazines or even to agents and managers. This is due to the fact that even though the recording is not the highest quality the visuals really add a lot of energy to the whole thing. I encountered some problems along the way which ranged from people not turning up to rehearsals to the dynamic range of the vocal being very high and thus having difficulties in the mixing stage. Using my Gantt chart I tried to get a good overview of when I wanted to finish and hand in all my tasks because I prefer to get things done early so I...

The bass is very clear and crisp in Steve's mix and the instruments are panned which helps give each one more space and makes the listening experience more interesting. There is a lot of headroom and you can hear every instrument. The vocal sounds very dry and in my opinion could have been processed with a bit more reverb and possibly duplicated and panned out for the chorus to give it a bit more power. Some of the guitars are panned too much for liking particularly during the solo where the guitar is at the centre of the listeners attention it feels like it's too distant and hard to focus on. The pan could have been automated to get it in the middle of the mix during the solo imitating a spotlight which only shines on the guitar player during the solo and then switches to the singer again after the solo is finished.

"The Vamps - All Night (Group 24 Cover)" On the day of the assessment Jake will handle the live tracking of the performance, the gain staging and the channel effects and I will be taking care of the mic placement, the communication with the band and the video recording of the band. Jake and I went to meet the Zoe and George in Spoons get to know them and discuss their song choice, how they wanted to rewrite it and the execution of the live performance. I went to one of their rehearsals on Monday 27th of September and recorded a short snippet of they had so far. The rehearsal went well and I really enjoyed listening to them playing. I scheduled a final rehearsal in Room 1 using PRSF Studio for live tracking to practise in the same scenario and environment as we will be assessed in. Zoe, George and Jake have been very reliable, communicative and quick to respond to important questions. Natasha on the other hand unfortunately didn’t show up to the rehearsal nor di...

"Rag'n'Bone Man - Human (Group 15 Cover)" The plan for the recording session is that Lewis will take care of the mic placement, the communication with the band and the video-recording of the session. I will be responsible for the live tracking and recording of the session, this will include gain staging, eq'ing etc. I attended two rehearsals of my live lounge recording band consisting of Jack and Max playing guitar, Kieran playing drums, Joey singing and Ryan playing bass. In the first one, I got to know all the band members and they talked about their song choice and what style they wanted to do. Eventually, they figured out that they wanted to do a metal cover of the song Human by Rag’n’Bone Man an d in their band skills class, they rewrote the track to their liking. On Monday I joined one of their rehearsals and recorded the song to take note of the differences to the original. After this, I asked them where they wanted to be on the stage so that I coul...