Sound Engineering (Studio) A – Project

Production Documentation
Your Name
Scott Philp

Date/s of Production
17th/19th of June

Song Title
Let Him Lie

Format
Sampling Rate 48kHz Bit Depth 24bits Duration 5’44

Total Time Spent on Production
5 Hours 12 Minutes

Notes/Issues/Commentary on Production (Minimum 300 words)
This song was quite dynamic. The biggest problem was the guitar sound in the chorus was quite different and had a whole less mid range in it which meant keeping it sounding good with the rest of the track was difficult. Having two guitar tracks made it quite loud also, this didn’t seem to be a problem against the vocals but the bass, kick drum and snare drum has trouble keeping up even after compression and EQ so I double them over to an aux track which seemed to do the trick. I left the spill in the two vocal tracks as I thought it mix of mics sounded nice. I inverted the male vocal track to avoid phase issues which made a big difference. As the band played the track as a whole I wanted to keep that sort of feeling in the track, which is another reason for keeping the spill in some of the tracks. I used aux sends for all the reverbs and used a different reverb for the vocals, drums, and guitar to help give them all their own sense of space. NOTE: I have not included references in my descriptions but many of my techniques have come straight from examples and discussion had in class.

Link to MP3:
http://www.box.net/shared/tyx9a4v6tp

Production Documentation
Your Name
Scott Philp

Date/s of Production
17th/19th of June

Song Title
Elvis

Format
Sampling Rate 48kHz Bit Depth 24bits Duration 4’19

Total Time Spent on Production
5 Hours 12 Minutes

Notes/Issues/Commentary on Production (Minimum 300 words)
This song was interesting to mix, really I was going for a nice warm feel with a really full low end sound. I wanted to keep everything up in the mix and quite clear. The biggest problem I faced was with the volume of the guitar and the relationship between the kick drum and the bass guitar. The guitar had two track which I panned left and right, this gave a nice full sound but was overpowering at times and finding the right EQ and compression settings was key. I found that I didn’t really need to add many effects to the tracks as it didn’t go with the bands sound. I tried to make each instrument sound as good as I good using EQ and compression and try and keep the feeling of the band all playing live together. I added a small Tremolo effect to a drum fill to demonstrate the use of effect automation, it’s very subtle but I actually like it. Mastering the track was an issue as I found it hard to find settings that didn’t destroy the mid range of the mix. I ended up using the mastering plugin combined with an EQ to get the final sound I wanted from the track. I used aux sends to create the reverb tracks with a separate one for the guitar tracks, drum tracks, and the vocal track. This helped create a good sense of space for each instrument. Also to help boot the volume of the kick and bass guitar I sent them to an aux track as well. I found this a good way to keep the volume up with using too much compression. This was the second track of the two I mixed so many of the settings are altered versions of what I used for ‘Let Him Lie’. The biggest re-evaluation of settings I had to do was now have the female singing on the NTV.

Link to MP3:
http://www.box.net/shared/51qfgaz589