Concepts: Cutting Loops, Advanced Editing, Recording Vocals over Soundbeds
This was a tremendously productive week for the students! We covered so many valuable topics that I need to write a two part blog entry to cover everything. Since we had two abbreviated yet successful weeks, this was a very invigorating week and the students demonstrated that they have not forgotten anything during our shortened sessions.
We began by revisiting J’s piece from last week: his first attempt at recording a ‘Top Ten’ over a looped soundbed that he created. The students listened to the mix and provided their feedback, and J was able to analyze his mix and offer input on the things that he did and what he would change. I also briefly introduced the Phaser effect, and the students had fun listening to the impact it had on morphing audio, especially vocals and drum sounds. We will revisit the Phaser next week.
Since the students had two snow days this week, I decided to have them do an impromptu radio show about the things that they liked and disliked about the snow, and what they did during their time off. The purpose of this exercise was to emphasize the importance of transitions and smoothness during a radio show, and they have noticeably improved their abilities to talk with little downtime!
In the Wednesday afternoon session, we focused on more advanced skills involved in manipulating and editing audio loops. We reviewed the previous techniques, and both J and M were given the task to create a 30-40 second track that would serve as a soundbed for a segment that they were to record at the end of the session.
M began right away, and started with a drum track and then layered in some piano, sound fx, and synths. She came up with the arrangement herself, and cut and looped the audio to match what she envisioned. She then worked through the mix herself to optimize the sound.
On to part 2!
M’s Beat