Month: October 2017

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Week 5 Tutorial Write Up

This week myself and Lee were in the Multirack studio looking at techniques to boost the overall loudness of a mix. Lee explained to me the importance of giving every instrument inside a mix it’s own frequency space so they are not battling each other. He suggested I use a plugin with a frequency analyzer such as Blue Cat’s, by analyzing all the frequencies produced by an instrument I can carefully remove the low end ones that are not contributing to the overall sound of said instrument.

For next week I will break one of my sketches up into multiple stems and import them into Pro Tools, I will then put this technique into practice

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Week 5 Lecture Write Up

This week’s guest lecturer was Emily Wilczek, Emily is a lecturer within the Lincoln School of Film & Media. This week she talked about the ways to approach an experimental audio project in relation to this module,Emily broke the experimental project down into three segments concept/process and realisation.

Concept: The concept of the project relates to what the idea is actually going to be, this is then followed by the exploration of this idea e.g what kind of techniques/technology are you going to experiment with. Lastly what are the opportunities this kind of project can present to you as a creative e.g, what  kind of funding/commissions would be available.

Process:The process relates to the creation of the project, it consists of the research you should do before creating an experimental piece. For example finding out what experimental audio pieces exist already can inform and educate you, allowing you to experiment with your project and develop it.

Realisation: The realisation is the logistics of the actual project e.g who will hear your work and where will it be heard. The advertising,presentation and information of the audio project  are all relevant here, without the proper realisation you will be doing a disservice to your audio project.

Emily went on to talk about the best way to present your work, she told us we should  identify our audience and  actively take steps to get  our work in front said audience. For example she suggested creative  locations such as the 22 channel sound wall present in the Collection are ideal because these locations are built for experimental. By placing your work in relevant areas such as galleries your allowing your work to be accessed by people who have an interest in this field, this allows your work to be appreciated. She also suggested writing some information about an experimental audio piece next to where it is displayed to give it some context.

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Research : Mike Dean : Travis Scott : Vocals

Travis Scott is a producer/rapper who’s unique sound is composed of heavy autotune, deep 808’s and lively synths. Birds In The Trap Sing Mcknight is Travis Scott’s second album and American engineer Mike Dean is responsible for the mixing on this album.

Today I did some research on Mike Dean and his techniques used for Travis Scott’s vocals and I found a Twitter conversation between Mike Dean and a fan talking about  Travis Scott’s Vocals on the album, from reasing this Twitter thread I have identified two main things valuable to my research.

 

mike dean evidence

Image sourced from (https://twitter.com/therealmikedean/status/771856313383026688)

 

Firstly it is clear that Mike Dean intentionally made Travis Scott’s vocals the most noticeable part of his mixes. By allowing the vocals to have more dynamic range, it places emphasis on Travis as an artist and forces the listener to acknowledge his voice is the main instrument used in his music. This relates to learning outcome three and I will be incorporating this technique of vast dynamic range on the vocals for my Travis Scott inspired track.

Secondly I find Mike Dean’s response very interesting, it shows that even as a well established audio engineer with years of experience,the final sound of the music is ultimately the artists decision’s and as an engineer Mike Dean has to respect how Travis Scott wants his music to sound and be consumed. This relates to learning outcome one, as it gives me a prime example of how professionalism extends beyond mannerisms. Being a professional audio engineer means you have to listen to the artist you are working with and respect their wishes when it comes to the overall sound of their music.

This post relates to Learning Outcomes 1 & 3

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Research : Young Guru : Vocal Tracking of Jay-Z

Young Guru is an American audio engineer who aided Jay-Z in the recording and mixing of the album The Blueprint 3.

The Blueprint 3 is Jay-Z’s 11th studio album and was released on the 8th September 2009. This album is one of Jay-Z’s more commercial albums featuring chart topper’s such as “Run This Town”,”Young Forever” and “Empire State Of Mind” which was Jay’Zs first number 1 on the Billboard 100.The album was clearly created to be commercially appealing and  I believe that should be taken into consideration as I carry out my research on Young Guru.

Today I carried out some initial research research on Young Guru and I found  an interview with him and Sound on Sound magazine. In one segment of the interview Young Guru starts talks about his method of  recording Jay Z

“My signal chain is normally a Neumann 87 or 67 going into an Avalon 737. I love the way the Avalon preamp sounds with his voice. It’s a perfect match.”

The Neumann u87/u67 are both very high end large diaphragm condenser microphones and are famous for giving an extremely neutral vocal recording ,the Avalon 737 is a top of the line channel strip that adds warmth,definition and presence to a recording. Jay-Z has a very distinguishable voice so it is clear why such a neutral microphone would be put through a channel strip that can add even more to his unique voice. For my project I will be doing all of my vocal recording using a Neumann 87,this will allow me to capture a neutral sound and will not stop the creative process in production . However I can try to imitate these choices Young Guru made using the equipment that is available to me.

With regards to the Avalon 737, the multi track studio has a Chameleon 7720 compressor that I will be running all my vocal tracks though.The Chameleon 7720 is the closest thing to the Avalon I can get my hands on and it will allow me to imitate the Avalon’s audio processing capabilities.

This post relates to Learning Outcome 5

Full Interview is available at https://www.soundonsound.com/people/secrets-mix-engineers-young-guru

 

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Week 4 Tutorial

This week myself and Lee discussed the best way to blog my research which was very helpful,  we went over how important it is to ensure every blog post is relevant to one of my learning outcomes so that my blog doesn’t become bloated. The methods of transcribing visual media such as interviews into my blog was also described  I also asked Lee for his advice on how to best acoustically treat my home studio as I plan to do some of mixing/recordings at home to give me more flexibility with my work.

Next week we will be in the multi-track studio where I will be showing my sketches and getting help with boosting the overall loudness of them.