FMP

Final Major Project

David Gavan

For my FMP, I have decided to record and mix 3 songs, 2 of which were originals wrote by me solely for this project, and one of which is a cover by the progressive rock band Rush. Overall, recording took around 3 weeks, with mixing taking around 2 months. I will go through the good points and the many problems and encountered during its recording.

Track 1:

Title: Phased out

This is the first track of my FMP. The genre of this song is progressive rock. The song itself is four minutes in length.

This song has been the most challenging to mix so far, many problems have been thrown my way, the first challenge was managing to blend the bass track and the kick drum together so they didn't cancel each other out. I was confused as to why the EQ tweaking on my kick drum did not help to create a solution, I had tried one EQ technique that involved rolling out most of the low end (around 20 - 80 Hz), and boosting around 100 Hz, this helped distinguish the kick and the bass
, however I found that the kick drum lacked punch and low end.
I discovered the source of the problem was kick drum track itself, and how Trevor set up the kit; as an experimental technique, he covered the skin on the inside of the kick drum with acoustic foam,  hoping that the acoustic foam would eliminate any horrible rumble, however it was counter productive, as it reduced a lot of punch and energy that was being produced by the kick.
The drums were recently re
-recorded, using a better kick drum setup in particular, now the bass and the kick are much more distinguishable amongst each other.

The guitars, so far, have been the most challenging of the mix, and is the sole track that is stopping me from deciding a final mix. Many version of guitar tracks have been recorded, the first guitar tracks were recorded at Trevor's studio, however I didn't like the tone of the guitar, so I tried my Blackstar's emulated output to get the tone I wanted, although it sounded good on its own, in the mix it sounded extremely muddy, and washy, especially when double tracked, the track overall didn't fit very well, not even EQing the track could solve this problem. The performance of the guitars are also nicely in time, so that is not the problem.

For the bass tracks, I borrowed my cousin'

s Squire Jazz bass and recorded it directly into my Focusright Saffire Pro 24 interface, at first it lacked a lot of bottom end, however, boosting the EQ at around 50 Hz solved this problem easily. In the mix, I created two duplicate files of the same take, on one of them I applied a low pass filter, and on another a band pass for the mids to cut through in the mix, this, therefore, allowed for extra versatility when mixing the bass, as parts where higher strings are used come through in the mix far more.

Track 2:

Rush- Limelight:

My second track is a cover of Limelight by Rush. I have tracked the drums, guitar and bass, I am currently pondering on how I can record the vocals, as they are out of my vocal range.

I recorded the drums at Adam Trevor's studio, outside of his house. The actual performance was challenging for Trevor, as the timings in this song are strange, in the end we had to employ the aid of the Guitar Hero drum track which Trevor would play along to, this would help him know the timing, and what to hit. In the end, it wasn't perfect, but it worked at the time.

The first guitar tracks were recorded directly from my Blackstar HT club 50's emulated output, however I ended up disliking the tone as it sounded far too muddy in the mix, and lacked power, especially when double tracked. I decided to re-record the guitars at Trevor's studio, this time I would record from my 4 x 8 cabinet, using an SM57 to record up close to the skin of the cab, and Audio Technica condenser to provide more of an ambient tone. This fitted far more in the mix than the emulated output, although much EQ was required, as the track contained far too much low end, hiss, and some ringing. The guitars were doubled tracked to create a thick tone, and panned hard left and right for a wider stereo sound.
I recently re-mic'd and re-recorded the guitars at the studio, this time with far less gain, and a significantly better tone, I feel it fits far better within the mix, and is more true to the original song.

After recording the guitars in Trevor's studio, he put forward the idea that he would re-record the drums, as he had more time to rehearse the track and get to know the timing of the drums, the drums not only sounded better, but were also performed much better. This drum track is currently being used on my project.

Mixing the new drums wasn't much hard work, as it was already well mic'd, I applied EQ necessary to each drum's particular frequency band, I did however, boost an octave higher of the Kick Drum's Intelligibility range, this was so that the bass guitar (Which was boosted around 50-100Hz) could cut through the mix without being drowned out (Or vice-versa). I applied parallel compression to the whole kit for extra energy, and to capture the natural reflections of the room more effectively, whilst keeping the original waveform, making it sound more natural, in a way it acted as reverb would when mapped to a bus. Because of this technique, everything sounded punchier, I also felt it gave the snare more attack.

For the bass, I used the mic'd track as a low pass filter, and the D.I. as a band pass filter, this allowed for more mixing flexibility, I also did this so that parts where higher frets are used could cut through better in the mix.
There have been two bass tracks recorded in this track, both of which were recorded in the Pro-Tools studio by Sam Rabette. The first performance wasn't exactly the best track to use for the song, which admittedly I did request for Sam to record at the last minute. The second performance was far better, as he had more time to rehearse the song.
The bass sounds very fitting within the mix, and barely conflicts with the kick drum. However EQ wise, the each track has been slightly boosted around 100 Hz for extra low end.

At the end of the song I briefly incorporated MIDI bass, this was due to Sam not playing a G at the end, I didn't have enough time to re-record the bass to do this, so I simply kept the MIDI bass, it worked well in the end.

Overall, this track wasn't much of a challenge to mix, everything was well recorded (In the end, at least), and made for a good and professional sounding recording.

Track 3:

'The Untitled Song'

This third song is another instrumental rock track, around 4 minutes long.

This song was mixed quite late due to the distraction of trying to mix the first track (Mainly trying to get the guitars to fit in the mix), howe
ver the guitars and drums have been recorded on this song. Both the guitars and drums were recorded at Trev's Studio.

For the guitars, I mic'd up the cabinet of my Blackstar HT Club 50, the positioning of the mics weren't perfect; they were highly phased, and the dynamic mic channel was removed due to tonal reasons, the ambient condenser mic proved more effective in capturing the tone I wanted.
During the clean parts, I recorded an acoustic guitar for extra thickness, and high-end sparkle.

At the beginning of the track, I incorporated synth strings to back up the guitars in the intro, and to provide a nice ambience overall, I'd say it fits the track nicely, and adds a nice extra layer of depth in the mix.

Due to time contraints, I ended up creating a MIDI drum kit in Logic Pro, EQing and compressing each track to my liking, it ended up sounding relatively good, especially for MIDI. I also recorded the bass with MIDI, within Logic itself I created two duplicate tracks, EQing one for low frequencies, and one for mid freqencies for extra control over the mix, and so certain parts of the bass track will cut through in the track.

Originally I planned on recording actual drums for this song, but out of curiosity (And time constraints), I wanted to use this song to experiment with MIDI instruments, which ended up being a large part of the song.

Evaluation

Overall, I believe my FMP wasn't perfect, in fact it was far from it. There were good and bad points about my FMP, here is a list evaluating what I liked about my FMP and what I could have improved upon:

Good:

- Experience in mixing

Mixing and mastering my FMP gave me great experience in what it takes to mix a track. I will use the experience I gained from mixing and mastering my FMP for use on future projects that I will undertake, whether it be for myself, or for someone else (Should I get my own studio at some point).

In this year as a whole (particularly during mid 2014, where I started to mix my FMP), my mixing skills have flourished, I have learned the importance of cutting and boosting certain frequency groups to allow other instruments to cut through the mix, I have also learned about how to correctly use reverb to create more natural sounding tracks for drums, I delved more into compression, and learned that parallel compression can bring out the natural reverb of the room, and the punchiness of the kick and the snare. I learned most of this through mixing my FMP (And through the several practise tracks we mixed/mastered).

-  Experience in recording

I have recorded many things during my years at Hugh Baird (Highway to Hell, my first year group song 'Windigo', to name a few), however recording instruments for my FMP truly gave me a small idea of what it is like to record my own album. I have learned that miking my guitar amp results in a far better guitar tone than using my emulated output, it provided for a more organic recording.

I believe that my experience from recording my FMP has greatly benefitted me for the future, when I will be recording either my own albums, or for others.

- The drum recordings

I believe that the recording for the drums on Phased Out and Limelight went particularly well. The first take for Phased Out was unsuccessful due to bad mic positioning, and several out of time moments. The use of acoustic foam on the kick drum made for a lack of punch, drowning it out in the mix, especially with the bass added. The second take for Phased Out solved these problems, the kick drum was far punchier and cut through the mix much better (Due to the acoustic foam in the kick drum being removed), and the overall rehearsal for the song being improved and well in time too.

For Limelight, while the miking was good for the first take, it lacked rehearsal time beforehand (And it is a complex song in terms of timing), this resulted in many out of time moments. The second take was far better in terms of rehearsal, several flex edits had to be made due to some out of time parts (which were very minimal in comparison to the last track, in which simply flexing the mistakes would not fix), however Trev did a good job at recording both of these songs.

I may not have achieved the exact sound I wanted, however this was mainly due to the equipment being used, mainly the snare, however I did get it to sound somewhat close to the drum sound I was heading for by the usage of parallel compression.

-Experience with MIDI instruments

The Untitled Song was my experiment with MIDI instruments, I created a drum kit comprised of each part of a standard drum kit, compressed and EQ'd them to my liking. I also used a MIDI bass which worked relatively well. The song wasn't perfect, if I had access to better MIDI drums I believe the quality of the mix could have been improved (the Tight Kit on Logic is the best out of them all) but it was an experiment to see how well MIDI instruments could work within a mix should they be mixed right.

- Limelight

It is a song I have personally loved for a long time, and it is the best recorded and mixed song on my FMP, most likely because I had a standard of mixing quality to fulfil. I personally loved how the guitars sounded within the mix, I believed they fit very well with everything else, the drums were well miked, the bass was nicely performed for the most part. There were indeed some out of time moments with the drums and bass (This was due to asking Trevor and Sam to rehearse Limelight far too late), though overall, I am very happy with this mix in terms of quality, and it is one I would proudly show to other people.

Bad:

- Left writing too late

I admit to writing my two originals in about 3 days (However, the creative spark for them had been in my head for a while), this resulted in me ending up disliking the songs I wrote. Even though I wished I wrote my songs earlier, it's hard to say whether I would have liked my songs had I wrote them last year (My musical influence has broadened out significantly in comparison to last year).

If I had another shot at recording this EP, I would definitely be more open to writing with both Sam and Trevor, as they both have given me interesting input on both the sonic aspects of my recording (levels of certain instruments or EQ) and musical (Several small effects for atmospheric effects in The Untitled Song, such as the synths and the pitched up guitar)

- Not micing my guitar earlier

Mixing the guitars, particularly for Phased Out, was a stressful job, this was due to me using my amplifier's emulated output (it sounded far too muddy and washy in the mix), not even EQ would solve the problems. The fault with the tone was most likely a problem with the hardware itself.

Trevor suggested to me that I mic up the cabinet to achieve a better guitar tone, even though at first I found it hard to believe, it did work well in the mix, this was demonstrated through hearing the guitar tone in Trevor's You Shook me All Night Long cover that I recorded guitar in, I was impressed by how well it fit into the mix, and also how good the guitar tone sounded. After hearing the benefits of miking the cabinet, I did so with Limelight. Miking the cabinet took some practise in terms of trying to get the right tone, my second take for Limelight excelled above the last mainly due to not only its mic positioning, but also because I used far less gain, this made it sound more true to the original, and reduced horrible feedback (Although the feedback was due to me performing in the same room as the amplifier).

- Bad time planning

I also admit to taking the amount of time I had to actually write and record for granted, as I used less of my time for planning how I was going to record my songs, and what genre and length my songs were going to be. Had I been given a chance to do my FMP again, I would definitely make far better use of my time by making a list of things to do, and by being less stubborn about writing songs and focus more on the sonic side of my FMP rather than the musical side. When I started my FMP I was more concerned about making a good album that fulfilled my musical vision, rather than for my project, I have now realised that I have a chance to do this later on when I actually start writing albums.

- Not creating a track solely comprised of MIDI

In hindsight, I regret that I didn't create some sort of electronic track to help flesh out my FMP, and make it seem less like a small collection of songs. I have already wrote a few songs that mainly incorporated MIDI, however they are far too short.