Introduction

The piece ‘Feels Like Home’, is a short 2 minute experimental piece roughly based off the works of Steve Reich, Down Tempo music and the ambiance of Kensuke Ushio.

I became interested in recording piano ever since I started listening to the works of Kensuke Ushio. Particularly his works in the ‘A Silent Voice’ original soundtrack. The tracks titled ‘inv’ that feature amazing ambient piano tracks, these pieces were inspired by ‘Invention no.1 in C Major by Johanne Sebastian Bach, they are played at key events during the film and help characterize the female lead which has a magnificent effect in context and as a piece of music on it’s own, I would highly recommend both the soundtrack and film. Another idea that I wanted to try recording was something along the line of artists such as In Love With a Ghost, potus, and Snail’s House. I found myself in my spare time or walking from place to place listening to this downtempo style music, I wanted to attempt to create a strange fusion of ambient, downtempo music. I also wanted to try recording short vocal lines and playing with the timing to create weird vocal effects The lyrics I wrote for this track are very simple but I hope to achieve something similar the track, ‘Am I a Girl? Am I a Boy? Do I Really Care?’. Despite all of this, the song I recorded and submitted ended up going in a completely different direction. The music recorded on the piano was big chords individually so I could splice and mix then how I want, similarly I did this with the vocals recorded as well. I’m still not sure where I belong as an artist or what I’m really good at, so I like to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t.

Instrumentation

The piano in these tracks interested me as I love the sound of the track ‘Inv’ by Ushio. The simplicity of the track with the serenity and wonderful sound made me very interested in how to achieve this sound, The use of the noises made by the piano, like creaking and the movement of the pedals alongside the room noise, for this reason I decided to try recording piano. To try and recreate this I knew I wanted to have a microphone near the pedals and hammers. I was prepared to record the upright or the grand-piano, in the end I decided on using grand due to the nice sound quality. For the microphones I used for the set up are, 2 AKG 414’s, a Neumann KM184, and a Rode NTR.

For the vocals I decided to use two microphones to capture two different tones with two different microphones, I used for a Neumann u87ai, and a AKG 414.

Microphone Set-up

I had the top of the grand lifted and set with a pole so I could record the exposed strings. To do this I set up the two 414’s at the low end pointed directly at the strings and at the top end of the piano at the similar position. To capture the middle of the piano I placed a KM184 pointed at the strings (refer to video)

I did this to capture the full range of the piano whilst also recording some the ambience and room tone, such as the noise from the pedals, I like doing this as it helps add ambiance and can result in interesting tones or rhythm, if loop and used as a drone. I chose the Rhode NTR for this reason as it has a nice warm sound and picks up the darker frequencies quite nicely, I used the 414s for the high and low ends of the piano for as they have a nice crisp quality as well as having multiple polar pattern settings, I ended up sticking with the cardioid, I personally adore the 414’s because of the reliability and versatility of them. I had them set up pointed at the screen

For the vocals I tried a method of placing one microphone on top of the other, this was to capture two different tones from the vocals, I wanted a crisp, clear capture from the centre microphone being the 414, and I experimented with the Neumann u87 on top of the 414, having it positioned upside down. Because of this I came out of the studio with two different types of sample per line I recorded. I opted to use the U87 as well as the 414 because of its legendary status as the gold standard for studio vocal audio quality.

The Track

Before touching any effects or equalisation, I used the samples i recorded in the studio and arranged them, whilst doing this I had no real goal or set idea in mind when thinking of the actual music. I had recorded the grand piano playing large lengthy chords, mostly extended harmonies like Cmaj7, Cmaj9, 11, 13, Amaj13, Gmaj9, Fmaj7, Emin13 etc. I kept the general tonality in C major just so it was easy to work with. Using the sounds captured from underneath the piano by the Rode NTR, I snipped a segment and looped it to create a strange rhythmic drone to underlie the piece. Since at the time I was listening to a lot of ambient downtempo music I recorded a few short vocal ‘chops’, however they ended up playing a different role in the music then I expected. The track became a strange experimental minimalist work, which I can only say was subconsiously inspired by the works of Steve Reich.

The First Mix

For my first mix I wanted to try and create a hypnotic transient effect to the track, to achieve this I put a low pass filter on the midi instrument I used, I also used a compressor to balence the mix so it wasn’t blaring or overpowering the other sounds. I also used a compressor on the ambient piano drone and increased the gain by roughly 6 dB so that it wasn’t being drowned out. I also decided to hard pan the two separate vocal tracks and hard it gradually shift from left to right of the entirety of the song.

The Second Mix

For the second mix I decided to try and simplfy the idea I used previously by hard panning the two vocal tracks, the 414 on the left and the U87 on the right, and I moved the gradual pan to the ambient drone instead. I liked this simpiler mix instead of the other one as its a lot more effective at achieving what I wanted from this track in the end.

Conclusion

To Conclude I am happy with how the track came out, although upon a revisit I would like to further experiment with different microphones and microphone positions. I would also like to further experiment with perhaps more exotic and unusual instruments, I would also try recording more ambient noises such as room tone, maybe a conversation in the background or a similar room tone found in ‘Inv’. Nevertheless I am please on how this track came out and excited to start another.

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