This last tracking and mixing project was a lot of fun. We recorded the band singing the Eminem song "Lose Yourself." We tracked three players, the drummer, guitarist, and vocalist. We ended up recording a lead guitar part as well. For our sound recorded in the hallway we decided to have three people stand in the hallway and all sing the chorus at the same time. This created a really cool effect, ending up blending together all the different voices but also keeping them different enough that you could tell it was a lot of people. Put that in the background of the lead vocal for the chorus and you get a really neat effect. The cool mic we used on the drum kit was the PZM for the bottom mic. It ended up sounding really interesting but also a bit too inclusive of all the other instruments. There wasn't quite a way to solo in on the snare drum but it was a nice experimental mic. The recording in whole went very well, the musicians were fun a pleasure to record, and ended up giving us a great recording to mix from.
This song was a lot of fun to mix, as well. The recordings we got were very nice to begin with so touching them up to sound good took a while but was not hard at all. We decided in tracking to have the guitar player double up on the chorus but not on the rest of the song. I also decided to put my surprise distortion on the doubled vocal part during the second chorus. It ended up sounding really different but cool!
After I got all the basics of the mix done I experimented a bit. The mix sounded a bit thin without any bass part as well as the song was very repetitive so I needed to spice it up a bit to keep the attention. In the beginning of the song I added an EQ sweep on the guitar track since it was so repetitive. Also, during the verses, I alternated between the regular drum set sound an an alternate drum set that was run through distortion to give it some variety. Lastly, I doubled some of the guitar parts (both regular and lead) and pitch bended them either an octave up or down to give the mix a little more oomph and thickness to it, especially since we lacked a good bass instrument. All of these little experiments ended up really well and helped keep up the energy of the song as well as give it a few little 'shimmers' to make the song unique.
This song was a lot of fun to mix, as well. The recordings we got were very nice to begin with so touching them up to sound good took a while but was not hard at all. We decided in tracking to have the guitar player double up on the chorus but not on the rest of the song. I also decided to put my surprise distortion on the doubled vocal part during the second chorus. It ended up sounding really different but cool!
After I got all the basics of the mix done I experimented a bit. The mix sounded a bit thin without any bass part as well as the song was very repetitive so I needed to spice it up a bit to keep the attention. In the beginning of the song I added an EQ sweep on the guitar track since it was so repetitive. Also, during the verses, I alternated between the regular drum set sound an an alternate drum set that was run through distortion to give it some variety. Lastly, I doubled some of the guitar parts (both regular and lead) and pitch bended them either an octave up or down to give the mix a little more oomph and thickness to it, especially since we lacked a good bass instrument. All of these little experiments ended up really well and helped keep up the energy of the song as well as give it a few little 'shimmers' to make the song unique.