Week 7 Lol Hammond

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This week’s guest lecture was given by Lol Hammond who is a music supervisor for Vertigo Films, a music composer and occasionally works as a free-lance music supervisor.

I found this lecture very informative as I’d briefly heard of the music supervisor role, but never really understood the full extent of it. Lol went on to explain that the main premise of his job required him to source different pieces of music that were needed to be featured in films and TV shows. He needs to contact the record label, publisher and sometimes the artist to then work out a deal with them for their music to be licensed. The majority of the time Lol mentioned that getting the music required is usually successful however sometimes there are a few artists who demand too much money or refuse to have their music broadcast on films and TV.

Sometimes parts of the job can be more creative than others. There are times where the music supervisor can even work with the editor and be heavily involved in the creative process of choosing the music. However, there are other times where the music supervisor has no creative input and is only there to liaise with the label, publisher and artist.

When giving some tips on how to become a music supervisor, Lol said that it’s always good to have a wide knowledge of music and to immerse yourself in as much music as possible to avoid boxing yourself in. Another way to get into the industry is to cut your teeth working with independent companies on short films as they are an important part of the industry and are a good way of building up your contacts. This has never been easier due to the influx of social media and film makers being able to showcase their work to a massive internet platform. He also suggested that it’s always good to know a bit of video editing so you can show directors/producers/companies your choice of music for their project.

Bass tracking

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Today I worked with Dave on tracking all of the bass parts for this project.

Prior to this session I conducted some research on different bass production techniques used by various producers and if there were any specific types of equipment or hardware that were popular for this. Although I found a vast array of different techniques, I found that a lot of producers favoured the use of the DBX 160 compressor for bass to help reduce its dynamic range including Jacquire King, Joe Chiccarelli and even Mark Ronson who uses the Waves plugin equivalent. I also used a technique applied by Warren Huart where he adjusts the attack of the compressor to print a bass track into Pro Tools which stops the bass from ‘fish tailing’.

When applying these techniques into my own session, I used the pair of Sony SRP-L210’s to compress the bass amp and the bass amp DI. A quick point here is that I decided to leave the bass guitar DI channel raw and uncompressed so that I could use it as a backup if I needed it further along down the line. I adjusted my gain structure to the appropriate level and then began setting the threshold on the compressors to achieve around 3-5 dbs worth of compression. I did actually have an EBS bass compressor pedal on me for the session however using the hardware in the studio gave more flexibility when it came to adjusting the ratio and the attack.

FullSizeRender copy 2

Applying the necessary amount of compression to these two channels really helped warm up the overall sound of the bass as well as control the dynamic range. The main reason I wanted to reduce the dynamic range like this is because when Dave was recording his bass takes, there was a significant dip in volume when he played the higher strings which prevented us from getting a stable level for the control room mix. Once I was happy with the compressed bass tone, I noticed that the signal was still ‘fish tailing’. To prevent this I increased the attack time on both of the Sony compressors which didn’t eliminate these sharp transients completely but it definitely helped reduce them. The pictures below show the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of the adjusted attack time of the compressors.

Before: Screen Shot 2017-11-13 at 17.46.44

After:

Screen Shot 2017-11-13 at 17.46.26

 

 

Jacquire’s Shoot Out: Vintage Hardware vs. Apollo & Unison / UAD Plug-Ins https://youtu.be/D0TrTPAXM1I

In the Studio with Mark Ronson https://www.waves.com/in-the-studio-mark-ronson?utm_source=wnletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=studio-mark-watch-now&utm_campaign=weekend-newsletter-oct-13-2017-ronson-mR

Recording a Band with Joe Chiccarelli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFPQFjIEdo

How to Record Bass – Warren Huart: Produce Like A Pro https://youtu.be/9F5XgkvGuSE

Tutorial – Week 6

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This week me and Ben looked more in depth at my production plan and how to focus on certain types of research before my recording sessions. This way I can go into my recording sessions with a clearer idea of how to hit my learning outcomes. For example, because I had my bass recording session the next day, that night I looked at how different producers apply different techniques to improve the sound of their bass production. Doing this advanced research will also help me when recording guitars, vocals, mixing and mastering.

I also showed Ben the track I worked on with Dave back in May and the drum takes I’d captured during my recording session a few days earlier. This was a good way for Ben to get an idea of how the project was sounding and to give some advice on how to improve the sound of what I’d captured so far. One thing he suggested was that it might useful to use some samples over the snare to help thicken it up and to help it sit in the mix.

Week 6 Luke Pickering

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This week we had Luke Pickering come in to have a talk with us about his job at Church Studios in London. Luke is the Assistant Engineer to Paul Epworth, the in-house assistant and engineer for the studio and he also taught us for half of a semester in our first year.

Luke began by explaining that his career began at Church Studios by contacting Miloco and offering to complete a month of work experience there. During his first month, he didn’t really get hands on with much of the technical and creatives aspects of the studio and instead, was doing mundane tasks such as making drinks for people, sweeping the studio, emptying bins, filling fruit bowls etc. However, Luke made a strong point that completing these seemingly mundane tasks to a good standard is a vital part to moving up the ladder in the studio. If the producer can’t trust you to provide good cups of tea how can they trust you with all of the expensive equipment? It took him two years of being a runner to acquire his role as assistant engineer.

To get a job as a runner in the first place, he explained that its best to explain why you’d be a good runner and not to call yourself an ‘engineer’ or a ‘producer’. This is because they are looking for a runner and not an engineer, it will probably annoy the person reading it and producing is probably still a hobby at this moment in time. Whilst you are there as a runner, you need to have a strong initiative, be switched on, not annoy the other people working there and have an understanding of what people above you want.

Luke explained that the way it works at Church Studios is very traditional and that there is definitely a hierarchy there. You have to being willing to prioritise it over almost everything as it is more of a lifestyle than a job. You have to really want to do it as it involves working for as long as the producer/artist wants during unsociable or unstructured hours, working for poor pay, working long hours on your own terms as well as for people in different time zones and being prepared for almost anything.

I found this lecture very interesting and useful as I would love to work in a studio like this one day and getting this insight into the studio really provided me with some good knowledge of how get my foot in the door.

Mixing Masterclass with Chris Lord-Alge

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At the end of October, Chris Lord-Alge did a live webinar for Waves where he shared some of his own mixing tips and although i’ve implemented the majority of my research in my recording session posts, I wanted to make an individual post about this piece of research as it touches on quite a few aspects that relate to my project and my learning outcomes. Specifically, learning outcome 2 and 3.

The first thing that Chris made a big point about was having an organised session for mixing. Here are some of the key points he made around this topic:

  • Try and make your session as condensed as possible without making compromises. This way the session will be lot more manageable, it’ll be easier to navigate and it’ll be easier for you to make the necessary changes.
  • Colour code the tracks to what works best for you.
  • Use queues/markers to you can easily identify different sections of the song.
  • Give tracks short names so they are easier to understand.
  • Ensure that all of your tracks have the correct gain structure so they work correctly with your plugins.
  • Make comps of tracks where possible to reduce the amount of tracks in your session and make it more manageable.
  • Organising is the most important part of mixing. If you can’t manage your session efficiently then you’ll struggle to get a good sounding mix.

Chris also gave some tips on how to get vocals to sit in the mix:

  • Make a lead vocal comp onto one track (two if it over laps), ensure it is the same level through out and then consolidate it. This will make the lead vocals easier to mix.
  • In terms of processing, he suggests cutting some of the low end to remove rumble, increasing the top end to add shine and then compressing with the CLA-76 to give it more character. He then runs it through the CLA-vocal plugin adding more top end, reverb and delay which also makes the track stereo.
  • Using EQ before compression reduces the chances of sibilance and decreases the need to use a de-esser.

From implementing these techniques into my work, I am already finding it easier to navigate through my sessions and make adjustments where necessary. I will continue doing so all the way up until the mix stage where I will also use them to prepare all of the sessions for a mix. I will also use comp and consolidate my vocal tracks to also make them easier to manage when I reach the vocal recording stage.