jessaersrectec

[jessaersrectec]

The process of me moving around my various tracks in screenshots. As you can see, in the first, I have my high guitar part sitting alongside it’s original counterpart. I then move this to go alongside something different to make a more interesting sound. 

I then shuffle the drum parts around as well as the guitar until it results in the final result in the third screenshot, which is what you’re hearing in the audio. 

To read a more in depth analysis of this process, read my explanation using the tags below.

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This is the set up I used for reamping all my guitar parts in Assignment Two. Read more about it in my in-depth analysis by using the tags below.

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Assignment Two - An In-Depth Look

When thinking of where to start with this assignment- the prospect of using five unfamiliar and complex recording techniques quite daunting to a studio novice- I decided I would use my ideas from Assignment One and carry them over to give myself a headstart on this assignment. To begin with this wasn’t literally but I did take the chord I had used in the first assessment and then built an idea of an interesting chord sequence around it. As I already my ambience starting point to refer back to, I decided to base the entire piece around E major again.

The next technique I really took an interest in and knew from the minute we looked at it in lectures was the xenochrony idea from Frank Zappa, as I liked the organised chaos it created.

However, saying this, I actually started by recording three separate drum parts, all around a minute long. I had a typical Glyn Johns mic set up, not wanting the drums to stand out against the other parts. As well as this, I stuck with a Glyn Johns technique recording as it is quick and easy to set up and I was sharing studio time with a few other people so we could all help each other out. All the drum parts I recorded were done at 100bpm, which I noted for reference so I could record my accompanying guitar parts at the same tempo afterwards.

For the first drum part, I stuck with a simple beat with little to no fills or variation, as I knew I would want the accompanying guitar part to be just the chords played equally simply. I also wanted the first take to be a simple pair (drums and guitar) as I wanted to have a simple sound to fall back onto if I decided to use those loops to pad out anything in the extended track. I was thinking this as I already knew I wanted to explore techniques used by Trent Reznor, more specifically his use of taking drum loops and breaking them apart before rearranging them.

I’ve been a fan of Nine Inch Nails for many years before starting to explore with recording my own music and so when I finally did decide to study music at A Level and we began to look into studio techniques there, I used NIN as a point of reference a lot of the time as their sound was unique and something I wanted to take influence from.

After learning the techniques from Frank Zappa and how well they would fit with Reznor’s, I knew from the outset of this project that I wanted to do just that. So, after recording all three sets of drums and guitar, swapping them around and trimming them until they sounded like they fell naturally together within the final track idea I wanted, I filled the unnatural sounding gaps where they transition with the trimmed samples from the original simple drum beat and weaved them into the track to flesh it out and not give it such a disjointed feel.

After listening to the full running track, at this point just containing the drums and guitar, I was happy with the overall feel but there was something not quite right about the guitar.

Initially, when I recorded the guitar, I just recorded it by plugging it straight in with a jack lead into the Kemper system in the studio at university. This was mainly due to ease and time constraints, seeing as there were periods where I was working on my own in the studio and being able to work both the desk and play my own parts was the only feasible way I was going to get any recording done. However, after hearing the resulting mix of authentic yet slightly mixed up drums and the acoustic yet somehow digital feeling sound they created within the track, I realised that the guitar did not sound the same. I felt like it lacked a depth and natural quality that gave the track too much of a synthetic feel, so I had to think of a way to record the guitar again after finding somebody to work the desk for me that gave the guitar the same feel as the drums in order to bring harmony to the currently confused track.

After some research, (mainly done on http://www.radialeng.com/reamp-basics.php) I learnt about re-amping. I knew instantly after reading about it and setting up the guitar with an orange amp that this was going to provide the natural depth and harmonics that I was looking for. I specifically chose an orange amp as I love the effects that come pre built with it, especially the sound of reverb over the clean channel with a touch of added bass and a touch less treble, which are the settings I used for all three guitar recordings. I recorded the guitar tracks using a Sennheiser E602 in the setup pictured above, as I like the fact it picks up bass frequencies really well.

After several takes and some adjusting of levels, I had the guitar tracks laid down. I then took those into the studio and, using an earlier bounced recording of the track with the Kemper recorded guitar, input the new tracks to replace the old guitar tracks. Once I was happy that it sounded as similar as possible to the original, I put some compression on the necessary tracks and saved the whole project as a stop off point that I was happy with to progress on with.

At this half way point, I counted that I had used three techniques: Frank Zappa’s idea of xenochrony, Trent Reznor’s ‘Cacophony of Beats’ and re-amping. I liked the way the techniques were all blending to create one whole track that sounded equally disjointed and natural, all giving it that experimental and nuanced feeling that made for a less conventional but overall more interesting track than what I am used to working towards.

However, I didn’t want to come too far out of my depth and go completely experimental as I knew that it would mean I would feel out of my depth and as a result not enjoy the final product. To prevent this from happening, I wanted to go back to conventionality slightly and add a bass element to round out the track as opposed to any more complex effects on the guitar and drums I already had and was happy with.

At first, I played with the idea of re-amping a standard bass guitar and playing in the E major scale in a freeform style for the duration of the track I had but quickly discovered after just playing along without recording that this was both unnecessary and a little dull to listen to- especially when there are no lyrics in this track and therefore nothing for a listener to navigate through in the traditional sense. I found that a freeform bassline made the track seem like it had no real drive or purpose.

After deciding that a traditional bassline was out of the question, I realised I still had the Brian Eno inspired ‘Ambience in E’ on which I had based the chords for this assignment on. So, after removing the drum loop from the completed first assignment and converting the Garageband session into a file that I could then transfer over to ProTools, I input the chordal bass into the track. I rearranged it slightly, trimming a few seconds here and there until it fell into place with the other instrumental parts and the chord progressions I played on the guitar. When I finished adjusting the levels and such, I had a listen to the track as a whole.

I really liked what I was hearing. It was something so out of my comfort zone yet had that air of familiarity to it that meant I genuinely enjoyed listening to it. It had traditional instrument put together in a non traditional way to create that exact sound in one three minute track. And it had the bonus of being four recording techniques in one track without sounding like a disjointed mess as I had feared it would turn out as!

However, there was one thing missing as I listened and that was something in the higher register. The track was comprised of just chords and bass notes with drums over it at this point and there was no melodic line or anything in a higher octave in order to differentiate it from the rest of the guitar/organ parts, making the track overall sound unfinished and lacking of that higher register.

As I felt like I had challenged myself throughout the whole unit, I didn’t want to just add a higher register in the form of a guitar solo or piano melody. Plus, I find it hard to play lead guitar and knew that if I did on this track it wouldn’t sound polished or professional; although I was going for a slightly unconventional sound, I wasn’t going for an unpleasant one.

Then I remembered from the first few weeks of lectures that we had explored one of the pioneers of modern studio recording. Les Paul.

Paul would often record regular guitar at both half and double speed over an original guitar track, resulting in a manually recorded three octave harmony when all three tracks were played at the same speed simultaneously. I really enjoyed experimenting with this idea in the first few weeks and knew that I wanted to put it into my own track. What I didn’t want to do, however, was record at double speed to slow down in order to make a lower counterpart to the original guitar track. This was because I already had the Eno inspired ambience going on in place of a bass and I thought that if I added in a lower guitar part that was also in E the two would clash too much and make too much of a jumbled sound in the lower register of the track.

So, with this decision in mind, I decided to record just the high guitar. I decided to do this with the re-amping technique so as to get the same sound as the original guitar track I was playing against. It took me a few takes but from the snippets I was hearing, when listening to failed takes back to see where I went wrong, I really liked the sound it was making and therefore adding to the track. It was only adding to the manipulated natural sound I had managed to create with the last four techniques.

After finally getting a take right, I decided I only wanted the high guitar over a small part of the song, as opposed to the whole thing. This was because I wanted the high guitar to stand out within the track and really be something fresh in something that was otherwise relatively unchanging. I trimmed, compressed and moved the high guitar part until it fit alongside it’s counterpart and then listened to the track as a whole.

It was definitely what I was missing. The high guitar added interest and intrigue into an already conventionally challenging to listen to track and made the entire thing tie together to be something I was ultimately very happy with. I liked how this track (and project overall) really challenged me to stretch my basic knowledge of the studio over into techniques I would never have really considered before. I think that the track was successful in that it is both something I would listen to and something that contains a lot of studio techniques that are implemented to benefit the track overall as opposed to throwing them in just to meet criteria and check boxes.

In the future, I am definitely going to bear some of these recording techniques in mind as I feel they worked really well in this track as well as the fact that I think I really got a firm grip on understanding them too. This has made me feel more confident in manoeuvring and using the studio to a more skilled level and will continue to help me improve in the future, where I will hopefully take on more studio projects like these and become more of a studio expert with each one.

[jessaersrectec]

Assignment One - An In-depth Explanation

When I am studying or doing anything that requires concentration, I often listen to ambience music. So, after learning Brian Eno’s method of sustained notes of a certain chord and thoroughly enjoying the listening I did of his album ‘Ambient 1: Music for Airports’ I decided that I definitely wanted to explore this technique further.

For this technique, I first decided on a chord on the guitar that I liked the sound of. In this case, I played an E with an additional F#, liking the slightly discordant sound and already thinking of the potential when used in Eno’s technique. I liked the idea of using a discordant and slightly unsettling set of notes for something ambient- the juxtaposition of the feeling and the purpose was something I thought from the outset I could play with to make a more interesting piece.

When I had decided on the notes, I decided that I would play them on a MIDI keyboard like we did in lecture, as I felt the synthetic sound could be more easily manipulated an controlled in order to achieve the correct level and dynamics that would make an effective emulation of Eno’s work as opposed to a live piano or guitar.

As I decided this, I began my experimenting with different notes and how long to play each one for. To do this, I used Garageband, purely as it is the software I have on my laptop and I could experiment at home with software I use often as opposed to using the MIDI instrument functionality on ProTools, with which I have very minimal experience. After playing several versions and judging on the different combinations the lengths of the notes created, I eventually decided on the final lengths, as listed below.

E - 20 seconds played, 4 seconds pause

G# - 15 seconds played, 4 seconds pause

F# - 8 seconds played, 8 seconds pause

B - 14 seconds played, 14 seconds pause

High E - 5 seconds played, 5 seconds pause

I added the E in the octave above as I felt like the fact that the piece was only made up of one chord made it seem ambiguous and almost unfinished. For my Western music mind, I didn’t like this ambiguity and wanted to add the high E along with the low bass E to firmly tie the piece in it’s entirety to E major.

For my final recording, I used a synth organ to play the notes as I felt the relaxing and smooth sustained notes reflected the calm and focusing ambience I set out to create. Also, the organ can sustain notes for a lengthy period of time without trailing off or losing any dynamic power and when I had notes that were up to 20 seconds long, this was a very useful and ultimately necessary factor to take into consideration.

When I had the chordal ambience structure, I spent some time editing the levels of each part in order to create the right blend so that no note in particular stood out; this was meant to be an overall chordal sound as opposed to a melodic one, just like Eno’s.

However, after listening to the final mix of notes, I realised I wanted to add something more to it to make it feel more like a track as opposed to just a musing. As I was still using Garageband, I used the built in drum loops they have installed and experimented with various different loops over the organ I already had. As the track didn’t have a time signature, I also experimented with fast and slow beats to see what mood each would create.

After experimenting with a few styles, I settled for the acoustic sounding loop, liking the mix of regimented sounding loops on a natural sounding instrument. I eventually chose the Indie loop and kept trying various speeds and combinations of percussion until landing on the one you hear on the track. I liked how the beat lands on some notes but is out of time with others, giving the track a hint of syncopation to make for more interesting listening.

Overall, I think that I researched Eno’s technique and put my own experimental spin on it, adding high notes and drum loops to make something that I am more likely to make in general projects in the future. I like this though, as I definitely think I will return to Eno’s technique in the future.

[jessaersrectec]

This is the article I read about when researching Re-amping. I wasn’t too sure on what it was before and this article was very useful when it came to researching on my own.

[jessaersrectec]

This is a really interesting article I read about when researching Trent Reznor. I am a fan of Reznor’s and this was already in my personal reading so I thought it was a great idea to try and use the ideas presented within this article in my own work.

[jessaersrectec]

Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports [Full Album]

I took huge inspiration from this work and Eno as a whole for my first assignment. I wrote more about why I used Eno as inspiration in my explanation of Assignment one - Read more about it by using the tags to navigate.

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This is the audio from Assignment Two, which draws inspiration from several studio techniques. Read more about it in my explanation by using the tags.

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This is the audio of my first assignment, inspired by Brian Eno and produced on Garageband.

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Studio Project Blog - An Explanation

This is my blog where I will post full audio clips of work I do in the studio, photos of my setups and explanations of my choices. I will also post any music or articles etc. that I have used for my research for this project.

I will be using this blog to collate all my work, starting with Semester One of my  second year but will continue to post if i find any interesting techniques or work I want to maybe use as inspiration in the future. 

To navigate this blog, you can scroll and the posts will be in chronological order, with the first post being the latest or you can use the tags if you are looking for something specific (e.g. click the ‘screenshot’ tag if you just want to look at my screenshots and so on)

Send me a question using the ask box if you have any and I hope you enjoy my work.