This page will include mixed and mastered songs i have completed over the course of the HND Sound production course, and will detail the process by which i completed these songs. This will serve as evidence of my work using different Digital Audio Workstations, including audio processing, mastering software and using different compressed and uncompressed file types and formats.
(Click images for larger version)
The Beatles – “Nowhere Man”
DAWS Software - Pro Tools 10
Mastering Software - Ocenaudio
Sample Rate -
44.1kHz
Bit Depth -
16 Bit
Format(s) - .Wav, .mp3
This session was given to me as part of an assignment from my Multitrack
Mixing class in the first year of the course, and I have included it in my
portfolio as I feel that it shows that I can arrange and mix well using Pro
Tools, as well as highlights my use of audio processing. I also feel that it
effectively shows that I can use my own initiative when mixing music, as the
original version of this song from The Beatles’ 1965 album “Rubber Soul” is at
a much slower tempo and makes much greater use of effects such as reverb,
whereas for my mix I wanted to create an up-beat, rock and roll version. As
this track was for my first year Graded unit, I mixed the track at 16 Bit for
the purpose of later burning the song onto a compact disk, as CD audio uses 16
bits/sample,
I
loaded the project files into a new Pro Tools session, and began by listening
to the track as it was, without any processing or editing. Then I decided how I
was going to go about mixing the song, and I listened to the original from
“Rubber Soul” to get a reference for how the track should sound and to get a
good balance between track levels. However, since the original track is a mono
mix, it did not provide much guidance in terms of panning and creating a stereo
image.
I then
went through the individual stems one by one and stripped out the silences and
gaps between the audio parts, especially in the vocals and lead guitar tracks,
which helped to clean and unclutter the edit window and allow me to easily see
the structure of the song. Then I arranged the individual tracks into small
groups of similar instruments, as you can see in the screenshot where I have
placed the drum tracks, bass and two acoustic guitar tracks at the top, the
four lead guitar tracks in the middle, and the two lead vocal and four harmony
tracks at the bottom.
When I
was done arranging the song, I began mixing the levels of the individual
tracks, starting with the seven tracks that comprised the drum kit, then when I
felt I had a good drum mix I added the bass and acoustic guitars and mixed
these too. I then mixed the lead guitars together, and finally the vocals and
harmonies too. When I was happy with the mixes I had achieved within these
small groups, I used the group function to create group mixes for the drums and
rhythm section, lead guitars and the vocals, which I then blended together to
get an overall mix of the song. I then began to pan some of the tracks, such as
the drum group. I panned the snare 15% to the left, the hi-hats 25% to the left
and the stereo overhead tracks fully left and right respectively. I did this so
that I could recreate the sound of the drum kit from the drummer’s perspective,
with the kick drum and tom in the middle, snare and hi-hat slightly to the left
and the cymbals on either side. I also panned the acoustic guitars 20% to the
left and right which helped to give the effect of a larger rhythm section and
fill out the song. Finally, I panned the 1st vocal harmony tracks
64% to the left and right, and the 2nd harmony tracks 33% to the
left and right, which allowed me to obtain a wide stereo image and make it
sound like there were more vocalists than there were. I was also careful not to
pan tracks too closely to each other so that I could get a good amount of
separation between the instruments.
I added
in some fade-ins at the beginning of the two 2nd harmony tracks,
where I could hear the singer take in a breath quite loudly before the vocals
began. I could have trimmed the track up to remove this, however this could
make the start too abrupt, and it was far easier to add a quick fade-in. I also
added a fade-out at the end of the song across most of the tracks, and I made
this a short fade-out at the end of the audio just to emphasize the gradual
decrease in volume recorded onto the tracks.
I began
processing with the drum tracks, and started by adding a 7 band EQ plug-in to
the kick drum. I used the different frequency bands to boost the kick from
400Hz and below in order to achieve a sound with more “thump”. I also
attenuated the higher frequencies, from around 2kHz, so that I could remove the
sound of the pedal impact, and also to clean out some of the spill from the hi-hats
and snare that had been recorded onto the track. I also then added a
compressor/limiter plug-in to the kick, using a pre-set designed for a tight
kick drum. I set a fairly heavy compression ratio of 5:1, with the knee to come
in at -18dB and the threshold at -20dB. This helped to round the kick drum as a
whole off and keep the volume level uniform throughout the song.
Then, I
moved on to processing the snare drum, by adding a compressor plug-in and using
a pre-set. I changed the values of the pre-set slightly by selecting a
compression ratio of 3.2:1, a slightly lighter ratio which I used so that the
snare was not too over compressed and remained prominent in the overall mix. I
also used a threshold of -18dB and set the release to be slightly quicker, at
45ms, so that the compressor had time to reset before the next snare beat.
I next
added an EQ plug-in on the hi-hat, as I had noticed that I could hear a large
amount of snare and kick drum spill on this track, due to the microphone being
placed so close to these parts of the drum kit during recording. I chose a high
pass filter type, and set the plug-in to attenuate frequencies below around
2kHz, so that I could remove most of the kick and snare spill whilst still
keeping the hi-hat itself sounding crisp. I also used an “Air Kill” EQ plug-in,
which was effective in helping me to remove the “clunking” sound of the two
hi-hat cymbals striking each other. I used the gain setting to reduce the level
of the “Low” frequencies, which I had set to be around 150Hz, by almost 9dB,
which removed the undesirable sounds on the recording. I also then gave the
“High” frequencies, which I had set at 2.27kHz, a small boost of 3.4dB, to help
lift the hi-hats back to a good level after equalizing them.
I also
added some quick high pass filter EQ’s to the three overhead tracks, as these
had lots of spill recorded onto the tracks coming from the whole kit which was
clearly audible, as the ride and crash cymbals were not used all that often in
the song. I found that attenuating the frequencies below around 3-4kHz on most
of the tracks helped to clean up the spill without coloring the sound of the
actual cymbals themselves.
Compression
was used on the bass track, with a typical ratio of 3:1 and the threshold set
at -24dB, with a small output gain increase of 3.5dB. I did not feel the need
to do much more with the bass than this as the level was very even throughout
the song, however the compressor did help to bring the higher notes together
with the rest of the playing, and to stop the bass from getting too loud
towards the outro of the song.
I then
put Equaliser plug-ins on the two acoustic guitar tracks, using a pre-set
called “detailed strums”, which helped to boost the high end frequencies of the
acoustics. This plug-in boosted primarily the frequencies from 1kHz onwards,
and helped to define the strumming pattern, adding a greater sense of rhythm
and timing to the song.
I also
added EQ to the vocal tracks, with most of the harmonies and the lead vocals benefiting from a high pass filter to cut out some of the spill coming from
the headphones used for the singers in the recording studio. This EQ also
helped to separate and lift out the vocal tracks from the rest of the mix, and
reduced any overlapping frequencies that may have occurred with other
instrument, which could have resulted in the vocals being less clear in the
finished mix. The Oxford Sonnox SuprEsser plug-in was also used on the lead
vocals track to help remove some “plosives” and De-ess the performance.
Finally,
I decided to add some dynamic effects by adding an echo plug-in to the lead
vocal track. I did this by creating an auxiliary channel for the echo effect,
and then using the send bus on the vocal tracks to add the effect. I used a
delay setting of 80.39ms and added 75% of the effect into the output mix. This
allowed me to add a subtle echo and helped to tie the two lead vocal tracks
together.
I also
added a reverb effect on the snare track, using quite a short reverb tail so
that the individual snare beats would not become slurred together. This plug-in
was also added through the use of an auxiliary track and put into the snare
track through the sends. The output of the reverb was roughly 65% wet, meaning
with the added effect, and overall served to help the snare punch through the
overall mix and provide a sense of timing to the song.
When I was
happy with my mix, I exported the session into the mastering programme
Ocenaudio, where I began by normalizing the gain structure, making sure the
audio was loud enough, and I also analyzed the audio for any clipping. I then
bounced two mastered versions of the track: a high quality uncompressed wav
file version, and another in lower quality mp3 version.
Although
this was a professionally mixed and mastered song, I would likely not be able
to distribute it as the song is owned and protected by copyright legislation to
The Beatles, which in the UK lasts the length of the artist’s life plus 70
years afterwards, which means that if I claimed this track as my own or tried
to collect payment for its lyrics, musical ideas or recording, then I would be committing
copyright infringement.
Skelpolo - "Resurrection"
DAWS Software - Logic Pro 9
Mastering Software - Waveburner
Sample Rate -
44.1kHz
Bit Depth - 24 Bit
Format(s) - .Wav, .mp3
Dunning Kruger - "Japan Song"
DAWS Software - Pro Tools 10
Mastering Software - Waveburner
Sample Rate -
44.1kHz
Bit Depth - 24 Bit
Format(s) - .Wav, .mp3
Angels in Amplifiers - "I'm Alright"
DAWS Software - Logic Pro 9
Mastering Software -Waveburner
Sample Rate -
44.1kHz
Bit Depth - 24 Bit
Format(s) - .Wav, .mp3
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