BBP 2020 - Recoding the Groups, Part 2 - Jemma's Group (Tuesday 17th November)

Overall, I believe that the session was rather successful - the group majorly improved their song, by adding more to it and adding additional elements, such as Jemma overdubbing her vocal - this means that she recorded herself singing over a pre-recorded recording of her singing, however this time she sung in falsetto, meaning that it was a different pitch. This caused the song to be wider at the choruses and sound more like a choir or like a full band. The band could have also improved the pre choruses (when Jemma sings la la la) by adding some form of choral or orchestral accompaniment to them to create a harmony and give the song an emotional edge as well as make it seem more cinematic/epic, like the music often employed in films or video games. A choral accompaniment is basically a choir singing along to the music and melody - when Jemma sings “la la la”, in the song, a choir library or even a choir made up of the band itself, could improvise over it by singing “ah ah ah” https://www.britannica.com/art/accompaniment-music.

We used many production techniques, such as doubling and overdubbing for the guitars and vocals, this is when another recording of a vocal or guitar is done, and layered over a pre existing one, and panned to either side of the stereo - this made the mix wide and made it seem like the band is much bigger and gave them more power. They could have improved this by adding a solo, or some shredding/lead parts over the original guitar parts, as well as maybe doubled the bass guitar for a very thick and wide sounding low end sound.

Another technique used was adding different MIDI instruments to the mix - MIDI instruments are virtual instruments controlled by a MIDI controller - MIDI stands for musical instrument digital interface, and is the signal that controls virtual sample libraries and instruments by sending electrical signals to them converted to code https://blog.landr.com/what-is-midi/. By the use of a Keyboard, which had a midi controller device in it, the group’s synth player, Chloe, was able to play different virtual instruments and control their sounds, by the use of her keyboard. The group added to the mix by layering piano sounds, made of sampled Wurlitzer sounds from Logic, as well as added in an organ sound which sounded really good and gave the mix some mystical flavour. By adding in these instruments to the mix, the band orchestrated and elevated their overall result and added some pleasant sounding harmonies and melodies into the song. They could have improved this by adding in that aforementioned choir sound to the aforementioned pre choruses, by using the logic sampler/EXS24 https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/expressive-sound-design-exs24#:~:text=EXS24%20is%20a%20fully%20fledged,points%20for%20further%20sonic%20manipulation. to sample some choral sounds, this would probably mean that the group would have to do some sound design, by getting some choir sounds, from looperman, or other sample sites, and put them into the sampler… or use a choir midi instrument done by logic, either way would have made it much easier to add in that choir sound by the use of the keyboard, and this sound could be then mixed in with the organ for an accompaniment sound for the keyboard, with the Wurlitzer sound for the right hand (which play melody).

The group also layered in some tambourine hits and shakes

together with the drum beat to give the beat more life and so that the places with the tambourine stand out amongst the rest of the song, making it seem more complex and more nuanced at specific intervals of the song that were required to stand out. A thing that they could have improved with this is added a maraca or a cabassa alongside the tambourine to layer that shaky/hiss sound, and maybe also clip the tambourine onto a pedal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpNxnTHMCHs , which would mean the drummer wouldn’t have to hit it against their hand and record it separately.

The group also recorded themselves clapping to certain parts of the song, which gave it a percussive backing but also a very large “stadium” feel, kind of like We Will Rock You by Queen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJYN-eG1zk, this was really good as it would mean that the audience can contribute to the song by clapping along to the beat, and also made the whole mix seem much more lively. It could be improved by adding in some foot stomps too for good measure, to make it seem more wild and more energetic.

From the lesson, personally, in my own recordings I could try and include some claps and stops in my own compositions - it already works in a rock/metal context, as proven by Queen, but it interests me how it would sound to a fast mix with symphonic elements, as well as where would claps be most appropriate…

The lesson went well as the audio quality was good and it was interesting to see what they did and I liked how we were asked for our ideas. I think it could be improved by engaging the online callers more, but otherwise the lesson was very insightful.