Compiled research sources

This is a compilation of various works used to inform my dissertation.

Buskin, R. 2004. MICHAEL JACKSON 'Black Or White' | Classic Tracks. Sound On Sound. 

(August). [online] Available from: 

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug04/articles/classictracks.htm [Accessed 5 October 2011] 

Doyle, T 2011. FOO FIGHTERS: Recording Wasting Light. Sound On Sound. (June). 

[online]. Available From: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun11/articles/foo-fighters.htm 

[Accessed 3 January 2012] 

LeedsMetUni 2010. Steve Albini interview. [online]. YouTube. Available from: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRAc3hx5pok&feature=player_embedded&noredirect=1 

[Accessed 15 October 2011].

neverhidefilms 2012a. Slash in the Studio // Episode Four. [online]. YouTube. Available 

from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntisV8dT7AQ&feature=player_embedded [Accessed 

1 April 2012] 

neverhidefilms 2012b. Slash in the Studio // Episode Seven. [online]. YouTube. Available 

from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8tv2uTIP6g&feature=relmfu [Accessed 28 April 

2012] 

Pierce, J.R 2000. The science of musical sound. Rev. Ed. New York: W.H. Freeman. 

Q Magazine 2007. My Brilliant Career: Dave Grohl. Q Magazine. (December). [online] 

Available From: http://www.fooarchive.com/gpb/mybrilliantcareer.htm [Accessed 3 January 

2012] 

Snyder, R.H. 2003. Sel-Sync and the "Octopus": How Came to be the First Recorder to 

Minimize Successive Copying in Overdubs. ARSC Journal. 34(Fall) pp. 209-213. [online] 

Available from: http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/sel-sync/snyder_sel-sync.pdf [Accessed 5 

October 2011] 

STV Entertainment 2012. Slash's 'sloppier' sound. [online]. Available from: 

http://entertainment.stv.tv/music/292360-slashs-sloppier-sound/ [Accessed 7 January 2012] 

Tingen, P 2010. Secrets Of The Mix Engineer: Mark 'Spike' Stent. Sound On Sound. 

(February). [online] Available from: 

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb10/articles/it_0210.htm [Accessed 3 January 2012] 

Tingen, P 2010. Secrets Of The Mix Engineer: Eric Valentine. Sound On Sound. (July). 

[online] Available from: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul10/articles/it_0710.htm 

[Accessed 3 January 2012] 

Young, A. 2004. Lecture at Middle Tennesee State University. [online]. Inmyroom.org. 

Available from: http://inmyroom.org/writing/albini.html [Accessed 15 October 2011]. 

Morey, J 2008. Arctic Monkeys - The Demos vs. The Album. [online] Available from: 

http://www.artofrecordproduction.com/content/view/168/109/ [Accessed 15 October 2011] 

O'Hare, P 2007. Steve Albini “In Utero’s” Ultra-sound Guy. [online] Available from: 

http://www.artofrecordproduction.com/content/view/110 [Accessed 15 October 2011] 

Flea Vids 2011. Steve Albini talks about some of his recording techniques.[online] YouTube. 

Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRAc3hx5pok&feature=related [Accessed 

15 October 2011] 

Leonard, M 2012. Slash Says New Album Is Raw. UltimateGuitar.com. [online] Available 

from:  http://www.ultimate- 

guitar.com/news/upcoming_releases/slash_says_new_album_is_raw.html [Accessed 5 January 

2012] 

neverhidefilms 2012. Slash in the Studio // Episode One. [online]. YouTube. Available from: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIYbyb8xXTQ [Accessed 1 April 2012] 

neverhidefilms 2012. Slash in the Studio // Episode Two. [online]. YouTube. Available from: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiCJ4cAZPxo&feature=relmfu [Accessed 1 April 2012] 

neverhidefilms 2012. Slash in the Studio // Episode Three. [online]. YouTube. Available 

from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5lX2C4ZZtI&feature=relmfu [Accessed 1 April 

2012] 

neverhidefilms 2012. Slash in the Studio // Episode Five. [online]. YouTube. Available from: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtU465GnlVA&list=UU5TRHSO- 

QEf6MoyEqXA0FmA&index=5&feature=plcp [Accessed 1 April 2012] 

neverhidefilms 2012. Slash in the Studio // Episode Six. [online]. YouTube. Available from: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcKXBqgadcY&feature=relmfu [Accessed 1 April 2012] 

UltimateGuitar.com 2011. Myles Kennedy Says New Slash Album Will Be 'Dynamic'. 

UltimateGuitar.com [online] Available from: http://www.ultimate- 

guitar.com/news/upcoming_releases/myles_kennedy_says_new_slash_album_will_be_dynamic 

.html [Accessed 3 January 2012] 

Points based on questionnaire response

Based on the responses I have been getting from my questionnaire, it has been made clear that people prefer the studio produced, conventional version. I have decided to make the following points as part of my results and discussion chapter:

• Convention: people may prefer version A as it is done in a style to which they have become accustomed
• Quality control: fault on the part of the proper (me) in terms of quality control, not ensuring the quality of the recording was a high enough standard while there was still opportunity to re-record tracks
• Time constraints: limitations placed on me by hand in meant that I had around a month to mix my version B's to the best of my ability, whilst the version A's were recorded and mixed over a period of 8 months, a time period I simply did not have at my disposal.

Questionnaire Day 1

I have so far sent out 15 or 16 questionnaires and have received 9 responses.

There are no 2 which are the same, however most people are identifying version B as the live one and consider it a better performance.

Most people prefer version A, which was not entirely unexpected when you consider that 6 months were spent mixing these tracks as opposed to the 12 hours or so spent on mine.

as far as the question relating to whether or not people wish to hear more recording like this i am getting fairly mixed recording, which I did not expect.

Posting Questionnaire

Tonight i have created an instruction sheet for my questionnaire, as well as setting up a sound cloud which will exclusively host 2 set lists each containing a version A and version B and labelled questionnaire 1 or 2 depending on which link is included in the questionnaire instructions.

So this is clear when i come to right it in my dissertation (and so i can remember when i am trying to correlate results) Questionnaire 1 (Click this to view related sound cloud set list) will be Black to Grey and Questionnaire 2Questionnaire 2 (same deal as before) will be The Insider.

In both instances, Track A is the original version and NOT the version I have created for my honours project, making track B my version (obviously), although in the case of black to grey i have reversed the order in which A and B play as i cannot shuffle songs in sound cloud and i wish to avoid creating a bias by playing one track before the other.

I have decided to do this largely to avoid confusion when I am collecting results.

I intend to test each questionnaire on 2 volunteers tomorrow to ensure I have made it simple enough and well explained enough to answer.

Providing this goes well I will begin badgering people via social networking sites to take part in my test. I will allow a week of sending out questionnaires and, providing I receive an adequate number of responses (upwards of 30) I will move on to analysing them. Failing an adequate number of responses i will extend my testing by a further week, however i think it is unlikely that this will be necessary.

New Draft of questionnaire

Upon formatting my questionnaire, I realised that many of my preliminary questions were made obsolete by the others, so I have revised the questions so that there are now 11 rather than the 16 or so there were initially.

my questionnaire now looks as follows (Please note that the blog has messed with the spacing):

Honours Project Questionnaire

Michael Carey

An investigation into how perception of how a live studio recording varies when contrasted with a conventional recording

Overview:

This project aims to determine how peoples perceptions of a song are altered by the use of different recording techniques.

It will be necessary for you to listen to two version of the same song. One has been recorded with each musician playing their own part of the song separately, as is current conventional practice. The other has been recorded as a live band, with vocal parts being recorded and added afterwards in both cases.

Please pay close attention to which version is which before answering the questions

IN THE CASE OF MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS, DELETE THE RESPONSES WHICH DO NOT APPLY LEAVING ONLY YOUR ANSWERS

Part 1

The following questions aim to establish your relationship with music, if order to aid in evaluating your questionnaire responses. Please answer all questions as truthfully as possible.

Q1. Gender?:

Male Female Do not wish to disclose

Q2. Age?:

13-17 18-24 25-34 35-44

45-44 55+

Q3. What are your preferred musical genres out of the following?:

Rock Metal Pop Dance

Folk Country Jazz Blues

Other (Please Specify) ______________

PLEASE SELECT ONLY ONE OPTION FOR THE REST OF THE QUESTIONS

Q4. How many hours per week do you spend listening to music?:

Less than and hour Up to 4 hours Up to 8 hours Up to 12 hours

Up to 16 hours Up to 24 hours Up to 28 hours Up to 32 hours

32+ hours

Q5. How often do you purchase music?:

Once a year Twice a year Three times a year Four times a year

Six times a year Once a month Twice a month Once a week
Several times a week
Several times a week
__________________________________________

Q6. How often do you attend live musical showcases, such as concerts or gig?:

Once a year Twice a year Three times a year Four times a year

Six times a year Once a month Twice a month Once a week

Part 2

Please listen to the recordings included in the folder before answering the following questions. Please be sure to remember which track is which.

Q7. Which version of the song did you prefer?

A B Neither

Why?

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

Q8. Which version of the song do you believe was the "live band" recording?

A B Neither

Do you feel this improved the recording or not and why?

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

Q9. Which version of the song did you feel had a better sound quality?

A B Neither

Q10. Which version of the song did you feel was a better performance by the band?

A B Neither

Q11. Would you be interested in hearing more recordings done using the "live band" recording practise?

Yes No

Why?

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

________________________________

Questionnaire development

I have discovered that if i use survey monkey i am limited to 10 questions meaning my survey would have to look like this.

Instead i am now considering doing this as word document and sending my tracks to participants as a zip file. I will discuss this with my supervisor on Thursday.

Gender? (delete as appropriate): Male/Female/Do not wish to disclose

Age? (delete as appropriate): 13-17/18-24/25-34/35-44/45-44/55+ 

What are your preferred musical genres out of the following? : Rock/Metal/Pop/Dance/Folk/Country/Jazz/Blues/Other (Please Specify) ______________

How many hours per week do you spend listening to music?(select only one): less than and hour/Up to 4 hours/Up to 8 hours/Up to 12 hours/Up to 16 hours/Up to 24 hours/Up to 28 hours/Up to 32 hours/Up to 32+ hours

How often do you attend live musical showcases, such as concerts or gig? (Select only one):

once a year/twice a year/three times a year/four times a year/6 times a year/once a month/twice a month/once a week/several times a week

          

                                                                                                                                    A                    Neither                B

Which version of the song did you prefer?

Why?

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

                                                                                                                                    A                    Neither                B

Which version of the song do you believe was the "live band" 

recording?

Do you feel this improved the recording or not and why?

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

                                                                                                                                    A                    Neither                B

Which version of the song did you feel had a better 

sound quality?

Which version of the song did you feel was a better 

performance by the band?

Would you be interested in hearing more recordings 
done using the "live band" recording practise? 


Yes [ ]
No [ ]

Why?

_____________________________

_____________________________

_____________________________

_____________________________

Second Mixes

The following link takes you to the second mixes (or third, technically in the case of black to grey as a session file went missing) of the tracks for my honours projects.

http://soundcloud.com/moleman23/sets/honours-project-second-mixes

I am happy with the mixes as are, and if any changes are to be made they will be slight, however, i am not happy with the performance of the band in "Killers and Saints" and am planning to discuss dropping it from my test with my project supervisor on Thursday.

Black To Grey Mix

The first step was to double the kick drum in order to create a "click" sound on one of these tracks to permit the kick drum to cut through the mix. E.Q. and compression was then applied to each element and altered depending on what was necessary for each. An auxiliary reverb channel was then created and the snare channel were run through this as the snare used for recording had an extremely "dry" sound. Another Reverb channel was then added to the whole drum kit to add an overall "room" sound, which can then be duplicated for the other elements in order to tie the mix together.

E.Q. and compression were then added to each of the bass tracks which were then balanced against one another before being balanced with the drum parts. Reverb was added in order to add the same "room" sound as was created on the drum kit.

E.Q. and compression was then added to the guitar tracks. These were the balanced individually, balanced against one another, balanced within the mix and then reverb was added to create the same "room" sound as was previously mentioned.

E.Q. and compression were then added to the lead vocals, which had been recorded twice in order to thicken the the lead lines. These were ran through the same reverb as the rest of the instruments. In addition, Slap back delay was added to the vocals, in an attempt to warm the vocal performance and reduce the harshness.

E.Q., Compression and Reverb were once again added to the backing vocal part, to make them sit nicely under the lead vocal part.

As can been seen above, the toms were strip silenced, this was done as the toms were ringing loudly which could not be corrected with E.Q. and undermined the mix as a whole.

The Vocal parts were also stripped and the headphone mix was audible and also the singer cleared his voice or coughed on several occasions.

First Mixes with vocal

I have carried out first mixes of all of the tracks for my honours project, although due to the wonders of modern technology one of these mixes has been lost to the world of computing confusion.

The following link connect to the successful and still existing 2 mixes (The Insider and Killers and Saints)
http://soundcloud.com/moleman23/sets/first-mixes-with-vocals (Please note, the third track, Black To Grey, has since been added. Notes are yet to be made as the mix was finished quite late at night, also the mix was carried out on headphones and i feel since the others were mixed on speaker this will give the mixes and unfair advantage)

I have made the following notes after analytically listening to the tracks:

The Insider


Drums too dry
To much separation between elements
Good vocal balance
Slightly thin vocal?
Bass overpowering in chorus
Reverb?
E.Q. is generally good on the tracks
Swap Vocal parts in last chorus
End is messy, bass to loud again?
Overhead intro, perhaps raise level to reintroduce room sound

Boxy!!!! Reverb on master?

Killers and Saints


To muddy
Vocals to dry
Bass waaay to prominent
kick drum doesn't cut through properly
guitar may need more high end (generally overly filtered?)

Dark sounding mix 

look at...

austerity program

Slash Album

The guitarist of guns and roses and velvtet revolver, Slash, is currently recording the second album in his solo project. As was stated in my project proposal, he is using a recording practise similar to my own.

In the following video Slash expresses many of the reason he has for doing this, several of which are true to my own.

Questionnaire 2

The following is the second version of my questionnaire where the practical aspects of my project are made clearer.

This project aims to determine how peoples perceptions of a song are altered by the use of different recording techniques.

In order to do this, it will be necessary for you to listen to two versions of the same song, simply labelled A and B, as it is important that you do not know which is which. 

One has been recorded with each musician playing their own part of the song separately, as is current standard practice. The other has been recorded as a live band, with vocal parts being recorded and added to the recording afterwards in both cases. 

Please pay close attention to which version is which before answering the questions below.

Gender? (delete as appropriate): Male/Female/Do not wish to disclose

Age? (delete as appropriate): 13-17/18-24/25-34/35-44/45-44/55+ 

What are your preferred musical genres out of the following? : Rock/Metal/Pop/Dance/Folk/Country/Jazz/Blues/Other (Please Specify) ______________

How many hours per week do you spend listening to music?(select only one): less than and hour/Up to 4 hours/Up to 8 hours/Up to 12 hours/Up to 16 hours/Up to 24 hours/Up to 28 hours/Up to 32 hours/Up to 32+ hours

How much time per week do you spend streaming music using websites such as Facebook or programs such as Spotify? (Select only one): less than and hour/Up to 4 hours/Up to 8 hours/Up to 12 hours/Up to 16 hours/Up to 24 hours/Up to 28 hours/Up to 32 hours/Up to 32+ hours

How often do you purchase music? (Select only one):

once a year/twice a year/three times a year/four times a year/6 times a year/once a month/twice a month/once a week/several times a week

How often do you illegally download music? (Select only one):

once a year/twice a year/three times a year/four times a year/6 times a year/once a month/twice a month/once a week/several times a week

How often do you attend live musical showcases, such as concerts or gig? (Select only one):

once a year/twice a year/three times a year/four times a year/6 times a year/once a month/twice a month/once a week/several times a week

          

                                                                                                                                    A                    Neither                B

Which version of the song did you prefer?

Why?

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

                                                                                                                                    A                    Neither                B

Which version of the song do you believe was the "live band" 

recording?

Do you feel this improved the recording or not and why?

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

___________________________________________

                                                                                                                                    A                    Neither                B

Which version of the song did you feel had a better 

sound quality?

Which version of the song did you feel was a better 

performance by the band?

Would you be interested in hearing more recordings 
done using the "live band" recording practise? 


Yes [ ]
No [ ]

Why?

_____________________________

_____________________________

_____________________________

_____________________________