Learning Journal (WEEK 7 – CIU330)

Progress with tracking

Coming towards the middle of week 7 and I have nearly completed the tracking for the guitar solos, but that could change if we need more guitar work. I will be arranging sometime this week to have a Zoom meeting with Voodoo the Grand Funk Master. Since he is a lot more experienced with Funk music than me, I always run projects past him as we are a team. I have also added the EQ’s and compressor plug-ins to all the tracks, so now it’s a case of getting stuck into the editing and mixing.

I’ve been conducting some research on different ways of getting a great drum kit presence for the songs. For the moment I like using distortion to add a dirty sound that can be blended into the clean drum kit audio sound and give the drums some real attitude.

I have also started grouping all the drums together, plus any other bulk instrument track, so I can use a VCA track to quickly move the groups without losing frequency degeneration. For example: If I find I need to move the drum kit level a dB level to raise the drum kit back up as a group, then I can use either clip gain automation or track volume automation on the VCA track.

Decided to try out parallel compression on the vocals and aim for getting better control over the vocal transient dB levels. I could adjust all the clip gains individual transients, but I thought I would give this a go and run it past Voodoo next time we chat.

For the guitar solos, I used the same guitar setup that I used to do the rhythm guitar parts. A Shure SM57 in front of my practice amplifier, a Laney with a 12-inch Celestion speaker, and a DI Box.

I still have voodoo’s vocals to add into the mix and I hoping they will be done this week, the clock is ticking.