Techniques of 408 5

This week we learned about detailed automation approaches. There are two ways to understand automation; through real time recording, or through graphic editing.

Real Time:

• Bring up automation window by apple, 4 (on keypad) or under automation, in the window tab.
• You can 'suspend' all automation if you want for all tracks.
• Click plug-in to automate plug in.
• When automation tab is red, it is enabled.

When looking at a track

• Go to write mode, put up volume level so you can hear what you are doing.
• Record and move fader to apply automation.
• Write mode overrides any previous automation points.
• Make sure selection is enabled in automation window.

There are 7 modes for automation

• 'Off' can be enabled to turn off any automation.
• 'Touch' mode only adds automation when you touch fader and then returns to what is already has been automated.
• Can be used to combine old automation with new adjustments.
• Under preferences, mixing, automated time (for setting up how slow/fast you want the touch mode to return to previous automation.)
• 'Latch' mode plays back automation that has been made, and once you move the fader, it stays in place and moves only when you adjust.
• 'Trim' function tweaks automation only slightly, creating a composite of both old and new automation.
• Trim can be enabled with the other functions as well.

Viewing and Editing Automation

• Use the grabber tool to create break points.
• Option, Click to erase break points.
• Apple, Click to add break points.
• The little arrow at the bottom left of each track can be used to show automation of specific automation. Click the '+' for other independent automation views to be opened.
• Double click to select entire track.
• Highlight section and Press Delete to get rid of all viewable automation.
• Use pencil tool to draw in automation.
• Select Wave type under pencil tool and select the resolution (bars and beats, and 1/8 or other appropriate beat type).
• Edit, Copy Special to send automation of volume, to pan as well, or whatever other automation you choose.
• Make sure to un-group to do automation for 1 track of group.
• Use selection tool to highlight and move automation.
• Hold Command key to fine tune automation.

Plug In automation

• Control, Option, Apple, Click pot button and select automation option.
• Go to latch mode with the plug in automation selected and edit in real time with the plug in.

Automation, things to keep in mind

• Write mode is destructive.
• Latch mode only applies to one automation.
• Use Escape key to scroll through edit menu tools.

Recording Presentation Week 1

The two presentations that were given this week featured two widely know producers: Butch Vig and George Martin. Early in his career, Butch is know for his work with bands such as Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins. He was able to create the heavily grunge rock sound that created a new direction in popular music in the early 90's. He was able to trick Kurt Cobain into double tracking all the guitar parts twice by telling him, "John Lennon double tracks." This lead Butch to be able to sculpt the heavy and raw sound that was heard on the early grunge records. Another interesting fact is that Butch made Billy Corgan play almost all the instruments on the Smashing Pumpkin debut, Gish. On that record, the drum mic set up is identical to the go to set up that we have at the school studio. A d112 and RE20 on the kick, a 57 on the top side snare, 414's as OH's and 421's on the toms.

George Martin is sometimes referred to as the fifth Beatle. He was born on January 3rd, 1927 and began playing piano and eventually realized that we had perfect pitch. He found his way into working at Parlaphone (a division of EMI) records as a lead engineer. It was the littlest branch of EMI and he didn't always get to work with the biggest acts. He was always looking for band that had a unique sound that he could put his 2 cents on. At the age of 29, George took over Parlaphone and was in search of an artist that could be featured to create hit songs. Brian Epstien, the manager of the Beatles, met with George and agreed to listen in on a practice session. George was really excited with what he heard, other than the fact that drummer Pete Best, wasn't really the best... At the consent of George, Pete was replaced by a guy named Ringo Star and the rest is history. The first Beatles album was made in 12 hours at Abby Road Studio 2. The Beatles and George always were looking for ways to push the musical evolutionary envelope, which is heard in all of the Beatles material, especially the during the latter years. Automatic Double Tracking was created with the help of Ken Townsend during an experimenting session where the idea came up to barry the top of the playback head speed on the tape machine. In songs such as 'All You Need Is Love,' a mixture of Bach's Greensleeves and 'In the Mood' can be heard among other Beatles tunes. George went on to help the Beatles reach the top and keep them there by continuing to pursue the greatest sounds and performances that were possible, and of course composing all the background orchestrations and ideas.

408 Production Synopsis 5

This week Group C was able to finish guitar track for two and half songs. All we have left is one and a half songs for guitar! For Tuesday's session Chad's second song was tracked using the Fender 212R guitar amp in room 100. Baffling was again placed in a V formation around the amp. A Royer R122 was place about 4 feet away in the little section of the V. Also, a Josephson e22 was used as a close mic on the cab. I also tracked a few lead parts on this song as well as a lead part on the other song that Chad wrote, 'Lover's Tree.' Earlier today, I arrive at 10am to get in a few extra hours of guitar tracking. Because Wineglass was having his class in room 100, the amp was set up with close baffling in the midilab. A sm57 and a R122 was used, both as close mics on either side of the two speaker cones. I was only able to get through a song and half. I was proud of my performance, though I do wish I would have gotten a little more accomplished. The song that I did finish, is around six minutes long and has around four separate guitar parts as well as many embellishments. Over break I am planning on doing all the bass guitar and electric guitar 'comp-ing.' That way we can quickly finish up guitar parts and continue onto vocals.

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.

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.)

408 Production Synopsis 4

Session Update

This week during recording lab, Group C was able to complete all electric bass tracks that we plan on having on the album. There are a few auxiliary bass sounds that we plan on recording later (possibly ebow and stand up bass parts), but all primary parts are fully complete. Joe did a wonderful job executing all the tunes, especially when working on the song, 'Lover's Tree,' which I though would be quite difficult considering there is no click on the track and many retards. We chose to record this particular song without the click to give a very organic sound and it definitely creates 'fresh air' when compared to the rest of the album. It just feels like its live and spacious. We used the same set up as the previous week for DI's and microphone choices, however, on the last few songs we just recorded the bass directly into Millennia DI. It just allowed us to save on set up time so we could get right to recording great bass takes.

For next week, the plan is to try and finish all rhythm guitar tracks. We have talked about recording all the guitars with the same amp, but we've agreed to try out both Joe's and my personal amp to try and find the best amp/guitar arrangement. We had a surprising find today when tracking some scratch/trail guitar parts because we found that Chad's guitar has a intonation issue. The high e string on his guitar either needs to be intonated or a tuner adjustment. We would get the guitar into tune with itself, and after a take it sounded as if it were out of tune once again. Chad is going to try and fiddle with the bridge and try and get it sounding better, and if that doesn't work he's going to take it into a repair shop.

The recording process is going rather smoothly and we feel that we are right on schedule to complete tracking in a timely manner.

408 Production Synopsis 3

Session Update

This week group C was able to finally finish up the drum takes for all 7 songs. The last song was Joe's song and Lucas was able to play it cleanly in a few takes. We had a lot of fun deciding what Lucas was going to play for the bridge section, which has a Latin feel. He played a groovy quarter note pattern on the ride while playing triplets on his bell. Lucas also added some flare to the last chorus of the song when he played a polyrhythm 3 over the 4. When we finished the session on Tuesday we were all relieved to move on to the next part of tracking: bass.

Earlier today Joe finished bass for the 2 songs that he wrote. Both songs were tracked rather smoothly. The most important part that we focused on was getting a great tone from the amp and the millennia, which we were using. Joe started out tracking the first song using a pick and playing the syncopated rhythm. We quickly decided that this rhythm wasn't appropriate and he started to play straight eighth notes while using his fingers. Something still wasn't gelling right, so eventually we convinced him to use a pick, which easily sounded the best of the three approaches we tried. The signal routing that we used for the bass was somewhat confusing. Coming out from the bass was a quarter inch splitter. One end when into the Millennia and then into Pro Tools. The other line went into the GK head that Joe owns. From the head the signal went into the midilab where the cabinet was set up on the floor of the whisper room with baffling around it. On the Cabinet was a 421 that served as the main mic for the speaker signal. As well as the cabinet signal, a pre eq signal was taken from the head and into a DI and finally into the patch bay in the midilab. In total we tracked 3 bass signal. All 3 sounds had a distinctive personality. The 421 on the cab was the most 'boomy' and 'farty' sounding. The Millennia signal carried more string noise and a super clean characteristic. I felt the Direct Amp signal was the most pleasant as it had a round, full sound, and also didn't have as much string noise compared to the Millennia. Next week, both sessions are reserved for finishing up tracking bass parts.

408 Production Synopsis 2

Session Updates 2/19/2010

This week on the agenda, our plan was to finish our drum recordings. On Tuesday night, with a little extra time available, we were able to get three songs finished up. The first song to be complete was a song that I wrote called 'Brainwashed.' It was great to see Lucas put his skills to use and create wonderful drum fills over sections of odd metered phrasing. We completed Lucas's own song next, which was very different from any song we've ever recorded as a group. His song consists strictly of 'blastbeating,' though there is a very small 'pop rock' section and blues vamp also present. We finished up Joe's first song in a few takes and we left the studio feeling very content with what we had accomplished.

Before we left on Tuesday, we went through and planned what we wanted to finish on Friday. We came to the conclusion that it might be best to re-look at my first song as Lucas had some problems performing the parts correctly during the first session of tracking. We decided to only look at my song once Joe's second song was finished. If time allowed, we'd try and re-track my first song.

For Friday's session we came prepared to finish up the last drum part for Joe's song. We set up the session and loaded up Joe's scratch track for his last song. Lucas played though the song a few times and realized that the rhythms weren't in sync with the click and the phrasing wasn't quite correct. We spent some time trying to figure out what was going on, but in the end we just sent Joe to re-track the song while paying strict attention to the click and the phrasing. While Joe was creating a new scratch track, Lucas was able to redo parts of my first song and complete the drums in a fashion that everyone was happy with. Unfortunately, by the time we completed my song, there was no time for us to go back and finish up Joe's song. We still have one drum track to record for our next lab on Tuesday.

Brief Album Concept Update

While group D was utilizing the studio after our lab on Friday, we were able to brainstorm and come up with a 'close to complete' album concept. The name we have chosen for the band is 'The Brushfire War.' The tentative name for the album is 'The Treaty Del Amor.' The story concept takes place in the future, in a world where only 1 tree is left and is the only plant sustaining and keeping the world population alive. Two opposing 'mega-cities' will be fighting for the tree so they can clone it and use it for genetic engineering. One of the city names that we have so far will be 'Valoria' which represents the word 'Valor.' The other city will have a similar meaning...we want the cities and the opposing sides to be ambiguous in that neither will be stated as being good or bad. The Album will start off with the song 'Caught Up,' which will introduce the listener to the war torn plot where two cities are fighting. Joe's first song is next on the track list and will include an description of the characters involved and more plot details. The third song is entitled, 'Neon Cannonball.' The title of the song is going to reflect the name of a ship being used in the war (tentatively). It will also serve as the 'chase' part in the timeline, where one of the main characters will chase the other and finally meet at the last remaining tree. Hence the name of the next song, 'Lover's Tree.' Lucas's song is next and will be the turmoil, or the 'golden mean' part of the plot. The lovers find out that they are enemy and are supposed to be killing one another. Instead of falling for each other, they leave one another in fear of being killed for their love. They are driven to hate the world they live in. Instead of fighting for peace, they are consumed in the war and keep telling themselves that they are fight for the just side. The next song is called 'Brainwash' and has to deal with the fact that the characters are convincing themselves that they are hopeless towards the situation of loving someone from the other side. The last song concludes the story with the tree dying, taking along humanity with it. Somehow a fire starts and the tree is left to burn. This can tie into the name of our group as well. We want to have the ending somewhat ambiguous, but we are working on tying things up a little nicer. We have also considered having the lovers be military scientist who are trying to save the tree, but end up killing it in the end when a wrong chemical creates a spark.

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!