Production Diary: Track 2

Equipment - The equipment I used to create the second track was:

FL Studio 10
Nexus2
One shot drum samples from a hip hop drum kit
Sub bass from a hip hop drum kit

I used nexus2 to make the melodies and chords because nexus has a good variety of sounds and drums and this synthesizer was the best one to choose. I managed to find good strings, choir, bells, piano and a trancy lead and I put them into good use. I then needed some one shot drums, so I grabbed a kick, 2x snare, closed and open hats and a sub bass. Finally I used FL Studio to structure, mix and master the entire track. FL Studio has a lot of good effects and mixing plugins and I wanted to put the into good use as well.

Recording - I didn't record the sounds and drums on FL Studio because I didn't have a midi keyboard to use for the recording. So I used the type pad on my to make chords and melodies and when I came up with some good ideas I inputted the data into the piano roll and extended the legato of the notes if it was necessary. Firstly I started playing some chords for the string section because the string section sounded very much like my kind of hip hop and it sounded very catchy as well. I then opened the piano roll to input the notes in exact length I wanted it at. I then copied and pasted the same chords into the choir section to give the strings some layering. After I put quarter notes on every crotchet in the bell section because It sounded catchy and I really liked the idea itself. Then I played some piano notes on the type pad until I came up with something that fitted in well and that I was happy with it, then I put the notes into the piano with adjusting the legato of the notes if necessary. I then repeated the same process for the other remaining sounds and the drums.

Once that was all done I put each sound and drum into separate patterns and I began to structure the song. The song structure is:

16 bar intro
16 bar verse
8 bar pre chorus
16 bar chorus
16 bar verse
16 bar chorus
16 bar verse
16 bar chorus
outro

Vocal Recording - I gave the instrumental track to Reggie so that he can write and record his verse. On wednesday 14th May, in sequencing he used the pro ducting room to record his verse. Once he had finished recording his verse I saved the project onto my memory stick with the copied audio files and I put his verse onto fl studio to mix down. I have also included Bryan, Jordan and a friend outside of college to write lyrics to the track.

Mixing - Once the instrumental track was full structured it was ready for mixing down. I used EQs for the drums because the sounded flat and couldn't be heard as much as the sounds. So for the kick drums I adjusted most of the lo ends because the kick has a boom kind of sound. When I adjusted the lo frequencies of the kick drum I could hear it very well. It sounded much more punchy and aggressive compared to the kick that wasn't EQ'd. I then used the volume fader to adjust to a reasonable level in the mix. It was too loud in the mix, so I had to reduce the volume fader until the kick drum can still be heard but at a reasonable volume level. I then repeated this method for the other one shot drums and sub bass because this method of mixing is very easy and it doesn't take that long too get right. I did use a little bit of compression on the two snare drums because the volume fader wasn't enough. For the sounds I used the volume faders mostly because some of the sounds were too loud or too quiet in the mix. For example the strings and choir were too loud, so I used the volume fader to make them a bit quieter, however the bells, piano and trance lead were a touch too quiet, so this meant I needed to turn the volume fader up by 5 - 10% for them to be heard. After I mixed everything down I listened back to the whole instrumental track and I knew straight away that it was properly mixed down and ready for mastering.

The plugins I used to record Reggie' vocals were EQ, compressor, limiter and reverb. I used the EQ to cut of some of the lo frequency because I could hear a bit of popping and this didn't make the track sound very clean. So this is why I cut off most of the lo frequency. I then adjusted a little bit of the hi frequency because the hi frequency sounded dull and flat. When I adjusted the the hi end the vocals sounded so much brighter and sharper and it fit in very well with the track. When I was looking at the vocal waveform, it didn't require much automating, the waveform was fine as it was. I only applied a little bit of compression alongside with the limiter and this made the vocals not very dominant that the instrumental track. Finally I added a little bit of reverb to the vocals because the vocals sounded dry and didn't fit in with the instrumental track. So I added a reverb plugin and played around with until I found a suitable amount for the instrumental track. I listened back to the whole thing and I was happy with the mixing, EQ'ing and effect with the vocals.

Mastering - I used a plugin called 'maximus' which is a good plugin for mastering a mixed track. It acts like a compressor and has pre gain knobs which allow me to adjust how much lo, mid and hi I want or that sounds acceptable for the song. I soloed the lo frequency an I used a little bit of compression and pre gain I felt it should have. Once I was happy with it I then repeated this method for the mid and hi frequencies. When I switched off the solo mode it didn't sound the way I wanted it to be. I could hear too much of the mid frequency than the other frequencies. So what I did was I reduced the mid frequency and I brought a little of the lo and hi frequencies. When I listened back to the instrumental track I was satisfied and happy with what I heard back. Finally I added a little bit of compression and a little of pre gain so that the output master level would be equal. I also inserted a limiter into the master channel and used the gain knob to adjust how gain I wanted. I did this to ensure that the master track doesn't clip. If the master channel is clipping it will sound very distorted and not very pleasant to listen to. So when mastering a track it is always important to check that your master channel is not clipping. If it's not clipping then it will sound 100% clear and not distorted, especially when your wearing headphones listening to it. I then exported the song as a wav file and I then burned it into an empty CD. The song is not finished because the other people that were meant to be on the track didn't record their vocals in time for the song. So I burned it as it was.