RPM Challenge Day 5 & 6

Troy (center) and me (right) heading into the control room to start our day

Our first tracking day has arrived.  With a full day to spend at the studio the track that makes it to production first is They Say.  The album's opening track is a homage to a classic rock era in which the songs defined the sound, not the other way around.  Back when Radio was the primary source of music and Vinyl was the only way to distribute a lot of the recording technology was in its infancy, or reserved for the high-end of the financial spectrum.  We wanted to try to emulate the essence of what this era had to offer, both in the musical styling and sonic signature.

A classic mic for a classic job

They Say is inspired by countless songs from The Beatles, and Velvet Underground among others.  Keeping the soundtrack theme in mind, we decided on this style of song for multiple reasons. Mainly, this song should set the tone for the exposition of the “movie” as an opening track for a typical unassuming Midwestern town.  Small, somewhat backwoods, and for the most part, peaceful.  This song should reflect the typical blockbuster opening for such a movie, often works great overlaying panning and helicopter dollying shots of the land and town from above as the sun is setting, perfect for opening title credits.  Not only setting the mood but the characterization of what's "on-screen".  

Tracking guitars through an LA-610

Keeping that 60's era in mind, Troy tackled this song primarily with a bit of feedback from myself and a few other trusted ears.  The driving factors that lend to the authenticity of that era's vibe are mentioned below:

• Bass very subtle and easy-going.
• Drums match in complexity with song with variations differentiating verse and chorus.
• Incorporation of the iconic guitar of that era: Gibson SG delivers the punch of the classic rock with the Fender Telecaster delivering the backwoods Twang and crunch.
• Guitars melodic and mostly in the upper octaves, with picking for classic rock sound.
• Overall, composition and arrangement are simplistic with focus on lyrical element and vocal harmony with rest of song.

Miking the drumset

The recording techniques we opted for emulated various techniques from that era, albeit with much newer technology.  Tracking Drums was as authentic as it gets with just 1 overhead mic.  We took the time to decide on which mics would deliver what sound, what preamp they should go through, and what amount of processing in the hardware should be done during recording.  

Troy about to get down and dirty on the drums

One limitation to the technology of that era we simply did not have to deal with (especially from reading the book "Recording The Beatles") was the limitation of how much material could be recorded at once.  Some of the first recordings with them birthed the first uses of the "stem mix" as they could only use so many 4 track consoles and tape, which would then have to be mixed into a new "dub track" for the artists to play over in another set of tracks along to the pre-recorded material (roughly summing it up).

Tracking Rhythm guitar

We paid attention to every detail and left no rock unturned.  We have already discussed ideas on mixing and mastering for this song, and while we feel this track could sound just as polished in stereo, we are going to experiment with mixing and mastering only in Mono, and going so far as to emulate mixing and mastering techniques employed in that era, and that means getting creative with certain effects.  There may even be a vinyl emulation, to "add in" the particular subtle nuances such as mechanical and electrical noise from vinyl recordings as the master is recorded, down to the amount of bend and warp and surface noise introduced from playing an imperfect surface of vinyl on a record player.  

Troy tracking rhythm guitar

So, just 1 track into production.  I hope I have shed some light on just how much attention to detail sound and music production can get into.  It's a science, and an art.  We captured very descriptive notes during the session that can allow us to recall everything at a moments notice if we need to, but there is still a subtle and unmeasurable quality in the energy that goes into it each time that makes each capture, every moment unique, that part of the art just can't be put to the science of the craft. 

Troy (far right) and me (center) recording percussion

It's as simple as putting a mic in front of an instrument, and as complicated as knowing what effect the mic's placement has on the sound, as well as the room, the temperature, the artist, and every other element in the equation.  This is an industry where the saying "greater than the sum of it's parts" rings all too true.

Troy (right) and me (left) discuss progress on tracking for the day

Overall, the day's progress was a relaxed and laidback pace with lots of forethought into the proceeding step.  We didn't even get to record Drums until Sunday.  I left the schedule somewhat flexible so that things like this could change and still be adaptable instead of running way off schedule and falling behind.  

Showing off a C414

Thanks for reading! Check back for more, as we've been just as busy shooting and organizing all the footage for the video blog when it's due to release!  All in all, we're making good progress already to have this album published by the 28th!

RPM Challenge Day 4

Troy and I worked pretty hard today serparately, mostly getting our two songs down.  I spent a majority of the time working with Steven on demoing vocals for Curing The Cure.  We experimented with some effects for octavting and other effects on the vocal overdubs to get a unique sound.  I then spent time mixing it a bit to get ideas for the mixing process later on.  The song needs a bit of work in the arrangement department, but that can come later.  I wanted to focus more on getting the essence of the track down and exploring some of the nuances in the harmonies I liked.

Troy worked on getting ideas down for the Pop Punk song and got quite a good idea down!  We sat around and chatted about different musical ideas and techniques for the song, and then tried out a simpler recording technique to demo with and despite me not having a standard tuned guitar, used a cheap backup Flying V and ended up sounding pretty good to us both!  We then laid down bass to the track and I tested out a mix and already have editing and mixing ideas in mind for the track.

Plenty of funny stuff and good times here at the project studio, the Video blog project is getting stressful as we often are just shooting ourselves until we can get some help, though the help we get is much appreciated!  As for the project progress, we're making good time, and I can't wait to get to the progressive metal song!  Tomorrow is tracking day.

RPM Challenge Day 3

With 2 days down, and the weekend coming up quick, we have to get at least one or two songs ready to track.
With most of my free time spent sampling sounds from found objects to use in the Curing The Cure track with Steven's Lyrics, I had to start composing the synths and guitars and drums.  Most of the work on Troy's song Troy spent during his lunch and at home on his nights before coming up with ideas for the Indie song project of his. 

Most of the instrumentation was worked out and the basic idea for Curing the Cure has been conceived. I have the track ready to receive Steven's vocals so that I can start arranging the music, and getting it to it's final stages.

Troy and I were discussing influences for Curing the Cure and while we want the essence of what might sound industrial, listening to artists like Nine Inch Nails and clashing ideas together with the inspirational song from Linkin Park's newest album A Thousand Suns: When They Come For Me; we pretty much got the groundwork paved for the concept of what this song should be and sound like.  Many different ideas on mixing techniques and recording techniques to be employed, down to the timbre and EQ for various instruments and stem mixing as well...

Our biggest goal heading into the weekend is to get at least 1 song tracked in the studio and if we have time, start working on the next.  Troy's songs are coming together faster than mine, but mine tend to have a lot of production value put into them as the genres I cover tend to call for it.  Synth work, various guitar elements, complex drums, the arrangements themselves have more changes as well which need to be thought out.  So far, so good.  We're still on schedule and it's time to get back to work...  Check back tomorrow for Day 4's update...

RPM Challenge Day 2

Day 2 officially came to it's end and it couldn't have come soon enough.  Demoing 2 songs and getting more ideas solidified for the album design. 

While most of today was getting stuff on paper, and "demo" status in Sonar here at my project facility (or as I like to call it, Home) we did have a few other side projects that came up and things that we won't show until the video blog!  The video blog should start getting pretty interesting, hopefully should make for some decent entertainment!

So, as far as the project goes; just a bit of info now as far as the soundtrack goes: with Steven interested in doing lyrics, and his heavy augmentation of the story for the "film" the soundtrack is based on going through some serious drafting and plot work.  Way to go Steven.  While he goes off on a tangent with the story and works on developing things as detailed as the characters involved, and miniature plots within, we've gotten the basis for the inspiration we need to create the songs.  We've started picking out the order and sequence for roughly where the songs should lay in the soundtrack, and just what inspirational soundtracks should help us hone in on the various interlude sounds. 

There's also been various discussions on recording techniques we want to hit on.  Without giving away too much (don't worry we'll do that in the video blog), we discussed doing a song in mono, using recording techniques that pay homage to the Beatles era, all the way to experimenting with some Mid-side drum recording, experimental layering techniques with electric guitar, mixing philosophies... the list goes on.

Fun times, busy times, all times.  It's only going to get busier as we head into production, 2 songs in demo and thought out, 8 more to go, lyrics after, and a very compact schedule.  Be sure to check our facebook updates for some quick recaps and photos of our work throughout the month.  Also, if you want to jump into discussion on the RPM project, be sure to head over to our discussion page on facebook and leave your feedback!

RPM Challenge Day 1

RPM kicked off yesterday (yes I'm a night owl).  The first day may be pretty boring when the Video blog gets published, we'll see...  but we did get a lot accomplished.  We got a direction and a set of ideas we all liked and have committed to as far as the album goes.  We even went so far as to come up with a story concept for a fake film to base our "soundtrack" album to.

So why the soundtrack album?  I'll tell you why,  it works for us on many levels.  The first thing being that we're a studio primarily, and we want to showcase as many genres as we can.  Secondly, because we all wanted a challenge out of this challenge, and to span various genres would make a concept album very hard to pin in a commercial market.  Thus, the concept birthed many solutions, and a nice creative outlet to start honing ideas.

The back story is fairly simple, I mentioned that if we did a survivalist theme seeing as how these types of movies are very popular we can go for a wide ranging feel of emotions from the more upbeat to the darker and more sinister sounds we might like to explore.  We all liked the idea so we ran with it and Steven and Troy and I all came up with various ideas which amalgamated into this sort of stylized western zombie action survival story.  Without going into too much detail right now, suffice to say it gave plenty of inspiration for the various tracks we wanted to do that could "fit the bill" of a typical blockbuster movie of this genre. 

The next layer on the cake, was the production value, we wanted to experiment as a studio with recording techniques and challenge ourselves to just how far we could go to recreate the "iconic" sound of a particular genre, not necessarily going for cookie cutter imitation, but capturing what we feel is the essence of that genre's sound, and putting our spin on it.

The final layer to the cake, and is purely for the gimmick of making the soundtrack album sound more authentic is the matter of coming up with original custom voice-overs, foley, and sound effects to add into the various interludes as "sound bytes" from the fake movie concept we came up with.  One good example of an inspirational source is the Kill Bill soundtracks.  The songs that were cleverly used in the movie are sprinkled with interludes that were sampled from the movie itself, which was an idea i liked and wanted to go for on this album as well.  This added layer to our concept is going to also allow us to showcase our skills in these areas of audio production as well, not just that we know music, but know and appreciate all audio engineering; Sound design, ADR, Foley, and the like.

Obviously we've got big ideas for this project.  I came up with a rough day by day schedule to give us a good idea of the pace we need to be keeping to stay on track.  Basically here's what it breaks down to:

1. Week 1 - Pre-production
2. Week 2 - Demoing and Tracking
3. Week 3 - Tracking and editing
4. Week 4 - Mix, Master, and publish

As we have to move at such a quick pace, the schedule is just a guide, and can remain flexible.  But overall we need to be able to move swiftly through each phase of the project.  This will also mean that we may be working in a segmented fashion between Troy and myself.  While we may just barely get to tracking certain songs, others may already be in editing and mixing phase.

With a deadline of February 28th having to have the entire album published and online, we've got a lot of work ahead of us, and the clock is ticking! I'll try to post pictures when I can, and Check Neologic Studios on Facebook to see our latest status updates!

Crunch Time

So, want to know what I've been cooking up lately?  Check out my youtube channel and stay tuned because during the month of February we're going to be posting up daily video blogs tracking the progress of the latest studio project I've been working on!

Check out the announcement below


Check back here daily as well as I will be posting our notes and progress updates on here with the videos included!

Fractal Gallery 4: Aural Ascendancy Series

I started this series but never got to finish it.  I have a bunch of fractals I designed that just never got around to rendering, so they may come out slowly this year.  Nonetheless I shall post up what was started in this series.  As the name might suggest for this series, I wanted to go for something more audio inspired.  A lot of these works to me felt like they captured the essence of audio or sound or a particular function that happens in the physical world.  For example, take "RT60" based on a particular method that I used to analyze an impulse response from a sample library I have and brought it in to Apophysis as a particular sample cloud to create the fractal.  Here's the collection so far, and feel free to check my deviantart page for the full views.

Red

Pulse

RT60

On another note,  I just got a nice private tour of a nice studio in Modesto with Troy accompanying Mok and myself.  We mingled and talked about projects.  Lots of awesome people to network with there.  Troy and I are cooking up something pretty cool if I don't say so myself in fact.  I showed him and a few friends this RPM Challenge coming up in February and have gotten a few people onboard with the idea.  I may start posting up some information on it as it gets closer.  

Right now I'm just working full force on this story concept of mine, and networking / job hunting.    Even have an audition on Saturday for a lead guitarist spot in some band... Lots and lots of opportunities I'm working on!

Stay tuned for more developments