Final Blog- Reflection

Initially for my FMP I wanted to make a Bhangra Ep, but I looked at the time constraints we were under to make our projects. I decided this wasn’t really time effective, so I changed my mind and decided to make a Soulful House Ep instead. Changing my mind automatically made me behind target as I had already started to work on my first idea.

Over the past year, I feel as if I have learnt a lot of skills and have been able to put them into practise, by incorporating these skills within my FMP. I think by incorporating these skills, it has made my FMP successful.

In terms of time management, we were a bit off key at the start. We didn’t plan out our studio session, therefore we didn’t use our time effectively, and sometimes we would arrive at the studio and decide what we were doing on the day, rather then prior to the studio session. In terms of studio roles, we each had opportunities to act out each studio role, we each responded well to each of these roles and didn’t have any struggle staying within them.

In terms of strengths and weaknesses, I think we each had different strengths and weaknesses, so I can’t really comment on everyone else’s. I think personally one of my main weaknesses was recording in generally, as normally I’m reliant on midi and sampling. To overcome this, I conducted research prior to my studio sessions, on microphone choices, and microphone placement. I think my strengths were in my mixing and actual compositions; I was able to do both of these with very little assistance.

Through out the year, we came across a lot of problems, such as the snow, which delayed us by a few weeks. Also we had alot problems with absences, resulting in a shortage of musicians in our studio sessions. As well as these problems we often came across a lot of problems with the studio equipment not working, such as microphones.

I think overall from this whole experience, I have learnt a lot from many sectors of the music technology spectrum, and also time management and planning skills. Compared to when I first started this year at college, my compositions have made vast improvements, due to these skills I have learnt.

I’m really pleased with the two products, which I have produced for my FMP. Overall I think they’re possibly the best pieces of music I’ve ever composed. I feel as is if I’ve actually incorporated all the skills I’ve learnt over the last 2 years into these two compositions.

March 22nd

March 22^nd

Todays studio session didn’t take place due to performance.

March 15th

March 15^th

Today I used the editing suite, because all of the over studios were occupied. My intentions for today were to record some basic percussion for my 2^nd FMP. I chose to record a Bongo, Wood block and a Tambourine. I already had midi parts of each of these instruments laid out on my composition already, but I thought it would be a good idea to have each of these played in as live instruments rather than samples. To record the bongo I used the SM57 placed quite closely to the skin of the drum. I chose to use the SM57, as I wasn’t after too much detail in the sound, I wanted to capture just the effect of two consecutive rhythmic hits, rather then the noises and ambience created by the bongos.

For the Tambourine and Wood Block, I used the c1000, as this microphone is a condenser, so therefore more sensitive. Which is what I required for these to instruments, as I wanted to pick up all the details and accents occurred when playing each of these. For both of these the microphone placement was quite similar, I set the microphone up in one corner and played the each of the instruments about half a metre away away.

March 8th

March 8^th

Absent

March 1st

March 1^st

In today’s studio session we came across a problem, with Doms FMP logic file. Each time he loaded it, it went out of time, we tried alternatives logic files of the same project, but we still had the same problem. After a while Stevie figured the problem out and fixed it for us. After this Dom wanted to record some sounds of people clapping so that he could replace a sampled clap within his project with a live one. For the recording we used an AKG 414 and each took turns clapping.

We also shared the studio this week, so for the second half of the session, me, Ruben and Dom were in the editing suit. As Ruben and Dom had nothing to do, I used this opportunity to finish of composing one of my projects for my FMP.

February 8th

February 8^th

Arranged guitar in preparation for mixing

In today’s studio session, I was the arranging the guitar that I had recorded the previous week. I started off by listening to what I had, and then I began to cut out the parts that were out of tune, and didn’t suit the composition. Once I had finished this process I arranged the guitar, alongside the verses and choruses. So that it was ready for the mixing process.

Monday 1st February

Monday 1^st February

Prior to today’s studio session, I done some research on different types of microphone placements and microphones that I could use for recording. I considered loads of different placements and microphones. My initial idea was to use a single SM57 placed at the sound hole, but I decided not to go with this, as it wouldn’t capture the sounds that I wanted, the SM57 gave a warm flat sound, I decided this wouldn’t suit the mix. As I was after something more bright and crispy, which was more possible to capture with a condenser microphone, so I decided to use 2 AKG C451, to capture a stereo recording one placed at the sound hole and one half way down the fret. So that they captured both the main sound and the sound of the fingers brushing back a forth whilst playing the notes.

Today’s studio session was quite hectic all 3 of us made use of having the guitarist in the studio, first I recorded, and had Ruben and Dom as my sound engineers, and we alternated when it was each other’s turn to record.

Me and Ruben both used an acoustic guitar and went for a similar set up. In the live room we created a kind of isolation chamber, in case the drum kit in the room affected the natural reverb.

The recording process for mine didn’t take too long; Dan had thought of two ideas for the composition, a rhythm section and lead guitar section, I recorded full 56 bars for the lead guitar, so that a had a lot of audio to select from when it came to the arrangement process.

Ruben already had a guitar section laid out in midi, which he wanted Dan to recreate.

Dom wanted to record an electric guitar, this involved us changing the studio set up that we had, we kept the isolation chamber and closed mic’d a guitar amp with an SM57 microphone

I will post some images soon of each of these set ups.

Monday 25th January

Monday 25^th January

This week’s studio session, I assigned the role of a studio engineer for Rubens recording. He wanted to record live drums on a piece he had previously composed, as a studio engineer it was my role alongside the over studio engineers to prepare the live room, i.e. task such as assembling the kit to the players requirements, getting the microphones and stands to the correct positioning, as it was Rubens project he selected the microphones that he wanted to use, for the kick drum we used the AKG D112, for the snare we used the Shure SM57, for the hi hat an AKG CI000, and for the overheads we used the AKG C451.

Along the way we had some minor problems with the XLR cable on the right overhead, the faulty cable was causing the signal to peak, to solve this we changed the cable

Monday 18th January

Monday 18^th January

Midi Comp

Due to the change of plan for my FMP I used today’s studio sessions to go in the midi suite and finish one of my composition. I already had an idea of the kind of song that I wanted to compose; with some help from Stevie I managed to finish off the composition by the end of the day.

I already had a few ideas of the instruments I could have recorded on it. I decided that rather than taking the midi parts away from the composition, and replacing them with recorded instruments, I would rather add something else to the piece that wasn’t there in the midi composition.

I chose to have a live acoustic guitar recorded on the track; I selected a guitarist from our studio group called Dan Twining, as he could play a wide range of styles, and he was able to compose a guitar section, with the ideas I had given him. This was very helpful, as I don’t play guitar.

In order to let the guitarist get familiar with the song I supplied him with a bounced .mp3, and set a date for recording.

This gave me time to research the best ways record acoustic guitar and think about my microphone selection and recording techniques and to do any over preparation that was needed.

Monday 11th January

Monday 11^th January

Absent

Monday 4th January

Monday 4^th January

I have reconsidered my first idea, and have decided to go with a different one, as this idea would be rather hard to execute with the timescale I’ve been given. Instead of this I have decided to stick with the same idea of making a 3 song EP but of a different genre. Still showcasing the same skills as the first idea.