AWMR The Music Video!

AWMR The Music Video!

One of my uni assignments for this year was to make a short film in the theme of a day in the life off! Being easy to get hold of and willing to do it my band were chosen and the title of the video was " A Day In the Life Of AWMR ". The location was chosen to be the recording studio and the video would show the band recording one of our tracks Grace & Elegance. 

My role for the day was in the audio production, and did not in fact do any filming!

The Set Up!

So i may as well list everything!

The cameras

Sony DSR-PDX10P DV Tape

Canon EOS 550D

GoPro HD Hero3

The Microphone set up!

Drums

Snare - SM57 & AKG C451 on the top. Small Senhiser condenser on the bottom.
 Kick - Boundary mic in the middle of the drum, (new favorite! ) Electro voice on the inside. And finally a rode NT1a on the outside.( heavily angled to reduce the shock wave from the kick drum )
 Toms - Beyer dynamic M201
Overheads - AKG C414s spaced pair. Single Neuman U87a over the drummers head! The microphone stand was also used to hold the GoPro Camera!

Bass Guitar

A di box coupled with a audix D6 and rode NT1a on the speaker cab.

Guitar amps

A di box coupled with a  SM57 and rode NT1a on the speaker cab!

VOX

Single Neuman u87!


 The plan for the day was to record and track each band member separately. Following this we would film each band member with them miming back there performance. There was also some footage of the band shot playing all together. It was strange having to play to just the drums and a small monitor playing back the per-recorded audio session. 

Aside from this the mixing of the audio for the track fell into my and a fellow friends (David Gudge)  hands. The project started out in pro tools, but after having lost all the plug in settings we switched to logic pro. The change allowed for everything to be re-looked over. 

Parallel Compression

 Getting nearer the end result of the mixing, The drums on the track were still not cutting the grain. After allowing some one else to hear the mix, we were shown how to use parallel compression. It was like re-discovering some long lost ancient technique it was amazing! For those of you, like me that dont know what it is. It is essential applying compression to a bus and then sending signals to the bus. The process should follow on from say a bass drum that has had some compression but its not quite pumping or cutting through the mix. The compression on the bus should be quite "Dirty" and have a short attack and release times to essentially just reinforce a brief pulse of energy. Just enough to make the hit stand out but not cause all the track to pump.
aside from this a little pitch shift/blend was used to add extra harmonies to the vocals. The usual light distortion was added to the screams to make them even more harsh! Compression, Eq and reverb were also used.
For a more information on parallel compression, point your mouse at this link : This Link
 

Editing The video!

for editing the video, final cut pro 7 was used (non of this x crap :P ). I was not involved in as much of the editing as the others (Gary Rendle and Dominic Reneouf ), though i did contribute to some of the ideas. The great visual affects found in the trailer was all Dom's work!

 

The video Trailer!

 

Ok the final video!

 

 

Credits

Production : Samuel Hunt
Cameras and editing : Gareth Rendle
Cameras, Editing and after effects : Dominic Renouef.
Assistant production & Audio Mixing : David Gudge

Guitars : Sam J large, Sebastian Knight & Samuel Hunt
Bass guitar & Vocas : Ben Forse
Drums : Dan Squibs
Vocals : Ed Sims.