I went for my second studio session on Wednesday at the west suburban YMCA. I spent the majority of the three hour session recording the rhythm and lead guitar parts for the song "Coming Home Baby" by Ben Tucker. The session was productive, but we ran into some tough roadblocks along the way that taught me some new techniques about recording. The first roadblock was a buzzing noise the two microphones were picking up when I played guitar. The buzzing was caused by a little factor, the strings attached to the bottom of the guitar. We has to cut them off to take away the noise. I also had to adjust my body position because the mic was picking up the sound of clothing rubbing together. All these sounds were picked up by the mic, and we had to change the setup to get a better sound. I learned that while recording, you don't want any outside noise to be picked up because it greatly alters the sound you are trying to produce.
Thursday May 21st at 7:50 A.M. Newton North High School. Little Theatre.
Finally, the first recording session happened today on Tuesday the 28th. I went to the West Suburban YMCA, where I worked with the music director, Kevin O'Connell on my preliminary recording session. Three hours into my first session in a studio, I begun to realize how difficult it is to get a good sound on a track. Every single microphone needs to be strategically placed to acquire the best sound, the instruments need to be in peak condition, and most importantly the music needs to be well-rehearsed to skip over any unnecessary road blocks. Playing three songs solely on the acoustic guitar, I realized how different playing at home is versus playing in a studio. The studio environment is very stimulating, with heavy equipment in your face, expensive technology to gather all the sound, and an audio engineer telling you everything you need to know. I thought I was well-rehearsed beforehand, but after three hours, I now know that studio recording is a whole different animal. Despite that, it was a lot of fun and exciting to be able to see your own music being manipulated and tweaked to achieve the best possible sound. It made everything feel real and professional. Here is a picture of the studio setup I was dealing with:
Brian Eno, a world-renowned recording producer, engineer and musician discusses the trend towards digital recording and how it is changing the face of recording as a whole.
Batchelor discussed with me his experiences dealing with the two styles of musical recording, analog and digital. His experiences really shaped his opinions on the two, and I am really starting to notice a pattern when learning about people's recording experiences.
April 10th is my birthday, and also the day that I will be able to go off into the field and start producing my own music. Here is a link to my action plan/calendar that will map out the rest of my Capstone
An offest of the MIT media lab, The Echo Nest, has conducted research about the most popular 5,000 songs over the last 70 years to disect what makes up our music today. The research done provides nice graphs and anecdotes about popular music today and in the past.
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AuthorMy name is Liam Wilcox-Warren, and this site is for my Newton North High School Capstone Project. Archives
May 2015
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