Major Project Reflection: Annie J & Fusion EP

Hey!

I've got a pretty big blog for you today, to wrap up one of the main projects I've been working on over the past 3 months.

On the Tuesday just gone, Stefan and I finished our masters for the 5-track EP from Sunshine Coast band, Annie J & Fusion. Have a listen below!

Firstly I'll do a run down of this week and how the project has come to a close, then do a bit of a reflection on the project as a whole and what I got out of it. Grab a coffee and strap in for a good read!

Final Edits & Polish

After completing our first-pass of the mix-downs, Stefan sat down with the artist and received some really detailed feedback on paper which made for a much better polishing and mastering session. Overall they loved what we had done, the main things were changes they wanted in the arrangement itself, the removal of some harmonic overdubs that they no longer liked after initially adding them in the recording sessions, and choosing which saxophones should have more of a spotlight in the mix.

So on bringing these notes into the S6 session on Tuesday, we passed through the 5 tracks once more making the required changes but also listening for any artifacts from the recordings that we may have missed before going into mastering.

One of the other major changes we made after finishing the initial mix-downs, was some feedback we received from one of our facilitators, Stephane. He highlighted the fact that way we had panned our drums was from the audience's perspective. That is that we panned it to sound more as you would if you were in the crowd hearing it live. Some of those percussive elements stuck a little too far out to the right without much compensation in the left channel which also made this effect possibly a little too distracting. Stephane suggested to invert it so the way you hear the drums was from the drummer's perspective, and also to tighten the image so that the pans aren't so aggressive. He stated that it's a more appealing listening experience, especially for people who enjoy 'air-drumming' to music and would expect hi-hats to be on their left etc.

Coming from an electronic background, this was a huge learning experience for me. It's made me identify that even in my own productions, I don't take enough consideration into the drum sounds in the bigger picture - as if they were their own kit. My workflow in the past has really just been choosing a kick drum sample, then choosing a clap or snare sample and so own; and not enough on how these elements are perceived as a unit and how they should be imaged.

Some other changes the artist wanted was some harmonies added in certain places in the lead single, 'Suburban Cabbage'. Since we didn't have time to get Annie - the front-woman of the band - back down into the studio, we've created an artificial harmony by taking sections of the lead vocal performance into Melodyne. This was achieved by analysing the desired audio in Melodyne, then transposing the pitch down 5-semitones to create the harmony. When listening in context to the rest of the song, some minor adjustments were needed to some of the pitching and expression of the harmonic content so that it doesn't stick out as much, and sounds as natural as possible. The result wasn't perfect, however being limited by having to create the asset as opposed to re-recording the vocalist - it enhances what is already present in the track and doesn't distract the listening experience.

So after we had a final listen of the mixes, we decided to bounce them out and start up a mastering session.

Mastering

In terms of making drastic sonic changes or taming problem frequencies, there wasn't really much we had to do! Our aim was mainly to take advantage of the S6 studio's world class outboard equipment, and inject some warmth and life back into the tracks from the harsh 'digital-ness' created from the mix processing. With the Avalon VT-737's 32kHz bright polish over the top, Dangerous' Bax EQ doing some smooth EQ enhancing the low and high frequencies, and finally out of the Manley with some slow compression and then back into Pro Tools; it certainly did the trick.

We utilised Ozone 7 as the final brick-wall limiting stage. Just before the limiter we did some low and high pass EQ to carve out any unnecessary information (we went for the removal of anything below 35Hz and above 19kHz), along with some multi-band compression and subtle stereo image enhancement as a final mix-glue to really get the production sounding like a record:

^ Carving out any inaudible information that may be eating up headroom

^ Applying multi-band compression to glue and tighten-up the mix

^ Subtle stereo imaging to tighten the low end, bring out the body of the instrumentation a little more and giving the high end more space to work that bright shimmery polish

^ The final limiting stage! After the outboard gear and multi-band compression the threshold didn't have to be brought down too much to get the desired level. 'True Peak Limiting' or inter-sample limiting stops the audio from clipping in the Analog domain by looking at the spaces between each sample. The -0.3dB on the ceiling is an extra reassurance that there won't be any peaks when the audio is compressed down to a lossy format (MP3, AAC etc.). Things like poor audio conversion codecs can clip your audio, so it's always good to take this precaution! The value itself is chosen because 0.3dB is the maximum value of level before humans can perceive any difference in audio level, so why not have that extra safety net?

Reflection

So all in all, this was a fantastic project to be a part of. Stefan and I have learnt a huge amount from each other. One of the biggest things I found interesting was the combination of skill-sets from a live sound and acoustic background, in conjunction with my electronic music production background!

Team environment

For me, Stefan has not only made me more confident with operating Pro Tools and running an analog desk like the Neve Custom 75 series; he's also taught me a huge deal about band & acoustic recording and various areas of musicality that we had to hone in on as producers. For this type of band with such a wide range of instruments in play, it has highlighted to me the importance of the producer's role and understanding music - especially the intricacies of the genre they're recording. Moving forward from this, I am feeling much more confident about being able to successfully produce a band recording in the future, and feel that I am now much more capable of achieving a quality product for a client and in my own productions.

As a team, we worked very well together. Both Stefan and I are easy going, however we both maintained a very high work-ethic and approached each task with a positive attitude and the motivation to have a quality product by the end of the journey, and one that the client is happy with. I believe these traits that we brought to the table, are what has made this project a successful one. Initially in the project, recording dates had to be pushed back due to members becoming unwell at short notice, and recording separate members of the band on different dates to complete recordings also set us up with a challenge, especially when its a live band that are used to performing together. This in conjunction with myself not being able to attend 2 out of the 3 recording sessions due to already locked-in commitments (and the band was not available on other dates), caused a lot of concern between us in the early stages.

We were considering other artist options, however with my positive attitude and flexibility - I was able to keep the project on a stable course forward by undertaking a larger mix engineer role and restore confidence in Stefan that we would be able to smash it. The mix process was quick, and still left us with plenty of time to receive feedback from the artist, facilitators and peers. Stefan had also done a superb job on the drums, bass and guitar recordings which saved a lot of time when considering the only major changes required later on was vocals and saxophone. I believe with the combination of our technical skill-sets and soft skills, we had a very powerful working environment happening and it was a pleasure to work alongside Stefan.

The project allowed us to experiment with a wide range of high-end microphones like the U87, AT4081, Rode NTR and the Royer R-121. In conjunction to mixing 5 tracks spanning vastly different genres, we were also challenged by having to create new audio assets out of guitar and vocal recordings with Melodyne.

Artist coaching

It has also given me some great experience with performance/artist coaching. For this instance, it wasn't 'coaching' in a literal sense; however myself and Stefan's role was to make sure that the artist was always feeling comfortable and maintaining a steady momentum since we had limited recording time. It was really important for us with working with professional musicians that know their music back-to-front, was to respect that. We made sure not to interfere with the way they performed or suggested major changes to the composition, rather it was like I've mentioned above keeping a positive atmosphere and steady pace. When Annie got into a rhythm we made sure to encourage that and continue recording, we also stayed open to experimentation and new additions to the arrangements that they wanted, whilst still keeping in mind of what goals were to be achieved by the end of the sessions.

APRA & publishing guidance

With my background in regards to Jbox, I have been able to give the artist advice on registering their new works to APRA AMCOS - since this will be their first studio release. This week I sent through a step-by-step guide to getting set-up with the organisation, options for distribution, applying for ISRC codes and also how to submit their performance reports for future gigs.

Since the band is very active in live music on the Sunshine Coast, they could be taking advantage of a great revenue stream via APRA AMCOS every time they perform their work in a public space. By registering the EP as soon as possible, they'll be ready to start submitting reports when the play their next show. We're very lucky in Australia to have such a great organisation which supports Australian songwriters and businesses in the music industry!

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And that's about it! This project was a really valuable experience for me, it was a pleasure working with Annie J & Fusion and I wish them best of luck for the EP.

- Lachy