My new project (Part 2)

If you read in my previous blog, I’ve had a lot of trouble finding and sticking with a band this trimester after having many cancel. Because of this, I’ve had to fall onto a backup plan that allows me to still record acoustic elements and reach areas that I’ve previously had trouble with.

After some thinking and consideration I thought about what I wanted to be able to get out of this trimester if it wasn’t to record a band. I decided that although yes, I wanted to record a band, the main focus of this project was to improve on my analogue studio skills, and by doing this I wanted to learn how to use the analogue desks and record a drum kit (I found this to be a particularly difficult part of recording due to the more complex microphone choices and placement).

I decided to create a track on Ableton Live 9 with a guitar loop from a sample pack and used some drum samples to create a beat that I could have replaced by a real session drummer. I’d also like to have the loop replaced with a new guitar composition and recording as basing a song around a loop doesn’t really make mine feel all that original for a portfolio piece, however for the time being I’m trying to skip over the composition stage as I’m trying to focus on the more recording and mixing side of things for this project.

Due to my practice sessions throughout studio 2 this trimester, and with our 'Desert Rock' recording session (which I plan on writing a blog on soon) I have had plenty of experience with using the Audient desks and have become relatively comfortable at running it on my own. A lot of the analogue studio practices clicked with me easily as I was on top of this in the first trimester but kind of got lost in all of the other different areas of audio like electronic production.

Most of my confusion came from simply doing things a different way. For instance, to me the patch bay and outboard gear is honestly something I don’t really care that much about, don’t get me wrong it’s good to know that outboard gear is a thing and that some people really like it, but to me it makes so much more sense to just to apply effects like reverb on the DAW and to send that out instead. I’ve also discussed with many people in the class their way of running the desk to see if there are any practices that they do that I find better for me, and I’ve found that quite a few people also prefer to not use outboard gear but to create auxiliary’s in Pro Tools and do it that way. Now that I have an understanding of other areas of production I can see more clearly how to work the console in a workflow that makes sense to me and what I’m trying to achieve.

For the project, I’ve still kept my Two Door Cinema Club references, but due to the lack of real instruments and a vocalist, I’ve included some post-rock and nugaze references such as the bands 65daysofstatic and M83, which have acoustic drums and some guitar elements but are mostly electronic in other areas.

I’m mostly envisioning this track to not be a releasable single but rather something that could be added to a stock music library to be used in trailers or commercials, and for that I’ve referenced the ‘Little Big Planet’ Playstation (video game) series, as which I have been inspired by the indie rock backing tracks that appear in older Playstation commercials from around 2009-2013. This playstation commercial even has I can talk by two door cinema club in the commercial which is my one of my main references for this project.

Heres an example of the Little Big Planet Trailer music I am referring to:

(I am using these as references however I'm trying to go for a more processed, synchronised drum sound with triggers being used for this project)

As for the way I’m going to approach this task, I’m looking at getting someone inside of SAE to act as the session drummer, to avoid having another third party musician or band involved. I wanted to have a third party to create a bit more work for myself, but I decided that I can’t really risk having another person to cancel otherwise the entire recording aspect of the project would be extremely hard to complete in time.

This leads me to a point about something that I’ve learned with time management and being efficient with time, which I talked about a bit in my last blog. One reason why the third party band response went poorly because I didn’t give myself enough time to look for a band, I sent a couple of responses out, but waited way too long for a reply instead of searching for a new one. I know now that next time I have to give myself a set time limit and decide that if the band doesn’t respond, I have to move on to another. I also need to allow much more time to do this and start looking for bands before the commencement of the project to allow myself enough time to lock in a time and date so I can plan things out.

I found our in class tasks to be actually really helpful, such as one where we worked as a class and listed out all of the questions that we should be asking a band, as well as crafting our own production plan. My groups production plan was quite complex, but I can (and did, while I still had a band) use this as a reference and use it to craft my own questions and production plan of what I think will be important, depending on the project.

So basically, I’ve learnt a lot about recording bands and have practiced it on my own, although stressful and not really going to plan, this second round of projects is teaching me a lot through a trial and error process. By jumping into the deep end, I’m learning heaps of things about what to do and what not to do for my own practices.

Here's a scratch track of what it's sounding like so far:

So that basically covers what I’ve been doing and what my projects are, expect more updates as I continue to make progress on it, first off I’m going to get the main part down first, which will be the drum tracking!

Thanks for reading