PRODUCTION DIARY

Guitar HOUSE
I made this beat using logic - midi and audio. I used a midi keyboard. I used a midi keyboard inseatd of recording live instruments because House in generally an electronic genre - which as stated in the name, should probably be composed electronically. However, I did use pre recorded audio samples which I chopped up and resamplesd myself. I used a sax and a whirl effect which I chopped from two diffferent songs previously. COMPOSITION:
Firstly - I found a chord sound that i liked in the EXS24 synthesiser. I duplicated this to made 4 tracks as i wanted the sound of the chords to change to give more diversity. I then used the synthesiser EXS24 to change the sound of it. The first chord channel I had a slight delay in the attack. I made the sustain quite low so it sounded choppy. I then had a decaying sounding version. I achieved this sound by putting the decay all the way up. This gave a lot of presence and atmosphere and warthm. I also put up the release a bit to greater the atmosphere. I then had reverb chords. The had roughly the same design as the other chord sounds however the sustain was all the way down which them a lot choppier - which would make up for the amount of reverb i put on them after. This kept them clear. I had two of the reverb chords as they had a lot of atmosphere together. However - when it intially came in there was only. however, it sounded fine as the was a spreader effect which kept its atmosphere. I used audio the create my own sax line which played druing the intro and in the second drop. I croped one note of a previously recorded sax riff. i then created 3 channels for it so i could individually pitch them to create a riff. I then copy and pasted them accordingly. I used the attitude bass for my second drop. i decided to make it more funky and slightly slower in a sense by making much more swung and melodic. I duplicated this channel - so, like the chords in the first drop - had more effect. I found a guitar sound (crunchy electric guitar) which i liked as it had a delay. This gave a lot of scope in my track as it gave melodic accompanyment which echoed out. I initially made a meody line - however, i thought i could be more creative and use the delay to my own advantage. therefore, i chopped up the recorded midi into segments and has little riffs of guitar which would echo out. At points they would be very spread out and at some they would be very close in order to creat more effect and a new sounding riff. For the kick I used the Nouveaux disco kit which had a very punchy kick. I used the same kit for; the clap, a ride and another clap. I then used the indian kit for percussive elements such as a ride, rim shot, high hat/ride, low and high tabla. I then used the classic dub kit for high hats - which i automated to pan eft and right randomly. i also used it for a rim shot and two shakers. I also, recorded a fill using the same kit. To record everything in the track i used a midi keyboard and recorded straight into logic. I used a minimal amount of audio. I used a sax sample and ocean whirl as a sweep to drop into the next drop. MIX:
On the plucked chords - I eqd out the lows and brought up the high mid. I then edq out the top end to create a warm sounding chord. I copied this eq ontop all of my chords. I also used a spreader to make it sound stereo in order to give more presence (which i then copied onto all of my chord sounds). I also used a live chamber reverb on space designer which was a preset. I had the reverb and dry up relatively high which opened up the chord a lot and made it sound more alive as before it was very static and sounded very mechanical. On the decayed chords everything was the same except for the reverb. The reverb setting was the same - however i put down the reverb amount which emphasised it decaying. On the reverb chords, everything was the same except for the reverb. I put the dry and wet mix down a bit as it was designed with a high decay and didnt need much reverb. I put the dry mix down a bit in order to make it sound more decayed. On the attitude bass i used a compressor to bring out the sub in the instrument. I did this by keeping the threshold high and having a low ratio. At first - the sound was a bit twangy and had a focus on the low mid. I wanted more sub so i used eq and put a steep cut in this range in order to focus on the sub. I then thought that the bass was a bit too choppy so i used space designer to give it more affluence in the track and fit in with the atmosphere. The reverb I used was a large guitar hall. I mixed in -12.5 reverb which kept the bassline clear and enough attack to be punchy to stand out with the kick. I copied these effects onto the duplicated bass track. On the sax I used pitch shift in order to change the notes to make my own sax riff. i then had to eq them all differently as after changing their pitch they sounded of a different tone. On the guitar I used a wide range of effects. Firstly I used eq to give a slight peak in the mid range. I then compressed it slightly by having a very high threshold and low ratio. There was a guitar amp pro effect on the guitar which replicated how it was recorded ad what it came out of. I used a clean amp on one of the guitar channels and an american gain on the other. which gave more diversity in the sound. I used a tape delay effect which gave more presence in the track. I then used space designer reverb which further emphasised the tape delay. I used the default reverb. i then copied each effect onto the other guitar channel except for the guitar amp. NOUVEAUXKick: I used overdrive to make it more crunchy. I put the tone to 490hz.I eqd the bass up a slight bit - roughly 1db as i didnt want it to clash with the bass. I used a nice small plate which gave the kick a more acoustic sound rather than a logic instrument. I also compressed the kick quite a bit by putting up the ratio to 4:2. Clap: I also overdrive to make it sound more crunchy as it brought up the top end and attack which gave the clap a sort of fizzle. I then used space designer - for the same reason as anyone would - to make it sound acoustically recorded. I then used a compressor to further bring up the gain. The compressor emphasised the reverb a lot which gave a more acoustic sound. Ride: I put an overdrive on the ride which made the defualt zing a lot louder. I then used a compressor to further amplify it as it could not be heard as much over the other instruments. Sizzle clap: I simply copied the effects from the ride 2. INDIAN KIT:Rides - i didnt mix the rides as i thought they sound great. RIM Shot - i used a space designer nice room reverb. i only added a little bit of reverb as I though - even dry it sounded good. I then used a compressor to compressed it largely at it sounded very tinny. I put the ratio up to 4.8 with the threshold at -25db.High hat/ ride - I used space designer to enhance the ring of this instrument. I used the nice room reverb. I had a decay time of 1.35 seconds which gave a nice subtle ring. I then heavily compressed it with a ratio of 6.6 and the threshold at -29db.For both of the tabla sounds - they had the same effects. I used the nice room space designer. I put up the reverb mix more than the dry. I had a compressor on with a ratio of 4:1 and a threshold of -9db which meant it didnt do much compression.
Classic dub kit:I used a guitar amp which gave clarity and presence.I then used tape delay which echoed the hits slightly. As this kit is just percussive and not the main focus I wanted to make it sound as warped as possible. I then used Eq to give a slight boost to the high end to make it more atmospheric and lighter. I used the expander effect further emphasise atmosphere. This effect was almost like reverb. I used these effects for all of the instruments of the classic dub kit. However for the shaker i used space designer to add a bit of reverb. I simply used the defualt reverb just to add a bit of resonance. On the eerie harps i eqd out the low and high - just to get a mid frequency sound that would blend into the back ground with the bass. i used the same effects for both eerie harp channels so they would sound the same. I used a lot of volume automation on each track in order to make my own fades. As this is an instrumental track - it was best suited that i did so, as I could make build ups more creative. I also used automation - in order to mix the different parts at certain times if there was a clash. The best use of automation i did, was to pan the high hats so that they move left and right how I wanted to. I could have used a sample or tape delay effect however - this was more hands on, which therefore made it more personal. I then used the volume automation to make these transitions smoother. So when It panned from one side to another - at times it would be prominent and at times it would be subtle. I also used automation to control the delay of the electric guitar. At one point - before a drop, the delay went on for too long and I wanted there to be a silent moment for emphasis. So by using the automation of the delay - I turned the wet feed down in order to stop the delay. I used reverb automation on the eerie harps in order to make them more eerie. I also used it to merge the two subtly by putting up the reverb output just before the other eerie harp channel came in. In the mix of the sax - I realised that they all sounded a bit too different - so I made a bus called sax reverb - which had two different reverbs on them. I did this as their tones were really different so I wanted to make them sound slightly warped. I then sent them all to this bus (bus 1)I also did the same for the chords. I sent them to bus 2. ROAMING PRODUCTION DIARY:

I used two c414s to record the guitar. I had one directioned at the neck of the guitar and the other at the body. I then panned these separate recordings left and right to give a natural stereo effect. I used the flex tool to get a specific section in the guitar in time. I did this effectively by putting a transient marker at the start and end of each bar i needed to flex - and then at the beginning of each note so I wouldn't drag a whole section out of time. I used a c414 because it is a condenser mic which I believed would be best suited to record guitar with. As the mic is more sensitive it would pick up the tone of the guitar more and give more body to the recording. I believed the recordings sounded very warm and detailed - which is what I aimed for. This C414 also had multi polar patterns which meant that you could alter how the mic would recording; being cardiod, hypder cardiod, omni etc. One day - i had an engineer which made it easier for me to record more effectively without having to move from the booth into the monitoring room to press record. They put a section into comp mode and i free styled over it which lead to multiple guitar riffs and takes for me to use throughout the track.I then used these recordings to add accompaniment throughout the track. RECORDING:2 C414S - dual recording. neck and body of guitar.I had an engineer to help me record. We used the comp mode for the freestyle. For the full song (strumming) we did it in one take. Composition:Using the pre recorded strumming guitar - I recorded freestyle riffs over it to use later. When composing these - I used the flex tool to get them more in time. I used the flex tool efficiently by putting a transient at the beginning and end of each bar - and also at the beginning of each not withing, as some parts were in time and i didnt want to make more work for myself. As we used the comp mode it was easy to make my own riffs out of the pre recorded ones by selecting certain parts using a tool which allows you to do so. I then used the scissors tool to cut up some of the exported comps in order to fit in with the song. I used two exported comps - which I cut up to make a repetitive melody for the chorus which would make the chorus recogniseable. I used the audio editor so I could clearly see where I was cutting into the file - therefore, the takes would sound right and not choppy. In the main guitar there was a weird sound in the guitar so I used automation and turned the section down. I tried to cut it out but it made the track jump - so to get a smooth sound, automation was the best option. At the beginning, I realised there was the sound of me moving on my seat - so I used automation of the volume again to make the sound dissappear. I didnt put the volume all the way down in either of the automations as it would sound as if I had cut the recording up.To mix the main guitar - I put both channels on solo , selectively to see what i was working with. the recording from the body was much louder and more resonant and clearer. On the other hand, the recording of the neck of the guitar was much bassier. I decided to eq the body to have more higher frequencies and the neck guitar recording to have the low. BODY GUITAR MIX:I used eq to bring up the 10-20k mark. I then put a slight peak in the 400hz region as that, in my opinion, is where most of the warmth was. I then put a low cut in order to make room for the bass of the other guitar recording. I then decided to use space designer reverb to give the guitar a bit more distance. I chose a short snare hall reverb which just gave the guitar a bit more of a subtle nature whilst remaining clear. As the recording had a good gain to begin with I didnt need a compressor. HEAD GUITAR MIX - I used EQ to lightly boos the 20 - 1k region. i then cut off the 1 - 20k region a bit. This made the sound of the recording very warm and bassier. It also made the recording a bit clearer. I then copied over the space designer reverb so that they sound in he same element. All of the riffs used were dry and were just mixed in using the mixer faders.

Mixing:

90 :
I recorded bass guitar using a di box straight into the channel box. I did this, as using a mic to record from the amp made the bass sound slightly distorted and the slide was picked up a lot.
I then brought in a friend to record piano. Using two c414 condensor mics, I thought this would be best suited in order to pick up natural reverb and ambience. I positioned one mic overhead with the top of the piano open so there were no obstacles muffling the sound. I then used the other c414 to record underneath the piano. Initially, this was entirely experimental - and as a surprise I found that recording underneath the piano was the best spot as it had a lot of warmth and reverb - yet it sounded so upfront.
To record vocals, firstly I used the ribbon microphone. These takes were really nice and clear however over time - after re-taking I switched to the c414 which is one of my favourite mics. I didn't do this for a specific reason - I was just in a rush and that was the microphone set up. I used the baffles to make a reverb and contain the sound. I also used pop filter which helps muffle my sibilance of p's and s'. As usual, there was the se reflector which - like the baffles helps with reverb and contains the sound.

When recording - I mostly used comp mode however for one session I brought in an engineer for a bit in order to set up the gain structure.

Mix:
I used a default space designer reverb on my vocals in order to space out their presence as the track doesnt have a drum beat. In the chorus' i used the standard a verb reverb in order to add a little bit more space in the voices so they sound smoother when harmonising. I used the mixer to slightly pan them away from eachother and picked the clearest - most neutral sounding one to be the main focus.
For the piano - as I liked the crisp dry recording - I created a bus for the reverb. This reverb was highly delayed which in my opinion created an abstract sound which complimented the almost acapella beat. I wanted something which really stood out and this was my pride and joy.
The bass was, practically, completely dry as I liked the tone of it. I added a slight bit of reverb using a verb in order to emphasise the tone of it a bit and make it more substantial.