D A N | JONES
TASK 2
FIXING METALLICA
STEP 1
First I turned off the automation that was put on the guitars and bass. This stopped the guitars from fading in and out of the tack by being turned down and up.
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STEP 2
Then I checked the effects on all of the instruments and removed any changes in the EQ and the low cuts. This made the instruments sound more balanced in the track. For example the high end of the guitars were turned up creating a unbalanced sound.
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STEP 3
Next I went into the mixing console and removed any effects that were put on all of the tracks to remove any delay and reverb. The delay was the main problem in the mix it was making the song unrecognizable by over powering the other instruments. I struggled to find the mixing console at first but after looking in every link I found the console and opened all the tabs and noticed that there were effects in the bass and over the whole track. After noticing this I bypassed all of the effects this made the track sound a lot more accurate to the original song.
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STEP 4
After all of the effects were sorted out I made all of the vocal parts in time with the track and removed any effects on them like low cuts. The timing was out on the backing vocals I had to zoom in and slide the vocals in time with the original. Then I had to mix the volumes of the vocals to make the lead vocals the most audible and the backing vocals slightly less audible. I did tis because I noticed this in the original song and also harmonies and baking vocals are generally quieter than the lead.
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STEP 5
After the song was sounding normal again I added an input and output channel to automate all of the tracks to fade out like the original song. I did this by creating a group channel and put all of the output of the tracks through the group channel. This allowed me to automate the mixer to turn the volume down on all o the tracks to create a fade out like the original song.
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MICING AND RECORDING A DRUM KIT
STEP 1
To start we organized the correct mics to the correct sections of the drum kit. So the dynamic mics were put on the toms and snare and kick.
For the kick i used the audix D6. We pointed the mic directly at the kick inside the drum so the mic picked up the punchy sound of the kick when it hit the skin.
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I used 2 mics for the snare one on top and one on the bottom. The mic on top records the sound of the stick hitting the skin of the snare and the mic on the bottom records the snares bouncing off of the snare. I did this to get the correct balance of the harsh sounds of the snare. I used the shure dynamic mic for the top an bottom.
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For the high and mid toms I used the audix D3. I would've used this mic for the floor tom as well but there wasn't any left so I used the shure. These mics were placed facing directly at the middle of the skin of the drums to get the cleanest sound. the mics were on a angle between 25 to 40 degrees.
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For the overheads I used the AKG. I used the X Y structure to the mics would cover all of the symbols correctly and pick up the best sounds of the kit by covering it all efficiently. both over head mics were an equal distance away form the middle of the kit so the both mics would pic up an equal amount of sound from the kit.
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To record the high hat I used the shure mic. the mic was facing above the kit so that when the high hat would open and close the air that comes from it doesn't go into the mic. The mic as also placed so that the high hat wouldn't hit it one it was released and went back up.
the order that the mics were plugged into the XLR inputs were. kick, snare top, snare bottom, high hat, high tom, md to, floor tom, overhead right and over head left
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER
For this task we were given a raw unedited audio of the song bridge over troubled water. Our challenge is to mix the track to a professional level.
MIXING
As we id this task Ricci the tutor was going through different effects with us showing us how to mix. So to begin we added a maximiser to the whole track. this kept the volume at an optimum level throughout the entire song.
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The next step was to add reverb and delay to the vocals. This made the vocals sound more wet and clean instead of a dry raw sound. I added these effects to the piano as well this made the song sound more full and gives it more presence. i also EQ swept the vocals to take away harsh sounds.
This is an image of the mixing console after I was done with the mix.
This is the track before and after I was done. as you can see I color coded the tracks to identify the instruments and create group channels and group folders for all of the tracks. This creates more organization to the track and helps to identify problems.
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This is the final audio