Recording process:
On Wednesday the 23rd of November 2016 at 10o' clock my group (Project Group 9 with Will, Lewis, Louise and me) had an assessment where we had to go to the audient studio, use the adjoining live room to set up microphones for a guitarist and a vocalist and recording through the Audient Asp 8024 mixing desk.
On Wednesday the 23rd of November 2016 at 10o' clock my group (Project Group 9 with Will, Lewis, Louise and me) had an assessment where we had to go to the audient studio, use the adjoining live room to set up microphones for a guitarist and a vocalist and recording through the Audient Asp 8024 mixing desk.
We arrived 15 minutes before our scheduled recording time and did a quick run-through of which mics we were going to use, how and where in the room we were going to place them and who would be responsible for which task.
The mics we chose were large diaphragm condenser microphones because we wanted a bright and clear sound both for the guitar and for the vocal.
We used the TLM 103 from Neumann for the vocalist, our reasoning behind this being that the TLM 103 has a treble boost and a very bright and nice sound so it is ideal to record female vocals and we also wanted a contrast to the guitar, so not to use the same mic as on the guitar.
For the guitar mic's we used two AKG C414's one placed at about the 12th fret facing the strumming hand and the other one set up at approximately the bridge of the guitar also facing towards the strumming hand. Initially, we wanted to do a mono recording and be able to choose which recording we liked better but I ended up making a stereo recording out of it by panning the signals to the left and right in the mixdown.
My role was as a producer but I feel like we all worked as a team and thus our roles merged.
We supported and helped eachother to ensure the best results.
My role was as a producer but I feel like we all worked as a team and thus our roles merged.
We supported and helped eachother to ensure the best results.
Lewis was responsible for making the artists feel confident, warm them up and point out changes that we wanted them to make in the nicest and best way possible. Louise was responsible for helping with the desk and communicating with the artist through the talkback option. Will was responsible for ensuring that we got the best sound out of the mics and he creatively mastered the task by building a DIY reflection filter using acoustic panels and mic and drum stands he found in the room.
We collectively set up the mics as a team to be as fast as possible. I then proceeded to set up and route the desk in logic with the help of Professor Strech.
Next, we calibrated the headphone mix levels until the performers liked it, we tried to make sure that we didn't get headphone bleed particularly through the vocal mic.
After this process, we told the artists to warm up and make themselves comfortable and give us the heads up to do a "practice run-through" which we recorded (this tipp is from Steve's golden rules in the studio, thank you, Steve!).
The recording process was seamless, the performers made no errors and we got three perfect takes.
We were all very happy with the results and called it a day.
I believe that my other tasks helped me with this recording task particularly Task 1(a): Role Selection.
During the Role Selection Task, I critically analyzed the role of a producer and this was very useful
to me during the recording process because I knew that I had to communicate a lot with the artist and was allowed to give them constructive criticism in order to get the best performance out of them.
Also Task 2(a): Sonic Faults Identification was beneficial because it helped me focus on the quality of the audio recording and correct any faults I heard in the recording immediately to ensure the best results.
I believe that my other tasks helped me with this recording task particularly Task 1(a): Role Selection.
During the Role Selection Task, I critically analyzed the role of a producer and this was very useful
to me during the recording process because I knew that I had to communicate a lot with the artist and was allowed to give them constructive criticism in order to get the best performance out of them.
Also Task 2(a): Sonic Faults Identification was beneficial because it helped me focus on the quality of the audio recording and correct any faults I heard in the recording immediately to ensure the best results.
What I gained from this experience:
- I feel more confident using the audient studio and mixing desks in general.
- I'm more comfortable working with performers who I don't know and haven't met before the recording session.
- I enjoy working in a team and I have no problem with receiving critique or giving it out
- I am more open to new experimental methods (example: Will's DIY reflection filter)
Critique:
- We forgot to ask the guitarist to tune his guitar again before we recorded fortunately, his guitar was already tuned and sounded good but it is still a good measure to take and I will try to remember in future.
- I didn't do a good job on adjusting the headphone levels for the talkback which resulted in the vocalist quickly taking off the headphones and grabbing her ears after the performance when we pushed the talkback button to applaud her outstanding performance.
- If we had more time we could have done a better job with the soundcheck to really minimize the microphone bleed.
To summarize:
It was a really fun task and I enjoyed work as a team with the other guys, the performers were like I already mentioned outstanding and performed with a lot of emotion and the recording process was smooth.
Mixdown:
The mixdown process was very fun particularly because we only had three tracks which allowed me really spend a lot of time trying to perfect the volume automation, the eqing etc. rather than just doing a rough mix.
My goal was to work systematically and organized in order to get the most out of my time.
First I chose the best of the three takes we had recorded previously, then adjust the levels and panning. This included volume automation where it was needed, in retrospect, I shouldn't have just automated the fader because after that I didn't have any control over the fader anymore and had to adjust the volume with a gain knob. In future, I will try to set up a bus to control the volume but still have control over the direct faders of the tracks.
Originally I wanted to have the guitar in mono but since we had two mics I decided to pan the two guitar recordings left and right to make it stereo.
Next eq the vocal and the guitar so that they would sit in their frequency range and blend with each other. After this, I set up a reverb bus with a plate reverb and ran the vocal and the guitar through to give it an artificial nice space.
Mixdown:
The mixdown process was very fun particularly because we only had three tracks which allowed me really spend a lot of time trying to perfect the volume automation, the eqing etc. rather than just doing a rough mix.
My goal was to work systematically and organized in order to get the most out of my time.
First I chose the best of the three takes we had recorded previously, then adjust the levels and panning. This included volume automation where it was needed, in retrospect, I shouldn't have just automated the fader because after that I didn't have any control over the fader anymore and had to adjust the volume with a gain knob. In future, I will try to set up a bus to control the volume but still have control over the direct faders of the tracks.
Originally I wanted to have the guitar in mono but since we had two mics I decided to pan the two guitar recordings left and right to make it stereo.
Next eq the vocal and the guitar so that they would sit in their frequency range and blend with each other. After this, I set up a reverb bus with a plate reverb and ran the vocal and the guitar through to give it an artificial nice space.
Comments
Post a Comment