Final Writeup

So for my final project I mixed and mastered 3 songs [4 mixes] of a band I recorded in the beginning of the semester in the CFA studio. I was mostly happy with the results and I think the band will be happy once they hear the final mixes.

Made in America (2.0 and 5.1) I liked the 5.1 mix better then the 2.0 mostly because I was able to use all the additional space to create a less cluttered sound. There is so much dubbled and in the was in the 2.0 that I never could quite get the balance right.

Newcomer (2.0) this is my favorite that we recorded and I think it came away sounding the best. Unmixed it wasn't awful and with a few tweaks it worked well. I used a Royer 121 to record all the redone guitar and it was such a smooth sound I loved it.

I Can't Know (2.0) somewhat musically annoying but the overall band worked together well for it. The bass never sounded great even when I added in some plugins but the player liked the sound so we did not go over it again.

Final Write Up

Danny Bresson

Audio 3 Major Project write up

For my major project, I mixed a rap song named Green by a local artist named Abel Battery...  This song was very interesting to say the least.  This was the first rap song I have ever mixed and I thought it would be good to try something new because this is my last semester where 006 is available to use.  This wasn't an easy project for me because a majority of the tracks, when I first received the project, were constantly peaking.  This mix took many hours to sound better but I think I made the mix sound a lot better than it originally was.  I am also mixing the rest of the album, which added 8 times the work I have mixed on the first song.

To begin this project, I had to re-record some of the vocal tracks.  The problem with this was the fact that some of the vocals had to be kept in the song because there were many artists contributing to the song and I couldn’t get them into the studio to rerecord their parts.  A lot of the parts had many different levels and in the original tracks there was sometimes a lot of background noise from loud headphones playing into the microphone.  After re-recording some of the vocals, I started with the levels with the drum set and bass to have them flow together.  Some of the drums were very tinny sounding and were hard to fix.  After finding those levels I added the song sample the artist chose to use and found the level for that. I finally added the vocals, which took a majority of the time mixing.  There were so many vocals and ad libs that I had to pan to different positions, so the vocals weren’t so jumbled together.  That was another hard part I had in the song. The music tracks did not blend in easily with the vocals and the female vocalist was a lot better than the male vocalists and the song shows that. 

After turning in rough cuts I decided to try another song due to explicit language, many peaking levels and used a better flowing song off of the album.  After changing songs, the process went a lot smoother. 

I am not sure if I am proud with this project but I spent a lot of time on it and I believe I made it sound a lot better than it originally sounded.  This being my first time mixing rap music, I didn’t know where to start like I would a rock song or a jazz song.  It was a new experience for me and I think I did the best I could on a new genre and the only way to learn is to try new things and leave your comfort zone, which I felt like I did.

           

      

Major Project Writeup and Time Log

              For my major project in Audio 3 I decided to take on something I haven’t really done before: sound for video. It’s a shame that more classes don’t incorporate the audio and film tracks, I know there are some, but I’ve never taken any; I had a friend who could lend me a video and the original audio files for a class she did last year. It was a short film called Perception, the story is vague and mysterious, but it’s about a man who has multiple personality and his experiences. It was interesting since you don’t see the same character changing who he is, but rather, how the personalities see themselves. I had my work cut out for me though, since the team that worked on it were film majors and didn’t give as much thought to the audio as the visual.

              I got all of the original audio tracks, but I noticed a few things about them that weren’t that great, such as a lot of background sound, since they filmed outside in town, and inside of busy buildings. My first task was just getting a rough edit together of the script, which was also given to me by my friend; so I sorted out the lines into different scene tracks. I then looked for the best takes, and synched those up to the mouth movements to match the scene. There was a lot of background noise, so to cut that down I added a high pass filter on almost all of the tracks. The pass filter started at about 200Hz so it wouldn’t interfere with anyone’s dialogue. This had a very noticeable effect on the background noise, it cut it down and made the dialogue pop out much more. I never really wrangled the music to where I wanted it to; I questioned if it was the right choice, since I’m not sure if it conveyed the right emotion for the story of the video. I kept it though, since it matched what was happening, and I couldn’t really find a better choice. I was automating it from the outset, but kept changing how much went into the different scenes. I even changed the script a little, where I cut some of the dialogue to fit what was happening, at the part where the old man and the girl are in the park. I also used some of what I was given as background noise, so I readded it to fill in the gaps in the dialogue. After some automation for levels I had the sounds synched up to the video, so I had the base of the video done.

              After that I wanted to add more to it, and flesh out the story, since I got some criticism about how the story doesn’t really make sense. My idea was to have the other personalities talk and interact in the downtime between dialogue. Hopefully this helps drive home the point about how there are different minds in the same body. I took the extra takes and the used takes and ran them through the Yamaha outboard gear in the studio, which has some very nice reverbs, I then printed those and used them in conjunction with the original audio. I added the reverberant tracks back into the parts that didn’t have any dialogue. Those parts were very open and needed something to fill them out. I set up a few scenes, and it makes the narrative more interesting, but what I really wanted to do was add in new dialogue. I wanted to get the actos back into the studio and have them start a new conversation, one that actually explains the story; since the visuals are vague and don’t really seem connected. I had to scrath doing that, because of time contraints of using the studio and the actors were hard to get in touch with.

              After adding in those extra scenes, I added some more sounds. There’s a scene where a child is running, and I manually added in each footstep at the right time. I also got some more background sound to add more space to the scenes. Plus a sound effect of a door opening, because I needed one. I could have easily spent another 20 hours adding in more effects and more parts, but I just didn’t have the time.

              The stereo mix was pretty simple: music, dialogue, and abiance in the center. I used the secondary dialogue happening at different times to experiment with the stereo image, like moving a line from the left to the right and things like that. With surround I had the same idea; the dialogue and music were in the middle, but the extra sounds were moved to the surround field, making the experience much more interesting and confusing.

Time Log

April 9^th 2 Hours in the labs

April 12^th 4 hours in 006

April 16^th 2 hours in 006

April 26^th 4 hours in 006

May 2^nd 3 hours in 006

May 7^th 2 in the labs

May 9^th 3 hours in 006

Total Hours: 20

Total hours in 006: 16

WAMM Fest Write up

Well this is a little late but hey, better late than never right?!

So even though WAMM happened a little bit ago I still remember it vividly. It was a very fun experience actually. I wasn't expecting to win anything either, I was happy and surprised about that. I did like all the short films that were shown.

What was very interesting about everything shown is that there wasn't just one sort of short film that was shown. There was a different mix of things from documentaries to cartoons to experimental films. It gave me a great broad spectrum of short films. Each of them were extremely well done as well. I give all the credit in the world to those film makers for making such great short films.

I have never really been to a film festival before so I didn't really know what to really expect. I did like how two of the film makers were in the audience. I don't think I could have been there and screened my own work. Again, much credit due to them. To hear these women talk about the process of what they did and how they came up with what was on the screen was a very unusual concept to me. Usually when I see a film, the film maker isn't there to explain anything. It was very cool to see all the dedication and passion of something first hand.

Even though all of the films were very well done and interesting I think my favorite would have the be the cartoon one where they were playing the game "Bob Hope". Which is pretty much the floor is lava. What I really didn't understand is where that dang chicken came from but it was very well done, very funny and entertaining.

I thought this was a very fun and eye opening experience. I wish I didn't wait this long to have gone to WAMM. And I wish I would have gone to different days and saw the other work and other mediums of work that other people did. There's always next year right?!

Major Project Write Up

This song was pretty fun to mix in surround sound. Going from the whole sound of surround sound, to stereo wasn't fun. Stereo didn't have the width and color that surround, but it again wasn't too bad to mix. 

It actually took some time to just set up all the sub mixes and do all the busses in surround, just because there were so many tracks, and they each were not really named so I had to go back and name them all, bus them, color them accordingly. It was a necessary evil though, it helped bunches with the organization of the session. After I got that done, the mixing wasn't too hard either. 

I started mixing the surround first. It seemed that the stereo would be easier because its only two speakers, and surround was five. I started out fixing the vocals, doing a lot of doubling and adding compressors to make the vocals stand out and have a much warmer quality to them. I did the same to the backing vocals. I panned the backing vocals more towards the back and wanted to only have them back there, but it seemed too distant from the rest of the song, so I pushed them more toward the middle of both front and back speakers. It worked out nicely. As for the stereo mixing of the vocals, I just had to adjust levels really and panning a little.

With the main vocals, I ran one of the tracks through the T.C effects processor and used a lot of reverb to give it more body. I took that signal, pushed it to the back speakers and buried the vocals. As for the stereo, I just buried them behind everything. 

The kick had a few tracks on it but still it didn't seem to really pop the way I wanted it to. I put one of the tracks through the API compressor and buried that signal under the other kick tracks. It really add more punch and a little more defined low end to the kick that I thought it was missing. I did the same thing with the bass. It was a very muddy, flimsy bass sound. I, at first, wanted to just bury it under everything, but I put the signal through the compressor and used the compressed track over the original. It gave the bass more body and more punch. 

I used the song “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker as my influence. In that song he uses a lot of traditional country instruments and sounds, along with more contemporary instruments and sounds. The song I mixed has the same sort of mix between contemporary and traditional use of music and instruments that I couldn't really find anywhere else. The song also had a very warm welcoming tone to it just like what I wanted to portray as many songs in the country genre have.

One of the major differences in-between my mixes is that one is in stereo and one is in 5.1 surround sound. In the 5.1 versions though, I have a few different versions. As I was bouncing the song, I would hear something that didn't sit right with me in the mix, either the vocals were too loud, or not sitting right in the mix the way I wanted. It wasn't much anything that had to do with the instruments too much. It was really a lot to do with the panning and volume of the vocals. 

Then when I switched to the stereo mix, it was more of just volume automation. The backing vocals really gave me a hard time. At some points of the song they were too loud, the others too soft. So it took more time to even that out but once I got that done it was just listening to see if everything was sitting right. I did side chain the instruments to the vocal sub so the vocals could sit more evenly in the mix rather than on top of everything. I also had to almost mute the outboard reverb because there is so much of it in the stereo mix. It was easier to bury them in the surround mix. 

I think both mixes came out extremely well and I would want another chance to mix in surround again. The possibilities are endless to what I could do with panning and effects. I liked mixing this song very much it was very fun and frustrating at the same time, but I think all my hard work did pay off end the end.

*inhales deeply* 

 Smell that?  It smells like "not doing projects" and it smells fantastic.  Not that I dislike projects--in all actuality I enjoyed the heck out of my 5.1 project because it gave me the opportunity to work on something that, otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to (mostly because I can't afford the necessary hardware).  My major project was much more enjoyable than my minor project (which I will never again listen to unless it's necessary to cure HIV), so let's discuss my overall experience and process.

Originally, I had planned to work with a group of guys I went to high school with (who are fantastic musicians BTW) and are just finishing up another album, but like always their productivity was overshadowed by their laziness and they never sent me anything.  Which really is unfortunate because they have a style all their own (look up Symphonic Haze if you get the chance).  Thankfully Jordan, the lead singer of a band called Fiction 20 down and owner if his own studio, gave me the stems (grr....we'll come back to this) of a song they had just finished--so I had my project.  

With most of my audio projects, the first thing I do is get the drums sounding the way I want.  This brings me back to the stems I mentioned earlier: They recorded and mixed the drums at a different studio (owned by Drew Mazurek), and considering they dumped them all down into a single stereo track, they actually sound pretty awesome.  But with the drums shrunk down to just a single left and right, that really limited my options for surround panning--so I had to get creative.  Basically I just duplicated the entire stereo track, cut out a lot of the low end (to get rid of some of the punch and help add some "air"), and bussed it mostly to the back.  This helped me spread the kit out a little bit and add some excitement to the rear channels.  I did have to be careful though, because It can get a little phasey at times.  It was interesting to  walk from the front of the room to the back while the drums were playing.....just to hear the phasing.  The only other "creativity" I did with the drums, was the stereo jumping delay on the kick.  All I had to do was duplicate the drum track again, split it into mono, and delete the parts I didn't want to play--pretty simple.

I didn't really have to do too much to the other tracks, they were all pretty straight forward.  I duplicated, and split into mono all of the vocal stuff, just so I could have independent control of the levels going to the center channel and surrounds.  I added some reverb to just about everything, but added a quiet delay to a couple of the main vocal tracks.  Just to spice things up a bit.

I basically left the guitars alone, except for the bass.  I sent it out through the API compressor to help level it a little bit because it jumped around some (and because I HAD to use outboard gear even though it wasn't really necessary on anything).

My stereo mix is very similar to the 5.1, I just dropped a lot of the duplicated tracks and boosted the vocals a little bit more to make it a little "poppy-er"....at least in my brain.

When I tried my hand at mastering, I realized that you can actually do a lot with a little parallel compression and some very specific eq'ing.  I forget the exact frequencies I messed with, but I found that I could actually adjust how well all the vocal tracks blended together.  I think it was around 1.5k, but if I adjusted the q and the level, it would kind of "mush" everything together or pull it apart.  Cool stuff.  It wasn't what I would call an amazing improvement, but it definitely helped.

And that was basically that.  The major project was a lot less stressful (read: terrible) than my minor project. I spent most of my time trying to figure out where to pan everything.  I think I got it all sorted out, but to be honest with you.....I'm ready to give my ears a little break!  

WAMM Fest Write up

Not sure why this was blank for the past 2 weeks, I  wrote my reaction during WAMM and must have never uploaded it. Anyways...

I was very glad to be a part of WAMM fest even as just a mere spectator. I was surprised with not only the quality of the work but the great diversity of styles and stories. It was a Tuesday night when I attended and one of the Filmakers was even in the screening room 204 (I could watch just about anything in there, great set up).

Her film was on one of the most controversial yet true story about cross burning in the United States. It was a very interesting and she did a wonderful job casting  especially the children. I was honestly unaware that such a brutal form of racism is still practiced and it defiantly opened my eyes to the subject. I also think the music was great in the end scene, as I usually have a tendency to focus more on the audio aspects when watching any kind of film. WAMM had a great diversity in topics from dead serious ones such as cross burning to a touching story about a Mexican turtle poacher gone wild life protector.

The story of the wild life protector (can't think of his actual title) was very well done and showed a man do a complete 180 in terms of career and life path. Turttles are my favorite animal by far so this was obviously my favorite film. The music was sublime in this film and combined with the beautiful sun over the water in Baja it made for a fun, relaxing film with a great message. One thing that all the entrees shared was sincerity and pretty grippy topic that at time where hard to watch. Well all of them except the Prius Backup camera moving which was pure silliness. Some of the films I found hard to watch yet compelled to see the concussion. So I can understand the sort of shock appeal the directors were going for.

All in all I loved the experience, and thank you Elsa for motivating us to be a part of WAMM. Although I am not a woman I was very proud to see all female works as I feel they don't get enough credit in the media field and are obviously of equal if not better quality than their male counterparts in the field. I look forward for WAMMs to come as I will definitely be in attendance.