MTF Week 11 24/05/2007

Class Remix Presentations

Today, In Music Technology the class presented our remixes originating from the Real World Records remixed competition.

http://realworldremixed.com/

Scott H. presented his mix of “If I had my way” by Little Axe. Unfortunately some of the plug-ins in the lab weren’t on the presenting computer. This is a very mellow song and I feel it would have sounded larger with Amplitude as intended.

Ben also presented the “If I had my way” by Little Axe. I was really impressed how he used reverb to create a gospel effect. Ben left space so the contents of each region could sink into the listener. I like the song but twice in a row I was ready for a nap.

Scott P presented “What you are” by Joi. Scott aimed for a dance feel and was successful in the feeling of the piece building as it went.

I presented “My secret Bliss” by The Afro Celts Sound System. My production notes, screenshots, analysis and research are featured below. I concentrated on the arrangement feature of this remix exercise as my samples were of very good quality. I really enjoyed putting together this mix and was pretty happy with the outcome.

Jake also did “My secret Bliss” by The Afro Celts Sound System. I was really impressed with his work. He has a somewhat unique angle and is very passionate. He also could not use some of his effects due to the constraints of the plug-ins on the presenting machine. I really wanted to hear the effect he described as “being underwater”. Whilst his arrangement was totally different to mine we both ended on the same small ambient sample.

Daniel filled us in on his hatred for vocals and his techno tastes. This was evident in the arrangement of the same Afro Celts song.

Simon did “What you are” by Joi. He said that it was the least like “world music”. He also not a fan of fade outs so it was interesting to hear the sounds he actually did like.

Overall the songs presented this week bore no resemblance to the original arrangement. It was a very enjoyable exercise for me and the research that influenced decisions on this project helped to expand most people’s horizons.

References:

Music Technology Forum – Adelaide University, Electronic Music Unit.
Lecturer: Steve Fieldhouse

Presentations: Scott H, Ben, Scott P., Jake, Daniel, Simon

Music Technology Forum Mix Project

Remixing : Afro Celts Sound System - My Secret Bliss

MTF Mix – Production Note

I have decided to remix Afro Celts Sound System - My Secret Bliss.
First of all I imported all of the samples to the region list of my Protools session and set about listening to them and providing myself with a description of the regions such as whether some are variations of others (see analysis). I started to think about what regions would go with others. Afro Celts Sound System now known as Afro Celts has a definite world music flavour to them and I thought it would be fun to do this track keeping an ambient dance feel to it.

I referenced (see research) my track to Machine Translations’ song “Amnesia”.
I liked:
• the level where the vocals sat when they were clean
• the Bassy busyness of some parts particularly the end
• the way the electronic elements created interest and hooks
The drums in particular the hi-hats were very bright and prominent. This is a sound I was not after.

As Greg Rule suggests (see research) I concentrated on the vocal arrangement then found a complementary drum beat to loop. I also liked the idea of an intro drum rhythm with some fills.

I found as Fatboy Slim did (see research) that I could use the backing vocals in place of keyboard or guitar as a pad. So I used the backing vocals swapping with the mono guitar below the main vocal line with the whistle providing a high melody. I added random keyboard sounds to create interest (see research: “The Mixing Engineers Handbook” by Bobby Owsinski)

I used a stretched reverse cymbal to firstly highlight the groove after the first change and then to facilitate the second change. This was also used to accentuate ambient sounds.

Mid song I wished to make sure all elements were represented. Drums and Bass Synth. are the foundation, with keyboards providing the pad. Rhythm is percussion. Leading is vocals and I think stereo guitars are important to uplift this part. A fill is the Kora and abstract keyboards either side provide interest also.

As I was happy with specific combinations I locked the regions in place using click, Apple key + L. (see research)

As I sought to align regions the difference when zoomed right in was phenomenal. Parts that looked aligned when zoomed were all over the place. Snapping to grid or markers helped this.

I used edited stereo guitars and reverse cymbals to accentuate vocals and random sounds. Through out samples were looped as aliases.

ProTools Screen Shots





Analysis

Afro Celts Sound System song, My Secret Bliss interested me as the sounds are very spacious and the drums really cruise along. There is percussion and keyboards, which I really like. The song belongs to an Ambient Dance genre and I will approach it from this point of view. It has good sound quality with lots of effects already added. I documented the samples and gave them descriptions that gave me something to recognise them by.
“Afro Celt Sound System was formed in 1995 as a collaborative effort between traditional African and Celtic musicians and several respected figures from the UK music scene. Much of the recording of the group’s first album, Volume 1: Sound Magic, took place during the 1995 Recording Week at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath.”[6]
Members are: Simon Emmerson, James McNally, Iarla O'Lionaird, Martin Russell (core members) with Johnny Kalsi, N'faly Kouyate, Emer Mayock, Moussa Sissokho, Ian Markin, Francis Hylton (and occasional guests!)

Samples and Descriptions:
Drums
1 Beat with Hiccup Vocal
2 Beat without
3 Beat 1 shorter with Tom Fills
4 Normal 1 with Fills
5 Break Down off beat with Hiccup, Fills, Banging
6 New with Fills
Whistle
1 Complementary with vocal higher build up
2 Up Beat Rhythmic high build up then repeat
Backing Vocals
1
2
Bodran and Pere (Percussion)
2 Tabla – Brush on Snare
3 Tabla – Brush on Snare
4 Tabla – Brush on Snare
5 Cymbal, Bells, Shaker
6 5 with Tabla then Cymbal
7 Reverse Cymbal and Percussion
8 Tabla and Reverse Cymbal
9 Shaker, Reverse Cymbal and Tabla
10 All
Guitar
1 Picking Low Rhythm
2 High Melodies – Off Beat
3 Rhythm Verse
4 Single Picking then Strumming clean ongoing
5 Picking with strumming comes in hard
Bass
1 Bass riff as reg Keys
2 1 with variation
3 Travelling with slide change
4 Build up to 2nd riff
5 Mellow Funk Bass
6 5 with slides
7 1 alternating
8 1 key change
10 Picking with slide
11 Low Rumble
Regular Keyboard
1 Funk Bass Synth.
2 Slightly shorter, same bass, louder Synth.
3 Breakdown Synth. Ambient
4 Similar to 3
5 Breakdown w/bass, little Synth.
6 Repeating Bass sound, changing Synth. chords
7 Slightly changing Bass and Synth.
Abstract Keyboard
1 Bum Bum
2 Til Bum Bum
3 Rhythmic mouth harp sound, panning Synth.
4 Bum Bum Bum Til Bum.( hehehe Yes True)
5 One Short Burst
6 Background static noise cycling
7 Cycling with harp bouncy
8 Build up
9 Like 8 but different cycling speeds
Kora
1 2nd Bass Riff
2 1 with shorter bursts
3 High picking
4 Bassy fast picking
5 4 with variation
6 Short burst ring out x 2
7 3 with variation
8 3 with variation
9 3 with variation
Main Vocals and extras
Larla 1 Whoo-foreign language. Then- Return, Like Children, we stumble, into the sun
Larla 2 Return, like children, we stumble, recall the reason, together, we stare into the sun
Sevara 1 Short high wailing – rhythmic end
Sevara 2 High wailing then silence, dreamy whispered wail then rough rap sounding.
Rev. Cym. Reverse Cymbal
Lots to work with here.

Research for my mix includes the 5 references below.

At www.globaldance.com Greg Rule explains how he builds a track “So once you get your (tempo) from there I generally start building (the remix) up from the bottom with my drums and my percussion tracks. I'll just have the vocal playing by itself and then I'll start layering in the beats.”[1]

This is how I started by listening and getting a feel for the vocals then looped up a cool beat with a variation for the intro. With my readings for this research I have found heaps of other producers remixing or creating a track talking about arranging around the vocals.

I then set about gathering the elements I found most appealing and layering complementary samples. With these samples being very produced and quite layered in by themselves I found no need for extra effects.

In the book “The Mixing Engineers Handbook” by Bobby Owsinski, he says that “great mixers think in three dimensions – Tall, Deep and Wide.” “Tall” being the frequency range, “Deep” is adding ambient elements to the mix and “Wide” is achieved by panning.

He also mentions six elements of a great mix:
Balance – the volume level relationship between musical elements.
Frequency Range – having all frequencies properly represented.
Panorama – placing a musical element in the sound field.
Dimension – adding ambience to a musical element.
Dynamics – controlling the volume envelopes of track or instrument
Interest – making the mix special

Whilst mixing the Fatboy Slim 2004 release Palookaville, Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) noticed that the guest Blur singer Damon Albarn's vocals could be the pad (long sustaining note or chord) in the mix for two of his songs.

“The backing vocals fulfill what normally you would have a guitar or keyboard doing rhythmically.” Cook says.

I use this in my track: the backing vocals are in at the start, as they come to the end of the 1st section the mono guitar comes in. The mono guitar then leads to the second section of backing vocals.

In the Book “Editing Digital Audio in ProTools” by David Franz a shortcut I picked up and used after highlighting a region is Apple key +L. This locked the region in position and would give a warning window if you were adjusting it. This gave me a lot of piece of mind that the parts I had exactly lined up would stay that way.

I found a couple of tips on referencing the sound of your mix to an existing CD. One was to import directly into the ProTools session using a wave file so that the output is through the signal path to create a level playing field [5]. Two other things to be careful of are:
1 - Don't try to match your mix the volume of the reference CD. It's already been mastered. The mix that THEY used for mastering was not as loud as their final CD, and neither should yours. [5]
2- Don't try to match their compression. Additional compression was likely added in mastering. If you squash your mix, you will be stuck with whatever you did.. Mastering is usually a better time and place for that. [5]


References:

[1] -http://www.globaldance.com/InterviewGregRule2.htm
Keyboard Magazine's GREG RULE! - Part 2

[2] -“The Mixing Engineers Handbook” by Bobby Owsinski

[3] -Remix Mag article DEVIL MAY CARE on the recording of Fatboy Slims’ Palookaville. Oct 1, 2004 by Ken Micallef

[4] -“Editing Digital Audio in ProTools” by David Franz

[5] - Mark Dann Recording MIXING TIPS FROM THE TRENCHES
http://www.markdannrecording.com/Mixing_Tips.html

[6]http://www.myspace.com/afrocelts

MTF Week 10 17/05/2007

Grunge is a genre that I grew up with and as Steve points out is another form of rebellion, possibly against the Glam Metal that was so prevalent. As Steve points out the idea of grunge had been around for quite a while and he would describe Dick Dale as ‘60’s grunge. Grunge, a gritty, soiled, unkept and raw sound in its purist form with mistakes left as a stamp of personality and reality. Like Punk the desire and passion to play rather than musicianship was the main idea. I believe that this in the most part is due to the young participants just learning their instruments.
The big wave of Grunge centred on the Seattle music scene where Nirvana broke. Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog (collaboration), Screaming Trees, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Mad Season (collaboration) recordings were all very popular and inspired other bands further away such as The Stone Temple Pilots.

Grunge became more stylised in a fashion sense and a musical sense. Pieces of “Grunge mistakes” were added to tracks such as those found on Nirvanas’ In Utero album. Record companies couldn’t cope with the idea of releasing a half baked product and it is famous that Nirvana hated their slick sound on “Nevermind”.

Steve suggests that Soundgardens’ “Badmotor Finger” was the last of the rawer sounding recordings of the period. I agree, when the following album “Superunknown” came out it was “superproduced”. Grunge became assimilated into the mainstream like many Genres before.
One this that is evident is that when a major label gets involved nothing is left to chance. I suppose as a musician myself I find we forget the main of the population want to be entertained and aren’t interested in something different or breaking musical barriers. Music is a soundtrack to life and be it washing dishes or partying on a Friday night most enjoy the tricks record companies employ.

References:
Music Technology Forum-EMU Adelaide Uni, Lect:Steve Fieldhouse

MTF Week 9 10/05/2007

Genre Based Production

Genres have their own clichés.
This week in our music technology forum Steve discussed what bands are well known in different genres and the trademark production techniques used in these recordings. As a producer Steve gets bands/artists from all sorts of genres. For example to create a great blues recording Steve will go on a diet of listening to great blues recordings and take the production techniques used as a good place to start.

Funk is a genre was represented by The Meters, James Brown, Bootsy Collins, Funkadelic, Groovalicious and Kool and the Gang. The first beat of the bar is commonly emphasised and the musicians drift around the beat.
U.S. ‘90s funk is clean with reverb packed on the drums. Bands like The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are incredibly compressed, using room mics on the drums. In contrast U.K. funk sounds a lot darker, deeper with a close microphone placement on the drums to give a proximity effect. U.S. drummers may record in a large “live” room whereas U.K. drummers may record in a small relatively “dead” room with a dry sound. Australian funk like Skunkhour takes from both countries and Steve thinks it is actually roughly half way between both techniques.

Reggae is symbolised by Bob Marley and the mix has brightness, lots of hi-hats, keyboards/guitars - one on beat/one off beat in opposite speakers (radical panning), clean guitars that are very compressed and use of Flangers and Phasers. Rhythmic delays on the snare, hi-hats or cymbals are quite noticeable.

SKA is typified by Madness and The Specials.

Blues as we know it originated from the Mississippi Delta with such “Bluesmen” as Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, John Lee, Willie Dixon, BB King and Buddy Guy. Earlier recordings used an overdriven Shure “Green Bullet” Harmonica Microphone to get the vocal sound. In the 1970’s blues assimilated into rock and roll and Stevie Ray Vaughan often used Leslie speaker boxes for that Hammond organ feel.


Jazz is all about capturing the musicians in the room. It has little compression, no thumping kick drum and solos that are meant to heard. From Miles Davis’ “A Kind of Blue” with his horn sax sounds (even Wah on his Trumpet) to Diana Krall “Live in Paris” jazz is to be enjoyed live and is recorded as such.

Hard Rock is compressed during and after recording again and again. Big attack, slapping bass guitar and doubled guitars hard rock has come along way from the mid range raspy brightness of Thin Lizzy and the early Metallica albums.

References:
Music Technology Forum-EMU Adelaide Uni, Lect:Steve Fieldhouse

MTF Week 8 03/05/2007

Unfortunately I had to miss this week’s lesson to attend a funeral so I did some investigation on the presented producers on my own.

Sebastian presented on Steve Wilson who is a self taught songwriter and producer who has worked with bands such as; “Opeth from Sweden, OSI from America, and Aviv Geffen from Israel.”[1] He also doesn’t really classify himself as a musician because he says he only really picks up an instrument to play on or write a song.
Steve(pictured left) is the frontman for band Porcupine but love to work on other projects. “If I tried to shoehorn everything I want to do into one project, I think it would be the most ridiculously, insanely eclectic band. No one would want to listen to it."[2]

Daniels chose Simon Luckie A.K.A Groove Terminator. Who is a popular electro artist as well as producer that has worked with Grinspoon, Dead or Alive, Groove Armada, Gorillaz and Savage Garden. He also has had great success with TV and radio commercials for big name corporations. [5]

Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor(pictured left) like many other musician/producers has had to fight some personal demons such as drug and alcohol abuse. He also fought his record company for creative control of his second release. Lisa mentioned his association producing Marilyn Mansons’ Anti-Christ Superstar. I found this interesting as NINs “Downward Spiral” was recorded in the house where actress Sharon Tate was murdered by followers of Charles Manson. He is also an artist who contributed to Joy Division's "Dead Souls” album cover.[3]


Simon presented Phil Spector who is famous for his “wall of sound technique”, where he kept on overdubbing musicians until a roar was achieved. [4] He started out with a group called The Teddy Bears with a number 1 hit in 1958 called “To know him is to love him”. A combination of his stage fright and love for producing led him to produce artists such as Ike and Tina Turner, The Righteous Brothers, Gene Pitney, George Harrison and John Lennon. [4]

Joshua presented Phil Ramone. What a legend. He’s worked with Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Barbra Streisand and many more. Check out this sound on sound article. [6]
Sound on Sound - Phil Ramone

References:
[1] Interview with Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree: Alt Culture Guide
[2] 23/03/07 - Porcupine Tree's Wilson Talks Complex New LP, Project With Opeth's Akerfeldt.Title: Frontman ponders the impact of information technology on today's generation.
[3] Nine Inch Nails MTV
[4] Phil Spector - The Producer.
[5] Daniel Trembath Blog
[6] Sound on Sound - Phil Ramone

MTF Week 7 26/04/2007

This week we continued presenting information on our chosen producers.
Kevin “The Caveman” Shirley was Jakes choice He was born in South Africa and has made his way around the world including some Australian time where did some mixing for “peanuts” as well as engineering the Baby Animals 1993 self-titled, multi-platinum release. Off to Canada for Rushs’ 1993 “Counterparts” then back to Australia for Silverchairs “Frogstomp”, another multi-platinum release. He has made a name for himself mixing and re-mixing DVDs for the likes of Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, Slayer, Metallica and Joe Satriani. He has also recorded Tina Arena and Olivia Newton-John.
I was next with my “champ” of a producer “Dave Fridmann”. The full story is in the post below.
Rowan reported on Ross Robertson who started out as a thrash guitarist before assistant engineering job on 1992 album “The Crimson Idol” by W.A.S.P.. He steadily built his Discography with such artists as Korn, Deftones, Sepultura, Vanilla Ice (What the? Hehe!) , Slipknot, and At the Drive-In.
Scott H labelled Jason Suecof as LAZY. Jason doesn’t seem lazy to me, 25 yrs old and he has had his own studio since 1999, AudioHammer Studios in Florida. He has already produced many successful metal acts such as Trivium, God Forbid, Monstrosity and Adrift. Jason and his brother grew up immersed in the Beatles and Frank Zappa thanks to their drummer dad. They have had a band together for more than 10 yrs. Jason loves to use Audio-Technica AE 3000 to capture guitar highs.
Ben talked about the legendary Eddie Kramer who has many major credits including recording many Jimmy Hendrix albums, Woodstock Festival, many Led Zeppelin albums and Kiss.

All of these Engineers/Producers have their own tricks that have definitely been good to hear about this exercise has opened my eyes to the use of panning, contrast, effects, Low/Hi Fi, Loops, Programming and arranging etc. I was wondering where all the female producers/sound engineers are? I know that Alyssa has one on her blog. http://alyssa-wong.blogspot.com . Does anyone have any other favourite female producers?


References:
Music Technology Forum-EMU Adelaide Uni, Lect:Steve Fieldhouse, Presentations by MTF Class