Film music guest person stuff (this is a blog)

This week’s forum saw us all learning about music in film. It’s a pretty involved process, lots of teamwork involved. Essentially, no sound in film is source sound. For one thing, reality is not exaggerated enough. Hollywood has us used to hearing the whoosh of air and the smack of skin when someone pulls a punch and the rustling of clothes when someone moves, the crunching of gravel when someone walks and the jangling of car keys in their pocket. It’s the attention to these minute details that suspend the viewer’s disbelief (well, I think so anyway). The person in charge of this magic is the Foley artist. (All but rustling, someone else is in charge of rustling). In Hollywood, the workload is split up into very specific parts, everyone specialises (like Japanese mechanics). You have the - Foley artist, - Rustle track guy, - The person in charge of overdubbing the dialogue, - Someone who composes scores, - Someone who arranges them, - Someone who makes them readable - Librarian (a surprisingly important member of the film making army) As far as composing film music is concerned, it is hard not to be influenced by the temp track (according to our guest speaker). Before composing a note, go and talk the director/producer and get as much of an idea as to what they want and what would be appropriate for respective scenes. Also, get an idea of what instruments you have to play with. When composing, it is important to remember that at the end of the day, dialogue comes FIRST. Compose sound that will compete with the dialogue and it will be squashed down and hidden in the background. Likewise, if a character is singing on screen, accompanying music will need to be small. Point of View camera shots are a good opportunity to put in some additional music. Ask yourself ‘why is the camera moving, what is it trying to portray?’ Lastly, the guest speaker played us the promotional video for a Sony game to which he composed the music and created the sound effects. He suggests attempting to source sounds from the Hollywood vaults of recordings as Hollywood has the money to create the best quality recordings around. He told us a tale of a fellow who spent a day recording sports cars racing down a tunnel. My conclusions in respect to the actual music were that, game music is a good opportunity to play with MIDI and create what is essentially techno/electronica.

Week 4?? 5? what ever week following the post before this one ha ha.: DISC EDITS

This week’s forum excursion found me falling asleep in disc edits. In my half-asleep haze I learnt that these guys got in on mastering CDs nice and early. Their soundproofing and design was impeccable, their equipment good quality and their couches allegedly pretty comfy. Disc edits have been operating since around 1992. Originally I think they intended to do other things like recording voice-overs. The equipment for this is still present and used. However, as CDs came to the fore of the audio landscape, it became apparent that something needed to replace the editing process present in tape recordings, something was needed to restore a little warmth to digital recording, disc edits set out to become a mastering studio. Like other mastering studios we have heard about, disc edits possess an array of analogue devices through which signal can be processed. They also make good use of equalisation and have an oscilloscope device that can tell you what the stereo image is doing. I was somewhat perplexed to learn that they usually listen to music at 80 db (at this level, you can work for an hour I think before needing to take a break). Personally, I would try and work at as low a level as possible (so at night, you could probably get away with considerably less than 80 db). However, it is imperative that every different recording requiring analysis for effective mastering is listened to through the same speakers and at the same volume. An hour and 45 minutes into this excursion, I woke right up when our disc edits man gave us the history of recorded music in 15 minutes (impressive). All of the manufacturing processes up until the point of CDs I was at least a little bit familiar with and yet this guy managed to make it sound interesting. Finally, he arrived at the era of the CD and not only told us about ‘Glass Masters’ but showed us one as well. In fact, he had 3 Glass masters (I think) and was able to show us the Glass, the Glass with a nickel coating and the Glass after it has been etched. He seemed mystified as to why bands might ask to keep their Glass Masters. That is no mystery to me, they look COOL.

blog for week 4 in the semester numbering 2: CD city

Here it is folks, the ins and outs of CD manufacture (surprisingly hard to find pictures of on the net). You take one master CD that meets the industry standards to the factory where a pair of technicians will spend 8 hours putting information on a 'stamper'. (The stamper is a reverse mold of the original information which is made from metal covered by glass). Then there are the CD production lines. The biggest issue with CD manufacture is getting your job into their schedule. In a large factory, a disc can be printed every three seconds. The process is approximately as follows...plastic pellets are melted down, stamped as they reach melting point, coated in metal and coated in more plastic. Finally, the disc needs a government approved barcode, I'm not sure if this is every individual disc with its own code or if the code is relevant to the information printed on it. If you want to be stingy, you can attempt to burn uber numbers of CDs at home...I don't recommend it. However, if you insist on this course of action, there is a program called Bravo that will slowly burn your discs for you (like maybe over night). Finally, your disc needs a picture, you have a choice between offset printing (photographic quality) or silk screen printing (more dotty). You could get a CD in the shape of a business card. Pretty expensive and they can only be played in CD players with trays but how cool is that!!! You can get CDs in other custom shapes too, they need only to be balanced. The plastic for these needs to be of a high quality. So, when you get all your CDs back, keep your master copy in a safe place. Oh, and of course, use refutable manufacturing plants who will take good care of your master while it is in their hands. David Grice suggests having three copies of the master, one for listening, one for safe “tape it up, never listen to it” and....another one for safe. Not surprisingly enough, people still manufacture tapes (you can sell anything to people crossing the Nullabor) and vinyl (it retains a much warmer sound). In Australia, there is only one place that produces vinyl, it is in Melbourne I think. Now, a little more class project feedback: ME – Instrumentally sound (good drums oh yeah) the vocals are out of tune, is this necessarily a negative (NB, the band went and recorded a bunch of stuff with someone else and put it on their Myspace and kept all of the ear drum mutilating partials int eh guitar and bass sounds, they obviously like to sound bad and, as a professional, I needed to give the band what they want. Ponytails gets thumbs up for panning of guitars and vocals, vocals maybe a bit loud. Simon – Mixed in headphones equals boom double tracked guitars good vocals in mono would be a different creature voice double tracked Jake – Rockin could have used a Rhythm part Don't work with pissed people Daniel – open lid for piano recording middle string miced with u87 good honky tonk feel

week something: Paradise (not surprisingly, not my idea of)

Well, never could two studios be as different as Mix Masters and Paradise. The former, in true Rock tradition I think, assembled over a life time of engineering and collecting, many devices being old/salvaged/restored/emulating the old, the engineers being their own masters (the guy from Paradise kept on referring to “the band’s producer” as the person who decides what to do. Producer? I have never seen a local band with a producer.) The building was old and homely unlike Paradise, which featured narrow corridors, wide screen TV, egg chairs and the smell of paint. The Paradise equipment was all bought brand new, top of the line stuff (no two inch multitrack taping machines kicking around this joint). The Paradise engineer a mere 23 years old, shipped over from Sydney to do Church recordings. So, what did I learn? Our guide said most sagely that it is better to get things right when recording than spend ages trying to fix it up in the editing stage. He also said, most intriguingly that, once you have a little experience and a little confidence…abandon the clean recording. If you have an A grade compressor at your disposal, run your vocals through it, it’s compression will sound infinitely nicer than anything Protools has to offer. If your desk is a quality beast of a desk, set your EQ at sound check, the result will be pleasant (and save messing around in post production). Upon examining our offerings of recorded material, the Paradise engineer played recordings through two different sets of speakers, one set of which Ken declared to sound ‘appalling’. This statement was met with the explanation of needing some poorer quality speakers for a more objective monitoring system (harking back to Stephen Fieldhouse’s adventures mixing on his car stereo). Alas, the overwhelmingly commercial attitude (manifest in such ideas as ‘if the drummer can not play to a click track, tell him to practice until he can.’) of our guide meant that I had trouble not tuning him out and gleaned little more knowledge than what you see above you. I can conclude that, I liked Mix Masters a lot more than Paradise and, I could never do work experience at Paradise. Too Much Church Music!

Mtf wk 2 or semester 2: Ideas city

At last, a bit of real world application, this week’s forum was spent investigating the Mix Masters recording studio up in the hills. Upon our arrival, we were shown an array of old-school analogue technology. Nifty devices included a 2 inch multitrack tape recorder and a Radar, countless reverb and compression units, ribbon mics and an analogue desk (that is never-the-less hooked up to Protools which Mix Masters essentially use as a filing cabinet/editing tool). All semester, I have been wondering why the old sound engineers are so reluctant to let go of analogue recording devices. Now, finally, I have an explanation. Quite simply, the attraction is distortion from track to track on the 2 inch multitrack tape. The less than perfect technology allows for a little bit of contamination (or ‘fuzz’) from the neighbouring track the end result being a nice kind of distortion that binds everything together. In the pursuit of a compromise between the mind-boggling ease of digital and the ‘warmth’ of analogue, a computer with a super ADC/DAC converter has been created. This is known as Radar. I think I would like one, can I have one please? Mix Masters have one wired up and often use it to record. The fellow who showed us around suggested (with his infinite array of options) that, just because you have access to a collection of equipment, you may not need it for a good sound. He would probably tend to start with nothing and add devices as the sound quality (or lack there of) dictates. He also had a nice collection of mics including very old, top notch vocal mics and assorted ribbon mics. He had found with experience that the best quality mic may not produce the best recordings in every situation. At the end of the day, it is a good thing to avoid simply follow a formula. Good advice given included the suggestion of trying your best to record warm ups as, they often as not prove to be the best take you get. Same as live situations, setting up more mics than you need is preferable and, much to my surprise, our guy suggested building rock mixes up from the guitars/vocals, something that I am keen to try with my recording from last semester.

Mtf wk 13: back to the grind

We have a new lecturer (David Grice) for forum this semester and, we are going to, every second week be going on excursions to local studios, which should be cool. For the first part of the class, we got told a little of our new lecturer’s history. Like a lot of the rock musician come lecturers here, David tells us he settled into recording when he hit 30 because he wanted a stable future. Coming from a musician’s background, he became interested in recording and more or less taught himself. David’s musical background includes piano lessons up to fifth grade and competitive singing. At this stage, David has a broad appreciation of different styles of music. He suggests that, as an engineer it helps to be able to find something you like in every band you record (even if it is just the double kick in a death metal band) otherwise some recording jobs will drive you insane.

 David mentioned the impact of the evolution of the internet on the acquisition of music (this curious compromise on quality for quantity ala MP3s). The upside of the net is that it provides a whole new medium for marketing. In the realms of recording and marketing, David suggests recording warm ups and selling your CDs in a store so you can collect ARIA points (though if you sell independently then you can keep your profits). He also mentioned that, at the end of the day, analogue will ALWAYS sound warmer than digital. However, I like to think that a good analogue mastering can redeem the warmth you lose from digital recording. Of peoples recording projects we heard: Rohan – Had to deal with a less than 100% singer who wanted to record into an SM 58. Have to communicate to artists that recording is an entirely different world to live performance Ben – Good though a little more snare wouldn’t have gone a stray Scott H – sounded wicked to my ears. Scott said that in the end, he had to leave little mistakes in the recording, it being a cover, all the mistakes were identifiable and if he had gone for the perfect take, he would have been there for ever. Stewart – All good except for vocals which start to quiet and end too loud Josh – in a room with terrible boom, Josh’s mix didn’t have any which I thought was curious. - vocals needed to be louder Lauren – hum - did a really good job of getting ambient, airy vocals - acoustic could have been more full

Sound engineering studio: My career as a producer of renown begins here!

Recording Documentation Lisa Lane-Collins ________________________________________________________ 18/5, 25/5, 1/6, 8/6 ________________________________________________________ Ponytails ________________________________________________________ Format Sampling Rate 44 100 Bit Depth 16 Duration 2’06 Total Time Spent on Recording 7 Hours 15 Minutes Notes/Issues/Commentary on Recording (Minimum 300 words) Recording with inferior instruments when superior ones are available is an outright waste of time. Need to allow a good hour to perfect the levels of the drum micing. In one session, I had the tracks for the snare and the first tom mixed up. The result of which was a peak nightmare. Was very careful with my mic cables after. Towards the end, lost a few files through Protools refusing to save new recordings to the audio folder. (At the beginning, lost an entire session through selecting unused files and deleting them. I’ll never make that mistake again) Drummer unable to work to a click track. Got the guitarist to play in the control room (being recorded onto a track in the protools session which was deleted later on when it came time to record guitar). The drummer could now hear the guitar part through the headphones with (in theory) no spill into the drum mics. In practice, there was found to be spill with the drum tracks containing guitar but it was quiet enough to not pose a problem. Time was an issue. Time taken to set up and more significantly, time taken to save progress at the end of each session. A portable hardrive would have made the whole process infinitely easier. USB drives stuffing up was also an issue until I started bringing a windows based laptop into each recording session (for use formatting broken USB drives and additional storage space). Used a combination of Mic, amp and DI to record both the basses. The clean base was easy to record (it had hidden pick ups too which meant that was no risk of the bassist slapping the pickups). The distorted bass however, had to be treated more like a second guitar. Used a mic and DI for the guitar. Vocals were recorded through a Neumann using the Avalon for a preamp. After my early nightmare losing an entire song through clearing unused files, I invested a lot of time between each song/instrument, cleaning up my results, removing from the disk unwanted takes and giving wanted takes easily identifiable and sortable names. After one recording session I had to create an entirely new protools session and import all my audio from the old session because protools was not saving my recordings to the audio folder. (The upside of which was, I had no more work to do when I finished the last vocal take save for mixing and mastering). Track Information Track Instrument Performer Name 1 Kick drum Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique B 52 cardioid dynamic Attempted close mic with the b52 inside the kick drum Notes Fairly straight forward, place the mic in facing approximately where the beater hits (impossible to tell for sure as the skin was not clear). Had problems with the mic stand not holding the weight of the mic and drooping until it rested on the pillow. Didn’t notice this to effect the sound terribly. Track Instrument Performer Name 2 Snare Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique SM 58 cardioid dynamic Closed miced facing snare skin Notes Seemed to work well enough, Had a pretty nice snare sound I thought Track Instrument Performer Name 3 Tom 1 Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique SM 57 cardioid dynamic Close miced directly facing skin Notes Had to use 57s on the first two toms. There were four toms in total, 3 56s available for use, I wanted to reserve the two 56s for the lower toms and I wanted there to be a consistency between the 57 miced toms (tom 1 and 2) nd the 56 miced toms (3 and the floor tom). Using the 57 on two toms I thought would stop it from being obvious that it was a different mic to usual. Had lots of spill from other parts of the kit. Also, the mic stand kept drooping. In the end had to coun ter balance it with a bag. Track Instrument Performer Name 4 Tom 2 Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique SM 57 cardioid dynamic Closed miced directly facing skin Notes As above. Track Instrument Performer Name 5 Tom 3 Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique B 56 cardioid dynamic As above Notes Suffered from spill and drooping (and was thusly counter balanced with a bag also) Track Instrument Performer Name 6 Floor tom Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique B 56 cardioid dynamic As above Notes As above Track Instrument Performer Name 7 Hi Hat and Crash Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique NT 5 Omni Condenser Attempting to use rule of thirds, placed above and over the hi hat and crash cymbal Notes Can’t escape spill, use it to your advantage Track Instrument Performer Name 8 Assorted other 3 cymbals Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique As above As above Notes As above Track Instrument Performer Name 9 Bass Doink Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique 414 cardioid, condenser Close miced on angle facing amp Notes Works well Track Instrument Performer Name 10 Bass Doink Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique Amplifier DI N/A Notes Also works well Track Instrument Performer Name 11 Bass Doink Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique DI N/A Notes Combining the output from the DI and the two tracks previous allows for a nice/full bass sound Track Instrument Performer Name 12 Guitar Vark Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique SM 57 cardioid, dynamic Close miced on angle to amp Notes No fear of peaks, amount of distortion that the player used however could strip your insides Track Instrument Performer Name 13 Guitar Vark Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique DI N/A Notes Slightly fuller sound with a little bit less edge, combined with mic gives good results Track Instrument Performer Name 14 Bass 2 Gavin Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique 414 cardioid condenser As with the last bass Notes Same as other bass Track Instrument Performer Name 15 Bass 2 Gavin Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique Amp DI N/A Notes Same as other bass Track Instrument Performer Name 16 Bass 2 Gavin Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique DI N/A Notes As with other bass Track Instrument Performer Name 17 Lead vocals Todd (a different Todd) Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique Neumann cardioid, condenser Relatively close miced with popper stopper Notes Tended to droop, ran it through the Avalon for better, louder sound Track Instrument Performer Name 18 Backing vocals 1 Vark Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique As above As Above Notes As above Track Instrument Performer Name 19 Backing vocals 2 Doink Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique As above As above Notes As above Track Instrument Performer Name 20 Backing vocals 3 Gavin Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique As above As above Notes As above. Missing from final mix thanks to protools’ lack of saving of audio files Link to MP3 mixdown will go here as soon as it is uploaded to the web Recording Documentation Lisa Lane-Collins ________________________________________________________ 18/5, 25/5, 1/6, 8/6 ________________________________________________________ CIA ________________________________________________________ Format Sampling Rate 44 100 Bit Depth 16 Duration 1’59 Total Time Spent on Recording 6 Hours 30 Minutes Notes/Issues/Commentary on Recording (Minimum 300 words) Essentially, this song progressed at the same rate as Ponytails. For example, drums would be recorded for Pony Tails and then, before packing the kit up, drums would be recorded for CIA. As all the setting up would be completed by time Ponytails was finished, recording CIA tracks was always an easier experience. The notes/issues and commentary are essentially the same as they are for Ponytails as CIA was recorded at the same time. Ways in which CIA differs are the Clean bass which uses a phasing effect for the verses (meaning the gain needed to be turned down a little bit and the bass had to be automated to be louder in the chorus or it disappeared) and the backing vocals, there are less (only because by the end no one could be bothered to record them). That and, the distorted bass now plays with breaks under my advice (attempting to insert some contrast into the band’s music). Track Information Track Instrument Performer Name 1 Kick drum Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique B 52 cardioid dynamic Attempted close mic with the b52 inside the kick drum Notes Fairly straight forward, place the mic in facing approximately where the beater hits (impossible to tell for sure as the skin was not clear). Had problems with the mic stand not holding the weight of the mic and drooping until it rested on the pillow. Didn’t notice this to effect the sound terribly. Track Instrument Performer Name 2 Snare Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique SM 58 cardioid dynamic Closed miced facing snare skin Notes Seemed to work well enough, Had a pretty nice snare sound I thought Track Instrument Performer Name 3 Tom 1 Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique SM 57 cardioid dynamic Close miced directly facing skin Notes Had to use 57s on the first two toms. There were four toms in total, 3 56s available for use, I wanted to reserve the two 56s for the lower toms and I wanted there to be a consistency between the 57 miced toms (tom 1 and 2) nd the 56 miced toms (3 and the floor tom). Using the 57 on two toms I thought would stop it from being obvious that it was a different mic to usual. Had lots of spill from other parts of the kit. Also, the mic stand kept drooping. In the end had to coun ter balance it with a bag. Track Instrument Performer Name 4 Tom 2 Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique SM 57 cardioid dynamic Closed miced directly facing skin Notes As above. Track Instrument Performer Name 5 Tom 3 Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique B 56 cardioid dynamic As above Notes Suffered from spill and drooping (and was thusly counter balanced with a bag also) Track Instrument Performer Name 6 Floor tom Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique B 56 cardioid dynamic As above Notes As above Track Instrument Performer Name 7 Hi Hat and Crash Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique NT 5 Omni Condenser Attempting to use rule of thirds, placed above and over the hi hat and crash cymbal Notes Can’t escape spill, use it to your advantage Track Instrument Performer Name 8 Assorted other 3 cymbals Todd Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique As above As above Notes As above Track Instrument Performer Name 9 Bass Doink Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique 414 cardioid, condenser Close miced on angle facing amp Notes Works well Track Instrument Performer Name 10 Bass Doink Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique Amplifier DI N/A Notes Also works well Track Instrument Performer Name 11 Bass Doink Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique DI N/A Notes Combining the output from the DI and the two tracks previous allows for a nice/full bass sound Track Instrument Performer Name 12 Guitar Vark Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique SM 57 cardioid, dynamic Close miced on angle to amp Notes No fear of peaks, amount of distortion that the player used however could strip your insides Track Instrument Performer Name 13 Guitar Vark Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique DI N/A Notes Slightly fuller sound with a little bit less edge, combined with mic gives good results Track Instrument Performer Name 14 Lead vocals Todd (a different Todd) Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique Neumann cardioid, condenser Relatively close miced with popper stopper Notes Tended to droop, ran it through the Avalon for better, louder sound Track Instrument Performer Name 15 Backing vocals 1 Vark Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique As above As Above Notes As above Track Instrument Performer Name 16 Backing vocals 2 Todd, Todd, Vark and Doink Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique As above As above Notes This track is more for fun than for the music, every band member present crowded around the mic and at certain points, screamed backing vocals. Track Instrument Performer Name 17 Bass 2 Gavin Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique 414 cardioid condenser As with the last bass Notes Same as other bass Track Instrument Performer Name 18 Bass 2 Gavin Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique Amp DI N/A Notes Same as other bass Track Instrument Performer Name 19 Bass 2 Gavin Microphone Brand/Model/Pattern Placement technique DI N/A Notes Wave form is a solid rectangle, didn’t end up using this track at all, too abrasive Link to MP3 mixdown will go here