One of the primary roles of a producer is maintaining a consistent approach towards developing and learning new skills to add to an existing skill set. This process can take years of study and practice as there are a plethora of creative ways in which a producer can manipulate sound to achieve the desired affect. Practicing studio production techniques can be a useful way of determining skills that can be further developed.
The Following summary shows the practice of a drum and guitar production session. This is concluded with an analysis that highlights the areas in which there is room to develop production skills that can be used as a framework towards developing experience within the industry,
The drums were closed mic’d using a Sennheiser drum kit mic box.
The aim was to ensure the audio signals were coming through the desk and so, little time was spent on analysing sonic quality and microphone placement and characteristics. However, outboard compression was applied to the kick and snare drums which enhanced the tonal quality and gave more control to the overall mix. A bass roll off was also applied to the low tom and snare. This created more control over the lower frequencies in the mix and allowed more separation between instruments. Moon gel was also applied to the snare and low tom to reduce resonance and improve the tonal quality.
Track: https://soundcloud.com/r-koszalinski/sa-drums
The acoustic guitar was recorded with an AKG 414 placed about 4inches from the 12th fret of the guitar. The aim was to apply an outboard reverb through an aux send but, time constraints prevented this from happening. The 414 picked up the guitar nicely, but again, experimenting with polar patterns and different microphones may have impacted the sonic quality of the recording and depth within the stereo field. More experimentation could have increased knowledge on how different microphones impact the recordings of each sound source.
Track: https://soundcloud.com/r-koszalinski/guitar
This track is the outcome of the recording session:
https://soundcloud.com/r-koszalinski/guitar-with-drums
To further enhance the recordings, some ‘in the box’ mixing was applied. This includes compression, EQ and reverb. A snare replacement was also applied to improve the quality. It does however, add an unnatural/artificial element to the mix and so, the best approach would be to re-record the snare/drums section. These processing tools allowed room for understanding mixing techniques and more experience in the application of processing effects and balancing the mix.
Track: https://soundcloud.com/r-koszalinski/mix
The session showed good use of obtaining a clear recording that utilises the various tools within the studio. It also showed a productive use of collaboration and teamwork. Communication is an important role of a producer as recording studios within the music industry primarily rely on collaborating with artists, record labels, producer session musicians and more (Hepworth-Sawyer & Golding 2011, p59). These inputs provide a constructive and productive approach towards creating ideas, problem solving, obtaining/implementing feedback and ultimately, producing high quality records.
The main skills applied to this tutorial included; sending a signal through the mixing desk and application of otb and itb production. The main area in which these studio skills can be developed is through obtaining a more in depth approach towards recording techniques and effectively utilising the available recording tools.
