music production lecture blog

Last week I booked the studio to start my first stage of recording. It was fairly difficult to book the studio as the time available isn’t much. We can only book the studio until 5pm, and the best time I have to do it is after 5, so I found that difficult. However I managed to get a monday afternoon (8/3/10), and had Ting, Tank and Lee there too.

Arriving at 1 was fine for everyone, and we decided to fully mic up the drum kit, so we got underway with that. It was quite time consuming – more so than I had anticipated, but I definitely learnt the basics of how to mic up a drum kit, which I didn’t know before, and so that was useful. Once everything was miked up, Ting and Tank worked on the computer to set everything up. It was useful having them there, knowing how to set everything up on pro-tools as I still don’t understand it. However this also was very time consuming as, even though they knew a LOT of everything, there were still some things that we didn’t know how to do, like headphone play-back etc. It took a lot of trial and error, but eventually it worked out. It took about 2 hours to set up everything and make everything work. I don’t know how long this would take at a normal studio, but we definitely took a VERY long time setting up. I found this frustrating as I wanted to be able to help more, to know how to solve the issues, but couldn’t. I think this can only be helped through practice though.

Firstly Tank was to record the drum track. We thought of playing back my demo track on the headphones so he could play along, however it was too rough and not in time for him to do a decent take, so I ended up playing along to the drums. I think this was better as it will have more of a live feel in the final version. We took a few attempts but finally did a decent take.

After this I recorded acoustic rhythm guitar. This was daunting for me, as I sometimes have trouble keeping in time, so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to do a good enough take. however it was fairly simple, and it took 2 or 3 takes to get it done. Having the drum track in the background was also helpful, and recording the drum track first was definitely a good idea. I think in that order it will help to create more of a clean cut master recording.

We were out of time after the drums and guitar, and I was fairly stressed by the end, as I was hoping to finish the whole song that day, but perhaps that was too ambitious and I should know that studio work takes time. Especially when you don’t have a professional studio technician to do everything for you. I think if this were a paying studio, it would be a much more enjoyable experience.

I still have 2 more guitars, bass and vocals to add to this track, along with 2 other tracks to start. I am feeling behind in my project at the moment, and I know I need to book more studio time. I am unsure on whether I am going to record all of the instruments in the studio. I think I might just get rhythm and acoustic guitar down in the studio, and then perhaps convert the files into Logic, to record the rest of the instruments through midi. The only reason for this is lack of time. I don’t want to have to ask other people to think of guitar riffs to play for my songs as they have a lot of their own work to do. So if I can get the important studio instrument tracks down, I can do the rest myself in my own time, past 5pm. I will ask Gareth on how to convert the files in my next studio lesson, and then I will be able to start it, and feel more at ease.

In the class last week, I learnt something on pro-tools for the first time. Everything else has been going over my head, but I learnt how to give live recorded tracks more of a clear tight sound. I can’t remember the name of it, however I think if I saw it again, I would be able to do it. I need to invest in a pro-tools book so I can understand it. I think this would definitely be useful for my project. I have researched some books and I think the ‘Pro-tools bible’ will be the best one as it has exercises to work from. I couldn’t get it from the aspire scheme, and it is very expensive, so I’m going to have to see if I can afford it soon.

In relation to rehearsing and chord charts, I think it’s important for me to create chord charts for each musician who wil be rehearsing and recording my music. I have had one rehearsal with Lee Hodgekinson, and at this point I had not created a chord chart. However as the song ‘Falling’ only uses three chords throughout the song I didn’t think it was as necessary as maybe I should have done. I now realise that chord charts are more important than just to provide the chords. They also are useful for letting one know how many times a verse should be played, and laying out the general structure of a song. I think this is especially important for the song ‘falling’ as because the same chords are played throughout most of the song, it’s easy to get confused with the structure. I am going to definitely going to write up a chord chart for this song because of that.

My optimum team that I had decided on in the beginning is pretty much the same, however I have decided to ask Lee to do my backing vocals instead of Mateo. This is mainly to save time as I know Lee knows at least one or two of the songs fairly well. I know he also has a good acoustic backing vocal voice in my opinion and so I think his voice would be ideal for my recordings. Ting is still recording and Chris is still playing drums. I think for bass and extra riffs I may import my audio into Logic pro and play them in through midi, however this is just an idea at this stage. The reason for this is because in the beginning I thought I would be able to compose a few guitar and piano riffs to record live, however because of lack of time from other module assignments, I have found it hard to do this. If I was to play it in through midi if gives me more time to retry different things without the pressure of taking up studio time. I could do this in my own time.

My studio time will still take about 10 – 12 hours I think, however I still need to book a time slot so we can actually do at least something and get things moving, rather than just planning. Preparation time will probably take about the same amount of time as the studio time will. I think it is important to focus on rehearsing as if not, the result of the performance on the recording won’t be as good because it won’t sound as professional.

Throughout the whole process so far I think I could have been more organised in general. I think time management is important and in this area I haven’t used time to rehearse and record to the best of my ability. I think I could have put more focus on the importance of these things and started things like chord charts, creating riffs and organising rehearsal time from the beginning. Acknowledging these things, I will try to do these things more efficiently from now on. Considering it is half way through the semester and I have 6 weeks left to record all my songs, I think I am behind in my work. I know that I will have to organise a recording session for next week (week 6) to keep on top of my work and to make sure it all gets done to the best standard it can be. I have yet to finish rehearsing for ‘falling’ and start rehearsing for ‘the rose’ and ‘I am who I am’, and then record them all, mix them and finish them. I have a lot to do at this point and need to work harder to make sure it all gets done.

However, when it comes to things like editing and mixing tracks I feel out of my depth. I don’t understand the things we are taught in the lectures as my learning style doesn’t correlate with how we are being taught. This is nobody’s fault as we have such a big learning group. I think the way I am going to solve this is by buying a book on using pro-tools and work through that as then I then would have more time to sit and work it out myself. I find pro-tools very confusing compared to using logic pro, which to me is laid out in a simple way for me to easily work out. I think if I get a book however, this will help with using pro-tools a lot more. But that is only the mixing side, I don’t understand anything to do with multi-miccing or setting up. This is my weakness in my course and I need to take time to make it a strength.

Regarding the lesson last week, I still struggled to follow everything that was happening. When I was put in the position of working whilst being directed, I remembered the steps afterwards, but the other things leading up to that I didn’t. I’m unsure of how much of an effect this is going to have on my overall assignment as someone else is recording, but I assume I will have to mix it myself and at the moment I feel WAY out of my depth.
I watched other people set up some of the equipment in the studio, so now I think I would be fine to set up by myself, but everyone works together. I’ve discovered in a task like this that teamwork is definitely essential as not everyone has experience of studio and protools work. I think it’s important for those who do know to help those who don’t and those who don’t know – stick together for moral support!

I have organised a rehearsal for tuesday 23rd feb with Lee to run through a song. I e-mailed everyone i wanted to play on my recordings the songs I wanted to do, and explained the kind of arrangement I wanted. For the first rehearsal I have picked one of the easiest songs so we can work into it rather than jumping in at the deep end.

I am very aware of my lack of organisation regarding studio booking time. I need to get in touch with Richard Taylor and organise a date and time. Along with this comes making sure everyone else can make that time and day also. I also need to get some rehearsal in before that too, as I personally don’t feel confident enough to just turn up having given people a chord chart and record straight off. I’m annoyed at how time is passing fairly quickly and really to be honest I don’t have much to show for it.

I am going to get this sorted this week, organise a rehearsal, write up a chord chart (which doesn’t fill me with much enthusiasm as I don’t know how good at this I’ll be) and then go into the studio getting Ting to record. I have 2 of the songs I want to record up on my myspace, so after this post I will e-mail around and get people to listen to them before rehearsal.

I think I should have begun the module with more motivation. I have a habit of accepting I still have quite  a bit of time left and so putting things off to the last minute. I am aware it is week 4 now, and Easter break is quickly on it’s way. I am going to make sure I get as much as possible done before then, as I know I have an essay to write up afterwards.

Class work so far has been interesting. I find it hard to follow what is going on on the computer with Pro Tools, and so switch off after a while. I don’t really understand how it all works, and there are only small bits of it I know how to do. I think if maybe I had a step by step guide on how to do everything I would learn a lot better and it would make a lot more sense to me. Working with the others has been good as they seem to understand more of it than I do and so I have been asking and relying on them to help me do what is needed. I think everyone acknowledges they are in the same position and so are definitely in the mindset of helping others when needed. Ting has said he will record my songs while me and others are playing the songs. I think this will work well and we will then all be working together as a team, but individually working on areas we are strongest at, therefore allowing the task to be done to the best it can be.

I have learnt quite a lot to do with recording quality and equipment so far. I have invested in an SM57 mic to use for personal recording at home. But I have also learnt that Pro-tools is the best software you can use for audio quality.

Just beginning to embark on a recording studio module at uni, and I’m going to write down thoughts, ideas, things I’ve learnt, found hard etc.

We have to decide on 3 pieces of music to record, and so I think I’m going to record original stuff as that takes far less rehearsal time and as we’re not being marked on the arrangement of the songs, I can just give the other musicians a brief outline on what/how I want them to play on the track. I’ll write out chord charts to make things easier all round.
The songs I am going to record are:
-Falling (edited/shortened version with a drums, guitars, bass and vocals. I’ll try and come up with a catchy riff to play over the chords on piano and guitar)
-I am who I am (which needs finishing, more lyrics written, but that shouldn’t take long once I sit down and commit to it.) – drums, guitars, bass, vocals
-The Rose (drums, guitar, bass, vocals, piano?, and maybe added bridge/changed chorus).

Ideal Musicians to play on my tracks:

-Guitar work: Myself to play chords (simple stuff as my guitar skills are not much to be desired), and I’m presently unsure on who will be playing the trickier parts. I have e-mailed Ben Kingsbury but I know he isn’t around much. I did want to ask Lee Hodgkingson but i know he has a lot of recording already happening. I may ask anyway.
-Drums – I have asked Tank Barrs to play drums for me, and he has said yes, so there won’t be any problem there I don’t think.
Bass – As we don’t have any official bassists on the course it may be that I add the bass in through midi, so I’ll just play the keyboard for that.
Vocals: Myself primarily and Mateo Oxley for backing vocals. He has asked me to do the same on his recordings also. I think male backing vocals will add a lovely depth once it’s been properly blended in and mixed.
Piano: Darcy Lloyd-Miller – I’m not entirely sure i want piano, but if I decide to Darcy has agreed to play piano for me.
Recording – Shuting Yiu – He has offered to record mainly for me, which is ideal as he seems to know what there is to know about pro-tools.

All of this should require 10-15 hours of studio time.