Ruby Jackson in Introduction to Digital Music Techniques

I’ve very much enjoyed this unit and it’s opened my mind up to a lot of new areas for me; within composing & also the technical side of things in Logic. I wouldn’t have been inspired to re-visit this lullaby anywhere else, along with the musical ideas that came with it. 

I think my biggest obstacle was having an artistic vision in mind and not knowing how to exactly recreate it. I could have gone down multiple paths, delay could have been more of a focus, I could of made the track more busy and chaotic as it went on, etc... I’m a very work-as I go- composer and don’t usually have specific plans in mind before doing the project. It lets me have more of a creative flow and try sounds/ideas out on the spot. In saying that, I ultimately recreated the vision I had in mind from start to end and am really happy with how it turned out. Perhaps in the future I could be a bit more open minded to trying different things along the way and being open to incorporating these sounds in my piece. 

Mixing board

Mixing on the EQ channel: Sub & Vox Tracks

Mixing on the monitors 

I remember being shocked at the sound of the sub when my draft was played in class - it was very wobbly, woofy, loud and just a LOT... So this time round I had a play on the channel EQ of the sub and cut everything below about 35-40hz. I felt like it didn’t make a huge difference, but thought it would be good to get rid of that low information so it’s not there on my whole mix. 

Experimenting with panning - wanted this effect as the reverb increases and the vocal slowly disappears

Sounds being added 

I figured that if the humming in the middle section has a lack of pulse and is sung more freely, it could be cool to add somewhat of a pulse on some glass synth sounds; in the upper register too as we have only so far heard very low tones. So I experimented with this, and I wanted them to be slightly free and unpredictable to reflect an eerie spookiness. At first it felt random to listen back to, but I left it for a while and it began to really feel apart of the piece. I thought I’d also bring in some very subtle piano notes to bring in another human musical feature along with the voice. In the end I didn’t really want anything crazy to be introduced as the vocal was really the key sound source of the soundscape. 

Recording set up:

Gunter Wagner U47 🤩

- Go to a studio

I made the choice that I would like to re-record the vocal as well on my dads mic, I just needed to find the perfect spot to record where there wasn’t much noise. This would also solve the popping situation, and give more body and depth to the vocal that it needed. Onto the next draft!

Beta 58 Recording

First draft: Structural experimentation - automating with reverb, delay and volume

My dad has this beautiful Gunter Wagner U47 microphone, however with a mic like that, living on a busy road isn’t ideal. More so because this track is so sparse and is practically just 3 voices; so you really need complete silence. The next day I recorded a draft vocal to bring in to class with my Beta 58 mic, a great mic that I use at my gigs. This was soooo much better for the sound I needed and it didn’t pick up any background noises. Although, it did lack some body and depth which required some EQ editing in class, and I unfortunately didn’t have a pop filter with me at my mums place which meant multiple pops! But ultimately my first vocal take was successful and allowed me to generate some structural/harmonic accompanying ideas. I experimented with delay, reverb and volume automation, and I knew at some point I wanted to introduce a humming section of the melody. My structure at this point wasn’t very clear and needed more thought in how I was going to tell my story. 

For this project, I was drawn to the idea of bringing in a sub drone to introduce some chordal material and shift our preconceived idea of what the harmony could be in the Lullaby. Along with this, I wanted to manipulate the vocals with a nice reverb & some delay to really enhance the spookiness of the soundscape. When I sought to create this project, my vision was as if a girl is singing this lullaby to a baby up close in a room, then followed by 2 other voices, and as the piece continues I wanted the listener to get lost in the lullaby and let it take them somewhere - anywhere their imagination wanted to take them to. Eventually towards the end the lullaby comes back to reality and you feel like you are back to where you are, in a room being sung to. This journey was going to be achieved with the techniques mentioned above such as reverb, as well as panning, volume automation and more.