Self-Guided Instrument Recording Project
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Wild Card Project
Song: If I Ever Fall in Love Again by Shai
Talent: Me
Introduction:
Honestly, I had no idea what to do for this project. I knew I wanted it to be unique. I was listening to my playlist and this song came on – If I Ever Fall in Love Again by Shai. The song is all a cappella with a three part harmony, and I thought that would be super cool if I could pull it off. I recorded it the next day.
Setting Up:
Since it was just vocals, all I needed was a mic. I really wanted to use one of the Shures and I settled on the KSM32. I plugged it into the first input of the snake in the blue room, checked gain levels, and then started recording.
Tracking:
This part took the longest because of all of the intricate harmonies. I’m extremely nit picky when it comes to my vocals, and I’ll do as many takes as possible until my voice gives out (LOL). I did a low, middle, and high harmony and then did a double of each. After that, I recorded the main vocals.
Post-Production:
After recording, I panned the harmonies in different directions: the lows to left, the mids in the middle, and the highs to the right. I thought this made them sound more tight and professional. I also added fades toward the end.
The plug-ins I used on the vocals are the PuigChild 660, the De-esser, VEQ4, RVOX, and the REQ 6. I also added reverb send to all the vocals. For the inserts on the reverb track, I added the Space reverb, the ProMBD, and the REQ 6. I tried to boost the frequencies that corresponded to the specific harmonies. I also clicked on follow main pan so that the reverb would follow each harmony in the direction that it went in. I spent a long time playing around with these knobs until I was happy with the mix.
Reflection:
Overall, I’m really glad I decided to push myself and do this. It was super fun. I love harmonizing and adding vocal layers. While it was time consuming, it paid off in the end. I thought this was a great way to end my MRT journey and really shows how far I’ve come along since the beginning.
