Unit 4 – Live Sound

 

 

 Task 1-Compare and contracts a minimum 3 live sound set ups small to large size:

Chelmsford social club-Small

Capacity

This Venue would be small due to the capacity of it the hall can hold 30+ where as in Islington Assembly Hall it would be classed as medium because of the amount of seats it can hold.It can hold over 400 people. The band can cover the live sound equipment due to the size of the venue this means the cost of hiring out the hall would be low, The Venue  to hire out cost £520 I contacted my family member to find out the price.

Equipment

In ears for this venue isn’t needed due to the size of it, sm58 where used for vocal mics and Dpa 4099 for the saxophone, overheads weren’t used because of the echo of the hall,

AMP for the guitar

SM57 used on snare

Sennheiser e604 used on toms

Audix D6 for kick

Lighting

The lighting was very basic it didn’t need to have smoke machines or lots of  lights it mainly had a spotlight on the band and then some lights on where people was dancing.

Who would you need to hire

The size of the venue dictates what people would actually be needed to be hired the band can cover the live sound which means that the band does need to have a live sound team covering it, which keeps the cost of the venue down

Islington Assembly Hall-Medium

 

Capacity

This venue would be Medium due to the amount of space the hall can hold 430 in this venue.Where as the space in Brixton Academy is 4921,The band would have to use Islington halls live sound team due to the much larger capacity than the small venue.

I actually contacted Islington Assembly Hall to ask how much it would cost,due to the fact i don’t have a artist i cannot find how much the Hall would actually cost to hire

Below you will see a screenshot where I emailed them This is there reply:

Equipment

In Ears for this venue would be most probably be used due to the increased size Overheads are needed for this venue because of it will be harder to pick up the hat sounds and toms.

For Overheads NT5

For Vocal mics SM58

For Amps E906

For Kick Sennheiser e602

For Tom Sennheiser MD421

For Snare SM57

As you can see compared to the smaller Venue a lot of basic microphones are used for this venue but you can also see that better microphones are used because of the size and the amount of money the venue has.

 

Lighting

The lighting has a lot of strobes for the stage and onto where people are watching the lights are a lot more advanced again due to the amount of funds the hall has.

Who Would you need to hire

A group of 3 or more people would be needed for the medium venue to help with the following

One person for Lights/behind the desk

One person for sound

One person for making adjustments to stage/checking inputs

02 Arena Greenwich Large Venue

Capacity

The o2 arena holds a capacity of 20,000 which means that it is a large venue the band inside the o2 arena would have multiple teams running. I actually contacted 02 but they haven’t replied to me yet so I cannot find the price of the actual o2 arena.

 

Equipment

Sennheiser 835 for vocal mics

Sennheiser e602 for kick drum

Sennheiser e 906 for amp mic

Sennheiser e604 for tom mic

Sennheiser e905 for snare mic

sennheiser e614 for overheads

at Londons 02 arena and broadcast nationwide live to an audience of over two million the brits saw sennheisers phill summing and Andy lily-white work together to support the events artists and technical production company Britannia row productions this meaning that sennheisers microphones were put into use a lot more for this gig because of Sennheiser teamwork with 02.

All the microphones are all similar to the medium venue but as this venue holds a larger capacity the microphones are better.

Due to the size of the venue in ears would be needed for all sound teams.

Lighting

As you can see in the screenshot of the o2 arena there is a lot of lighting inside compared to the medium venue there is a lot more lights and more strobe lights this meaning the lighting is more advanced.

Who would you need to hire

a team of at least 6 would be needed for the large venue they would need to do the following

2 for lights/behind the desk

1-2 for sound

1-2 for making adjustments to the stage/checking inputs

 

Task 2

Here in this photo you can see that I have set up the drum kit with toms the kick mixed with the sennheiser e607 and sm57 on the snare and hats

Here is the bass amp that I have set up and as you can see it has the sm57 mic, also you can see there is a DI input and onto of the bass amp is a stackIn this photo it shows the two main outputs and the two vocal mics  that I have set up.

 

Here is the photo of the sound desk in the Swinburne hall as you can see there are multiple faders and inputs to the desk.

 

Conclusion

As a whole I really enjoyed live sound experience because I was in control of how the bands sounds and how loud they were in the outputs, setting up the equipment for the bands was also great because it is all hands on experience but if I were to do try something new in live sound it would be to use the bigger and better desk because it will be a challenge and overall the desk will be better for the outputs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unit 2

 

Task 1 Comparing 4 commercial tracks and commenting on them:

Track 1:Isaac Hayes Ikes Rap 2:

Instrumentation:

Isaac Hayes uses specfically Piano Drums and violin in his track.

Structure

Drums start the song structuring the whole song by repeating it throughout the song

Piano is the main chords and is repeated with the drums through out the song

Violin is faded in and out and repeated when the main chords are repeated.

Tempo

Tempo of the song is slow because of the vocals and the style of music and the instruments that are used.

Rhythm

The Rhythm is slow and the drums and melody work together to then accompany the melody in a slow manner and enhances the slow feel of the song.

Melody

The melody through the song is a piano and it works well because it is company to the other instruments and is complex.

Harmony

The Harmony gives a soft nice sound and is pleasing due to the slowness of the song.

Feel

The feel of the music gives a sad feel due to the artist singing about emotional things happening to him.

Track 2 : Alessia Cara Here:

Instrumentation:

Alessia Cara uses Piano and drum also violin, specifically in her track.

Structure

Drums and Piano start the track immediately

Another Bass Piano is used in the back round to accompany the main chords of the piano.

Violin is faded in and out in the track also like Ikes Rap.

Tempo

The tempo of the track is faster because of the more modern feel and the modernised sounds.

Rhythm

The rhythm of the track is Faster than Ikes Rap The piano and Violin Accompany each other in the track and give it a deeper better sound.

Melody

The melody of the song is Piano and it works well with the other instruments used the in the song and there is another Piano used with more complex chords.

Harmony

The Harmony is fast paced and gives a relaxing Piano sound.

Feel

The feel of the song is chill and a deep meaning.

Track3 EO 1 Take:

Instrumentation

EOs track has synth ,clap and hats

Structure

A Synth starts the track

Hats then follow which create a build up for the vocals to follow in.

A Clap is used with the hats.

Tempo

The Tempo of the track is slow but then speeds up for the chorus.

Rhythm

The rhythm of the track is slower than “Here”  but the hats and the clap both accompany each other to make the vocals sound more built up.

Melody

The melody of the song is Synthesizer it works well with the vocals and creates a build up for the Clap and hats.

Harmony

The Harmony is slow which gives a Relaxing Synth sound

Feel

The song gives a chill sound because of the artist singing about where he has started.

Track 4: Eminem Killshot

Instrumentation

Eminem’s track uses Piano Hi Hats and snare

Structure

Piano starts the track

Hats and clap follow in together.

Tempo

Tempo is slow throughout the track

Rhythm

The rhythm is slow but the Hats and snare and piano work together to make the vocals sound darker.

Melody

The melody of the song is the piano it works well for the build up for the chorus

Harmony

The harmony is slow and has a nice sounding piano.

Feel

The feel of the song is a deep dark and makes you listen.

Task2 Active Research

The Reason why I chose to research into pitch bend is because i wasn’t too familiar with how to pitch bend but after I watched this video it helped me practise with how to use pitch bend; as I was able to pitch bend my 808 on my track.

I had to also research into familiarising my self with how to compress, before I wasn’t able to use it but once I watched this video this helped me how to keep my track from peaking and taught me how to use the plug in compressor.

I Also had to research into EQ because I wasn’t very confident with it but after watching the video it has shown me how to cut out sound waves or increase the DB.

Here i found a link about EQ:

Task 3 Analyse the effectiveness of the research:

Pitch Bend

I felt watching a video of how to pitch bend was very effective the reason for this is because it showed me different ways of pitch bending and how to pitch bend different instruments although I wasn’t familiar on pitch bend this made me a lot more confident on doing this.

 Compressing

When I watched the video of how to compress it helped me familiarise my self with it because I didn’t know how to keep my track from clipping but now I know how to keep the volume increased without making the track clip I can do this by adjusting the Threshold or the make up gain; if I adjust the make up gain it changes when the compression starts to make the track not clip. If you adjust the gain the higher the compression will actually be. the lower you have the Make up gain, the softer the track will actually become.

EQ

I am not really confident with EQ so this is why I decided to research into it more; the first one in the EQ plug in is called the hi pass filter this allows you to cut out frequency’s that are below a certain starting point it allows other frequency’s that’s why its name is hi pass filter a octave is when you either half or double a frequency. where at the other end of the EQ is a Low Pass filter which does the same as the hi pass filter but with lower frequency’s each of the 4 icons in the middle are called a band pass filter each of these allow you to adjust frequency’s you can boost or cut the frequency. the two icons before the hi pass filter and low pass filter are called low shelf filter and hi shelf filter what they allow you to do make a frequency stay cut or boosted.

Task 4 Produce a track

Here is the track I produced.

UNIT 2.2 

Task 3

Evaluate the effectiveness of the track to a specified audience.

At the start I was trying to make a drill track then I when I had feed back from my college mates I turned it into a trap track because of the way the snares and 808s fitted the trap type of music I felt at the beginning when I made the track it was very successful then I started then as I finished I felt that it wasn’t as successful as I hoped it would be, I have now learnt how to use better chords for drill type songs and now If I were to go back and try to make another track I feel like it would be possible to do that personal feedback from others in my class helped me make the track better and when I mastered it I felt like the track got better because I gave the track a darker sound to it and added other things into it like choir sounds; I felt like if I were to add vocals into my track it would be able to make it a lot better.

I think the way others helped me made the track actually better because all of my class mates helped me make the snares and kicks but as well as if we were given more tracks to make I feel like more effort would of been put into everyone else’s tracks and potentially some of us could of added vocals to our tracks. The audience I had specified to was successful because the age group of my friends which are 16+ enjoyed the track so a younger audience I chose to have listen to my song was a success; if I were to go back and make changes to my track I would of changed the sound of the chords and the sound of the choir

 

 

 

 

Unit 1

 

Task 1 : Comparing 4 tracks from 2 various genres:

Track 1 : Isaac Hayes Ikes rap 2:

What type of tone is the song?

• The tone of the song is slow and steady.
• Drums start the song with a slow beat and then forms the track when piano comes in
• Piano is the main chords of the song and is easily heard out of all the instruments
• Violin is heard and is used by fading in and out with it

What effects are put on the song?

• Reverb is used on the vocals to make them stand out the most in the song they most likely used a large hall on his vocals to do this.

Are there over dubs?

• Over dubs are not needed on the song due to that the artist has had reverb added to there vocals.

Track 2 : Alessia Cara Here:

What type of tone is the song ?

• The tone of the song is faster compared to Ikes rap
• Drums start the song with a slow beat then speeds up as the piano comes in
• Piano chords are faster and are the main instrument heard through the song

What effects are put on the song?

• There isn’t much reverb on the vocals but the vocals do have a dry sound to them which means there is a little reverb on them.

Are there over dubs?

• Over dubs are on the song to give the vocals a better effect.

Track 3 : EO 1 take:

What type of tone is the song ?

• The tone of the song is Slow but then speeds up and then slows down again.
• Synth starts the song with a fast chord then keeps a slow tempo
• The Clap and the synth are the main instruments heard through the song

What effects are put on the song ?

• There is a subtle reverb on his vocals to increase loudness

Are there over dubs?

• Over dubs aren’t needed on the song because the artist has reverb on there vocals.

Track 4:Eminem Killshot

What type of tone is the song?

• The tone of the song is slow and stays slows throughout
• Piano chords start the song which stay throughout the track
• The Snare and hats and piano chords are the main instruments heard through the song

What effects are put on the song?

Reverb are heard subtlety to give a louder effect on the vocals

Are there over dubs?

Over dubs are used to give a better effect of who Eminem is trying to send a track to.

Task 2: Create a track 

This is my Trap song I created using Logic Pro X

Task3:Reflect and evaluate on the track 

Day1: I added Created the melody and chords I used Asian plucked strings I added reverb and increased the dryness to give it a more echoed sound so when its played it gives a louder sound so it can be heard better, I felt this would give a better effect because it made the strings louder to make sure the piano was in time I added hats into the track to make sure it was in time and sounded great.

Day2: After having the melody and chords in place I then decided to add a Snare in; I have a sample pack that I had downloaded I used this because I thought this would give a better effect then using the samples on Logic Pro X I made the gain more on the snare because I felt this would give a louder effect on the snare which made it more heard through out the track. After then adding in the snare I added in a kick from my sample pack I felt that the kick was overpowering the whole mix so I decided to turn the gain down which made the kick and snare contrast together.

Day3: I then started to pitch bend my 808 to fit into the mix I felt that this would give it a better sound after then finishing my 808 I decided to add in a jingle sound which emphasized a build up to my snare then I added in a sound from a sample pack which Made the snare sound a lot more punchy.

Day4: I then added in a deep choir I then reverbed it so that it sounded more deep and smooth to fit into the mix I then mastered my track by adjusting the gain through out the track I realised that my bass was pushing through the track so I turned the gain down on my 808. I then uploaded it where you can see it at https://soundcloud.com/user-290519355

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton