After initiating the signal of both microphones through the console into Pro Tools and back out through the console, we started recording the vocals. We tested a couple of sentences and decided that we definitely preferred the Rode NT2A over the AKG C314 because of how louder and crisp it was but, we agreed we would keep recordings of both just in case. Kieran created another channel on Pro Tools to be sent to channel one and two so that we could send the signal after Pro Tools through to Bryce's headphone sends.

Unilaterally we came to the decision that we would record only a couple sentences at a time because of how tricky the wording of this book is. During this time we were playlisting the vocals as well as monitoring the signal from both microphones. There was definitely apparent phasing issues/comb filtering happening when we were monitoring both microphone levels on the long fader at the same time, which was very interesting as I had not actually experienced those issues before. If we were intending on using both microphones in our mix down then this would've been an issue but we were only going to use one.

Once the recordings were captured we saved our session on Pro Tools and shared a link between the group on Google Drive. The next session in the studio was for the recording of the sound effects therefore, we delegated different sound effects to each other so we could find materials to bring in to create these sounds.

RECORDING THE SOUND EFFECTS

We received an email a couple days prior stating that the campus was going to be open on the Sunday. Our group saw this as an opportunity for us to smash out our second recording session on the Sunday, freeing up our work load for the following week. However, I woke up late that morning and was almost an hour late to the studio session, as was Kieran. Bryce had already begun setting by the time I had got there so we had most of the set up complete by the time I got there.

For the sound effects we used the AKG C414 XLS pair for there stereo capabilities and the Rode NT1. Bryce set both microphones in the blumlein to capture sounds coming from the left and right for the more atmospheric sound effects. Bryce and myself found that the shock mounts we attached the microphones to were not very stable and we took care when maneuvering around them. The Rode NT1 had a pop filter on it for the sharp attack sound effects as well as the vocal sounds that were to be added to the mix.

The sound effects we wanted to record in the studio and how we recorded them are as followed:

• Fire cracking/burning embers: Using the AKG C414 XLS pair we used the crinkling of a plastic bag to imitate the crackling of a fire and wanted to layer some pink noise with it. We wanted to create atmosphere with this sound by recording this sound in stereo. The bag was crinkled slowly clockwise around the microphones to give that width to the recording; it was pretty cool to record and hear this process.

• Ding and dong sounds: The ding and dong sounds were created using the Kieran's metal canteen. For the ding sound we struck the canteen without water in it and for the dong we struck it with the water in it. The Rode NT1 was used to this as we wanted a direct crisp sound not one in stereo.

• Dollar coin sounds: We recorded quite a few variations of the dollar coin sounds. In the beginning we had intended to use some cash register sounds sourced from the internet. We instead opted for coins to be slow dropped from one hand to the other, dropped from the hand to the floor and, from the hand to the headphone case close to the mic. We used the Rode NT1 for this recording.

• Apple watch/iPhone mini alert sound: Fletcher was meant to bring his Apple Watch to the studio to record the stock notification sound it uses but, he didn't arrive until the last 45 minutes of the studio session and he didn't bring his Apple Watch with him so we used my iPhone 12 mini notification sound instead. That too was captured on the Rode NT1.

• Nail hammering: The nail hammering sound was done with just Kieran striking his arm with an empty Up&Go bottle. We took one recording of just him doing that into the Rode NT1 and another at the back of the room when I was shouting into the NT1 for the next sound effect

• Sigh of relief, shouting (human voice): For the sigh of relief, we used the NT1 again to capture my sighs. Using the same microphone we also recorded me screaming into the microphone while Kieran was striking his arm with the empty Up&Go bottle behind me at the back.

• Explosion: One of the most interesting of sounds we recorded was the explosion. We captured a short transient sound with the Up&Go bottle on the NT1 and then took off the pop filter and got Kieran to breath on it for very loud, hot and, distorted signal. Then Kieran blew on the Stereo microphones up close to great more width to the sound.

• Alien computer signals: This was a very unexpected sound we came up with on the spot for the space miscellaneous sound effects. We managed to get a signal generator plug-in and slide the frequency up and down rapidly to create the sound. To record it we put the signal generator on an aux track, routed the output of the track to a buss and then assigned the input of a track to the buss.

The rest of the sounds were to be sourced online by Fletcher as he was unable to bring the sounds to the studio that day and was only present for the last 45 minutes of the studio session.

THE PROCESS: THE MIX DOWN

For my individual mix down, I began by collapsing and expanding some of the gaps within Bryce's vocals so it flowed better within mix. This process was constant due to elements in the mix changing constantly therefore needing the gaps to either either expand or collapse. During the session on Monday Wayne mentioned the gaps needed to be closed and also that some of the words were not pronounced clearly. We did not have any other recordings of Bryce's vocals with better pronunciation of the said words play-listed...at least none that I could find.

Every time a significant amount of gap closing and expanding was completed I consolidated the track for easier manipulation of that one track and to help with work flow. Once the initial consolidation had occurred however, I added a trim straight onto the vocal track to raise the gain without turning up the volume or the gain line. This was to make the vocals louder at 0 dB so they weren't overpowered by the other tracks in the mix.

Compression soon followed after to help with the dynamics of the vocals. When compressing the vocals, I personally did not think much compression was needed until I demoed the vocals with the compressed signal to the bypass signal. The difference was quite significant. The other part of the compression was using a De-esser to help control the sibilance in Bryce's voice which was quite prominent. Turning the De-esser to 5.8kHZ and the range up to 7.9dB seemed to do the trick. After the compression I applied a 7 band EQ to get the vocal's sitting perfectly in the mix. My first play around with EQ I thought I may have got it right but when Wayne popped in to visit me he showed me that I needed to be more critical with the vocals by boosting the high and mid frequencies and gently rolling off the low end as the vocals are the main focal point of our project.

Before I started with anything else with the mix, I needed to clean up the DAW window because it was a mess. I colour coded, grouped and labelled the tracks to my preference for ease of work flow. The vocals were not cutting through the backing tracks or any other big sound that was playing at the same time as them. Using the compressor on Pro Tools, I assigned it to duck any track it was attached to whenever a certain level of the vocals passed level of the threshold of the compressor so that the vocals were the prominent part of the current listening space. This was applied to the backing tracks, the four fire sound effect tracks and the ambient tracks.

For most of the sound effects that were similar I copied and pasted the same processing effects with the same parameters to save time (i.e. the voice sound effects). It was during this time I noticed something that Wayne had pointed out to our group in the session on Monday and again when I was mixing down. The recorded sound effects that were meant to resemble a roaring fire, an explosion did not have many of the qualities that those sound effects have. The explosion and roaring fire are displayed below, including a separate bounce mix of each.

THE REFLECTION

This project was a lot more challenging than I initially anticipated but also a lot more enjoyable compared to the last project. In Project 1 I wasn't as involved as I was during this second project. At the beginning of this project, I took it upon myself to make sure I was more engaged and took on more responsibility this time around. Kieran even said he would take a step back when it called so I could be more hands on. Looking back on the last couple of weeks when we were planning , recording and finalizing our project, I can with confidence say that I have shown growth in my communication, problem solving, intrapersonal, and professional skills. My time management skills need some work but I have seen an improvement with my self confidence.

Similar to Project 1, my group operated well during this project; although this time there was a little bit of an issue with our time management. There were complications trying to organize times to meet with everyone's schedules. We had four group members this time with the addition of Fletcher and although we had four members, Fletcher was not present for most of the recording process.

Though most of Fletcher's attendance was out of his hands (unforeseen circumstances), this prevented him from being apart of most of the process which would of possibly made the project easier for him. Fletcher was also assigned to outsource the remaining sound effects but, seeing as he was unable to attend the first recording session on the Saturday, arrived for the last 30-40 minutes of the last recording session on the Sunday, and arrived for a brief window on the following Saturday session with no sound effects, a lot of his work load was assigned to us. This we didn't mind and we were understanding of Fletcher's situation, but it is something to note for future projects.

When it came to recording we didn't really run into any problems that held us back; Kieran, Bryce and myself were hands on for all of it and it went really smoothly. There were a couple instances where each of us were late but, we did keep update each other and it didn't necessarily affect the recording process. The two microphones that we used for the vocals in the first session, the AKG C314 and the Rode NT2A, seemed to work well when we used them that day. When it came to mixing down however, we found that they were incredible quiet and we had to increase the gain and apply some processing to get them to an acceptable level. This wasn't the case with other microphones on the second recording day for the sound effects. The AKG C414 XLS pair and Rode NT1 worked fine and captured some great results. To combat this next time, I would suggest we run multiple play backs to make sure the input signal has got enough gain and is receiving a steady line level signal.

The other complications during recording that went wrong during recording were only discovered until the mixdown stage, which by then was too late to re record. Firstly, we should have used better materials/methods to capture the recorded sound effects. We should have,

• Tested different kinds of plastic bags to get a better result for the fire crackling sound.

• Researched how to make an explosion sound from scratch (getting a more bodied thud kick for the explosion).

• Tested different blowing methods on the mic to prevent clipping in the diaphragm.

• Used a hard surface for the door knock (thought this was rectified later).

Bryce isn't a professional voice actor and I thought he did really well but, there were a couple words that were mispronounced. Unfortunately, I think we deleted the recordings of the playlisted vocal recordings which meant we couldn't go back and piece together different bits from previous recordings. We did challenge ourselves with sound design in trimester 1, so there's no need for me to be hard on myself for these hiccups but they are good lessons for me to take on as we will be studying this in the future.

The hardest part of the project for me was the mixdown as I was completely green to Pro Tools even after Wayne's classes. I had to ask help from Wayne and one of my friends in trimester 3 to help me with some of the processes. Sending tracks to the buses and having them react to the time based effects, was a struggle for me at first but eventually with persistence I got through. Even adjusting the parameters of the effects as well was a struggle and trying draw in automation was a nightmare. Personally, I think it's because I am used to working with my DAW at home (Ableton) and thinking it's going to be easy to transfer that familiarity over to Pro Tools, which is not the case. Also, I also never knew how to EQ and compress properly so trying to get those processors parameters right was a task in itself. Luckily, like I said I had Wayne pop a couple times to show me a correct ways of doing EQ and compressing along with some cool feedback. Cody, my friend in trimester 3, helped me with some parameters of the effects, automation and some automated panning along with some neat tips and shortcuts. For everything else which was simple and quick enough to follow I leaned in on the tutorials on YouTube.

Now that I've got a grip on both the recording side in the studio and the mixing down side on Pro Tools it's time to further delve in. When my desktop at home is operational I'll be getting a student discounted version of Pro Tools so I can use it at home and be fluent with it. Until then I'll just need to take more time outside of class to use Pro Tools on the Macs on campus and do further recording in the studio. For the next group project, I think we need to 1) plan and research better so we have better quality work when we record in the studio and 2) make sure each of pulls their fair share of the load. Apart from that however, I'm pretty happy with how everything turned out given the scope of the project.

BOUNCED MIXES