PRODUCTION DIARY
TRACK 1 - DAN KEEN CHOPIN
Equipment:
Microphones
AKG C414 Stereo Pair (Hammers)
Rode M3 (Sound Hole)
AKG C241 (Room Microphone)
Interface:
Focusrite Saffire Pro 40
4X Microphone stand
4X XLR Cable
Microphones
This is my equipment list. I decided to use these microphones because I knew what they sounded like. The stereo pair of AKG 414s that I used sounded great sitting over the hammers as you capture a very high attack sound of the hammers hitting the strings. I decided to place one over the high string and one over the low. This was so I could capture the high and lows in a stereo image so the listener can hear as if he is sat that the piano. I had previously tried out these microphones on a piano before so I knew what was going to sound good and what wasn’t. I tried out new things by tweaking the microphone ever so slightly until we going the perfect sound. It was more or less from having the high attack from the 414’s sitting over the hammers which was where we found our desired sound.
I decided to use a Rode M3 microphone to record the sound hole of the piano. This was mainly to capture some more body and volume from the piano. I have never really recorded a grand piano alone before so I wanted to make sure I captured as much as possible as I wouldn't be able to rerecord it. This microphone sat pointed directly into the sound hole in the main body of the piano. I was only limited to a few microphones. My choices were the Rode M3 or the Shure PG81. I found that the Shure microphone was a little bit washy and the high end was a little too harsh. This is normally used for a drum overhead microphone so I like use this to get the shimmer off the cymbals but for the piano it didn't work quite so well. I moved to the M3 as I knew this would sound a little more how I wanted. This microphone was not to capture the main sounds of the piano the 414s did that, this was to capture some of the warm tones coming from the sound hole.
The 4th microphone I used was the AKG C241. This is again a condenser microphone. I used this microphone because it was prefect for my intentions. I wanted to use a condenser as this microphone was to pick the reverb in the hall that we were recording, to capture an ambient sound. This is so that we can add in some of the room sound into the mix to make it sound more like it was recorded in a hall rather than a studio. As we were also filming this it helps add to the picture when it sound like the place its filmed in. We could have used plug-in reverb on one of the other piano microphone but I wanted to use them for other sounds. Having a room mic gives you the option to have the added ambience with a very real sounding reverb if the room.
I decided to use all condenser microphones as these pick up a bigger frequency range and especially for a piano that has such a diverse frequency range. This also meant i had to give all the microphones 'Phantom Power' which is the extra power that condensers need but dynamic and ribbon microphones don't.
The sound from a condenser is normally warmer and better than a dynamic. The grand piano is played with such dynamics that a condenser picks up fantastically well which the dynamic microphone wouldn't capture in the same way. My personal preference is to use dynamic microphones as much as possible. Sometimes this isn't always the case. It depends on many factors.
The interface I used was the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.
Recording
To set up the recording I had to open 4 new audio tracks into my DAW (Logic Pro 9). I then have to select the input 1 to 4 for each channel that will connect to the inputs on my interface. I then labeled all the tracks in a way the would make sense to me later especially when you are working with stereo pair microphones. I labelled the C414's as high and low because this means when panning later I could remember which one needed to be panned left and right.
I also inserted a 'Level Meter' plug-in in Logic while I was taking levels for I s
As we were filming this production as well the recording had to be done in one take. This means we could not split the track up into sections and record it all in parts. When we were recording we had to have complete silence in hall that we were recording in. This is to make sure we get a perfect recording. During the recording our performer was not able to hear himself back through headphones. This was because we did have an extension to run a pair of headphone to the performer but also he was on camera and headphones in shot would not have looked good. As he was alone in the recording it didn't really matter.
Mixing
When I came to mixing the piano I needed to remember it is not like mixing I have normally done. Normally I mix bands and instruments together such and bass, guitar and drums. I knew that mixing a solo instrument with such a dynamic range needs to be mixed differently and more organically, the less I do to it the better especially because I had nicely recorded audio to start with.
Once I had decided which take I was going to use I could get to work on making it sound great.
I decided to start with the 2 C414's. I panned these left and right the microphone capturing the low keys was panned all the way to the right and the high keys to the left. This was for the imaging of the piano and how you want the listener to hear the piano and where you want the piano to be heard. With this type of music its all about the emotion and the way the piece is played and delivered by the performer so by panning the piano how you would hear a piano if you were looking at it is the way people are used to hearing the piano. This really helps with getting the emotion across of the piece.
Phase Invert
Phase inverting is where you are dealing with the sound wave. When you are recorded with more that one microphone together, especially if they are apart you can get phase issues. For example the high c414 and the room microphone. The sound from the piano will hit the 414 before the room microphone. By the time it has reached the room microphone the sound wave might be on a peak where as the 414 is capturing a trough this means they will cancel out to some degree. In Logic you have a 'Phase Invert' switch in the 'Gain' plug-in. When flicking the switch you are in theory flipping the wave over making the peaks troughs and troughs peaks and will prevent the cancelling out more or less. This isn't an exact thing as you can know if the waves are in or out phase you just have to use your ears to tell what sounds better.
EQ
I started EQing the 2 C414's as I was quite confident that I knew what I wanted out of these microphones. I kept in mind that I wanted this piano to sound as realistic as possible. This piece is actually a study piece originally written intended to improve arpeggios between hands. Making sure the arpeggios were clear and pronounced was very important to me although this recording was not for study purposes I thought I should take into account the history of the piece when mixing it together. This was helped in EQ. The 414's are the main body and attack of the piano sound and this is where the hammers toughing the strings is mainly captured. I decided to EQ these to slightly different as one was capturing the low notes and the other microphones, the high notes. I didn't want the mis frequencies mashing in the middle so I really had to battle too keep it away from sounding muddy. Below is how I have EQ these microphones.
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| LOW C414 |
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HIGH C414
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I have decided to EQ these microphones this was because I felt that in the low microphone, when the low keys were played there would be a sort of blur in the mix where it was mashing with the other microphones. I decided to cut some of the low because of this I wanted them to be clear and defined as they are played quite a lot on this piece especially at the same time as the high notes. Overall I wanted to boost most of the mids because I thought that they were lacking slightly only when you played it together with the other microphone. I have decided to cut the high end off this because I could feel that the high end was biting into the high microphones way and there was this odd clash in the mix that just by taking away some high end means you can allow for it in the other microphone. This was important when mixing these two microphones because as they were purposely capturing the whole keyboard range between them I needed to allow for them to focus on their end of the piano as they can easily clash in the middle which is what they did.
Chopping the low out of the high microphone helped to get rid of this muddle sound that was stuck in the centre of the mix. I have also narrowed in to the 350hZ area where there was a small gap that I felt needed enhancing. I didn't feel the mids were taking as much in this but I did add a high cut because some of the sharp high notes were just killing it and putting the mix a little out of proportion.
Fairly early on in the mix I decided to scrap the RODE microphone I had pointed in the sound hole of the piano as it gave a slightly poor effort of a live sounding piano. When I
took it away the piano became much richer and more organic but I think the microphone and placement might have not been quite as right as it could have but it did end up giving the track even after EQ giving it a lousy sound that just enhanced the piano sound rather than gave it the warmth and depth that it needed. I scrapped this and continued with just three microphones.
I then moved on to some compressing which I was a little worried about. I wanted to make sure that this track sounded as natural as possible and captured a true sounding piano. This would mean keeping the fantastically large dynamic range in the piano which meant only being able to compress a very small amount. There were a few high notes that jump out quite suddenly and could probably do with a small amount of compression. From the picture you can see I have set the switch to 'peak' and lowered the gain to 0Db. I have purposely set the threshold very low so that I can compress the high notes just a very small amount. On the 'Gain reduction' display I can see how much is being reduced. This is very handy because I could tell when the high notes were coming through and compressing. I compressed these notes just so that I didn't have these random notes jumping a little too far out of their place.
Next was the room microphone. This was capturing the reverb and ambience in the room. Classical music could always be played in a large space to merge all the notes together to bring a cacophony of sound gelled by the reverb. This was mainly added in after the C414's were mixed to add in some natural reverb. I did very little to this EQ wise. I have added a high and low cut to get a nice accurate reverb without and interruptions that came in from each side. I could add as much or as little of this to the mx depending on what it is that we are aiming for. The 414's only sound to studio accurate so adding some real reverb is really nice and gives it that realistic environment that the music is being played in.
I have added a reverb aux bus. This means I can send what every tracks I want to another fader in logic. I have then added a plug in to this track (reverb, space designer) which I can add as much or as little of as I want to give the microphones a sense of space before they are mixed with the room microphone.
I purposely chose a reverb that was in a smaller room than the one we recorded in because I wanted to use the room mic for the overall mix but for the 2x414's I wanted to add something very minor to let them sing a little
Mastering
When I came to mastering this track I bounced down my mix as a wav making sure that I have enough headroom in the output to master with. If I was to bounce something that was already quite loud it means that I don't have much room to turn the master up. Then I brought that bounce back into logic twice on 2 separate stereo channels so I could compare along the way.
Firstly I added EQ which was quite hard to get right as this piece is piano only and it covers such a large frequency range. I didn't want to EQ anything to harshly.
I got rid of some of the low end with a cut because there was quite a lot of hum when the low strings were played. This meant it got quite muddy when several were played together with the piano. In the centre there was also a big resonance in the 500hZ range which I could get rid of with a small adjustment. I decided towards the high ends there was a little gap around the 3K mark where some of the quick and fast notes were being played which I gave a slight boost to just to even off the sound. Finally I made a minor cut to the high end because some of the snappy fast notes where a little sharp and I wanted to bring these down slightly before I compressed it.
Now that the frequencies have been evened out it makes my job a lot easier and earlier to work with I can move onto some compression before I can then turn the whole track down.
When compressing this track I really didn't want to do to much to it. This is a classical piece not a drum and bass track which is why I do not want to compress it to much because the dynamic range is so important in this track.
I have firstly brought the gain down to 0dB and changed RMS to Peak.
I then played around with the threshold and the ratio and kept the compression down to a really minimum just so the very loud notes can be brought down and not ping out completely. By having the threshold quite high it means that only the really loud notes would be compressed. I then played around with the ratio to get the right amount of compression. This gave the piece a nice smoothing over and evened out the loud and quiet notes ready to be limited.
Limiting was new to me which in a way was a good thing because it meant I could just use my ears to get the sound right. I know that when I was turning the track up I didn't want to make it as loud as I possibly could because classical music is supposed be listened to carefully and the technically aspects are supposed to appreciated not the amount of bass you have and how loud the track it. This is why this classical track isn't as loud as the rock track I have as my second track.
Firstly I started by bringing the gain up slightly then adjusting the release just until I felt the track was loud enough but didn't over power it.
The main idea of the mastering process for this track was to turn the track up as much as I could without squashing the dynamics or loosing the classical feel of the piece in the recording.
The final step was to bounce the track and save it as something appropriate. Then I was Finished.
TRACK 2 - PROWL
Equipment
Microphones
SHURE SM57 (SNARE BOTTOM + HI-HATS)
NEUMANN KM 184 (STEREO PAIR - OVERHEADS + BACKING VOCALS)
NEUMANN U87 (VOCALS)
SONTRONICS DELTA RIBBON (GUITARS)
SENNHEISER MD421 (TOMS + KICK OUTSIDE)
ELECTROVICE RE20 (BASS DRUM INSIDE)
SENNHEISER E835 (SNARE TOP)
DRUM MICROPHONES
I chose to mic the drums with 9 microphones.
Kick x2
Snare x2
Tom 1
Tom 2
OH Ride
OH Hats
Hi Hat
We started with electrovice RE20 inside the kick drum with the front skin on. We found that we wernt capturing enough punch from the drum that we would quite like. We tried opening up the bass drum by taking the front head off. The elecrovice RE20 has a great low end because of it's large diaphragm. After this we still wernt completely happy with the sound so we added a Sennheiser MD241 sitting just outside the kick drum pointed towards the edge. We also added the front skin back again. We added the microphone on the outside just so we could mix in some more attack from the kick drum if we liked.
On the snare we used a Sennheiser E835 on the top. We tried this opposed to a standard sm57 because we found that the sharp high end suited the sound that we wanted for the music we were recording. This also gives a well defined stick definition which sound really really sharp and accurate.
To accompany this we added a shure sm57 to the bottom to capture the crack and raw snare sound that adds to the sound of a snare drum to keep it defined well in the mix. Sometimes without micing the bottom of the snare drum you can loose some definition in the loud parts of the song as well as when you are playing lots of notes together.
For the toms we used a the Sennheiser MD42. These have a nice response to the low end which is why they are good for bass guitar and toms. The toms sounded really great as we positioned them at the edge pointing towards the centre. We also tried to keep them pointed away from the kick drum as well to minimise bleed. We were happy with the toms almost right away as they gave a really punchy and low warm tone with great attack as well. The drum heads were brand new as well which contributed to the great sound.
The overheads were the Neumann KM 184's stereo pair. These were positioned over the far crash and the hi hat side. These have a great response to high end and give a great shimmer to the cymbals. These microphones have also been used a lot for close micing cymbals because of the great response to a whole drum kit as well as enhancing the cymbals so well. I use fairly large cymbals which tend to make a low trashy sound, these microphones helped to brighten them and when I come to the mix later it will help enhance the shimmer to give it its own space in the mix.
Finally we used a SM57 on the hi hats just to capture the ghost notes of the hats which might not cut through when mixing. This was a perfect microphone because the dynamic prevents to much bleed this means you can define the notes much clearer. We started my positioning the microphone underneath pointed straight up. After sound checking this came off a little harsh and lost some of the tight sound that we wanted. This also got in the way of my playing. We moved it to the behind the hats pointed at the middle. This really captured the high snaps of the opening and closing of the hi hats.
Bass Guitar
For the bass we used a Sontronics Delta ribbon microphone. This is a phantom powered ribbon microphone. This was the first microphone we tried and we got an amazing tone from it almost immediately.
We also decided to DI the bass amp which was an Ampeg bass amp which has a great tone as well as the attack with warm tones as well. As we mic'd the amp and DI the amp as well is meant we had the attack from the DI sound which was really really punchy but as well we had the bass tones from the microphone. This was a really good way to get the bass sound as when blended together it makes a really nice bass sound that will sit great in the mix.
We had the microphone placed right in the centre of the cone about 1 foot away and pointed slightly down towards the edge of the cone to get some of the high end sounds.
Guitars
The guitars we also used the Sontronics Delta ribbon microphone because of its fantastic tone and ability to keep a warmth in the sound but get all those high end frequencies that make up the guitar tones that we wanted.
We also tried a AKG C414 for the guitars but its great high end was just a little to harsh for what we wanted.
We placed the microphone towards the outside of the speaker on the amp as this was where we found our best sound.
During the process of guitars we decided to try a few different amplifiers, guitar settings, pedals and guitars to make sure we found the perfect guitar sound for each part of the song. This guitars are quite a big part in the sound of this song so we wanted to make sure they were punch and prominent when recording so we didn't need to mess about with plug ins.
Having such a choice in equipment does mean that things take longer to record but it means you can get a much more refined sound that you are looking for.
We settled with the Vox amp and a Gibson guitar for the lead part in this song and we used the Marshall combo and the 1960 Fender Telecaster for the rhythm part.
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| Neumann U87 (Vocals) |
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| Neumann TLM 102 |
For the vocals we jumped between used a Neumann U87 and a Neumann TLM 102 because we thought that the U87 had a more harsh high end than the 102 but on the voice that we were recording it seemed to sound better on the U87 than the 102. We also used a pop shield on the vocals to stop the 'p' and 'b' sounds peaking the microphone signal when he sings.
The U87's tone seemed to work really well on our voice and we got some lovely sounding vocals from it which sound great.
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| Neumann KM 184 (Backing VOX) |
When we recorded the backing vocals we chose to use a stereo pair on KM 184's which have such a clear tone especially a large sound or a sound which a wide frequency range. We also used these on the overheads of the drums which worked great. They have a nice shine to them wish inset washy or harsh in any way. This songs contains gang vocals in parts to we used a stereo pair of these microphones to capture a small group of people. These microphones were positioned in a XY pattern which worked great for the type of sound of vocal we wanted (a chant).
The DAW we used was ProTools 11HD. We chose to use this over Logic Pro because we felt Logic had a different sound that wasn't quite right for the type of music. Also the desk that we were using was a ProTools compatible AVID Digidesign I
CON D-Command desk. All digital.
The Pre amps we were using we the Focusrite ISA 828's.
These are the nicest sounding preamps I have used to date. The warmth that they give everything is just mind blowing.
RECORDING
Drums and Bass
We recorded the drums and the bass guitar together to lay down the foundations of the track. Myself and the bass player are very tight together so we figured this would be a great way of doing it. We were both in separate rooms from each other but we could see each other and we could see the producer and everyone in the control room. This was good because we play very well together and it meant some of the musician ship would rub off into the playing and the feel would be much much better. We played the song all the way through several times and went back over anything we felt could be played better. This means we have lots of takes to choose from so if we wish we can choose sections of them to make sure the performance is tight. We were monitoring through headphones with the click and we had a guitarist playing a guide track in the control room so we had more than just drums and bass to play too.
Guitars were tracks after the drums and the bass were finished. They were played in a booth down the hall. We decided to track the lead before the rhythm which we don't normally do but because of the way this is structured for the guitars. We then tracked the rhythm guitar. We had a talk back microphone in the booth with the them so we could talk to them and they could talk back. The guitars were recorded the same way as the bass and drums. We recorded the whole track through several times which meant we had a few takes for the song. For different sections of the guitars we sometimes tried different guitars what might have sounded better for a particular section. Not on this song but some other we even decided to go direct into the pre amp because it just sounded so great and then used pedals to give the distortion or delay we wanted.
When did the vocals we recorded them in a small booth using a U87. We also used a large microphone stand and hung the microphone so that our singer could look up and open his chest more. We found that this technique worked really well and we got much better results. We decided to take a different approach to the vocals where as we ran through a whole take of the song and then we would go back a do each section or phrasing again. The reason we ran the whole song through at least once is so that you can get some phrases that run off each other nicely. Sometimes if you record all the vocals separately when you listen back to them all together it can sound quite blocky which is why we run it through so some phrases can have a feel to them and really run with the music. In addition to the we took away the click when recording vocals because it helps to get more an emotion and energy behind the vocals when they sung with meaning rather sticking to a click. This can make it sound unnatural. The backing vocals were recorded just over the parts where they were needed. We had several headphones for monitoring so we could all hear what was going on. As we had more of less figured out what it was what we were going to record we just went in one after another and recorded our parts for the backing vocals.
MIXING
Now I have got into the mix and I have got all my audio files from protools into Logic Pro 9 I can start mixing the track. There are many deceptions you need to make through mixing and I am going to talk you through some of the ones I made while mixing this track.
Organising the project
I really think its important to label and organise your track properly because it means you can get around your project so much more easily. I think its important to colour you tracks by instrument or by take depending on the project. I have particular colours I like to use for each instrument. For example I alway use bright yellow for the lead vocals because it makes it very easy for me to find them. Now the project is nice and organised I can started making it sound good.
Drums
Personally I have always started with the drums. Firstly I get some width with the drums and pan them. I have panned the overheads hard left and right. I have panned the high tom slightly to the left and the floor tom to the right by 50. I have also panned the bottom snare microphone just to the right because I felt it was getting slightly in the way of the top snare drum. This separated them slightly and added some width to the track.
I then moved onto the phase inversions. This was me just checking the phasing for the track on the drums I compared all of the drums with themselves and chose what sounded best. I only inverted the phase if it sounded best.
I then started to EQ the drums. We weren't completely happy with sound of the kick on my kit because for several reasons it wasn't sound too good so I thought I should probably give this ago trying to get this sounding nice and punchy.
Here you can see the channel EQ that I have used on the inside microphone on the kick drum. I have massively cut the high end on this because I wanted to leave some room for the outside microphone to add some attack. I wanted this microphone to have all the punch and low end and then we can combine it with the outside microphone which will give a nice attack. I have also put a nice shelf EQ on the low end just to give it some more punch and energy. I have also found a nice spot on the 200hZ mark that was lacking some resonance so I have added a boost in that area. this is a similar area which I normally boost the bass in so I need to remember not to let those to clash at all in the mix.
The outside microphone is to add the attack of the kick drum. This one look a little odd because there were a lot of odd things going on that I needed to try and fix. I have strangely cut the high end because there was this click that was picking up from the beater hitting the skin. I again decided to add in back a lot of low end into this because I felt that although it was for the attack it could still be used to enhance the punch of the kick drum sound which it what this has done. By correcting these few flaws in the recording you end up with a nice punch in the kick drum which is the beginning and fundamental sound that it used for the whole drum kit.
I also tried some fat EQ on the the kick drum because I really wanted a nice punchy thud that sat well with the bass. This did send the kick drum into some strange sounds but I managed to use it to my advantage and get a little more punch out of the kick drum.
I used some noise gate on the drums just to try and get rid of some of the bleed from the other drums that was preventing some EQ and compression from being so effective.
I used the noise gate in Logic on the snare drum.
As you can see I have used the threshold, reduction and hold and release to only allow as much of the snare sound through as I can without the bleed getting through and it sounding unnatural. Once I had the threshold and reduction in place you can then play around with hold and release to get a nice even sound without it cutting it short.
Once this is applied to most of the drums it can make EQing a lot more effective and by getting rid of the bleed you can work of improving just the sound you want.
I then used automation to to turn down the kick when it came to the breakdown. I found that the kick was too loud at the breakdown but it was okay with all the other instruments. I used automation to bring this down and the slow build it up again before the big outro comes in. This is a really useful way to edit volume especially when you need a big sudden change but just for one section.
Once the drums were completely mixed and all the levels were perfect I then sent all the audio tracks to an aux track where I could control the levels of all the drums on one fader this is really helpful because it means that I don't disrupt the levels between the drums but i can turn up or down all the drums in one go.
Lead Guitar
The lead guitar has a very important role in this track. I have used several plugins to give it the sound that I want. I have also used automation to adjust levels and panning on the guitar.
Throughout the song I wanted the guitars panned left and right. This sounded odd for the intro guitar riff when the guitar was panned all the way right. What I did to fix this was use the automation tool and set it to pan and then I could have the guitar start in the centre and move to the right when the other instruments came in. This enabled me to make a smooth change over than sounded natural.
I also used automation for the filter I added onto the guitar. I did this by adding a filter as a plug in and then choosing the amounts of low cut I wanted. Then I selected it in automation and I could slowly bring in the low end as the riff progressed resulting in a good intro.
The last thing I mix is the vocals. I normally end up going back and making sure the vocals sit correctly but I normally edit them last. For the vocals I decided to add some compression even tho when we recorded it we recorded it we add gain reduction which is a new feature in protools 11. There were a few snappy vocal lines that popped out so I decided to compress these. This is the compression that I have added. you can see its quite harsh. There were a lot of notes that stuck out and I felt it needed compressing quite a lot. If I was to redo this again I would compress the vocals as the come in so I don't have to compress as much after. This results in loosing to much dynamic range otherwise. I also ended up adding quite a lot of make up gain because i have compressed it quite a lot.
Finally on the vocals I added a de-esser. Some of the vocals lines were coming off a little tinny and sharp on the 's' sounds so Logic had a tool that enables you to get rid of some of this. As you can see the 's' sound was in the 15K mark so what you can do in this plug in take away some of those frequencies. Once you have found where the tinny sound if you can then choose which frequencies you cut. You would normally choose the same one. This has resulted in a little more cleaner and clearer vocal tone which cuts through the mix much nicer now.
There are a few last decisions that I have made to make this track sound great. I decided to cut a gap where there is a pause in the music because this completely takes away all sound in the gap and there is a very small moment where almost all the sound cuts out. This is a more musical feature as well as a technical one. I really wanted the gap to sound sudden to emphasise the hit when it comes back in and adding a gap in all the audio really helped to create this.
MASTERING
Finally I could move onto that final stage of the production. The mastering stage.
I mastered this track differently to the classical piece because this track is a rock track and needs to be louder and bigger sounding than a piano piece.
For this piece I started with the EQ. I found this much easier to EQ than the piano one as I knew how the bass was meant to be and I knew how much of everything I think there should be. I haven't done too much the this track. Firstly I started with cutting some of the low end off because I felt the bass was very harsh and over powering, more than it should.
I then found some slight holes in the 150 and 1400K range which needed boosting slightly.
When EQing a track its really important to make sure everything sounds even and nothing jumps out unless you want it to. This is why its good to get everything flat and even before you compress and limit so you don't EQ something you have already compressed.
Then I moved on to compression. When compressing this track I just aimed to bring it down to a level where its still sounds dynamic and like a rock track. I didn't want to over compress it and loose the dynamic range even if i could make it really loud. Finding the balance between them is the important part. I brought the gain down to 0dB and moved RMS to peak. I found that I couldn't lower the threshold too far as it was crushing the track so I left the threshold quite high and then increased the ratio and added a small knee this helped the track stay dynamic and rich without getting flattened.
Now I moved onto limiting the track. This is where I could turn the track up to make it as loud as possible but still leaving room for it to breathe. I left the output level nice and high and the slowly brought up the gain. I left the release low. I didn't want to push the gain to much because but enough for the track to be louder. This time I kept the soft-knee off.
This came off with very positive results and the track sounded great.
I even played it a party that very night. Everyone loved it, fist pumps all round.
Wave Burner
The very final stage of the process is making the track sit together on the CD correctly and making sure there is a good amount of time between each song. As these too songs are very different I kept then separate on the CD. I chose not to add any fades as it was not particularly appropriate.
I cold also add all the information for my tracks known at meta data. This is where I add the names and artists etc. I could also place where the tracks started.
When this was compete I could burn it to a CD.
The process was complete.
I have also designed a flyer in the size of a Facebook cover photo so that when I make the Facebook event I can have a profession cover photo that all fits correctly.
