Ruby Jackson in Introduction to Digital Music Techniques

Blog about Ruby's process of creating compositions

[rubyjacksonjams]

What I’ve Learnt... 🎧🎤🎶

1. My biggest take away from this project is the importance of structure. It isn’t something that I think about much until the end process, and it can really make or break your piece. I definitely had an idea of my structure in place as this was a key element of my artistic vision, however along the way I learnt how this should be reflected in the intricate musical ideas as well, such as the humming section. 

2. To go into creating something with an open mind. This could develop my ideas even further and provide new sounds that work well. 

3. To trust my ears. Mixing at the end of the day is an opinion, and there were times where it could have been a much easier process if I just went with my ears and go with what sounds the best for the context of the piece, rather than thinking more technically and thinking in the mind of the EQ channel. 

I’ve very much enjoyed this unit and it’s opened my mind up to a lot of new areas for me; within composing & also the technical side of things in Logic. I wouldn’t have been inspired to re-visit this lullaby anywhere else, along with the musical ideas that came with it. 

[rubyjacksonjams]

Creative challenges 🌙✨

I think my biggest obstacle was having an artistic vision in mind and not knowing how to exactly recreate it. I could have gone down multiple paths, delay could have been more of a focus, I could of made the track more busy and chaotic as it went on, etc... I’m a very work-as I go- composer and don’t usually have specific plans in mind before doing the project. It lets me have more of a creative flow and try sounds/ideas out on the spot. In saying that, I ultimately recreated the vision I had in mind from start to end and am really happy with how it turned out. Perhaps in the future I could be a bit more open minded to trying different things along the way and being open to incorporating these sounds in my piece. 

[rubyjacksonjams]

Mixing board

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Mixing on the EQ channel: Sub & Vox Tracks

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Mixing on the monitors 

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Mixing 👀

This soundscape was pretty much being mixed during the process of building my structure - there were lots of volume & reverb adjustments during automation. But overall, the mixing job wasn’t massive. I think this was mostly due to using the U47 as it was really perfect for my vocal style, picking up all the little colours and depth another mic wouldn’t have. I did a very subtle EQ adjustment on the channel just to accentuate the breathy sound. There were some vocal lines I phrased with a bit more oomph, so compression was used in the vocal track stack for times like these. 

I remember being shocked at the sound of the sub when my draft was played in class - it was very wobbly, woofy, loud and just a LOT... So this time round I had a play on the channel EQ of the sub and cut everything below about 35-40hz. I felt like it didn’t make a huge difference, but thought it would be good to get rid of that low information so it’s not there on my whole mix. 

[rubyjacksonjams]

Experimenting with panning - wanted this effect as the reverb increases and the vocal slowly disappears

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Sounds being added 

[rubyjacksonjams]

Musical decisions 🎶

Once I had my final vocal tracks done, it was time to structure the soundscape and figure out if I wanted any more sounds in there. The first things to do were:

- Reverb automation: I wanted the reverb to grow from nothing to a big sound, then towards the end to come back down to being dry. This was going to be a big feature of the vision I had in mind and would be perfect to expand on the lullaby foreground.

- Delay automation: This was something to bring in very subtly towards the middle/end of the piece as a sly echo to linger around the vocals. 

- Overall volume automation & panning 

In my first draft, I had a sub drone that centred around Ab, eventually falling down to F and developing into a minor sounding track. When it would come back to Ab it would sound major. I wanted to keep this idea but also see if anything else could be implemented. 

I figured that if the humming in the middle section has a lack of pulse and is sung more freely, it could be cool to add somewhat of a pulse on some glass synth sounds; in the upper register too as we have only so far heard very low tones. So I experimented with this, and I wanted them to be slightly free and unpredictable to reflect an eerie spookiness. At first it felt random to listen back to, but I left it for a while and it began to really feel apart of the piece. I thought I’d also bring in some very subtle piano notes to bring in another human musical feature along with the voice. In the end I didn’t really want anything crazy to be introduced as the vocal was really the key sound source of the soundscape. 

[rubyjacksonjams]

Recording set up:

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Gunter Wagner U47 🤩

[rubyjacksonjams]

Recording 2

I went up the road to my friends (not sound proof) studio which was a street off the main road. I’ve done great recordings here before with no troubles, but not really a track with just 3 voices. I was later to find that cars, trucks and people have NO SHAME. Oh boy was it painful. It wasn’t ideal as this meant I had to have a very stop-start-stop process, rather than doing quick whole takes. I’d be singing a line, then would have to stop because I can hear a motor bike coming in about 10 seconds - 🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃 - Something I did take away from this experience is, yes - I should go to a sound proof studio - BUT I have a lot of patience! There wasn’t really time for me to plan another recording session, so I had to make do with the situation but it turned out to be fine. 

Besides the sound dilemma, everything went smoothly - I already felt the improvement of sound in this recording compared to my first take on the Beta 58, and... no more popping 😎

Things to note in future:

- Go to a studio

- Go to a studio

- Go to a studio

[rubyjacksonjams]

Feedback

After playing my draft in class I received beneficial feedback about my structure. I originally had the vocal tracks slowly decrescendo in volume which was a good artistic choice, however the volume then spiked again and it was a bit of a shock, especially hearing it on those speakers in our classroom. My humming section was put at the end of the audio file as an idea, but I wasn’t really sure where it should be placed. Damian made the suggestion that when the vocals disappear, this would be a good spot for the humming to be introduced; and it would be cool to lose the pulse in the humming that has been consistent in the vocals up until now. 

Something I wasn’t sure about was adding more sounds on top of the drones and vocals. Everything I tried on my piano didn’t work, all textures and synths felt out of place or unnecessary, etc... Maybe more sounds weren’t necessary? 

I made the choice that I would like to re-record the vocal as well on my dads mic, I just needed to find the perfect spot to record where there wasn’t much noise. This would also solve the popping situation, and give more body and depth to the vocal that it needed. Onto the next draft!

[rubyjacksonjams]

Beta 58 Recording

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First draft: Structural experimentation - automating with reverb, delay and volume

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First recording: attempts & fails!

I began trying to record the vocal. 

I failed at recording the vocal. 

My dad has this beautiful Gunter Wagner U47 microphone, however with a mic like that, living on a busy road isn’t ideal. More so because this track is so sparse and is practically just 3 voices; so you really need complete silence. The next day I recorded a draft vocal to bring in to class with my Beta 58 mic, a great mic that I use at my gigs. This was soooo much better for the sound I needed and it didn’t pick up any background noises. Although, it did lack some body and depth which required some EQ editing in class, and I unfortunately didn’t have a pop filter with me at my mums place which meant multiple pops! But ultimately my first vocal take was successful and allowed me to generate some structural/harmonic accompanying ideas. I experimented with delay, reverb and volume automation, and I knew at some point I wanted to introduce a humming section of the melody. My structure at this point wasn’t very clear and needed more thought in how I was going to tell my story. 

[rubyjacksonjams]

Artistic Ideas in Play...

For this project, I was drawn to the idea of bringing in a sub drone to introduce some chordal material and shift our preconceived idea of what the harmony could be in the Lullaby. Along with this, I wanted to manipulate the vocals with a nice reverb & some delay to really enhance the spookiness of the soundscape. When I sought to create this project, my vision was as if a girl is singing this lullaby to a baby up close in a room, then followed by 2 other voices, and as the piece continues I wanted the listener to get lost in the lullaby and let it take them somewhere - anywhere their imagination wanted to take them to. Eventually towards the end the lullaby comes back to reality and you feel like you are back to where you are, in a room being sung to. This journey was going to be achieved with the techniques mentioned above such as reverb, as well as panning, volume automation and more.