Creative Studio Project Plan
Summary
For my creative studio project I plan to record mix and master an original work by a band I have gotten in contact with. I intend to utilise mic placements to attain a desired sound that fits the narrative both I and the client can agree on.
The Band I have chosen to record have a vintage warm dry vibe sounding similar to bands like early Deep Purple, The Beatles and pink Floyd. once I get more familiar with the new studio space I intend to utilise all that I can with the time I have, experimenting with various outboard gear and plugins to gain the 60s-70s esq signature sound the band are after. I also intend to use Ribbon microphones possibly on the vocals and guitar to give that fat warm sound older records have. I plan to use AKG 414s due to their versatile possibilities when recording, also the various polar pattern switching is a huge perk. I would like to use the Distressor on the kit to thicken up and reinforce along side the bass giving that wall of sound impression Pink Floyd records tend to have.
The Band
The band I am going to record is Wolfmoon project who are an alt rock band who have released an EP and have listened to for a while. Wolfmoon project keep things interesting dabbling in various other genres along their journey making tracks with elements of indie and Reggie. This is a positive point to note as this could be elaborated on within the session if any one has any brainstorms it won’t sound out of frame.
The track i am recording is it The Deja Vouz song consisting of
Drums
Percussion
Bass
x2 Guitars
Keys and Vocals.
Production Log
Wednesday 30/10/2024
Starting off the production my first plan of action was to record drums I had started prepping the studio earlier than I had planned as I was not familiar with the equipment and wanted to get a grasp of the desk. The space I had booked was the Audient which wasn’t too difficult though the early start helped out as it took a while to discover that you need to shift the top faders on the desk in order to get a signal from the live room inputs. The only other issue we had during this session was one of the headphone ports not working for some reason resorting in a small inconvenience of having to switch. I had initially intended on applying Outboard EQ to my snare though I had ran into routing complications that I later more clarification as to the reason was new labels for the patch bay where required. I later had some help regarding the patch bay and printed EQ on the Friday of that week 1/11/2024.
Recording the drums I went with a spaced pair approach as I wanted a wide stereo image to work with when in the mix. I also like the idea of having a phantom center giving an equal volume in each ear. I discussed with the drummer before we began and he agreed the idea was to go with a wide scape of sound.
One thing that actually was an accident was I had accidentally enabled the 58 which was our talk back mic when doing takes and was surprised to get a decent rear kit room mic sound it managed to capture some extra resonance from the snare and the overheads .
In conclusion to the Kit I am happy with the recording i got. The kit has a very laid back and disciplined acoustic quality due to the deadness of the Audient live room.
Friday 1/11/2024
Today I recorded guitar with a 57 off axis from the centre of the cone and a cascade fathead to help capture the mid and lower end of the tone. The overall goal was to get a 60s-70s esq guitar tone which I feel it did accomplish. The Main issue i had with recording guitar was being clueless with how to use the SSL Desk it took me around an hour and a half to figure out the routing before having some external help from a classmate.
I also ran this through the 2 Distressor outboard units creating an analogue parallel compression.
Overall I am a little disappointed with the end result of the guitar as I only realised at the mixing stage the guitar was out of tune.
Friday 22/11/2024
Today I Recorded vocals for the track with a Cascade fathead and a U 87 I feel like the end result of the vocals where okay and follow what the client was after though i would have liked to get more time the singer was only available for a few hours.
overall I am conflicted with the end result i feel i had a degree of poor time allocation and could have gotten a little more done though had some life complications having me work from home more often therefore sacrificing the more superior plugins.
