AUS230 Learning Journal - W3

On Tuesday night I watched "A Quiet Place" for the first time to get my mind around the sound design involved in the film making. I was impressed by the clever use of sound or lack of sound in some cases to increase tension in certain scenes. I decided that I needed to do a case study on the first movies' trailer for inspiration in get the sound right for second installment trailer. I convinced Joe (who is in Trimester 6) to come in on Monday next week to assist with recording sound for the trailer "A Quiet Place II" he was also keen as I was to get sounds for critical sections in the scene and record the necessary Foley for his own portfolio. Thus a good partnership was formed.

I was contacted again by Cameron from Lost Goat Found and booked the Neve to record in on Thursday and the Audient B studio for Friday night.

This would be a very busy week indeed.

Wednesday Session

During this session with Guy we did our one hour mix of a professionally recorded song. I used the standard methods that I was taught in Stephan's class to route the audio. Guy then showed us an alternate method by having all the tracks route to a stereo "source" channel then routed to a stereo print channel in ProTools. This was similar to a master track but was named differently.

Guy then gave us a good industry tip, before your mix goes out to client, make sure to bounce out two mixes. One that is "slammed" meaning that you can place a limiter like Maxim in ProTools at the end of the master track and nothing on the Print track. This way you will end up with two mixes, one that will be loud and punchy and one that will allow the mastering engineer to be able to shape and mold the mix further. The "slammed" version is good to show as a demo mix for the potential client as a WIP (Work in Progress) mix.

An interesting thing that was taught was that the broadcasting levels follow a certain standard called the OP 59 standard which is the standard that is followed by Australian broadcasters.

They operated for any television effectively you need to master to -24LKFS which is analogue to -24LUFS according to this article;

Figure 1 -

(R 128 LOUDNESS NORMALISATION AND PERMITTED MAXIMUM LEVEL OF AUDIO SIGNALS, 2014)

According to the OP 59 standards the following useful numbers can be referenced.

• CD loudness level were to be mixed to -9 Lufs

• Film levels mixing level is to be at -24 Lufs

Other platforms like YouTube and Spotify currently have loudness levels limits set to -14Lufs integrated meaning that songs and mixes cannot exceed these otherwise they will be Normalized to conform to the platform loudness values. What this means is if your mix exceeds this level then these platforms will artificially cap your tracks loudness and can mess with your mix in the end by adding artifacts or worse distortion to the peak areas.

Thursday Session

This session with Lost Goat Found we recorded the bass section for Cameron and tracked over 5 to 10 takes for each section of their songs. While going through this process I became more proficient in running a studio session for a client. Cameron and his band definitely have an idea on what the creative direction was to be for their songs. I used a standard Rode - NT2A for the centre of cone in the amp he brought along and an SM57 placed about 1 inch away from the grille.

Figure 1 - Using a dynamic and condenser mic on a bass amp

According to this video above you can get a really good crispy tone from the centre of the cone since the centre of the cone will be vibrating back and forth the most therefore you can get a larger amplitude in the recording. The dynamic mic if captured from the edge of the cone in the amp will get less of the higher frequencies and more of a softer tone ("How to Mic a Guitar Amplifier", 2017).

Since I recorded the session with the two takes and also a DI signal, this gives them the option of the tone that they want for the bass during post.

Friday Session

We started to listen back to our mixes from the Wednesday session and me being proactive I went first. I set the levels to the standard loudness which was -20dB on the main speakers which were the "Events" in the S6. The first thing I noticed was that the volume level was way to high for monitoring, regarding my mix the vocals were extremely piecing to the ears. Monitoring close meant that I could hear all of the higher frequencies by was unable to hear what the bass was doing in the sweet spot. According to the class members sitting near the back of the room they were swimming in bass.

After listening to everyone's one hour mix we all got a feel of the monitors in the S6 and while listening to the 5.1 versions of Bluerays, I noticed that mainly all vocals and dialogue come from the centre speaker. When we listened to a concert played through 5.1 the vocals came out of the middle speaker, guitars and keys from the two front left and right speakers. The reverb and room ambiance came from the back two speakers and this created the immersion I guess you would be feel by sitting in a stadium bleachers.

Week 3 Summary

This week has been quite hectic and it started off with me setting aside time to watch A Quiet Place at Joe's. While watching the movie I was drawn to the masterfully placed sounds that existed in the movie. There was careful use of dialogue only when needed and any sound that they made in the movie was done but the expressions of the actors conveyed all that was needed to know that there was a dangerous situation. The lack of sound created an incredible amount of tension as you waited for a sound to give a jump scare. I found that the sound designers seemingly made innocent sounds like the toy space shuttle become an extremely dangerous item to possess in the world the characters inhabited. After watching the movie I took down mental notes about the use of sound to highlight danger. It was definitely a plus to have Joe on board with helping record Foley because I knew that from working with him in the past he always had a creative way to create some good Foley sounds. Definitely looking forward to next Monday.

After completing the 1 hour mix I realised that my workflow seems to be tight enough for an average mix. I put a little more than half an hour into the vocals by cutting out background noise and silences that did not need to be there. Also I clip gained the trimmed parts as we were taught in Stephan's class. There helped with the compressor so that it did not have to work so hard on frequencies that muddied the vocals. I then was able to do a simple mix and balance of the other instruments volume wise and simple panning to place the drums, guitar and keys the way I liked. I was successful in printing out a track ready for uploading.

After listening to the mix on Friday in the S6, I realised that I will need to mix with better headphones as the ones I was using on Wednesday did not translate the mix well so I was getting extremely loud vocals but everything else seemed to be mixed fine. As Guy said in class all it needed was light massaging and probably just dropped 2dB and it would of sat well with the rest of the mix.

While recording the guys from Lost Goat Found I learnt that no matter how well you set up the studio session from their request on the day of recording they decided to do guitars instead of vocals. I had to improvise and be quick to adapt to their request which was fun but I wish they told me before. They had good reason though, Morgan the main vocalist had a sore throat that day so they pivoted and so did I by quickly setting up a DI and running an extra mic into the desk to record an amp with an NT2A and an SM57 as well as a DI signal from a Bass guitar. I was glad that the live sound experience helped me in the studio as well when it came to thinking fast on your feet.

Yup this week was jam packed but it felt rewarding. Kinda getting behind in the literature but I will strive to keep up. There is a WIP session in week 5, so I'm hoping to get all critical sounds by end of next Monday.

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References:

Operation of Eurovision and Euroradio. (2014). R 128 LOUDNESS NORMALISATION AND PERMITTED MAXIMUM LEVEL OF AUDIO SIGNALS [Ebook] (1st ed., p. 3). Retrieved from https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf

How to Mic a Guitar Amplifier. (2017). Retrieved 20 February 2020, from https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/how-to-mic-a-guitar-amplifier/