Team members present: Mike, Lee and Bob
What was planned
Improve final mix for 'Children'. Add recorded vocals and sound effects to 'Behind the Sun'.
What was achieved
After repeated listens to our first mastered version of 'Children'. The following shortcomings were noted:
- The lead guitar part was panned slightly to the left of the mix. This gave the mix a slightly lop-sided feel.
- The kick drum was not prominent in the mix.
- The crash cymbals were over-powering.
We spent the first hour of our evening sessions correcting these faults. We re-panned the lead guitar to the centre of the mix. Lee added another midi track to Reason containing a different kick drum sound. When mixed with the original kick drum this increased allowed the kick drum to be more prominent in the mix. This also had the effect of moving the cymbal crashes back in the mix. However when mastering, and a compressor and limiter was applied to the final stereo output, the cymbals again became too dominant in the mix. We decided to tackle this issue at a later date because we wanted to concentrate on 'Behind the Sun' for the remainder of our evening session.
We had booked out a selection of mics to record vocal sounds. We used a shure SM57 mic to record Lee whistling a spaghetti western style refrain. When a large reverb was added it created the evocative intro sound we wanted.
We used a D112 kick drum mic to record Lee creating a horse gallop rhythm by slapping his thighs. We used EQ to boost the bass frequencies to give a realistic horse galloping sound and rhythm. We also recorded Lee jangling some coins to create a horse bridle sound. We used the D112 to record Bob thumping the door to create a kick drum sound. We also used the D112 to record Bob, Lee and Mike individually shouting 'Hoos' and 'Haas'. When mixed together they gave a great backing sound we could use. The D112 mic seemed to work well in this role as it rolls off the higher frequencies which automatically places these sound effects further back in the mix.
Bob had previously researched and downloaded the following sound samples from the internet: a horse whinny, a rattle snake's rattle, and a variety of gunshots with ricochets. These sounds fitted well in the mix and were all used.
We then performed a very rough mix to get a view on how it sounded so far. Various ideas were tried and experimented with. Some were kept and some were rejected. In particular, we decided to tone down the reggae feel, we kept the rhythm guitar skanks but removed the reggae bass riff. We have also dropped the idea giving the track a dub-step feel as we all thought that it would conflict with the overall feel of the song as it has developed so far.
We were all very pleased with our progress so far. The spaghetti western sound seems to really work for this song.
Next Steps
Sort out the problem with the cymbals for the 'Children' mix.
Critically listen to our 'Behind the Sun' remix over the next week to decide if there are any more parts that could be added. Lee is going to try to produce a drum track to see if that adds anything to the song. We then need to mix the track.
