Second recording session!

As a group of four people the first thing we decided to do was choose who's job was who. Of course Alie was performing today but me, Adam and James decided who would be the engineer, producer and runner. We decided that Adam would be the producer for the day, James would be the runner for the day and I would be the engineer for the day. 

So first thing we did was got James to get us all the equipment and set up the equipment in the room, Alie helped out as well as being the performer! Alie decided she would rather be put out of the way so she couldn't be seen by anyone else but me and Adam. So taking the artists needs into consideration we placed her out of the way with her back to us whilst she was performing. As Adam (guitarist) didn't mind where he was put we placed him more in the centre of the room. The set up didn't take us very long, took us a maximum of 20 minutes to make sure everything was in place. 

Afterwards me, Adam and James went back into the studio and got the studio all set up and running. This mainly consisted of me and Adam doing the studio side of things as seen as he was producer and I was the engineer. After we got the studio up and running we proceeded with the sound check straight away, after getting the levels right and making them comfortable we thought we'd give them 10 minutes to run through the song before recording so they could warm up and get ready for the recording. Alie and Adam (guitarist) decided that they wanted to do a live recording instead of doing it separately so no headphones at this point were needed. Once we started recording we stumbled across a problem which we couldn't work out for ages! The instruments were coming through louder when we was recording than when we played it back. It turns out the monitors weren't turned up enough, silly I know but we managed to solve the problem. Whilst the recording process was going well James decided to give up half way through for some unknown reason so yet again we was left with just a two member team as Alie was being recorded. However, me and Adam got on with it as usual and didn't do a bad job at all, he helped me by giving me advice on what we should do. For example, after recording one song we played it back and Adam asked Alie and Adam what they thought of the recording themselves, he suggested if they would like to re-record and what he thought of the recording. He also helped me out with some of the engineering side of things. We re-recorded both of the songs again as Alie wasn't satisfied with her vocals. 

Overall, I thought the microphones we used were a very good choice as they gave us a very nice clean, clear sounding vocal and a nice crisp clean sounding acoustic guitar. D.I'ing the acoustic guitar as well as micing it up gave us a more fuller sound than just using the microphone. This suited the sound we wanted for our acoustic album and were very satisfied with the final result of this recording session. If I could've done anything differently I would've paid more attention to what was going on with the monitors, however making this mistake will show me in future how to solve it if it was to ever occur again. 

Once again, pictures will be added ASAP having trouble uploading things lately! 

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy! 

Second recording session planning!

So, our second recording session is of Alie singing and Adam from one of the other groups is playing the acoustic guitar.

For our planning, me and two other members from our group decided that we'd be using two C414 condenser microphones to mic up the vocals and the guitar. The other two members of our group were not too interested at putting any input into this so the rest of us got on with it and went ahead and decided.

The C414 condenser microphones are extremely powerful microphones as they provide 9 different polar patterns that you can use. For our recordings we decided that on both of the instruments we'd be using the cardioid pattern as we want to make sure we get the best sound from the instrument and vocals without lots of room ambiance. The C414 condenser microphone has a frequency response of 20Hz - 20KHz, this shows a strong frequency response picking up all frequencies which will be a real advantage for us so we know we will deffinatly be able to pick up a really nice sound from both the singer and the guitarist.
We also decided we was going to be using a D.I box as well as micing the guitar up. This is to boost the sound of the guitar to make it sound fuller than if it was just being miced up.

Floor plan for our second recording session.

We then decided that we'd be recording two songs for the session as we achieved two in the last session. We made up an equipment list and drew up a floor plan of where everything was going to go in the room, this would make it easier for us on the day so we know where everything's going to be set up and what channels the microphones were going to be plugged into.

Because we done a lot of the major planning at the very beginning of this project it's easier when it comes to planning for each recording session as we know who's going to be playing which song and what equipment we want to use. The three of us in the group that work together, work together well and can agree well on things which also makes it easier. We also planned out our whole track list as well which makes this a whole lot easier.


Thanks for reading,

Chazzy.

First recording session!

I'm excited to write this blog to tell you all how well our recording session went today! Well, as you may know from previous blogs that I was performing two songs (Coldplay - Charlie Brown and U2 - With Or Without You) for this recording session. I decided to change one of the songs from Owl City's 'Vanilla Twilight' to U2's 'With Or Without You', this is quite simply because I preferred this song and for me, I found it easier to play therefore, I felt this was more suitable.

Firstly, as a group we went and got all the equipment to set up with and used our floor plan to set up the microphones into the position me and Alie decided on. We made sure that everything was neat and tidy and out of the way and then went into the studio to get everything set up. After the studio was set-up I went into the Live room and had a little practice before doing the actual performance to make sure I was all warmed up and ready to go. Setting up the studio and mics in the live room and the warm up took about 45 minutes to do.

When recording the two songs I was quite nervous but took my time and kept a nice tempo with both the songs. I was impressed that I didn't mess up as much as I thought I would. I messed up a note or two half way through Charlie Brown but that's the extent of the faults.

Once they'd finished, I went back into the studio with my other group members to listen back to the recording and mix it down and add effects. However, whilst listening back through the tracks one of our team members decided he'd 'finished' doing his work and didn't bother helping out any more. Me and my remaining group members stuck together and mixed down and added effects to the recordings as we had plenty of time left to do so. As we had two microphones for the piano it gave us two tracks so I EQ'd one track on the second song With or Without You with Alie and Adams help and get their opinions on how the recording sounded, if it needed anything taken away. Alie then EQ'd one track and added compression on both of the tracks. 

After this I EQ'd both the tracks on Charlie Brown whilst Adam went on to add compression to both of the tracks and also giving me and Alie tips on what we should take away and add when EQ'ing the tracks. 

I found this fun experimenting with the different effects on Pro-tools however, we decided to keep the tracks clean instead of adding a loads of effects as it had some nice natural re-verb and everything sounded nice and clear. 

Screen shot of us mixing down. 

Myself mixing down some tracks. 

Anyway a quick review on the positioning of the microphones and how well they performed for us!

Just to say we were very impressed with the outcome, it was clear with a very small bit of ambiance but was easily got rid of with the EQ. The positioning was near-on perfect however the Behringer B5 microphone did respond maybe a little 'too well' to the high end of the piano and we had to take away a huge amount of high-mid and high frequencies. Other than that the C1000's gave us a nice clean, clear image of the sound paired with the B5. 

Thanks for reading!

Chazzy!

Mic specs and frequency charts...

As a group we decided on two microphones to mic up the piano. The two microphones we chose were one Behringer B5 condenser microphone and one AKG C1000S condenser microphone.

 We decided to use two condenser microphones for the piano because they are far more sensitive compared to a dynamic microphone and therefore will pick up a vast amount of detail. This will benefit us because a piano is quite a delicate sounding instrument and a condenser microphone will pick up all the small details that will ensure we get the full picture of the sound to work with when mixing and mastering. 

We chose the Behringer B5 microphone for the higher end of the piano and the AKG C1000s microphone for the lower end of the piano. We decided this because the Behringer B5 microphone is more responsive in the higher end of its frequency response. However, the AKG C1000s microphone is reasonably responsive in all areas throughout the frequency range. From previous experience we know that the AKG C1000s microphone is good at picking up delicate sounds as we used it to record an acoustic guitar.

The standard 88 keyed piano has a frequency range from 27.5Hz (A0) - 4.2Hz (C8). 

The Behringer B5 microphone has exchangeable cardiod and omnidirectional polar patterns. A polar pattern is a graph showing whereabouts a microphone picks up from. A cardiod polar pattern means that the microphone will pick up from the front of the microphone only. The frequency response for the Behringer B5 is from 50Hz - 20,000Hz. 

The above diagram is showing the frequency response for the cardiod pattern for the Behringer B5 microphone and the frequency response chart.

The omnidirectional polar pattern means it'll pick up from opposing sides of the microphone however, this will be no good because were focusing on one area of the piano with this microphone. 

The AKG C1000s microphone ranges from the same as the Behringer B5 mic (50Hz – 20,000Hz) and is a reasonable frequency response throughout the frequency range. However, as stated above the piano's frequency range seems to be a lot lower than what the microphones are able to pick up, but this will not effect us as only the mid-range and high-mid ranges of the piano will be used. 

The above graph shows us the cardiod frequency response chart for the AKG C1000s microphone and the frequency response for the AKG C1000s microphone a meter from the sound source, this is showing us that the frequency response is reasonable the whole way through the frequency chart. 

I'm missing one picture so far of the cardioid polar pattern for the AKG C1000s but that will be added very soon.

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy!

Planning, practicing and more..

So I haven't posted on this blog in a while so I thought I'd upload one about everything that's been happening recently...

So far we've been playing around with different song ideas for the album, making up recording session sheets and equipment lists. We decided that everyone would choose a few songs each that they'd like to perform whilst the rest of the group do the recording, and when someone else performs the other people in the group record and so on...

I came up with two songs that I'd like to perform which were Coldplay's Charlie Brown and Owl City's Vanilla Twilight. I chose these songs because I felt they were powerful and were songs that I could play well.

Alie asked me to play the piano while she sings. She's chosen four songs; Kate Voegele - Kindly Unspoken, Simple Plan - Save You, Avril Lavigne - Fall to Pieces and Mcfly - She Falls Asleep (Part 2).

So far I've been tidying up a few parts on my songs and been practicing the Kate Voegele song as it's a lot harder than the other songs so getting a head start would be the best idea. I've really enjoyed learning this song because its so much different from anything else I've ever played before, although it's been a challenging trying to learn the bass notes and trying to find a way to place the music on the piano without having to turn any pages. In the end I came up with some random idea and its worked so far. 

Anyway, with regards to the planning we've been writing out a recording session sheet for our first recording which will be Coldplay - Charlie Brown and Owl City - Vanilla Twilight. We wrote out an equipment list which didn't consist of much however we've chosen what we think would be the best microphones and placement to get the best possible sound. Next I drew out a floor plan of where everything is going to go and drawing up all the connections so it makes it easier for everyone on the day instead of running around deciding where everything goes on the day. The floor plan benefits us because it'll save us loads of time leaving us more time to record and get it right. 

Floor plan of the live room at college for our first recording session of just the piano. 

I'm really looking forward to performing the first songs for our album and I can't wait to start recording everyone else! 

This is what my arrangement of all the sheets for the Kate Voegele song looks like on my piano! I finally managed to figure out a suitable way to make it so I can read everything in one go! 

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy!

Introduction...

First off I study music technology at college and we're currently doing our final major project (FMP) where we have to keep an up-to-date portfolio of all the stages that we go through until we get the finished product.

The finished product has to consist of an album with various songs that all together have to add up to thirty minutes worth of recordings. 

So far we've been split up into small groups of up to four of five people and each had to come up with a record company name and logo for our group, we collectively decided on the name 'Gamma Mouse Records'. We've also been planning and discussing possible song choices and who we're going to record for our album. However, one of our group members, James was missing today so we had to work around it by listing song choices made by everyone else and at a later date this shall be further discussed with him. So far this has been fun and I can't wait to get stuck in recording and finish this project! Hopefully the outcome will be a great one! 

On a slightly different note, in college we now have a BRAND NEW STUDIO! Today in our practical session in the studio we went through how to use the new equipment such as the order the studio has to be set up in, different ways of using the desk and how to record a whole drum kit with one microphone! More details on that will be added in the next blog. 

Thanks for reading,

Chazzy!