Music Production - Studio Photos

Vocal Recording

The microphone is held at the right distance (5-6 inches) away from the vocalists mouth, and the pop shield is in-between in the right position to try and prevent any popping noises, or over pronounced 'p's. The headphones are plugged into the headphone amp, which has had an aux send from the mixing desk, feeding the microphone output back into the headphones so the vocalist can hear what the recording will sound like. A talkback will also be connected from the studio so the vocalist can hear what the people are telling them next door. 

Monitoring

The headphones are plugged into the headphone out on the amplifier. The input cable is then plugged in, which will be carrying the microphones output, as well as the people talking in the studio when the talkback button is pressed. The microphone output is usually fed back into the headphones by turning up AUX 1 (this is usually where the headphones are plugged in to) until the vocalist can hear themselves at a reasonable volume.

Logic

When recording into logic, you need to make sure that you have an audio channel set up correctly. You need to know what input channel into the mixing desk your audio is that you want to record, and then make sure the audio track has that input channel selected. The track must also have "R" selected so that it will record. Finally, make sure that you have a good, clear signal coming through that you don't need to boost with a gain. If you need to boost the signal lots then there is something wrong with the input signal (quiet guitar amp/quiet singer/bad microphone placement etc)

The Mixing Desk

The deck isn't actually that complex when you understand the basic layout and what the knobs do. Most of the desk consists of identical tracks with the same function, but because there is so much there it can seem very daunting and scary for someone who has never used one before. When recording in the studio, all you need to do is make sure that you have the XLR plugged into the channel input (and that you are plugging the right cable  in the otherside of the multicore on the right channel), and turn up the gain until you get a signal. If the desk is set up correctly, with no cuts or solo buttons pressed, and logic is set up correctly, you should get your sound.


The Acoustic Guitar


There isn't one specific way to record an acoustic guitar, in fact, there are an endless amount of ways to do it. Placing microphones around different parts of the guitar will make the microphones pick up different sounds, and some frequencies will be clearer and more obvious that others. There is one place you definitely shouldn't put a mic however, and that is directly in front of the sound hole. Although our ears do not mind the sound coming out, a microphone will pick up exactly what is coming out, and that includes a lot of bass frequencies that can distort the recording.

For our recording we used two identical condenser microphones, one near the bottom of the soundboard, and one halfway up the fretboard. The reason for this is so we could hopefully pick up an even, clear sounding guitar, with nice bass frequencies from the bottom of the guitar (not pointing the mic into the sound hole) and some of the higher content from the mic held further up the guitar.

The Electric Guitar

As with the acoustic guitar, there is no prober mic positioning, or any method that works best, as they all create their own unique sound, as does being in different rooms/studios. For this recording, we simply put an SM-57 (suitable for guitar & bass ) in front of the guitar amp in two different positions, directly infront of the middle of the amp, and one pointing into the middle from an angle. 

The Bass Guitar

For the top amplifier we placed a kick drum microphone in the centre, and a SM57 imitation (I think) underneath facing the bottom stack.

The Drum Kit

For the kick we simply placed the kick drum mic directly in front of the hole to maximise the punch and the bass frequencies. This mic is designed to pick up the lower end so it is less likely to distort.

For the snare and the tom we used standard drum kit clip on microphones, clipped in at the back so the mic or the cables will not get in the way of the drummer.

We then placed 2 identical condenser mics above the kit as the L & R overheads, positioned evenly above.

The Piano

Using the same method as the drum kit overheads, we placed the same two microphones at each end of the piano at equal distances, pointing inside the piano which we had opened up.

Mini Music Project Promotional Video

For this project I have decided to use my Afro Celts - Bliss remix as the song to make a music video to. 

The first video I made is the 30 second preview. The main idea behind making the preview is that I can re familiarise myself with using iMovie, and play around with different ideas and themes that I think might work well when making a music video for my song. The end result is nothing amazing, it just shows use the use of various effects, transitions in time with the music, and the clips. I have decided that for the full video I am not going to be using the psychedelic animated clips, but instead use more time-lapse clips like the ones seen in my video. 

I plan to take out a camera and make my own time-lapse shots if I can find the right places, and have enough time. If I don't, I will search around www.archive.org and put in pre-made time-lapse shots. After that, I will then focus on putting the shots together with good in time transitions and various effects that will keep viewers interested in the video.

Afro Celts - Bliss (Imba Remix) Promo from Sam Hiscox on Vimeo.

2010 Studio Project

Turkish Delight (Produced by Sam Hiscox) by DJImba

The recording consists of 6 audio tracks. The first two contain the drums, recorded with two AKGs on each side of the kit, making a stereo recording. These two tracks were then panned L and R appropriately in Logic. 

The next two tracks were the piano, and I put two SM57s inside the piano, both on either side. This stereo recording was then panned L and R again in Logic. 

The fifth track was the acoustic guitar, recorded with the Rode vocal mic. The bass was then recorded directly into the mixing desk and straight into logic on the sixth channel.

The drums and piano were recorded in the same room, whilst the acoustic guitar was recorded in the vocal room, with the guitarist wearing a pair of headphones with channels 1 & 2 (the drums) being sent down an auxiliary channel so he can keep in time. The bass guitar was then over-dubbed on top after the recording, by plugging it straight into the mixing desk and playing along to the recording. 




 (Excuse the missing cables on the microphones, this picture was taken as the microphones were being taken down)

Marketing Your Music

There are many different websites that can be used to get your music "out there", and get it noticed. If you can find out your target audience then you get aim your music directly at them via different sites. Some of these websites work better than others, some are easy and simple to use, others have more features for more advanced users. It all depends what you want to do with your music, whether it be promote it, sell it, or get feedback etc.

This website allows you to stream live high quality audio easily. It also integrates with facebook & mobile devices, making it a popular choice because of it's ease of accessibility. It's perfect for podcasters, bands, live acts, DJs, conference organisers, journalists and many more.

This website is basically an in-browser DAW. Everything is hosted in "the cloud", online. It is slightly restricted because everything is hosted online so you cannot create very advanced and memory heavy projects unless you have fast internet. However, the reason this website is popular is because of the fact it's online, people can work on a project at home, go onto another computer somewhere else and load their project straight up from the cloud, or someone else can load the project, edit it, and share it around again.

"SoundCloud is the world’s leading social sound platform where anyone can create sounds and share them everywhere. Recording and uploading sounds to SoundCloud lets people easily share them privately with their friends or publicly to blogs, sites and social networks."

This is probably the most popular website for uploading, sharing, promoting and selling music. It is extremely easy to use, and allows integration with many websites such as facebook, twitter, tumblr etc. It has a massive community of people and it has been made very easy to find new music from the music you like, and allows you to follow other users to watch when they upload new music to share.

Dropbox is all about file hosting in the cloud. Like Audio Tool, you can upload anything you want online, and you'll be able to access it via your account on any computer, laptop, phones etc. Once you've uploaded a file, you will be able to share it with people or keep it private for yourself. If you share a folder online, people can access the files, edit them and re upload them ready for you to download from your phone or computer.

Youtube, although primarily used for video hosting & streaming, has became very popular for promoting and ripping music. This is because youtube has a massive user base of millions of people checking for new content daily, and the ease of access & integration with other websites. An artist can create a youtube account, upload their songs, and the fans can subscribe to them so they get told when new videos get loaded. You can then rate and comment on the video, essentially giving the artist feedback. You can then integrate the video onto pretty much any website made, from facebook to someones own website. This ease of access means you don't even have to change web page to listen to someones latest song.

Facebook is probably the number one place for sharing, promoting, and advertising music. Everything is all together in one place, and pretty much every important website that a artist will user (soundcloud/dropbox/youtube) can be directly integrated onto facebook to keep everything in one tidy place. People can like their artists and follow their movement as they give updates on what they are doing, news on live shows or maybe an album release, and share their music from soundcloud, or a live gig video that was uploaded onto youtube.

Myspace works the exact same way as facebook does, although it was made before facebook. It was revolutionary in the way that people could go onto one page and see all of an artists information, their photos and videos, live gig dates, and even talk with the artists. However, since the introduction of facebook, myspace has became slowly less and less popular, simply because facebook is a lot faster and easier to use.


The method of marketing music now in 2011 is extremely different to how you would do it 10 years ago, and it is all because of one thing: the internet. Before it existed (or when it wasn't very popular or accessible) a band or artist would have to get noticed through other methods, such as live gigs, fliers, posters, word of mouth, radio etc. Generally speaking, because it was harder to get noticed, only people who worked hard and actually had talent would get big. People would see a great band play live, and talk about it to their friends, who might then see some posters to another gig, or hear their song on the radio. This may seem easy, but with so many people trying to get noticed, it wasn't easy.

Today though, anyone could start up a facebook page, tell all their friends to follow them on it, and then they could upload their music to soundcloud, share their live gig videos from youtube, and even allow fans to listen to live gigs as they happen for free without being there by streaming the audio through mixlr. It is so easy for people to promote themselves now, and because of this, there has been a lack of good music/artists because you don't have to put in as much effort to get yourself out there and noticed then you would have had to 10 years ago.

The Music Production Process

Making music is no simple task, and to make a "good" song, there are 5 main processes that you need to go through. These are: the composition, the pre-production demo, the recording, the mixing, and the mastering. I am going to break these down and explain what must be done, and why.

The Composition

A song you hear on the radio these days was more than likely not wrote by the person(s) performing it. A band or an artist will usually sit down with a songwriter/composer/producer and discuss song ideas - riffs, melodies, chord progressions, beats etc. A few songs will then be wrote, and then the band will come back and try out the different songs, see what ones work, what ones don't, what needs changing, and eventually a rough song will be ready to rehearse for a pre-production demo.

Compared to most modern music, electronic music seems to take a different route, where almost all stages of the music production process is done by maybe one or two people. The "producer" will write their own beats and melodies, record themselves, and quite possibly mix down their own stuff, before getting it sent off to be mastered (if not mastered by themselves). This method is very unique for electronic music, and is made so easy to achieve because everything from the composition to the mastering can be done in the same software on a mac or PC.

If the band writes their own songs without the help of a composer or songwriter, it should always be put down in writing and made clear - this is because there are many issues regarding copyright that need to addressed, and you don't want someone taking your work, saying it's theirs and then making money off it just because a contract doesn't say what work is actually yours. The copyright of music and lyrics are separate, if you have a different vocalist to the artist/band performing the music, the lyrics are theirs and you have no right to use them without their permission, and it works the other way round too, if you are singing over someone's song, you do not have the right to use or make money out of their instrumental without their permission and/or some kind of agreement, which would need to be made clear in a contract.

When a song has finally been made which the band is happy with, it is usually rehearsed again and again, mixed, re-mixed, and played out at gigs and concerts to see how it goes off, crowd reactions, and to get feedback. This is vital as you don't want to go ahead and properly record a song if no one is going to like it.

The Pre-Production Demo

Booking a studio is very expensive, and unless you know exactly what you are doing from the second you enter the studio, it is a big mistake to go ahead and book somewhere if you are just going to be sat around jamming all day without any real aim. Studios can cost hundreds of pounds per day so from the moment you start until the moment you finish you need to know exactly what you are doing.

As a band, get a rough recording of the song/s you want to have properly recorded, do this by visiting a small indie studio which wont cost much money, or even record it in someones room or garage. The idea is just to get down what you want recorded so you know what to do when it comes to the real recording. Sort out any problems you have with the song, get the BPM & key right, and then you should be ready to enter a studio and get straight to work.

The Recording

The band will talk with the studio engineer, who will be familiar with all their equipment and the best techniques for recording. The producer will oversee the whole recording process, and may even be the studio engineer. The band, engineer & producer will then work on the songs, recording the different instruments. Different mics will be used, put in different positions, and then EQ'd, compressed and perhaps some effects will be added to get the sound everyone is happy with. All the tracks will be put together and layered to make the final song which after a lot of work and rework will be ready to be mixed.

The Mixdown

Most likely done in the same studio the song was recorded in, the song will have all the channels balanced, and tweaked in various different ways. This can include panning instruments, EQing again, adding more effects, automating different tracks, changing volume etc. Finally the band should be happy with a very tight song with every aspect sounding good, clear, and sat nicely in the mix, ready to be sent off to be mastered.

Mastering

The final mixdown of a song will most likely be sent off to another studio where someone will use their expensive hardware to add the final touches to the song. Tiny bits of EQ might be added, parts may be compressed in various ways, exciters or stereo spread could be used, and all these little effects will be slightly enhancing and correcting the mix to make it sound perfect. The person mastering the song will be using specialist techniques and will have a very good understanding in acoustics to make sure that the final product going back to the band will sound 100% perfect.