Drums

•  The only FX I added to any part of the drum kit was to the snare. I added some ‘perc room’ reverb using the SpaceDesigner plug-in in Logic. The gave the snare more of a big classic rock feel to it. I only used a minimal amount of wet signal as i didn’t want to over do it otherwise it would have sounded rather drowned.
• A noise gate was added to the kick drum to give it extra punch, and also to cut out any spill

Vocals

• I decided to add distortion to the vocals as I have heard this technique on other productions and wanted to experiment with something similar. I felt that this gave the vocals more presence. The plug in used for this was the GtrAmpPro plug-in in Logic 8 on the Vintage Stack (Bright) pre-set which gave me a light level on the distortion overdrive but still enough for the effect to sound well balanced. I also used some ptVerb to give a bit of presence to the vocals as the room was quite acoustically dead therefor just a little medium room reverb sorted this out.

Guitar AMP

•  I applied some percussion reverb using the SpaceDesigner unit which really brought out this guitar line in the mix and gave it almost a concert feel. I also added some stereo delay to liven it up a bit and then applied another GtrAmpPro unit on the Sparkle Without Speakers pre-set which just lifted it up in the mix giving it real crispness and clarity as it was sounding a little thin.

Lead Guitar1

• For this lead I simply added a stereo spread plug-in to resulting in a wider stereo image across the mix. This added a certain clarity and space and filled out the stereo field as many of the instruments were occupying either central or left and right images.  

Lead Guitar2

• I used quite a few plug-ins on this lead guitar as I wanted to differentiate it from everything else in the mix to give a bit of variety. 
• I first added an Ensemble plug-in which gave an interesting modulated effect which for me just added an extra richness to the guitar. I also applied another GtrAmpPro plug-in on UK Combo (Fat) setting which really fattened up the sound of the lead and gave it added ambience.
• I then added a phaser which finished off the lead guitar1 with a really nice phasing sweeping effect. This was added purely because I felt this sounded good along with the other FX and just finished it off and it is a popular effect on a guitar.
• Next I added a DelayDesign plug-in to the chain. This effect gives some very nice and complex delay patterns. I used an Ease in & Out preset which gave a nice smooth delay to guitar. 

Bass Guitar

• Now the bass guitar was the finishing touch of the recording the gloss over the other guitars so I wanted this part to be as clear and prominent as possible so it shone through without being too high in the mix. 
• On the bass guitar I used a plug-in called Bass Amp and this really beefed up the bass, giving it more of a thwang. Before this plug-in was applied, I found the bass guitar to be swallowed up and drowned out in the mix. This effect really brought it out and gave clarity. I used the New American Bright pre-set which was the perfect setting. 

Danny Vocals 2

• I decided to double up Danny’s vocals and apply some tape delay, so that certain words were repeated like an echo. This worked really well used sparingly as I didn’t want to flood out the main vocal line too much with it otherwise the words would have become inaudible. I used this mainly at the chorus and towards the end of the song. As they say less is more. 

Editing

• I decided that some nice acapella moments and short breaks would work nicely. I simply cut the audio and moved it slightly away from the other audio so that there was a gap where everything stopped apart from the delay of the vocal, before everything came crashing back in again. I did this twice during the production as I felt that was more than enough and they both happened at key moments either just before or just after the chorus as if to let the listener know that a new verse or chorus was beginning. 
• At the end of the recording I cut and repeated the end of the vocal line as I felt it ended rather abruptly and well before the music stopped. For me this didn’t sound right so by repeating and looping the end of the vocals, it gave the production a stronger ending.

Automation

• Automation was used very lightly in this production mainly to enhance certain parts of the song. 
• The wet signal on the DelayDesign was automated on the 2nd lead guitar so that parts of the signal were stronger when I removed the AMP guitar from the mix. I did this purely to give variation and give other instruments a break allowing other instrumentals and sounds to take over for a while. The wet signal was then swapped with the dry signal once the AMP guitar came back fully into the mix. 
• The SpaceDesigner Window Room reverb’s wet signal was automated up slightly while the AMP guitar was temporarily cut out of the mix giving the guitar more clarity and presence as it had nothing doubling up with it. Like the DelayDesign it was automated down to its original setting once the AMP guitar came fully back in.    

The Rooms:

The rooms that we recorded in were not acoustically brilliant. It had some acoustic treatment with acoustic tiles around the room but it still had a lot of reflections. Therefore the recordings were not as good as they could have been had there have been a better acoustic environment from which to record in.

Microphones set-up:

For the drums I decided to try and mimic the Glyn Johns mic set up as I felt that this technique had the most presence. The diagram below shows how this set up works:

Microphones used for the drum recordings:

Overheads - 2x

Kick Drum -

Snare -

When miking the saxophone I opted for the ORTF technique which I had experimented with in the last task, and found this technique to be the most effective when miking up a saxophone (read other task for reasons why).The clarinet was miked up using an AB stereo technique as I felt this technique had the best rounded sound and more natural than any of the other techniques. The microphone was placed around 3 feet away from the sound source and pointing towards the mouthpiece for a better and fuller frequency response.

Production in Logic:

I didn’t want to treat anything too much as I wanted the natural recording to be heard without anything tidying it up. Therefore simple compression, limiting and EQing was used mostly just to beef up the recording a little more and bring out certain elements.

Drum Kit:  

•  Compression was applied to both kick drums to tighten them up in the mix and bring more clarity. I used quite a high compression to really bring the thud of the kick out over the main mix.
• I applied some light channel EQ. The kick sounded a little muddy at first so I decided to roll off the frequencies around 200-800hz to correct that. I boosted around 40-100hz to bring out more bottom end of the kick and boosted a little around 5000-8000hz for a little more presence.
• Noise gates were added to eliminate the spill which was prominent on the kick. I used quite a high isolation setting and tweaked this slightly so it didn’t sound too robotic but left me with more of just the kick making it easier to EQ. 
• The snare was also compressed to a snare compression pre-set which I felt worked quite nicely bringing out the snare in the mix more.
• I also EQed the snare to bring out  the fullness around 100-200hz and cutting around 200-800 to get rid of any muddiness. I then boosted slightly the top end around 5000-8000 for presence
• Another noise gate was added to the snare like the kick drum to avoid spill. 
• The overheads were left more or less as they were. I added a little drum kit compression to bring out the kit in the mix and used some sample delay to beef up the drums and avoid phase. 
• Soft limiting was applied to both the kick and snare to avoid any peaking over 0db and this appeared to do the trick

 Saxophones 

•  Simple compression was applied to the saxophones as they were initially buried underneath the other instruments and didn’t have as much clarity. Only soft compression was applied as the saxophone is a fairly harsh instrument alone.
• A little channel EQ was applied to bring up the clarity in the instruments range of around 100-1000hz. I rolled off the very low frequencies at 20-50hz as it was a little boomy.

  Clarinets 

• The clarinets achieved a very nice rounded recording therefore very little compression was needed only a very light compression and one of the clarinets sounded fine left untreated. No channel EQ was applied as I didn’t deem it necessary. 

   My reasons for choosing these instruments were mainly due to the fact that I know people who play them, but also because of the rich sounds that they produce. Saxophone’s produce naturally low and loud frequencies therefore I felt it would be interesting to experiment with different mic techniques to achieve the best recordings. The clarinet is produces a nice broad frequency range and unlike the saxophone it is not quite as loud and harsh. The piano is also a very challenging instrument to record because it has such a wide frequency range larger than that of either the saxophone or the clarinet.

The room from which I recorded in was Helmore 041. Acoustically this was not an ideal room to record in as it is very lively, and produced a lot of reverberation and resonance. There are several reasons for this, firstly the room is not ideally shaped and was too square. Secondly there was no acoustic treatment of any kind. There was also an awful lot of flutter echo as well, so any recording that was made was being treated by the acoustics of the room. However the room across the other side Helmore 044 was a little better for recording in as it did have some acoustic treatment such as acoustic pads which cut down the amount of reflected sound. This meant it was far less reverberate and more acoustically dead.

Stereo Technique 1: AB

This particular technique comprises of using two omnidirectional condenser microphones spaced evenly apart around 40-60cm as stated in the microphone university website. This i felt achieved a deeper tonal response especially for the saxophone and clarinet. For this technique I opted to use the Octavia condenser microphones as I felt they sounded more lively than the SE Electronics Z3300a condensers.

Saxophone recordng

 For this recording I wanted to pick up as much of the overall range of frequencies of the instrument as possible. I didn’t however want to pick up too much room ambience as I didn’t feel that the room had particularly good acoustic qualities. Therefore I ensured that the microphones were placed roughly around the same distance as the length of the instrument. Also because the saxophone is fairly loud instrument, the microphone needed to be a little further away to avoid clipping on the recording. This achieved a very rich recording of the entire range of frequencies. The distance between the two microphones was fairly wide as I felt this achieved some very nice deep tonal qualities. The microphones were angled so that they pointed at the bell of the saxophone.  I wanted to pick up the breaths and key noises and I felt that this was a more natural sounding recording.

Clarinet

The miking of the clarinet was very similar to that of the saxophone. The microphones were positioned slightly closer to the clarinet at around 3 feet away, as it isn’t such a harsh instrument, but still enough distance to pick up the full body of the clarinet and some of the natural ambience.  The microphones were placed exactly the same distance apart as the saxophone recording at 40cm. I opted to angle the microphone away from the bell as the better range of frequencies comes from above the instrument towards the mouthpiece. This delivered a bright recording and a very deep tonal sound.

Piano

Piano miking always provides a challenge when trying to get the purest recording of the frequencies and dynamic range. Unfortunately due to the room resonating a lot, I was unable to get a perfect recording so I simply had to work with what I had. If I were looking to make a clean and professional recording of a piano then firstly the room would have to be better acoustically and bigger such as a hall. Also I would require more than one stereo mic set up, possibly a further four microphones. Anyway I decided that the sound was richer when the microphone was pointed directly at the strings. This required me to remove the lid and position the microphones down at the hammer and strings. As mentioned in sound on sound, it is suggested that the microphones should be placed four metres back from the front of the piano and around two to three metres up positioned on an imaginary line across the axis of the open lid. This would be an ideal positioning, but there just wasn’t sufficient room for this, therefore I positioned the microphones as high as possible and around a metre away from the piano, and around half a metre above, pointing at the inside of the strings. This appeared to give me a more natural sound and picked up some very rich tonal qualities which any other positioning did not achieve. There are many theories on how to mike a piano, but I simply went by the judgement of my ears.

Stereo Mic Technique 2 - XY

This technique requires both microphone capsules to be practically touching each other, positioned 90 degrees apart and the centre line at 0 degrees is where the instrument will face. The microphones used were again octavia condensers using a cardioid polar response setting. As described in the DPA microphones guide, the stereo image is produced by the off axis attenuation of the cardioid microphones. This technique in contrast to AB is a a difference in level stereo as opposed to a difference in time stereo.

Saxophone

For this technique I moved the microphones closer to the saxophone as the capsules were facing away from the bell, meaning that it wouldn’t clip as easily. The microphone was around half the length of the saxophone away from the bell and directed the microphone lower down to the floor just under the bell. This resulted in a much fuller recording than the previous technique.

Clarinet

 For this technique I placed the microphones roughly at the same distance of around three foot same as that of the AB technique, directing the microphones upwards towards the mouthpiece. The stereo image wasn’t as noticeable as that of the AB technique, but I found that this technique gave a fuller frequency recording.

Piano

For this technique I decided to place the microphone in the same spot as the last recording achieved a nice full frequency response. As this technique means that the mics are very close together, it does not achieve such a large stereo image, and I had problems with phase cancellation. However after a bit of trial and error I eventually positioned the microphones about 2-4 feet away at the end of the piano and about 3 foot above the top of the piano pointing across the top of the strings for a richer sound.

Stereo Mic Technique 3 - ORTF

This technique uses two cardioid condensers spaced 17cm apart from the diaphragms and at 110 degree angle from the capsules. This technique is good for reproducing a stereo image similar to the perception of the human ear. The spacing of these microphones mimics the distance between the human ears offering a wide stereo image.

Saxophone

With this technique I began by positioning the microphones further back than with the other techniques, but soon found that I had a lot of low end loss so ended up moving the microphone closer to gain a fuller recording. The microphones were around 3 foot away from the bell, and about a foot off the floor picking up a much wider spectrum of frequencies.

Clarinet

Similar to the saxophone the microphones were positioned about 3 foot away pointing upwards towards the mouthpiece and this picked up a more natural overall sound of the clarinet.

Piano

This technique I put the microphone around a foot above the piano facing downwards towards the strings and the capsule was roughly 3 feet away. This provided a very full recording however I felt it sounded less natural than the other techniques, and slightly harsher. However it did pick up a very nice stereo image of the piano hence the full sound.

Conclusion

Having completed and experimented with these techniques, I feel that the results could have been further improved by having a better acoustic environment. Especially for the piano recordings as the room was far too resonant and the sounds reflected off the walls too much to get a natural sound. The Helmore 044 drum room was slightly better for recording as it had acoustic padding to reduce the reflections but it was still not ideal. However I simply made the most of what I had and feel that I still achieved some good results with the various techniques and gained knowledge of what worked and what didn’t work so well. It would have been interesting to try out a wider range of miking techniques and perhaps improvised with some of my own techniques, in order to test them against the three other techniques.

Anyway I will now look at the saxophone recording and assess what I believe to be the most effective technique.

The AB technique yielded some very nice results. I felt it achieved a warm sound on the saxophone perhaps not as harsh as the other techniques, and picked up a nice wide stereo field. The way in which the microphones were positioned I feel helped gain the richness of frequencies and it picked up the bottom end very nicely.

The XY technique was my least favoured technique of the three. You can definitely hear that the stereo field is much narrower and the recording sounds quite flat in comparison to the AB. This is due to the microphones being much closer together, therefore it sounds much more mono than the AB technique.

The ORTF technique was my favourite technique of the three. It produced a nice wide stereo image due to the capsules being spaced widely apart from one another. I also felt that this technique picked up a nice room ambience and a very full range of frequencies. I felt that the technique yielded some lovely tonal qualities and this would definitely be my preferred choice over AB and XY techniques.

For the clarinet I felt AB technique had a really nice and well rounded sound. It picked up the dynamics of the clarinet perfectly and had a very natural frequency range, very full and rich tonally. This one was definitely my favourite of the three techniques with this instrument. The ORTF sounded way too harsh and the frequency pick up was not as well rounded, and the same goes for XY which sounded a little thin in my opinion.

Finally onto the piano and this was a difficult one as the room was not the most practical for recording piano due to unwanted early reflections and sound resonance’s. However the most successful technique after much debate and thought I have decided to be AB. This technique had the most natural sound and wasn’t affected too much by the rooms acoustics and maintained a perfect stereo image throughout. The frequency range was so full and precise compared to the other two which I felt to be rather flat in comparison. It appeared to pick up much more of the higher end range and sounded more vibrant.  

Task 5

Task 6  

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