New Creative Processes
Soft Clip in Mastering
Sometimes I like my songs to be really loud. I understand the critics surrounding the loudness war, and, when it comes to personal preference, I often listen to vinyls and cassettes that are at least 30 years old, and therefore not really meeting today’s standards when it comes to loudness. In other words, as a listener, I understand the critics of the loudness war, because it is all about destroying dynamics. Although, being able to mix and master a really loud track that do not lack bottom end and that it is not distorted, is a challenge I always love to throw myself into. I have experimented with double limiting, parallel compression, various hardware and software. What I wanted to focus on at this stage is soft clipping. I feel like this process is just another tool in the arsenal that I could use here and there when I need to deliver a loud track. My aim is to achieve values between -8db and -5db LUFS of short term loudness during the loud parts of a song. For the song N.D.A. I have used the free plugin called G-Clip and I was able to achieve -6.5LUFS.
Knowing your Gear
This was a particularly time consuming process. Before the recordings of my songs I have put several hardware compressors and plugins under test in order to know what will be used and for what purpose. More in details, I have compared brands like Klark Tecknik, Drawmer, Symetrix, Behringer, Art, Alesis and FMR. My ultimate aim was to keep as few racks as possible due to the lack of space and still have all the required flavours for my productions. I ended up keeping a Drawmer LX20 for parallel compression on vocals, a Symetrix 525 as a bus compressor and a Behringer MX2100 as a bus parallel compressor. I feel like these hardware combined with my DAW plugins are offering me enough possibilities to mix the tracks in the style I am after. I have also experimented with the website mix:analog 2.0 that offers analogue gear remotely controlled via browser interface and I was satisfied with the results. I do not think I need any more hardware for dynamic control for now and I am aware of what to use and when.
Tracking with FX on the way in
Sometimes empirical findings reveal that what seem a good idea in theory is eventually not that good in practice.
I initially wanted to create a hardware chain that could allow me to track my vocals already passing through a hardware de-esser (a compressor externally side chained with a graphic equaliser with low cut on), a compressor (for peak leveling) and an equaliser (for a gentle low shelf roll-off and a high shelf boost). This process would, in theory, save me time that I would instead spend mixing.
Unfortunately, what is perceived well from my ears while singing does not necessarily correspond to the same thing during the mixing stage. After several attempts, I run into several issues. At times I did not like how the de-esser acted, other times the amount of compression was too much. I ended up having to re-record whole song performances.
The final decision is for me, eventually, to have a chain on (sometimes) only in my hearing system, while tracking effects free.
Storing templates and presets
I have created several templates divided by categories (production, recording, mixing and mastering). Each category contains sub-categories such as movie-score, acoustic, electronic, etc. Every template has tracks routed to groups (Drum tot, Vox Tot, Guitar Tot, etc.) and the effects that I used the most are already loaded on the group bus.
I also have started to save the FX chains of certain instruments with detailed notes about the style of the instrument.
This is paying off incredibly. I feel like having everything at glance quite often and the fact that I do not need to stop a creative process because I need to find this effect or I need to matrix groups is making everything smoother and more enjoyable.
These are some of the templates I have created so far:
Working alongside with others to improve English Lyrics
For the songs in this portfolio, I have worked alongside with other songwriters and singer coaches in order to narrow down the possibility of committing mistakes related to the English language.
This was incredibly helpful because it is often hard to recognise a wrong sentence for a second language speaker. Thanks to the English mother tongue speakers help I feel like I managed to make an improvement in the clarity of the songs.
These are some examples of lyrics parts before and after corrections:
Soap
Soap do your worst today Don't let her smell ever go away I see her face into the melee But maybe it's me that I mislay
Soap do your worst today
Don't let her smell ever go away
She burnt soul like a sunray
I'm drowning here under her waveN.D.A.
You can live like a star In your brand new car I see a bright long path “Just an autograph” Let us find you a name A new style of hair From now on don’t Talk about your past “Let the mist lay on history” Let them think about your energy But don’t ever tell the world what we do Like a wizard don’t reveal his tricks
You can live like a star In your brand new car I see a long, bright path “Just an autograph” Let us find you a name A new style of hair, (but) From now on don’t Talk about your past “Let the mist lay on history” Let them think about your energy But don’t ever tell the world what we do Like a wizard won’t reveal his tricks
Good Morning
stretching legs face to the window (the) smell of coffee is in the air Seeing the walking of my neighbour I'll go to work later then her She's a kindergarten teacher ready for children craziness One day a child was crying hard by the noise of his own fart There's a couple of walker in front in the lorry parked outside of my home One is working hard I can see his sweat The other one is eating I can see his fat Ready for another sunny day Dressed up starting to walk my way And the first person I'll meat I want to enjoy his day
Stretching legs, into my bedroom the smell of coffee is in the air I watch my neighbour through the window I'll go to work later than her She's a kindergarten teacher ready for children craziness One day a child was crying hard 'cause of the noise of his own fart There's a couple of workers outfront in the lorry parked outside of my home One is working hard I can see his sweat The other one is eating, I can see his fat Ready for another sunny day Dressed up starting to walk my way And the first person I meet I want to greet him, so take my
Multi-Meaning Lyrical Content
In this particular part of my composition stage, I find fascinating songs that can be seen in different ways and that offer the listener a more active approach to the composition. By “active” I mean that the listener may need to interpret such lyric content in his/her way, instead of just absorbing a message. This is something very new for me, and I have experimented it with the song N.D.A. by using irony and contradicting sentences.