amrikfmpmsc-blog

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ONE MILLION VIEWS!

In 3 months time, Mixed and Mastered by myself - Ice City Boyz ‘Statement’ has gone PLATINUM on YouTube, Yes, ONE MILLION VIEWS, and counting.. 

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Late Nights - Good Results

Following the momentum from previous sessions, another evening was organised with myself, fellow producers and the Ice City Boyz. It became clear from here that they were happy with the results they were seeing from the studio and felt comfortable enough to begin planning future projects and even talks of a full in house mixtape began circling. 

It wasn’t long into the night before the lads were taking their respective turns in the vocal booth and each verse hotter than the last, ICB decided they wanted to release a freestyle in which they all spit a fire verse to keep their listener’s hungry. We got to recording and I’d spent the following 24 hours mixing down the song as the video shoot and release date had already been booked and it wasn’t long before my second release with them had been published on GRM Daily.

ICB - 2AM Freestyle:

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Studio Vibes

Things had now settled, and well! The studio was running smoothly, we’d invested enough so that we were comfortable in our work space and more than capable with the resources and equipment at hand. Following various sessions with different producers and artists, myself, Fumes and 5ive began mapping out future plans - all the whilst the two of them producing away! It was clear to the three of us that the best energy and results we’d seen from the studio was that from when Ice City Boyz had been in for a session. Within days they had released a visual for a song which wasn’t even planned and the reception has been immense! We’d decided from here that we would focus on building a good working relationship with them and present them with more music to work on - which we then got to getting ready! 

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This one’s a ‘Statement!’

It had only been 4 days since they boys were in the studio and since then they had shot the video for Statement and released it on leading UK online platform GRM DAILY! 

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Working with Ice City Boyz

Over the course of the past month or so, 5ive Beatz has been brining artists and rappers to the studio to work on his productions which he wanted me to mix and master. One of the most recent artists (or three) he brought with him were the Ice City Boyz - ‘Fatz’, ‘Streetz’ & ‘J Styles’ - three pillars in Nines’ hometown clique ‘ICB’. Happy with the work 5ive had done for Nines on his album, they were eager to hear what he had for them and within minutes were asking me to crank up the volume on the monitors, fist bumping each other and writing away their verses. I’ve been in the studio with rappers who write on the spot or perhaps freestyle verses but the way these three had top quality verses, each of them, ready, by the time I’d prepared the vocal booth and equipment - amazes me! They began a few projects and planned to return on another day to go forward and map where and what to do from here. I encouraged them that they were always welcome.

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1 session in Studio 1

After weeks of trying to get into Studio 1 at University finally I was able to book an hour and a half session in there to reflect back on the use of the desk and outboard gear, as well as enjoy some quality masters through the Quested Q210 monitoring system. I feel that time spent in a good sounding space with quality speakers is vital for an engineer to develop how sound is heard and enjoyed – to identify key aspects and elements within the mix of popular music which could be implemented in my own mixes.

I enjoy the quality of US collective TDE’s mixes and masters, housing artists such as Schoolboy Q and Kendrick Lamar, their sonic delivery I believe is one of the highest standards in the 21st century to date. The track ‘Studio’ by Schoolboy Q is one of my personal favourites to enjoy in a good sounding environment as the balance of instruments and vocals works very well together alongside the atmosphere created by the digital effects and processing. I then take notes of the ideas and potential techniques I hear in these mixes and try to implement them the next time I am mixing a project. In addition to this, the session as in aid of an absence from the studio throughout the Summer, so that I could re-familiarise myself with the highly technical SSL AWS900 mixing desk, and patching into outboard gear – I felt this was necessary as I was now involved in running a professional recording studio myself, therefore it was vital my understanding and operation of such hardware be of a good to high standard; however also as I had University assignments on the horizon which involved use of the hardware within the Studio and did not want to alienate myself from the hardware in Studio 1 and solely focus on what is in my own studio. It wasn’t long before I had a full track mix running desk and compression active on the desk. I did run into some trouble returning a vocal reverb from the Lexicon unit however once I had followed the signal chain realised it was patched back into the wrong channel onto the desk which was quickly rectified. I enjoy using Studio 1 as it’s high end equipment delivers industry standard quality as well as being a comfortable environment to work within, something which I aspire for my own studio to be.

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Working with @5iveBeatz

I’m a big fan of UK rap and one of my favourite rappers is Nines. Earlier this year, Nines released his debut album under XL Recordings, ‘One Foot Out’ which featured 5 productions from 5ive! (no pun intended)

5ive Beatz is an underground established producer from the UK, London - although only having been producing for just under two years now, his portfolio of artists who have used his work range some of the biggest selling recording artists in the world (who cannot be named for legal reasons, literally!) to some of the most raw and hood loved rappers in London. Staying true to his roots 5ive continues to supply the UK rap scene with absolute fire so of course, when Fumes asked me if I wanted to run a recording session for the two of them I had to say yes! 

Instantly 5ive’s eagerness to work and make music was clear - as well as his hunger to release more music! This trait appealed very much to me and I believe this similarity allowed for our work flow to be so fluent. 5ive was happy to assign me some of his own projects as a kind of ‘initiation’ to mixing his work. A week later we had another session in which I played him the work I had done for his projects and it wasn’t long before he was knocking his head and packing out the studio with some of the most recognisable names in the UK scene today, happy for me to work and engineer on what was being made. Great guy and I look forward to seeing what else we cook up!

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New Release ‘Right Now!’

On the 5th December 3WayStudio released a UK drill song featuring three rappers, an in house production and a mix and master by myself on the YouTube platform Link Up TV. The song is called ‘Right Now’ and features a thumping drum track alongside a main pad and aggressive rap vocals. After a week on the channel the video has reached 10,000 views which was a milestone we wanted to within that time. What is interesting is the feedback I received from the song was that listeners believed it was one of my best mix/masters I had done. Coincidently I had only taken on this project after we had got the upgrades for the studio and it was one of the first songs I had mixed using the ADAM monitors. Since it’s release the views have declined which could be due to the lack of follow up from the song however it was released as a ‘throwaway’ song in order to create a buzz and to provide content therefore given the artist’s consistency, I believe many more successful projects could come from this collective of rappers when working with 3WayStudio.

Showzie x Casper x Beluga Ice - Right Now (prod. JBJustBusiness)

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Studio Session with Ice Kid

JB had been planning a follow up project with Ice Kid following the success the previous EP, ’11’, had received and brought to both Ice Kid and JB. I was excited when he told me that Ice Kid would be coming down to the studio to work on the follow up as this meant, more likely than not, I would engineer the projects which would be recorded at the studio. This meant a lot as nearly 10 years ago when I first began listening to grime music, Ice Kid was one of the popular radio names who first pioneered grime music and in my opinion was one of the best at what he did. I was mixing a different project in the control room when JB brought him up and despite the initial shock of actually being in the presence of someone who inspired me to pursue music and who’s music I personally enjoyed fro my youth, I knew in the back of my mind that he was here to work and expected a good service and experience – this gave me confidence and aided my self belief as I was reminded that this idol of mine had come to my studio to work. We began running through instrumentals which JB had produced for him which potentially could have gone on the next project – he selected the ones he liked and began writing to them in the studio as I prepared a new Logic Pro project file to record him into. It wasn’t long before Ice Kid had a verse ready to record and in the booth he wasn’t shy or afraid to express himself – his needs as an artist instantly came about as I needed to adjust the microphone stand for him as well as allow him to take a drink into the booth with him (something which typically is not allowed at the studio however I did not want to effect and interrupt the vibe and energy that was flowing at the time which could have harmed his delivery and performance so felt the exception best be made). He left with three draft songs and another booking in December which I and my partners are  looking very forward to. As Ice Kid is currently circulating and touring the UK with his music the in house production and engineering credits would benefit 3WayStudio highly and could catalyse further successes for us.

Ice Kid’s first Radio appearance in 2007 on the Tim Westwood show:

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Equipment Upgrade

Following a hardworking month at the studio and away, myself and my studio partners had enough extra cash to invest in some upgrade for the studio. We sat down together and brainstormed ideas of necessary items we needed and the items which we desired to make the studio a greater attraction – as well as those which would aid our productions and masters. The final decision was to buy a new pair of monitoring speakers as we felt the KRK Rokit’s were too low end heavy and when mixing, a true representation of frequencies 120Hz and below was not depicted – we decided to all contribute to the funding of the monitors so we could purchase a solid quality pair from which, combined with the BX-5, would help our final masters sound industry standard and concluded with the ADAM A7X monitors as they were both highly recommended and highly specified, reaching clarity at frequencies as low as 20Hz.

In order to improve fluency in our recording sessions I suggested a monitoring station be purchased as this was a key tool in the form of the SLL AWS900 I had been using at the University’s studio which allowed for recording sessions to run extremtly smoothly without interruption and added fluency to the mixing process – we decided on the PreSonus Monitor Station V2 as it allowed for output control to three sources (which meant we could flip between playing audio through the BX-5 monitors, the ADAM A7X monitors, or both), input control from two sources (which was useful as we had one machine operating Mac OSX for Logic Pro and Pro Tools, and another running Windows 10 for Fruity Loops), and a talkback feature – something which wasn’t present in our studio before and was achieved through an input microphone situated in the control room. We also purchased two identical new screen monitors which were slightly smaller than the one large one we previously had; also to aid fluency of workflow, adding much more space in our specific DAWs.

Since doing so our recording sessions have run extremely smoothly via the use of the PreSonus and extra screen monitor and in turn artist’s have enjoyed the service a lot more which helps their performance in the recording space, benefiting the final project.

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Young Guru’s essentials of Audio Mixing: How to Use Compression

I remember coming across this video some time ago when I first began engineering and thought it’d be helpful to reflect back on it and refresh my memory of the basics which I initially – particularly concerning compressing vocals. I chose this video as Young Gur has engineered music for several artists who’s music I personally enjoy (Jay-Z, Drake, Rihanna to name a few). The video consists of Young Guru himself walking through a mix in Logic Pro X and explaining what compression is, how it should be applied to a sound, as well as demonstrating how he would add compression to a vocal track loaded into the project. Upon revisiting this video, I was reminded of the true, rich dynamics which over compression can mask – something which I felt some of my mixes of late had been suffering from. I then revisited a project in Logic and began modelling a new vocal chain, with much less harsh compression and more simply necessary compression using one or two powerful compressor plug ins – CLA-76 & FabFilter Pro-C. I have since been reminded to appreciate the dry vocal for the true dynamic range it holds and begin mixing bearing in mind always that this is something I’m aiming to sustain.

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Working with WildBoyAce again.

WildBoyAce is an established UK producer who happens to go to the same University as me. We first met two years ago on the University campus and shared our passion for music – at the time he was under a publishing deal with Grand Hustle – the same recording label who house US star T.I and Iggy Azalea (previously Chipmunk also).  Since then he had left the deal and began independently releasing music via UK based platforms featuring predominantly popular UK rappers, which I had been helping him engineer productions and vocals for. Collectively his Soundcloud and YouTube views have collated to over 5 million views and he was also nominated for the MOBO 2016 UnSung award. As I now commute to University and he lives on the campus our collaborating work rate had decreased however being on campus for lectures I recently met up again with him and caught up on recent projects, as well as to plan future releases. He had told me how the success and popularity he had gained throughout the year was down to his constant urge to release music.

In his own words: “All I wanna do is drop banger after banger right now”

After seeing the success JB had recently seen due to his constant work and releases, and comparing it to the success Ace had seen using the same strategy it made me realise that now I had the resources and abilities to do the same, for a living and enjoy it, I couldn’t wait to get him into the studio and get to work. He came to my studio shortly after and left a few instrumentals he wanted me to mix and master which he was giving to artist’s who are currently racking up the most views and streams within the UK music scene.

WildBoyAce Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/wildboyace

WildBoyAce Productions:

Trizzy Trapz x Kojo Funds - Say My Grace

Skrapz - Mission Impossible

Showkey (RIP Showkey) - Daily Duppy (GRM Daily)

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New Studio - #3WayStudio

I have recently gone into partnership with two of my close friends whom I have been making music with for the past 3-4 years. Karan ‘Fumes’ Behl & Joel ‘JBJustBusiness’ Buck are both Producers of music who work within Fruity Loops however also have exceptional abilities mixing and mastering in Logic Pro X also. I enjoyed making music with them in the years we had in the past however we always struggled to consistently be productive and collaborate together over a good period of time so thought a very beneficial thing for all of us separately as musicians, engineers and producers – as well as a collective – would be to invest in a professional studio space where we can operate from and provide services such as recording time and mixing and mastering. We were lucky to find a recently built space located in Wembley which housed several recording studios in a single building within an industrial estate.

The space was a sizeable control room, fully soundproofed and air conditioned as well as similar sized twin recording booth, also soundproofed and air conditioned – with a 24 port patch bay already installed between the rooms. As we’d all been musically orientated for collectively over 20 years it wasn’t long before both rooms were packed with equipment such as monitor speakers, audio interfaces, microphone stands, microphones, monitor screens and so on, and recording sessions were able to operate from the studio. We are now looking to upgrade some of the equipment soon from home recording based to professional recording studio based. The skills set and resources at hand that the three of us have available I believe is worthwhile to pursue and invest in. As we invested a third each into the studio we decided to go with the name ‘3WayStudio’

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FINAL, Final Major Project.

Finally! After 4 years of intense studio sessions, endless research and many assignment submissions later, my endeavours at UH will finally come to a close with the completion of the final Major Study Project and (hopefully) the awarding of my MSc in Music and Sound Technology (Audio Engineering)