Friday 20th April 2018
Today the main issue was attendance, not on mine and Charlies part but on my classes part, I was left to do all the recording for all the performers, when I should of just had my main focus on making Charlie’s performance sound the best it possibly could, although we still got a good sound which were both happy with, the stress levels would have been reduced had I had a whole class or at least a few classmates with me for the duration of the lesson, which was three hours long as well; I feel the overall quality of all the performances would have been improved. and setting up wouldn’t have taken as long.
The only other issue I faced today was the fact I didn’t use a compressor for Charlie’s guitar and vocals, in order to fix this issue I will need to ensure I get as much practice as possible on the desk with what time remains.
Friday 27th April 2018
Today we had no real issues, attendance was much better than last week, and in my opinion, we achieved a better recording, this I feel was due to me having a bit more recent experience on the desk. Also Charlie stayed consistent with his clearly well rehearsed track. Last week, another issue I had personally was not adding the compressor for Charlie’s vocals and guitar but this week that came in, as well as the praise from my tutor.
If I was to be really picky I would say maybe a few little tweaks to some effects here and there just to make the sound that bit better could of enhanced the performance even more, as well I took a bit longer to sound check than normal but it was a simple mistake on my part which I quickly fixed; but other than that I was very pleased with the performance this week, as was Charlie himself.
Tuesday 1st May 2018 (1st studio session)
Today we faced some fairly time consuming issues, the main one being a technical issue with not being able to hear the click properly, it turned out to be a simple fix, but it took us a while to figure out the reason why we weren’t hearing the click, it was simply a lead needing to be plugged into a headphone jack in the Mac. We did however make up for the time we lost by the amount of work we produced.
Also on the second track, Charlie asked me to change the BPM of the track midway though the track about 30 bars in, I didn’t know how to do this so I simply used youtube tutorials to help me out and they really did just that! This was luckily only a minor issue which was resolved quickly.
We luckily had full time access to the studio today, we meant we could take time over our work, i.e take time over each take, and make sure we achieved the best sound which we were both happy with. We ended up getting to a very good stage in the end and we both feel as if progress has been made despite the slight hold up today.
Friday 4th May 2018
Today there were very little issues to talk about, however there were a few issues I faced, when the time came for me to record Charlie and Toby who was his partner for todays performance, I got a little bit confused with how to correctly use the talkback microphone/work the channel it was on. This was not a major issue but it was a basic one that should not be happening at this stage, this close to the final gig.
This problem was dealt with by moving up the gain on auxiliary one, on channel 16 (talkback channel) we were ready to soundcheck the guitar, vocals, snare drum and cajon which were the four instruments being used. Also I had to deal with a small bit of feedback creeping into the performance but I showed that I could deal with it when it came up. During and after the performance there were no further issues to talk about, everything went smoothly and to plan.
9th, 10th and 11th May 2018
Yet again there were very little issues to report on, I used these three days as mixing and mastering day’s for my tracks, of course a few little sound issues came up but I managed to fix them by choosing the correct effects and using the correct amounts of them in the correct places.
These days were ideally meant to showcase my ability to mix and master individually rather than as part of a small group. I felt as if I achieved this going off my final recordings which can now be viewed on soundcloud:
Thursday 24th May 2018 (2nd studio session)
Today was a very relaxed session, with little to no problems to solve; I recorded Charlie playing in studio one, this track did not contribute to my side of the project but as we managed to get all the recording, mixing and mastering done in weeks prior to this session, we both knew in advance that this session was going to be a fairly laidback one.
The only real problem’s that came up were standard little issues, such as issues with sound quality, and being able to hear each other, this could have been down to the fact that I had not been in studio one hands on with the equipment by myself before, but I felt overall I dealt with the pressure well.
Live Sound Gig (5th June 2018)
All in all the live sound gig was a success, but it did come with its problems along the way, all of the real problems lied in the sound checking process which as shown is always the hardest part of a live sound gig. We had various issues with the performers hearing sound through incorrect speakers, we managed to correctly deal with the situation by boosting the sound through the fold-backs on stage so that the correct performers could hear the correct instruments.
Pictured below is a picture of the mixing desk we used for the live sound gig, it is the digital desk which wasn’t my preference but of course I worked with what I had and still achieved a good sound.
Overall the problem solving element really came into play for the live sound gig, luckily I was capable of helping to deal with the problems that arose, once the gig started we faced no further issues other than the occasional bit of feedback from the vocal microphone which we dealt with easily.
Unit 12 and Unit 13 - Final Major Project 