AUS 230 MUSIC PROJECT
The song that I did for my project was Heroes by David Bowie. Originally I wanted to do a tracked called B & E by a band called Nothing but I wasn't confident that I could do anything interesting with the song. At least not in the style of the producer I had chosen. I think that if I had spent time applying Mark Ellis' production methodologies to that track in particular it would have been interesting but potentially not too far from the original. A big part of what I wanted to do was make something that reflected the original but also contrasted it. While the song I created definitely mirrors the original, sonically it's quite different. The instruments used are completely different and it definitely brings the song forward 15 years, which is what I aimed to do.
Nothing - B & E
So drums for the song were all samples but taken from triggers of the original performance I had the drummer do. I actually recorded the drums to B & E and had been toying with the idea of changing songs so while I had mics up I asked my drummer to play the verse pattern of Heroes and just play a different drum fill every 4 bars. This was due to him not knowing how to play the song but also because the drums in a lot of Flood's productions are just 4 bar loops. Even though he constructs a lot of his work through the use of hardware samplers and looping, the patterns are taken from just hitting record and telling someone to play until you hear something you like. After I had enough material I spent quite a long time cutting and pasting sections of the song together and then getting the midi information so I could trigger samples. It ended up being incredibly time consuming and I would hate to do it again but I can't imagine having to do it all with hardware units. I am not sure what sampler Flood actually used in the late 80's but in an effort to try and match the tone of a hardware unit, I dropped the sample rate in the drum tracks back to 36kHz and the sample size to 12 bit, similar to that of the Akai S900 that was popular at the time. To make the drums a little more dynamic I blended in the original over heads and room mics hammering through an 1176 but only during the instrumental and chorus sections.
Some additional found sounds were included during the fills and crash hits to add some extra depth and texture. There is also a lightning crash sample that has been slowed down as if run through at a tape machine at half speed and then over pitched back up across the two instrumental sections. The intro to the song is the feedback tail of a delay off one of the synths once again stretch out duplicated and pitched away from each other.
As for all of the other instruments, I tried to use instrumentation that Flood would have encouraged at the time. So rather than a guitar heavy arrangement I used about 8 different synth takes and included guitars as texture pieces for choruses. With the guitars unless I really messed up a take I just played along and kept most of what I tracked. I can hear some hairy stuff toward the end of the song but it felt alright on the day so it all got kept. That was two different Jazzmasters through a Fender Twin. All of the synth lines were played with analog synths at home as there were obviously no soft synths available in the 80's. Or if there were you certainly would not use them over the real deal.
The bass on the track was an analog synth being triggered by a midi track that I played in to Pro Tools. Flood had a big Moog modular system that he used on a lot of recordings for bass takes. Rather than have a bass player track something he would program an 8 or 16 step sequencer to play through his Moog system. I obviously don't have a modular system or a MESS membership so the next best thing was learn the song and then record the bass line on my midi keyboard then use that track to trigger a separate synth, while recording the audio back into Tools. In terms of how Flood created his bass sounds he would often layer it in three or four parts. So a low, mid and high tone that are mixed together to create a single bass sound. Making a squelchy Moog-esque bass sound was one of the funner aspects of this project.
The vocals were done just like how Flood would have. Vocalist in the control room with a standard old condenser. I read that the vocals on Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral was just a Beta 58 into an Amek console, LA2A and then Tools. So I had my vocalist hang in the control room with me and do exactly that. We don't have Beta 58's at school but an Beta 57a. The only issue I came across here is the needle on the LA2A at school is busted so I can hear part back now that sound way over compress in the last part of the song where my vocalist really ramped it up. Live and learn. I should have listened back to my takes and not just run off of what I was hearing in the room.
Sure Beta 57a
Sure Beta 58a
Even though Flood is not opposed to Pro Tools he is known for working in an analog world so anything that was recorded on this project was run through Neve 1073 pre's and EQ's. Anything that I recorded at home was run through 1073 pre amp plug ins and EQ's in an effort to mimic the effect of working off a console. While there is obviously a wealth of outboard pre amps available in the world today, a lot of older studios focused on outboard dynamics and effects units, not pre amps. You're not reaching for a Millenia pre amp when you have 48 1073's sitting in front of you. All buss groups in Pro Tools were then run through a virtual master section where final buss compression was applied and then a 2 track half inch tape tape plug in. Full disclosure I did use an SSL G Compressor at this stage because it just sounded the best out the buss compressors I chucked across my sub master. I also used a Lexicon 480 plug in as my main reverb as that was kind of the go to at the time.
I don't know that I fully achieved a track that matches something Flood would have created. Certainly not in terms of quality. Listening back I should have aimed to created something that was a little less dense in terms of instruments but I was also trying to match just how layered and textured the original song was. I do think I was able to fully implement his production style and create something that pays homage to his work.
CREDIT
To LG for the lightning strike - https://freesound.org/people/LG/sounds/62856/
There have not been any thunder storms in Melbourne during the last month I could sample.