Music Tech [2][1]

Second project for my uni Music Technology Studio work was to record a song. It's advisable to cover a song rather than make one, for this task, as you won't get marked on creativity like in the other modules.

On the 14th of February this year (yeah yeah, I know. Had nothing to do that day anyway) I got my group to listen to a few songs to decide on what we were gonna cover. So, I asked for suggestions, and randomised them into a bracket. We voted them round by round, found it too hard to decide, and then eventually decided on a completely separate song that wasn't in the bracket (Pearl Jam - Even Flow).

With the song decided, we tested out some recording techniques on the 11th of March. Such as having my semi-hollow fretless Bass Guitar be recorded with DI and an SM-57 pointed towards the soundhole.

We were able to get a well mixed metal sound out of this with processing. Namely, EQ'ing the highs out the DI and compressing it, then EQ-ing the lows out of the mic track and adding distortion to it. This recording wasn't good enough as a performance to use, though.

I went home for the break and got a recording done there. It was good, but, for reasons explained later, harder to use.

Soon enough, we did get a recording session that was worth using; it was the drums on the 28th of March, played by group member Ty.

We used a similar process to last time, with the same mics. The Sontronics drum miking set comprising of a DM-1B for the Kick Drum, 4x DM-1S'es for toms and top snare, 2x STC-10's for the overhead tracks, and an SM-57 for Under-Snare (to record more of the snare wire, mixed to allow snare to cut through more).

The struggle with this session is that we had Ty playing to the album track (played through the DI of my Ashdown "originAL" amp head). However, I had played to a live track (the live music video), which means that they did not align due to tempo differences over the course of the song. We decided, after many takes, that we'd spare the drummer of recording again after we realised what was gwarning, and that I'd re-record, in a way I was hoping to do, to the album track.

The next entry will go further, as for now I have another project on my mind (creating my own keyboard layout, I'll post separately about that).

[EDIT: We also had a few issues with communicating between the control room and the drum room, so we devised hand signals to communicate vital information. Such as when we were recording, if we were ready, when we stop, if we need to re-record. We used this later, too.]