Elements EP: Engineer’s Notes Pt. II

A Home Studio Recording

As I mentioned in Part I, the overproduced first draft of the Elements EP was tailored for a university project and despite using interesting recording techniques and production elements to keep the listener entertained/intrigued, the end result was swimming in reverb and I felt it did not truly represent how I played the pieces at points (it also did not tie in very well with the videos as there was extra instrumentation in the audio, but not the video).

For releasing the EP to the public, I wanted audio that had minimal production values and no extra instrumentation so that it was able to be synchronised to the videos convincingly. As mentioned in the About Elements EP blog post, I slowly build up my recording equipment list as I could afford it and once I reached a certain point, I felt comfortable to record the EP properly, under my own rule, and with no university lecturer waiting at the finish line with a red pen to mark their disappointment.

My Equipment

Pro Tools 11

Saffire Pro 40

Neumann KM184

AKG 820 valve

SM57

Microphone Placement

1. The Neumann was placed to the left of the performer, about 2 feet away and aligned roughly with the 10th fret, but angled in to point to the neck join (12th fret for my guitar).
2. The SM57 was placed at the same height and distance away as the Neumann, but in line with the base of the guitar and angled in to point at the bridge of the guitar.
3. The AKG was placed high above the other two microphones, about 3-4 feet away and in the dead centre of the other microphones.

But Why?

1. The Neumann was placed at the neck to capture higher frequencies which are more prevalent there and suited for the small diaphragm condenser.
2. The SM57 was facing the bridge to capture the percussive elements of the pieces and the dynamic microphone is very suited for capturing lower frequencies.
3. The AKG was used as a ‘room’ microphone set to an omnidirectional position to capture a more ambient tone (the warmth of the valve also contributed to this).

To read more about microphone types and when is best to use them, check out Capturing Sound Pt I.

The Mixing

As I took my took my time with the recordings, I was quite happy with how the guitar was captured so I did very little in terms of mixing. A dash of reverb on the Neumann and SM57 channels to pull back the guitar – this was required as close miking an instrument sounds great but as the name suggests, it’s a very close and in-your-face sound [not the way we normally like to listen to an instrument]. A couple of corrective EQs were added to certain sections and some elastic audio was used to help sync the middle section of Instrü Mentae [this was very troublesome as the section; despite being played to a click track, has quite a loose timing]. Aside from that, I did not want to overdo anything, I just wanted my guitar to sound nice..but that didn’t stop the producer in me from adding a few things in.

Production Elements

For the mixing process I did very little in terms of adding effects but I did add in a few little reverse swells between sections like the minor section in Instrü Mentae. The introduction to that piece also uses some reversed slides (taken from the one you hear at the start of the piece) that were slowed down to transform them. These were then panned around the speakers, crossing from side to side. I had some fun with the natural harmonics in the introduction to The Ballad of Tom Riach – I recorded separate takes of each harmonic and panned the 6 strings from right to left and then left to right for each bar. It was mixed in very subtly but I found it added some width to the piece [you might be able to notice it when you hear the delay effect ringing out]. The introduction to Celtic Dawn uses a reversed open chord so the piece slowly rises to the opening note – much like the sun does when it creeps over the hills to provide first light.

Overall, I was happy with the finished product, but by no means was it the idyllic masterpiece of audible chocolate I had initially wanted. This is due to the fact that it was all recorded in my bedroom and not a state of the art studio with Pro Tools HD, lots of outboard gear, a seasoned engineer and a master of mastering. With this in mind, I’ll wrap up with some things I know could be better:

• I recorded with new strings which sound great but were a little bit too crisp and buzzed a lot – there is only so much editing can do [see Celtic Dawn near the start for a notable example]
• The fact that everything these days has to be compressed a fair amount so that it matches the level of commercial audio so the in the mastering stage I lost some of the performance dynamics and the overall tone of the guitar changed a little
• The click tracks were carefully/painstakingly constructed, but could not totally capture human feel so some sections suffered. It was the price I paid to have the audio synced to video.

To conclude – there’s always room for improvement but for my debut release it’ll do just fine for now.

Neil.

Elements EP: Engineer’s Notes Pt. I

The First Draft

As I mentioned in the About Elements EP blog, the project has been a long time in the making and not only the composition of the tracks.

Jump back to 2013 as I moved into my final year at university and began to work on my honours project – the Elements EP. The project was a template for launching myself into the public eye as a musician and audio engineer. However, in attempt to emulate my influences – Trace Bundy and Andy Mckee – and to showcase my capabilities as an engineer, the project incorporated numerous production values, extra instrumentation and a couple of recording techniques.

Microphones Used:

2 Neumann TLM103

Shure SM57

Electro Harmonix EH-R1

Røde NT2

 

Recording Techniques

                  

 

Eric Valentine’s Stereo Miking

As you can see from the two tables, I used 3 different set ups for capturing the EP. The first of which utilized Eric Valentine’s stereo image:

For me, this gives a great representation of the acoustic guitar and it seems to make logical sense as the stereo image captures from low string to high strings rather than the traditional horizontal stereo image.

 

Middle and Side

The next two images are of the Middle and Side technique I used with the Electro Harmonix and the TLM103:

    

Notice that I used the NT2 in the second picture: this was for Eclipse and utilized the very reverberent hallway that was outside the studio.

To read more about some basic microphone techniques, check out Capturing Sound Pt. III

 

Overdubs

I also used a second recording session to capture some overdubs I would use in the mixing stage such as the harmonics at the start of The Ballad of Tom Riach and Grass Dance, and general percussive hits through:

This set up allowed me to capture the room sound while also maintaining some close promixity for me to blend together [those with a keen eye will recognise this room from the video for Instrü Mentae]

Once all of the guitar was tracked, I added in some extra instrumentation to make the tracks more interesting – egg shakes, thunder drum, foot stomps and hand claps. However, the overall production values, although entertaining for the listener and helped to hold their attention, I felt they took away from videos as they were filmed as a solo performance. I also recorded all six of the guitar tracks in one long evening which may of been a quick recording process, but it also left me with numerous takes to patch together; this I was not thankful for in the mixing process.

All of these factors combined made me want to do it again but this time, more naturally, under my own terms and without its reception counting towards a degree. Check out Pt. II for the recording process involved in making the EP as you hear it released today. Maybe one day I’ll unleash the overproduced version and have a giggle at my past self, but for now I’ll keep it locked away.

 

Neil.

Elements EP: Composer’s Notes

Overview

Every instrumental composition on this EP has developed from something rather basic into a more complex version over time; paralleled by my own progression as a musician. As the pieces have been written for a while now, they have had time to ferment with embellishments and evolve with rearrangements, with the earliest track being one of the ideas I tried when first experimenting with Open Dsus4 tuning [DADGAD]. One conceptual idea I tried to do with the EP was to have the track order so that the major pieces are at the start and as the EP goes on, the minor sections become more prominent until you reach the closing track that is very much in a minor key, dipping into the harmonic minor at times.

Before I give a quick run down of each tracks origin, it is worth noting the relevance of Equinox’s title; the piece is almost exactly in two halves, with one major and one minor – much like the balance of light and dark during the biannual equinox. Lastly, most of these pieces are through composed – as in they do not have many repeating parts and they often only have one section in them that I consider their ‘hook’ or recurring theme.

 

The True Track Order [Chronologically]

 

Grass Dance [2008] – Track 2

Back in my 6th year of school at Culloden Academy, they held a talent show that I entered with a very primitive version of Grass Dance. Despite being a solo performance with no vocals, I somehow ended up winning – something that blew my tiny little mind at the time. Since then, the introduction was developed to a higher technicality and the middle section at 2:11 was added in to provide a strong hook from the previous double tapping build up. Lastly, the percussive section that closes the piece was developed in technicality also so there was a more climatic finish to the track.

 

Celtic Dawn [2008] – Track 1

As part of winning the talent show with Grass Dance, I was put in to the Christmas concert to perform again, but I didn’t really want to do the same piece again so I wrote a new one; Celtic Dawn. This time I wanted a piece that had more of a Scottish twang to it and thus the compound time section was born. Before that section kicks into life however, I had a slow introduction in my musical attempt to represent a sunrise. The piece then meanders a fair bit to progressively build to my favourite bit, the hook [hyperlink]. After that it meanders once again through another few sections to arrive at another climatic end of percussive playing with the last note being some natural harmonics.

 

Eclipse [2009] – Track 6

This piece is the most personal composition I have written to date and unfortunately its origin is not under positive circumstances. Tragedy struck our secondary school in the February of this year with the untimely death of one of the pupils in our year. Without going into great detail, a memorial award was announced in honour of his life with pupils submitting their creative work in various art forms. I did not know him very well, but he had been in my primary school so he was always there as I was growing up and it was my view that he would continue to do so – the naivety of my younger self couldn’t fathom this reality very well. The realisation of vulnerability even in our youth and that we were not all destined to live our whole life was an unexpected blow to us all and I wanted to at least try to produce something for him. The end result was Eclipse and to this day I will play it when I am struggling as despite it being a minor piece, I find the repeated chord progression manages to be uplifting and can help remind me of the good and not just the bad.

 

Instrü Mentae [2009] – Track 5

Not long after Eclipse, the main hook of Instrü Mentae was the first part I wrote for the piece and it still remains as fun to play as it was when I first composed it. The piece starts of very rapidly and then gets a breath of air after the opening section; this then builds and builds with a slight increase of tempo until it reaches the ‘hook’. After that, it sneaks into the minor section with the used of artificial harmonics. The minor section builds and builds to it’s highest point and then rings out one final note; the major section then creeps back in to build and build back to the hook. Overall, this song is fairly simple in structure in comparison to others, but the name started as a simple play on the word Instrumental due to my lack of imagination at the time. Instrü Mental then became Instrü Mentae in an attempt to distance the term a bit further from it’s obvious origin and the Mentae gives it a big of a Scottish twang.

 

The Ballad of Tom Riach [2009] – Track 3

Who is Tom Riach?  – I get asked this question fairly often and the answer is no one. Tom Riach is a place near a viaduct, just outside Inverness. Tom Riach is a large boulder, a glacial erratic for those prepped up with their geology [I however, had to look it up – a rock or boulder that differs from the surrounding rock and is believed to have been brought from a distance by glacial action]. It is used for rock climbing, but for me it was a place to my friend Chris and I used to go often to get a fire going and have a jam with guitars and a djembe [Chris is in Penniless Moth, check out the blog here[hyperlink]]. The song is essentially A B A C D E in structure [harmonic section, double tap section, back to harmonics, build up section, percussive section, outro] and the percussive section towards the end is fantastic to play when accompanied with a djembe.

 

Equinox [2010/11] – Track 4

Lastly we arrive at the newest piece, which at the time of writing is still around 3 years old! It was written in my second year of uni studying Popular Music at Edinburgh Napier as part of my performance studies modules for the guitar. I had a great tutor, Taj who gave me creative nudges on how to craft the piece; linking sections together and trying out different chords in the DADGAD tuning. As you will hear, the piece flows a lot better than the other tracks due to developing ideas around the same progressions. The link between the major and minor sections is a simple dominant chord at the suggestion of Taj – a very simple transition but I found it worked really well. The minor section has to be one of my favourite parts I have written as it is essentially a mirror image – the idea develops and develops until it reaches the ‘hook’ and then it simplifies until it goes back to finger picking and finally slows to the end.

 

I hope you have enjoyed finding a bit more about the construction of this instrumental music and if you feel like learning the pieces, check out the notation here.

Neil.