AUS 220 - Week 1 Blog

I've been freelancing as a music producer for the Punjabi Music Industry in India for about 5 years now. Most of the work that I've done consisted of electronic beats and instruments. Although, I did use to record samples and performances of live musicians, it included mostly Punjabi folk instruments like Dhol, Dholak, Tabla, Tumbi, Harmonium, Flute, Sitar, etc. As a music lover, I've always been interested in world music and have always been open to new styles and genres. I used to listen and take inspiration from a lot of western acts like Radiohead, RHCP, Limpbizkit, Gorillaz, Linkin Park etc. I was always fascinated by their instrumentation, in particular, how well their guitars and drums sounded. I always wanted to record live drums and electric guitars but I never had a chance to do so before coming to SAE. Therefore, I would say that as a music producer, the western music genres, which incorporate a lot of acoustic instruments like live drums, guitars and bass, are relatively new to me.

During the past three trimesters at SAE, I have been involved in projects which focused on recording live drums, guitar and bass. Because of these school projects, I've been able to learn a lot about the recording techniques used by industry professionals. I believe that given some more time and practice, I'd be able to learn more about recording and mixing these instruments. So far, It has been a fun-filled journey at SAE and I'm really happy to have been able to learn so much about the techniques involved in producing western music like Rock, Jazz etc. I also believe that there is a lot more to learn and master and soon I'd be able to feel confident enough to experiment with the techniques that I've already learnt or will learn, to accomplish the desired sound.

In my last class for AUS 220, me and my group for the demo project set-up and recorded an acoustic piano in the Neve studio. This was the first time that I was given an opportunity to record piano and I was really satisfied with the end-result. We used a total of four microphones ( pairs of Royer 121 and Neumann u87). We used the 121 for close miking the piano using AB technique and used the u87s as room miss with Blumlein technique. We listened to the piano in the room carefully to find the best sounding spots for recording. The recording was great! We also learned some basic signal flow operation of the Neve console to help us get started in this new studio.

I'm really excited for more of such opportunities coming this trimester and I hope to do well and learn more about producing western music.