Project Research

The Glyn Johns Technique (GJT) is a technique used for recording drums created by  the British sound engineer Glyn Johns. "who most notably worked with Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones,  The Eagles, Eric Clapton, and even started his career assisting for The Beatles." (The Recording Revolution 2011). From this we can clearly see the the GJT is worth researching as it has been used by some of the most influential musicians of all time. The beauty behind the GJT is the pure minimalism behind it. Instead of having to mic up each tom symbol, ETC. The GJT only uses four microphones. It starts with simply placing one mono-overhead above the snare or middle of the kit approximately 3/4 feet. This will allow you to gain a over all balanced sound of the kit. Equally balancing the entire kit. The next microphone (also an overhead) should be placed "to the right of the floor tom, maybe 6 inches above the rim and facing across the tom towards the snare and hi hat" (Th...

As the release date for the EP approaches I have to start thinking about where to publish the EP. At first I was planning to release the EP on as many platforms as possible. Mostly online through websites such as Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube. However due to research into music streaming sites such as Spotify I have decided against publishing music on there service. During two separate interviews from Jack Stratton (Vulfpeck) and Dan Auerbach (Black Keys) both musicians criticized Spotify for not paying artists fairly for the music. Although at the moment I'm not in a position to be making music off my music i'm still against the principles of not supporting my favorite bands/artists and would rather not contribute to the growing issue. However free to use sites such as Soundcloud and youtube seem to be a key place to post my music. Promotion for the EP will be difficult and will most probably just be through my personal social medias an through word of mouth from friends and fa...

The biggest challenge I will have to face in this project will personally be the process of mixing and mastering. In order to aid me in this struggle I read an article online titles "9 pro mastering rips for beginners". I found this article extremely useful in gaining knowledge on mixing and mastering. The first being to use an exciter. "Exciters raise the harmonics of the fundamental tones found in the recording" (Computer Music Sep 2017). I think this will become useful if i begin to feel like the tone of the final mixes may sound dull and I could use and exciter to brighten and liven up the mix. The second tip the article gave me was to "Narrow the Mix".  At first I was very unsure to what this meant but I then read that a stereo recording typically means making the mix sound wider and although this can make the mix sound rich a big mistakes producers make is over doing it as it can cause phasing issues and can really weaken a mix. Thirdly I went on to ...

Although I originally planned to use just clean guitar tones when I changed the EP's genre to funk/soul I still feel like it is necessary to educate my self on how to get a funky guitar tone, I have already discussed technique and chord types through Cory Wong and Rex Orange County however this piece of research will focus more on gear and equipment rather than theory and technique. One effect that is massively used in funk guitar is Wah-Wah. This is ideal for me as for one of my first projects at college was focused around how the Wah pedal is used. A few examples of the Wah pedal being used in funk sounding songs is Maggot Brain played by Eddie Hazel and All along the watchtower by Jimi Hendrix. As in funk music the purpose of the guitar is generally to accompany the percussion the instrument the wah pedal does a excellent job of taking emphasis of the notes or chords being played and rather puts emphasis on the strumming/picking pattern. There are other more commonly used effect...

When it came to recording drums for the EP I struggled at first as I was yet to record drums alone to a professional standard. However after conducting research and seeking assistance from both the drummer playing on the EP and one of my teachers I successfully learnt how to record drums to the standard I desired. "The most natural sound can be obtained with a high-quality condenser mic positioned overhead and either in-front or behind the kit" (Hugh Robjohns 2003) .  When it came to recording drums I started off by setting two over heads on the left and right side of the kit although the article I read only recommended using one of the back or front through experimenting I found that my technique was more effective. I was also taught the year pervious to this one during a music tech course to record drums like this. I also placed individual mic's on the Kick, Snare and a SM57 to the hi-hat. By placing microphones to these features of the drum kit it really allowed me to ...

Distortion What is distortion? First of Distortion is a form of audio signal processing. Distortion is known to create a fuzzy, gritty and growling tone. Distortion can be used on almost if not all musical instruments however as I am a guitarist for the duration of this piece of writing I will be focusing greatly on its usage on music created with guitars. Distortion is a commonly used effect throughout music and is created through many ways. Traditionally distortion comes from guitar amps; where the amount of gain being let into the amplifier is more then what the volume of the amplifier can handle, this results in distorted sound. Distortion can be created in other ways apart from the gain from an amplifier, for example a very common way to gain a distorted sound is through guitar pedals. An example of a commonly used guitar distortion pedal would be the ‘BOSS DS-1’. Other ways of creating distortion include through rack mounts, pre-amps and power-amps. History Over ...

One of the biggest inspirations behind the EP was the artist Rex Orange County. A lot if not all of the chord shapes and types  I've used are shapes i've discovered from listening to and playing his music. The main Chord sequence of the first track "True colours" is heavily influenced by him. The chords are Ema7 - E9 - Ama7 - Cma7 - Fma7 . The Major 7th chord shape I use was discovered when I came across rex's song "sunflower". Rex's sound can be described as a being a mixture of anti-pop with a hint of jazz and soul. This is the exact vibe i'm going for on my EP. Upon further research into him as an artist and how he has developed over the course of the two records he has released I have decided his debut is the album "bcos u will never b free" i'd rather sound like as it sounds more relaxed and almost rough as appose to the second album "apricot princess which has more of a big band sound to it.

As the genre of the EP has had a last minute change I've used all my spare time trying to make my self more familiar with the funk/soul genre. To start off i dove deeper into a bands discography I already listen to (Vulfpeck).   "One thing you'll idubitably notice early on when listening to this album is that there is less of a funk vibe to it, and more of a soul/r'n'b sound." (Dominik Boehmer 2017).  This qoute perfectly describes the tone of the bands sound which helped me a lot when song writing and definitely influenced my decisions when picking chords and melodies. The rhythm guitarisrt of the band "Cory Wong' is a massive inspiration of mine and is one of the reasons why I took an interest in the funk genre. A video from the youtube channel "Reverb" features him discussing his guitar technique on how he uses his right hand to play guitar. He discusses letting his picking hand go limp in order for him to strum faster, he mixes this with...

Upon a writing session on one of the colleges piano. I came across chords I did not know the name of while experimenting. Upon trying to figure out the names of chords one of my teachers Ritchie informed me that by playing the chords on a MIDI keyboard into logic that logic will tell me the name of the chords. The chords names where as followe EbM6, FsharpMaj7, DbMaj7 and Ab7.

When looking into solo and improvisation techniques I came across the idea of modes.  The seven fundamnetal modes are a set of seven seven-note scales, all based on "parent" major scale. (Andy Aledort, December 2012).  Upon reading this and other information in the article it has helped me gain a further understanding of how modes work. I still have more research to do before I can fully state that I completely understand the concept of modes and how to use them. However I have found that quote alone a good starting point for my self.

The Black Keys Sound To describe this I would say that it is all about the union of guitar and drums, low fidelity guitar effects and a drumming technique that some purists might describe as slightly off tempo or even sloppy. In a publication by 6 Music called “Alternative Jukebox” Lloyd Bradley describes their sound as  “forthright, noisy blues-based rock”. “lonely Boy” is one more example of the Black Keys taking enormous care to give us something sounding totally spontaneous (Bradley 2014) I think to replicate this sound I need to rehearse the combination of guitar effect and use the right drummer for the job.

There are a multiple ways to record guitar and bass some of the more popular ways to record are the following. The first being to place a microphone up to an amplifier. Although this seems to be the most simplistic and easiest way to record the instrument there are a considerable amount of factors that can affect the quality/sound of the recording. For example one of the biggest factors is the tone of the amp its self. As all different brands and models of guitar and bass amplifiers have different tones associated with them it can be difficult to pin point the exact tone you want however on the other hand it also opens up the opportunity to be more creative with the sound of the guitar and bass. Other factors such as microphone placement and the type of room you are recording in can affect the overall sound.  "When you get nearer the middle of the speaker the tone will become brighter and more aggressive. When you get nearer the edge of the cone, the tone will get darker and dulle...