9th April 2014 Mat Quinn's Session

In this session I played the role of assistant for Mat Quinn while he performed and recorded a piece on the acoustic guitar for his track. As usual our group worked very well together, we set up the microphones and Pro Tools session and prepared to record. We used 2 SM57's for the guitar and a SM58 for talkback.

Mat settling in to record his part.

This is when we encountered a couple of problems. We had to deal with a faulty XLR cable, but this was easy enough because we only needed to replace it. Then something strange happened with the input gain while trying to set the levels on the desk. It was really quiet for some reason and the input gain on the first channel was acting weird and we had heard some crackling while adjusting it. We tried turning up the master signal gain and that helped us enough for us to record the piece.

Our Analogue Input setup

#Nailed It

It Begins / My FMP Track Update #1

I'll start by talking about my role in my group and what I have done so far in the Final Major Project. I have been working on my track called Crash Landing, the fifth and final track in our EP. All of our songs will tell a story of a journey, they will keep a constant space theme but not necessarily keep the same genre. So far I have created and managed most of the MIDI data for the first part of my track before it transitions into a different style midway through.

It starts as an 'epic' styled orchestral piece, using the musical tones of stringed instruments and orchestral percussion (timpani etc.). I intend on transitioning my piece into a metal style, utilising electric guitars and a different drum kit. From there I want to transition it into an electronic style but still keeping elements from the two previous styles (I only plan to create the electronic bit if I have time to spare). I am using Logic 10 to create the orchestral parts and to record guitar. I plan on using Reason 7 to create the electronic part as I am more familiar with its synthesizers and instruments.

So far I have played the role of studio engineer in a recording session for Mathew Quinn. Alex Ross performed drums for Mat's piece on the V-Drums. The original plan was to use the standard acoustic drum kit, but there were complications due to the chain on the hi-hat being broken. During my role I operated Logic 10 on the MacBook and we got the recording done on time. 

Alex Ross preparing for his role while Dan Allen poses like he was born to do.