The Brushfire War Album Reflection

I wanted to go through all the songs that group C recorded during the semester; which were part of the record, 'The Brushfire War.' Upon the final mix down date, I felt that there were a bunch of overlooked ideas as far as how everything sounded and how instruments were treated. I have been thinking of many ideas while listening to the record for over a month now; different approaches that I can take if I feel the urge to remix the songs in the future. I'm going to listen to the record in real time and record my thoughts as to what went well and what wasn't so hot...at the end I also have a section of thoughts that can apply to the overall sound/mixing treatments of the record.

1. Caught Up

The march-in vox and snare rolls should be more together. There are 3 percussion parts at the beginning, make sure they gell better. The vox reverb to the left is a little off. The percussion on right side comes in harsh, maybe they could pump too. The kick and snare just don't sit quite right...too much replacement? Make the second vox mic sound distortion is clear and doesn't mask lead. I feel like the OH's are slightly Left heavy. I think this is the case throughout the album(for the most part...) perhaps the mics weren't at the same level and I don't think we went back and tried to get them balanced... Probably also why some of the tom hits(on right side) seem smeared... probably over compressed toms too. Could be better is they were also sent to reverb, or more sent anyways. The guitar solo has a weird effect on it, making it not up front enough....too much verb! The gates for the snare fills need to be automated better....

Overall feelings: I think this is the most balanced song on the album considering instruments to clarity aspect. The bridge has a great feeling happening and the hard part of the bridge is just slamming. Can't believe that I didn't catch that the OH's weren't balanced correctly. The mix verb seems to be a little lifeless as well, seems like there is a lot of space still (perhaps because we didn't use 2bus compression on the record....

2. Neon Cannonball

Guitar Levels need to be more cohesive. Gates need to be cleaner on the drums. Verb is nicer than on the previous song. Guitar distortion is not quite right. The vocals could me cut more in the lower mids during verses. Kick a little cardboardy... Have the drum flange cut out a little sooner on the bridge. Try using the backwards echo that wasn't used. Click can be heard at the end, before outtro. Vocal compression is a little heavy and is darkening the highs.

Overall Feelings: Song has great vibe. A few level adjustments are necessary, still feel like 2bus compression could help. Automation could give the song more impact.

3. United Tragedy

Let the drum gates stay open when they are the featured instrument! (like beginning). Too much bottom snare in there... Vocal sounds a bit weak, though alright cuz its just the verse. The kick is a little uninspired (kinda farty). Seems like some clarity gets lost during the chorus with drums. Maybe have dual vox wider, seems to be chorusing too much. Some highhat delay might sound great during verse sections. Maybe some rythmic delay on the bells to seperate from guitars. Make bridge have greater impact (maybe bombastic room mic?). Acoustic too loud. Acoustic could fade out to big verb to fill bridge to chorus space. Outtro rolls not very polite and reverse verb to present.

Overall feelings: Somehow the bottom snare got brought up come mix time but I think it's just too present. Other than that I like the feel. A lot different that the others. Very much a Joe song...

4. Lover's Tree

The electric/acoustic guitar blend sounds great. Too much vibrato on lead vox. Song has a dark feel. The snare sounds a little dull, but not it a good way. Aux percussion sounds great. Snare rude for the entrance of 2nd verse and kick is pretty clicky for the song. Snare rolls sounds unpleasant. Verb gives it a huge sound.

Overall Feeling: Like the lush verb, though it would be too much for other songs. The drums sound open and all the instruments sound cohesive in the 'room' sense...great. The guitars sounded great!

5. Cindy Lopper

Like the pumping compression in the beginning, but then the snare just looses its attack once everything comes in. Guitar's aren't loud enough. The bass is too farty...the distortion could be adjusted. Drums could be cleaned up and tuned.

Overall Feeling: Like how different the song is. We just overlooked aspects of the songs because we were rushed...easy to make sound great.

6. Brainwashed

I felt that we mixed this one the best. Verb sound correct. Lead vox is siting great. Love the bass, drums. Automation could be greatly utilized to get things to pop even more. Things just sit properly and everything is working together. Some of the drum replacement could be moved to become more realistic. The feedback in the bridge was an accident...something weird with the board, but its alright (we spent time automating a high frequency cut at that point in the song.) The cleaner guitar during the second part of the bridge is way to loud. Also the buildup back into the last chorus need a little something else... During the outtro the guitar solo/keyboard solo could use some random automation to spice things up.

Overall Feeling: The levels of all the instruments were almost there. Just wish a few things were caught beforehand. Love the drums, bass, most of the guitar, vocals and all the weird sounds happening. In the future it might be beneficial to use different guitars for each part because it could help to make things more individual... and not all sound the same.

7. Deconstruction of a Hollywood Ending

The guitars could be cut more in the lower frequencies. The 'ohh' s could be brought up, and all the vocals for the intro. Use automation! Song has a good drum sound as well. Love the impact for the first verse, though the vocals are a tad hot though out the rest of the song. The kick has some flab or somethings a little silly sounding. Left side guitar is a little low. Take gates off drums during empty sections! The drum beat is a little iffy during the last part of the second verse. Make the harmony parts during the 2nd chorus more clear and make it speak more. The outtro needs something so that it can be more driving...sounds and craziness!

Overall Feelings: Great ending with the reversed march to make the album more cohesive. Just pay attention to the certain levels.

8. Cherish Your Day

Great clean sound through out. Somehow the bass gets a little out of hand at points. The telephone effect on the acoustic during the beginning somehow got lost...? Kick too loud (maybe use fast compression to make fatter)? Felt that the snare was appropriate considering how bad it sounded to begin with. Like how the song is close to mono and then opens up for the chorus. Vocals are a little low? Solo has sweet tone! Vocal automation into last chorus got lost (super quite)?!

Overall Feeling: Love how clean it sounds compared to what the actual recording was...drums were in the midilab! Pay more attention to the stand up and make consistent.

9. All I Ever Do

Too much lead effect during the beginning. The longer echo probably not necessary. Got that vocal compression hitting well! Clear and up front. A little to much snare verb. Levels are good...maybe drums a little hot. Could use creative delay automation to induce some movement between phrases of verses. There need to be backing vox and just different sounding things during outtro to push harder. The ebow parts could be brought up. Instrumental outtro is cool.

Overall Feelings: Critical and precise production ideas could have made certain sections a little more interesting. Good L/R balance for drum effects outtro. The rain adds a little extra as well.

10.No Man's Land

Drums don't sound so hot...recorded in midi lab. Snare hard to listen to. Vocals seem a little thin. Guitars and electric bass balanced well. Guitars could loose some lower end. Good transition, though its pretty abrupt...works. Love the spacious ethereal atmosphere for the middle section. Sometimes the guitar gets masked a bit by the vox. The ending verb and echo are very lush and appropriate. The snare delay cuts out a bit oddly.

Overall Feelings: For such a random and pieced together song, it has an appropriate flow. Without the echo and verb growing through out, I don't think it would have come together as cohesively.

General Findings and Ideas to Remember:

• Automation
• Over compressing toms (thanks to me...)
• L/R OH levels more balanced
• 2bus compression probably gels things better (this isn't a good example because we didn't use it for the record but I think it would have help a few songs on here.)
• Take advantage of room mics and automate them with song sections
• Compressors grabbing too much and making things dull. Use sidechains!
• Pay attention to the bass and how much impact it is giving to the song.
• Utilize Sidechains and effects, but don't overdo it.
• Take some time to dial in verb and then make send levels according to where you can see them on a visual stage. Create a better sense of depth.
• Understand that the MTA board isn't perfect and be ready for a ton of minor adjustments to make sure it isn't changing sounds on you. Though it might to something surprisingly welcoming like the feedback in brainwashed...embrace the spontaneity of the board!
• Pay attention to the final limiting application so that you aren't compromising the sound and not just going to the volume.

408 Production Synopsis 9

This week our group spent most of our lab time setting up the tracks for the mixing process. This was done by creating group sums for each prominent section of the songs (drums, vocals, bass, rhythm and sometimes others.) We spent some time tracking gang vocals for one song in room 100 using a 414 in cardioid. We decided to not use baffling so that the sound would be more spacious sounding and not dead. We had a piano part that we recorded last week and used it as the vocoding instrument for a vocal line. It took us around an hour for us to tweak the vocoder to sound like what we were envisioning, but we are really happy with the sound now. Earlier today we spent most of our time doing drum replacement and vocal comping. We have the kick and snare sounds dialed for about half of our songs now and we are all getting really fast at the replacement process. We also did a few background vocal takes for Neon Cannonball and Chad feels that everything is completely tracked for the song. We are planning on meeting up in the next couple of days outside of class to complete the rest of the drum replacements.

Techniques of 408 4

This week in 408, we learned how to comp tracks using the playlists function and multiply ways to apply compression.

Playlist Comping

• Under Preferences, go to the operations tab of the setup menu. Select: automatically create a new playlist when loop recording, latch record enable buttons, link record and play faders.
• After creating and naming a new track for loop record pass, enable loop record via operations, loop record or use the shortcut option, 'option L.'
• Highlight a section to define the loop recording area.
• Add a bit of pre-roll if need be.
• Record takes!
• You can then select the 'playlists' tab and bring up all the takes.
• 'Promote' the best takes up to the top enabled track by selecting the area wanted, and pressing the arrow button on the left hand side of each track.

This is a very useful tool when you want to record a bunch of passes without stopping. Makes recording faster as well as being a lot easier to work with when editing.

There are 3 main types of multiply compression uses: Serial, Parallel, and Two Stage.

Parallel

• Used as a technique to achieve a 'fatter' drum sound, while preserving the natural attack of the drums.
• You could approach this technique by duplicating tracks and adding compression, but it's a lot easier by using busses.
• Start by creating a new stereo bus send, to a stereo aux track (summed drums)
• Create a second stereo aux track that has the same input as the previous aux track. Add a compressor to this track and adjust settings to taste.
• This second compressed track should be used to act as 'glue.' Creating a stronger image of the drums. Bring fader up to an appropriate level. It can also be useful to put this aux mix panned center to create a punchier and more full presence.

Serial

• Serial compression is essentially two or more compressors in a row.
• It is typically applied to run lower ratios to achieve more compression with less of the negative sounding effects that one compressor using high setting might contain.
• To start, set the first compressor to a 6:1 ratio, fast release (aggressive), a high threshold and little gain. Set the second compressor to a 3:1 ratio, normal release (smooth), a lower threshold and have this compressor handle all the make up gain.

Two Stage

• Start by taking the original signal and splitting it into two sends.
• The first signal bus goes to compressor 1. The second signal bus heads to compressor 2.
• Finally, send the compressor 1 channel to the compressor 2 channel.
• Adjust both section to taste. Remember that Compressor 2 channel now has the master output of the signal.
• Something to remember: send the source using the audio output path for compressor 1 and the sends section to send the signal to compressor 2.

Extra things that I learned...

• In the I/O section of protools, you can name the busses (verb, compression, headphones). This is useful for being able to visually follow a signal path.
• Plug-ins should be placed in the following order when working with kick/snare/toms: EQ, Compression, Gate.
• Plug-ins should be placed in the following order when working with gated verb: verb, EQ, compression, gate.
• Don't mix through a master fader!
• Making individual Kick and snare aux sums can be done even before going to the drum sum. Use serial compression: have a compressor on the actual kick channel, then put a second compressor on the kick sum channel.
• On the drum sum, you can place an EQ plug-in and boost the lows and highs to bring about more 'simmer' and more 'umph.'

Hot Keys!

• Change between active playlist track - control, P or Control, ;
• Promoting Playlist Section - control, option, V
• New Track Menu Options - control, command, up, down, left, right
• Toggle 'shuffle, spot, slip, grid' - tilda key
• Solo a track - shift, S
• Enable/Disable track - control, command, click
• Consolidate - shift, option, 3 (name the track afterwards so you know what it is)

408 Production Synopsis 5

This week group C ventured into recording guitars. On Tuesday's night session, both guitar tracks were recorded for Joe's songs. For setup we positioned Joe's small fender 60 watt, 1 cone guitar amp on top of some foam to decouple it from the ground in the middle of the stage area of room 100. Two walls from the whisper room were positioned in a 'V' format enclosing the area around the amp. As a close mic on the amp, we used a 421 pointed slightly off axis, about an inch away. A few feet further back, and nestled into the smallest part of the 'V,' we placed a 122. The wall baffling provided a lot of sound rejection for the back of the Royer. We decided to place the 122 a few feet back in order to give the amp's signal a little space to mature and allow a little room ambiance and character. Both mics were put through the Neve pres to give a very clean and present sound. When tracking, things went rather smoothly, though it was hard to get a great high gain distortion coming from the amp. We were able to get an acceptable and useable sound, but we wanted to get a little more out of it. To insure we would be able to recreate the sound that we were imagining in our heads, we double track all the distorted parts in Joe's song twice as well as recording a clean take. The clean take will serve as a 'back up' recording in case the distortion won't mix right with the song. We played around with the re-amping plugin in pro tools and we were able to get a respectable sound. A lot more full and punchy compared to what we were hearing from the amp.

Earlier today guitar was recorded for one of Chad's song. It took longer than we expected because the song has a prevalent finger picking part as well as a strumming part. The set up was the same as before, though we changed out the 421 in favor of the e22 as a close mic and the everything was done in the midilab. We recorded the finger picking and strumming to different tracks because the volumes of each were very dynamic. So were had to adjust the pre amp levels for each section depending on the part that was being performed. Next week we plan to finish the rest of rhythm guitar tracking.

Tom Dowd and the Language of Music Summery and Reflection

Tom Dowd stepped into a New York studio for the first time in 1947 when recording techniques were quite different compared to todays standards. Records were made by tracking and mixing straight to a vinyl disk which could only have between 2 to 3 minutes of audio sketched into it. The longer the song (those days, 3 minute was pushing it) the lower the audio quality would be because smaller groves presented the potential for skips. Also, stereo recording weren't invented yet.

Tom created a personal and inventive microphone technique by using his ear to hear and place mics in positions where quieter instruments were featured (acoustic bass) and louder instruments (drums) were more in the background. This gave Tom the ability to use the natural bleed from the mics on quieter instruments and pick up the drums in an already mixed manner. This was particularly important when you only have a few mics at your disposal to begin with and everything was tracked in a live environment. In this period, it was usual to record 4 songs in 3 hours and have a whole album completed in 9 hours.

After building a reputation for producing hit songs, Tom was picked up by Atlantic Records to improve on the innovative sounds that the record label was striving for. Working alongside his partner at Atlantic, Al Schmidt, Tom was able to use his skill to produce a wide range of popular artists. These

famous artists of the period included Ray Charles, The Drifters, The Coasters, Ruth Brown

and Bobby Darin. He also produced jazz acts, such as John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker.

It was during this time at Atlantic that Tom started to discover tape recording. Tape was introduced sometime in 1948/49, but it wasn't for a few years later that Tom started to use tape and begin to use 2, 4, and 8 track tape machines. Tom started recording to stereo and invented stereo micing techniques before stereo records were even available. Another contribution to popular recording that we still use today is linear channel faders. At the time, these 'faders' were just actual knobs that you would turn and they wouldn't fit snug under your fingertips like faders do today.

During the early years, while Tom was venturing into recording, he was also a student and in the military, where he was part of the task force that created the atomic bomb. I am sure that this placed a vital part of Tom's approach to recording. Tom was always playing an inventive part in pushing the limits of engineering forward and taking this approach to his artists in the studio. Tom mentioned in the movie that if he hadn't fell in love with music, he was well on his way to becoming a nuclear physicist. He was also very musically gifted. Tom's main instrument were the piano, tuba, violin and bass. Because he was so musically involved in his personal life, it gave a relaxed sense of reassurance to his artists that he was a respectable musician and someone that they could trust.

One of Toms most personnel relationships was with Ray charles. Tom was called in to record Ray and Tom brought along his 8 track. Ray had never heard an 8 track before and when the audio was played back, Ray was shocked when he heard the ability to change the level of individual instruments. Ray said in the movie that 'you need to hear in order to hear what you want the song to sound like.' I think what he meant by this, is that it is important to only focus on what you are hearing and all the nuances and not concentrate on what you see. This is an obvious realization for Ray as he is blind, but I do not think most engineers record with this thought, especially with all the visually appealing software that we record with today. Tom went on to build Ray first multitrack tape machine.

Some of the artists that Tom worked with were interviewed in the movies and shared their thoughts on what made Tom so great to be around and record with. Tom would always put the musicians at ease and had a great sense of musical direction. This also gave Tom the ability to hear when something wasn't quite right. When working with Aretha Franklin, Tom payed attention to her strengths and was able to create a personal micing approach to fully capture the nuances of Aretha's vocals. One of the artists also talked about how you have to 'become a couch' when working with a group. This happens over time and only after great trust and respect between the artist and producer is made. Another unusual thing that Tom would do was to go around the room and listen to each member practicing though a song in order to understand how the instrument reacted in the environment and also to the rest of the instruments in the group. He would then go into the control room and aim to make it sound exactly like it did when he was listening in the live room. Tom stated that microphones are there to capture and not to interfere. An artist mentioned that Tom was able to bring a quality out of the performer that the performer didn't even know they had to begin with. When commenting on how to mix or approach an instrument Tom said that 'touch' is what mattered and not the volume or the knobs involved.

It was really inspiring to hear the story of such an inventive producer and how he got involved early on in his life and was able to establish himself enough in order to continue to do what he loved. I think the biggest reason for his successes was how open minded and optimistic about life he was in general. People enjoyed being around him, and more importantly, valued his opinion when it came to recording. I hope to follow in Dowd's footsteps and learn from his experiences so that I can help the artists that I work with to realize there full potential, and bring this concept to life though recordings.

Techniques of 408 3

In class this week we continued the discussion on useful eq parameters to apply to our mixes.

• 1.5 k - Either boost or cut to affect the 'head of the kick drum.' Boost to add clarity and pluck to electric bass. Cut to decrease dullness of some guitars.
• 3k k - Boost to hear more attack on pianos. Boost to increase clarity and hardness of vocals. Cut to increase 'breathy' sound of background vocals. Cut to decrease slightly out of tune vocals/guitars (masks the 'beats' of a pitch). Boost for more attack on snare. Around this frequency is the cut off point for telephone bandwidth (use steep high pass filter and low pass filter.)
• 5 k - Boost for more vocal presence. Boost for more attack(snare sound) on snare drum. Boost between 5-7 k for kick drum 'clicky' sound. Boost to increase attack of pianos and guitars. Cut to get rid of thin guitar sound.
• 7 k - Boost to add attack on percussion instruments. Boost to give a more polished sound to a dull singer. Boost for increased finger noise on acoustic guitar. Cut-off frequency for de-essing on vocals. Boost to add sharpness or attack to pianos, guitars and synths. Cut-off frequency for AM radio bandwidth.
• 10 k - Boost for more brightness in vocals, guitars, and pianos. Boost to increase hardness of cymbals. Continues the de-essing range (7-10 k).
• 15 k - Boost for a brighter, more aggressive vocal sound.

A few considerations to keep in mind when applying eq: If a frequency is exaggerated when boosted, lower the boost a little so that phase doesn't become an issue and the frequency doesn't 'jump out' at the listener. If you want a hard vocal sound, apply compression with fast attack and fast release. Edit out the breathes so that they don't overwhelm the mix. You can also apply an eq and then heavily compress, the newly eq'ed frequency becomes more exaggerated (use this to if you want to achieve an aggressive and in-your-face sound.)

Techniques of 408 1

What I have learned in 408 so far....

I am really excited with all the new techniques and tricks that we have been learning in 408! I know that I will be able to achieve a much fuller and professional sounding mix by putting these lessons to use. Here are examples of some of these new approaches I have learned and how they are created:

• Natural Reverb - To understand this concept we set up a 57 in the foyer of the music hall while close micing the rest of the kit. We recorded the drums just enough to get a sample. We made sure to line up the transients of the 57 to that of the close mics. This is because of the slight time delay that it takes to reach the 57 in the foyer. We then created a new audio track and duplicated the original snare onto the new track. To 'strip silence' the rest of the kit in between the snare hits we used the apple 'u' on the keypad to get the job done. We also used apple 'n' to create fades for the newly cropped audio. On the new edited snare track we made a send to the foyer 57 track. We placed a compressor on the foyer 57 track as well to mask discrepancies in the volume level. A eq can also be placed on this track to get rid of some of the unwanted bass build up. On the foyer track now add a gate plug in. Make the key input of the plug in set to the send number of the edited snare track. Also, engage the 'side chain blue key' on the gate plug in. Once all these principals are in place, the gate will be opened when ever the snare is hit and result in the natural reverb from the foyer. Adjust to taste!
• Fake Reverb - After you understand how to use gates and the side chain function, many other possibly arise for other creative ideas. You can add 'fake' reverb to a snare track in the same manner as the natural verb, but instead of the send going to the foyer 57 track, you create an aux track with the appropriate reverb plug in in place. The rest of the gain structure and signal chain is the same in regards to how the gate is opened and reverb is heard.
• Reverse Reverb - This technique can be achieved by duplicating a track (in class we used a piano to demonstrate) and reversing the newly created track. You then can add a reverb plug in to the reversed track and adjust to taste. When the reverb is flattering the reversed sound, add a buss to the track and send it to an empty recordable audio track. Then play back the reverb while recording it to the new track. After this is complete, line up the transients of the reverb track with the initial dry track. This will create an other worldly effect and give a strange, but welcomed presence to anything that is slow moving.
• Trigger and Tone Generation Using Drums - This is a neat effect when you want to add rhythmic pitches to a tune, reinforce a drum beat, or create modulation of tracks in respect to the tempo and movement of the song. Set up sends to an aux track to start (from the drum tracks that you want the triggers to react from...usually the kick and snare.) Create a tone using the tone generator in protools (usually 42 hz or 55 hz to reinforce the kick, around 5khz to reinforce the snare). Now make sure gates are set up on the track you want to tone to come from. The gate will 'hold back' the tone until the drum is hit. This will then release the gate using the side chain function and create a tone that will help fatten up what could be an otherwise dull sound. You can also use this same approach when trying to manipulate an instrument and create a delay or tremolo that is perfectly in time and rhythm of a drum grove. In class we used a guitar and piano to demonstrate. When a gate was placed on the guitar or piano track, it would open up with the grove of the song and create a pulse feel similar to a delay or tremolo. From here you can add more effects like delay after the gate so that the feel is natural and the gate decays in a musical manner.

I hope to use every one of these techniques on the album; my group has already talked over how we can apply them to parts of our songs to add space, extra dimension and tension between our pieces. Yay!

408 Production Synopsis 1

Production Schedule

I came into the semester having completed two songs over winter break. I spent many hours in my garage and bedroom recording drums, guitars, and vocals to make a rough demo to have prepared for class. I used this free time over break to explore a few of the cheap preamps and compressors that I own to understand how to properly utilize and route outboard gear. Once I felt that I had messed around enough with the mixes, I sent mp3’s to the rest of my group so that they could relate to where I was coming from. In the fall semester we had talked a little bit about the kind of album that we wanted to create in respect to each other’s favorite genre or popular band. To meet at the ‘middle ground,’ we figured we would have to produce an experimental hard rock album. Of course we would all bring unique sounding tunes to the table, but we really wanted to make everything sound as cohesive as possible.

After the first class time, I quickly charted my songs along with the rest of the group. We met at our scheduled lab times as well as many other times during the first couple of weeks to get the songs up to recordable standards to start drum tracking. When we got together during these rehearsal times, it was apparent that though are songs were all original by themselves them seemed to all be dramatic enough to create a complete flow for an album. We discussed what kind of concept we wanted to create for the album and we all agreed that it would be about a relationship gone wrong. Because most of the lyrics we had already written were about the topic it was a very obvious choice. Each one of the songs plays an important part when looking at the album as a whole.

We considered ‘the golden mean’ approached and approximately 66.6 of the way through the album is the climax which will be a ‘fight’ between the man and woman we are discussing. We have talked about having the album title be ‘she verse me.’ The album concept will deal with topics that most everyone can relate to when having a relationship, but will also have a unique identify when considered song by song. We have lyrics for 4 songs complete and the rest of the lyrics will be written around these 4. The first song for the album is about making choices for what you believe in and not getting lost in the crowd. Another song touches on the topic of infidelity in a relationship and how it can hurt the other person involved. A third song is about falling into a dark place in your life after a breakup has occurred and how to find yourself so that you can regain confidence in a world that has treated you cruelly. The last song on the album is about reaching a point where you don’t really understand what you ever saw in the other person you once where so attracted to. We hope to create a protagonist character to help identify with the many situations that the songs describe. We have some names written down that we are looking over, but nothing is finalized yet. ‘The golden mean’ song is one that Lucas brought to the table. It is the most violent song that we wrote and it features Lucas playing ‘blastbeats’ on the drums. We have talked about having the lyrics be yelled/screamed as this will be right after the character has found out that his partner cheated on him. Another thought that we have is to include an into to the record that introduces important lyrics, a certain feel, or phrases that are essential to understanding the story line. In my mind I hope to make it similar to the ‘Dark Side of Moon’ album where the heart beat starts and random noises are introduced that are heard throughout the rest of the album.

We have a song order made up that is pretty close to being finalized, but we are going to look at the songs once more after all the lyrics are finished and keys signatures are figured out so the order is binding and the motion is fully considered.

Interpersonal Issues

I have had very little issues with my other group members. Rehearsals, writing, engineering, and the production processes has gone very smoothly so far. One thing we ran into was that Joe wasn’t happy with the second song that he wrote. We have all worked really hard to push ourselves to write really technically challenging songs without disregarding the emotional aspect that is equally as important...this album is very ambitious on everyone’s part. Joe has since rewritten the song; which if I do say so myself, was very well written to start with. We have been working as a team that is very much understanding of each others situation. Since we have the same group members as last semester we are able to know what to get to work on without even talking to each other...we just do it. Our sound is a lot more refined and each song has been written while closely considering the feel of the rest of the album.

Rehearsal Issues

The one issues that is obvious when considering rehearsal is the lack of space and time available for practicing. The music hall has been overbooked and with the addition of mpa 307 this semester, it has been really hard to work in any extra hours. My group has been fortunate enough to squeeze in all the extra hours our busy schedules permit. Usually we have been meeting during our lab times for practice, and end up staying for an extra hour or so chiseling what we have to work with. Sending files by email has also helped to better comprehend what we have in mind for our songs.

Technical Issues

There have been a few technical problems that we have faced already this semester. For some reason the computer seems to have slowed down immensely when trying to transfer data after a session. We had to leave an external drive in over night after one session because 2 gigs were estimated at taking over an hour to transfer. To solve this problem I have been bringing in my laptop computer for every session so that we can plug the mothership directly into my computer to copy the data. Unfortunately no one in my group owns a firewire drive so we can’t record audio directly to a device that we own...the computer idea works pretty fast though.

Another problem we where forced to deal with was considering which overhead mics to use. The 414’s have been absent for the last couple of weeks and when thinking over which of the other mics to use, we ended up using the 122’s. The only other option was using the 4050’s as a spaced pair, but I think they are a rather bright mic, so we opted against the idea.

Technical Choices

The only instrument that we have tracked so far has been drums. We have written out what we plan on using for the rest of the album, but haven’t really focused on it since we haven’t gotten that far yet.

For drums we used the 122’s as overhead in spaced pair (we used the 414’s for the most recent session.) The d112 was used as kick in placed between the shell and batter skin. The Re20 was used as kick out and placed slightly off center a foot away from the port in the kick. The rack and floor tom had a 421 placed on it. The e22’s were used on the top and bottom of the snare. For the first session we used the 4050 as a hi-hat mic, and the most recent session we used the gold 414. We placed a m160 out 10 feet and 10 high as a relatively close room mic to capture some ambience. We placed a 57 in one of the alcoves for the first session, facing the bare plywood. We hoped this would create some strange reverb that might fit nicely in the track. It ended up sounding rather warm when compared to what I remember of the foyer 57 we tried. For the second session we included a second alcove 57 mic on the opposite side as well as a foyer 57 for kicks. We ran a problem with using so many room mics so I know we already had to scratch one of them during tracking...but I don’t remember which one. We plan on using the 414’s as overhead for the remainder of the drum tracking. Most of the other set up with stay the same for the rest of drum tracking.