Production Diary

Production diary

Mic used:

Titan - titan is a condensed mic witch uses phantom power due to the amount of energy it needs, the reason why i chose this microphone to record vocals was because it picks up a lot of low frequency, mid frequency and high frequency. It has three different polar patterns which are cardioid polar pattern which are very suitable for high notes or high sound and its also a figure of eight by directional polar pattern which is good for a duet recording. The third polar pattern is omni directional which picks an all round sound. The polar pattern that i used was a cardioid polar pattern on it which was useful to me because I had a lot of loud notes recorded.

C414XLS- the c414 offered me a great quality of the vocals because it picks up a lot of details

Other:


Mic Stand - the reason why i used a mic stand was to adjust the microphone to a comfortable position where it would help my vocals come out comfortably into the mic for the recording.
Stands for the speaker - having stands for speakers kept the monitors at a position where you could hear the sound from two different angles without having anything blocking them because the stand was used to lift the speakers above the computer level.

adjustable chair - the reason why i used an adjustable chair was because i needed to use the midi witch was on my left side and i also needed to use the computer witch was in front of me, so the chair was really useful because it had wheels to move around and i adjusted it to a position where i would sit comfortably. 

keyboard stand - normally i use the keyboard in front of the computer monitors but because i wanted more control of the mouse and the computer keyboard i had to use a keyboard stand to put the midi on my left hand side.

Mac - i use logic pro 9 and this program is only suitable for mac computers, and also macs generate a lot of ram to get the software working.

logic software - logic is the software i use, it's where i use a lot of sampled instruments and its where i also record vocals, its a very useful software because its really clear to use, really easy to handle.

noise cancelling walls - i kept a noise cancelling wall around me to block extra sound bouncing off the walls that creates reverb. The noise cancelling walls kept the sound as dry as possible so it would be easier to have control of the recorded sound due to the small amount of reverb.

interface - i used the scarlet audio interface to plug in the microphone and the headphones in to it and also to set the volume for the monitors, it was also going to be useful for an instrument because it has a jack port in it but due to the lack of guitars i was not able to use a guitar.

Mixer - i used a mixing desk to put the gain at a good level to record vocals and i also used four buses to control the loudness of the instrumentals.

headphones - the headphones was very useful to me because if i didnt have the headphones there would be a lot of bleeding in the sound due to the instrumentals played being recorded onto the mic. So i used the headphones to keep the instruments playing within the headphones because there would be no bleeding into the sound.

monitors - whilst recording i didnt really use the monitors. The monitors became very useful to me when i was doing my final mixing, normally what i do is mix the initial part of the work in my headphones then at my final mixing i used the monitors to do the final mixing.

 Recording

Track 1


The first thing I did to start this track was to decide what track I wanted to make, I decided to make this track a hip hop track. Then I decided to create a mood, in music you create a mood by choosing the appropriate chord sequence to make the song happy or sad. So I made the song more towards evil and wicked by choosing the bass chords with a mix of majors and minors. Before I played the notes I went onto media on the right hand side of logic, went on library then the instruments came up, then I went on bass then went on synth bass and then I chose basment bass as my instrument. Once I chose the right bass instrument I played the notes by recording live from the computer keyboard because I did not have a midi controller at home. After I recorded my bass line I copied and pasted the midi data I did this by pressing alt dragging the midi data next to the previous data then letting the mouse go then letting my finger of the alt button, then I repeated this action till I didn't want to copy and paste the midi data.


Then I added a new instrument voice space, what I did with voice space was I copied and pasted the same midi data as the basement bass, and then after that I added another instrument glow stick which sounds like a synth you would use in a dubstep track and like what I did with voice space I copied the midi data from the basement bass midi data, so after I copied and pasted the midi data I made it a octave higher to harmonise with the 2 other instruments I used. So I made 3 instruments doing the same thing.


Next the I did was the piano, with the piano I chose piano's dream because it had a good amount of reverb which had the space design reverb witch is a plug in you get in the side already made on it. After I chose the piano I added auto filter to the piano, synchronized the beat, chose the waveform which made a dubstep wobble, chose the rate of the beat which wobbles at a half pace, I turned up the cutoff mod all the way to 100 percent. After that duplicated the piano's dream instrument twice and then I copied and pasted the high octave synth onto the second duplicated piano and then I played the piano live on the second bar to varie the piano sound, and the first piano only became a compliment due to the style of mixing I chose for it, then on the third piano I played manually a different melody.


My next step was the drums, first step I chose a specific kick drum, it was already compressed so what I decided to do was change the EQ, I made sure that I took out a lot of the bass from the kick drum to prevent the original bass being distorted, then I added a second different kick drum, this was the latin kick, the latin kick is really dry and natural so what I decided to do was to put the volume really low then I added gold verb, once I chose the gold verb as my plug in I made sure the option was according to what I wanted the sound to sound like, I chose the mix option to 45 percent, my reverb time was kept at 1.05 seconds, then my density was kept at 50 percent, my high cut was kept at 4200Hz, kept the room size small at 10m to get the reverb really realistic. I played the kick drum manually and quantised it to 1/8 note.


I then added a snare the roland tr 606, I kept the snare clean, chose the pre EQ option to the sound I wanted, I played it live and quantised it to 1/8 note. then I added a seventies kit, with seventies kit I didn't use a eq I kept it on a straight line but I added a lot of reverb on the averb option and made sure the room size was at a 100 percent, the mix was at 44 percent, denisity/time on 75 percent, reflectivity was at 20 percent.


I then chose the roland tr - 808 as my high hat kit, instead of playing the kit live I decided to edit it by holding command and clicked on the bars I wanted, I done it for less then a beat and copied and pasted where I wanted the high hats to be played at.


I added the broken beat kit for my second high hat, I made sure that I took out the high frequency on the EQ option, I done that because it almost gave a harmony between the 2 high hats, I copied and pasted the broken beat kit at the bottom but instead of playing 2 high hats at the same time I put the second broken beat kit to play quarter of a second later then the first high hat kit.


After I did my beat, bass and piano, to finish the track I added audio, the first sample I used was already in the libary so I looked for an abstract atmosphere 134 because it was a sound of a police speaking on the radio witch is what I wanted. After that I really wanted it to sound like a voice coming from a radio, so I took out all of the low frequency EQ which made it sound like a radio effect, then I added averb, made sure density/time was 100 percent, the room size on 100 percent, the mix on 22 percent and the reflectivity on 20 percent, then I added an echo which played at 1/8, then I added automation for the panning, I panned the sound to the right and left really fast which made a wierd sensation in the sound.


Next I chose the vocals that I wanted to use, I downloaded the vocals from youtube which was actually a rapper freestyling live accapella, because he did not have a track playing he kept on going in and out of time in this recording, there also was a lot of people around him, having different conversations which made a amature recording of his vocals, his voice was quite loud so I decided to use that to my advantage, after choosing the vocals I decided to pick the parts that I wanted and the parts that I didn't want, the parts that I wanted I made sure it was on time with my track and I also used a useful plugin which is called bpm counter, bpm counter gave me the time that the track was at, it said 127.3 beats per minuet so I typed in 127.3 into the tempo of my track to make the audio in time with my track, I kept the time signature at 4/4. After that the first vocals I made the EQ and I took out all the low frequency on the EQ option, then I added a lot of reverb in the averb plug in, then I added a different reverb which is called aumatrix reverb, after choosing that plug in I chose the pre setting at a medium hall 3 and kept the settings the same, then I used channel EQ took out some of the low frequency then I added a speech enhancer plug in, which helps the vocals become clear, I chose the denoise at -33dB, then I kept mic connection on, then I chose the mic model which was powerbook g4 titanium, then I kept the voice enhancer on and chose the male solo option, then I added another plug in exciter, kept the freequency at 6600hz, made the harmonics at 113.000 percent this was helpful because it brightened the vocals. Then I used pitch shifter 2 witch is a plug in that deepens the vocals or makes it thinner, I wanted a evil dark and low sound to his voice so I kept the mixer at 100 percent, chose the semi tones at -7 which made the vocals really low, then I chose cents at -23, after I chose the vocals option. Then I copied and pasted the parts that I wanted and I repeated a lot of the same parts. Once at about 1min 1 second into the song I chose a different verse that the rapper was using and up to that part the rapper vocals was at a low pitch, so what I did to change the dynamics was to add his orignal voice on top of the low pitched voice which created a harmony, once the harmony was created I made sure that the vocals was clear enough by using the same channel EQ speech enhancer and the exciter as the second low pitch vocals, the only difference was that I didn't use a pitch shifter.






Mastering - The mastering is where the song became a part of a quality album,EP or mix-tape. A lot of people think that mix downs is the same as mastering but they are different Mixing should be done whilst you are adding instruments to your beat or adding audio to your software, Mastering on the other hand is the final task. once the you have a group of track you need to have them having the same level you need to have a good flow to the album by not having too much space or not enough space between the tracks. but if I was to sum up what mastering is using my own word I would say "making everything it smooth" as my sum.

Here is what I've done.


My Mastering:

step 1 - My first step was to choose from my choices of created tracks to go together on the album, My choices where Put my name on it (Hip-Hop Trap) and whats cooking (Grime) both tracks have different feeling to it but are similar when it comes to the way I structured them.


Step 2 - After the songs was chosen I had to bounce it to WAVE format then I had to make sure it was set to 24bit to get the best quality for my CD.


Step 3 - once the tracks was bounced I needed to make sure I had a empty logic project opened, Then I had to chose empty tracks on logic. Once that was done I chose audio tracks instead of software instruments for my 2 songs. I added my Songs by searching for it on the search option on the top right corner. I loaded songs 1 to track 1 and song 2 to track 2 in the Logic pro software.


Step 4 - at this point I made my self listen to similar songs to help me make my mind up about what I wanted the first track to sound like. Track one I only used the EQ to increase the bass, then I increased a bit of the mid section of the frequency to make things like the snare, piano and the vocals to stand out more especially the vocals. Song 1 was not hard to master because I mixed it very well, so all I needed to do for song one was the change from song 1 to song 2 , what I did to end song 1 was to use the volume fade on the top right hand side, then I pressed ctrl and click to give me the option to change the pitch instead of the volume once that was done at the end of track 1 I added the same effect to song 2 but instead of the pitch fade slowing down It started slow and low until it went to the normal speed. song 2 was easy too because like song one I mixed the song well also. I made the vocal stand out because the vocals is the most important aspect of my track, then I made the bass a little stronger. I also made sure the track matched the same volume as the first track.


Final Step - My next target was to turn the songs into album so I sent each song 1 and song 2 to my iTunes, I applied to right name for song and the name of the album and for song 1 and 2 so they merged together.Then I created I play list, pressed ctrl click then I chose burn track to CD option, I then applied the CD to burn the songs in to it. After five mins I played the CD in a different system to see if it worked properly (it did).