Recording & Mixing

Recording

Since I spend so much time arranging everything as a midi band, when it comes to recording all the parts, it usually is no bother as there is no time wasted trying to come up with a part. I recorded all of the instruments myself, apart from the drums as my keyboard drumming is far more superior to my real life drumming.

All the keyboards were already done as I just used the onboard sounds for everything. This saved me having to play anything and worry about being in time.

The first instrument that I actually recorded was the bass. Since I play bass for a lot of musicals, my sight reading is pretty good and so I normally get the notation for the midi part on the screen and just play along.

I used my Line 6 Helix Pedal to emulate a bass amp, and had a separate direct out from a different output. This gave it the classic amp and DI bass sound. I had a very mellow bass sound for ‘I Don’t Know Why’, a dirtier, harsher sound for ‘Until The Dawn’, and an even harsher sound for ‘Toughest Type’ (I even used a plectrum!)

The next instrument recorded was the drums. Since I had the drums done on midi as well, I was able to show the drummer exactly what I wanted with audio and with a score, to ensure there was no confusion about the part. I recorded the drums in a checker board style so I could do different sections whilst still have cymbals ringing, even when it went between takes. Which looks like this;

I then recorded all of my electric guitar parts. As I said earlier, I don’t make midi guides for guitar because, as a guitarist, I am already thinking of the guitar parts in my head. I used my Line 6 Helix again for all of the guitar sounds, since I don’t need to mic up a real amp. I tried to have a more modern tone for ‘Toughest Type’ and used my Strat for rhythm and clean tones. For ‘Until The Dawn’, I used my Tele to achieve a classic rock tone.

I recorded all of the vocals in my bedroom with a makeshift vocal booth (a blanket duct taped to a door).

Luckily my female vocalist is my girlfriend and has been living with me since lock down, so the coronavirus was unable to stop me recording vocals! We recorded all of the main vocals in sections because we weren’t familiar with the lyrics since they were quite new.

Whenever we would record backing vocals, we had 18 different vocal tracks to make it sound like there was a whole cast of us. To do this, we recorded each individual part with 3 different vocal qualities so that it sounded like 18 different people.

Overall for the vocals, I would’ve preferred to have been able to record them with a better microphone, as there’s a lot of background noise and it isn’t as clear or as a nicely rounded as I was hoping for.

Mixing

Up until this point in my life, I have never been confident with mixing and have always thought that you should just pay someone who is good at it to do it. I would like to think that someone who wasn’t a composer would pay me to compose for them. However, I don’t have the money to hire people to mix my songs. So, this year I have been deep in YouTube tutorials on how to mix, learning from people like; Home Studio Corner & Warren Huart. I have even practiced my mixing abilities on other songs in the lead up to this portfolio, feeling confident enough to mix and master the newest Choka song, ‘Let Me In’, which comes out on the 18th of April.

So, with my new found confidence in this, I wasn’t worried so much about mixing my own songs and I like how they all sound. I only used Logic’s plugins, and the only external thing I used were 2 free instrument plugins from spitfire audio which were; ‘Soft Piano’. I layered this with other piano sounds and their string plugin which I also layered with the logic string sounds.

The main thing I am slightly disappointed with is how the microphone sounds and how, even with EQ and compression, I wasn’t able to make it sound the way that I hoped it would. But, even saying that, I personally think it all sounds better that any live cast recordings of musicals, because I feel they are always terribly mixed and so I tried my best to not sound like that.