Popular Music
Throughout my three years at university, I have been recording and producing a range of different pop and pop/rock cover songs. This is a genre that I am most passionate about and have enjoyed building my skills in a studio and moving away from computer-only mixing. I have improved my knowledge of microphone techniques and have grown to enjoy the recording set-up and process. This gave me the freedom to try different recording techniques and start to find the techniques I prefer in order to create the sound I want. I have linked my best examples of work I have done in the genre of popular music.
Location Sound
During my time at University, I had the opportunity to learn about location sound. This covered a variety of areas from podcasts, movies, and TV, as well as recording audio or music in an outdoor environment where the natural sounds need to be emphasised. I quickly became passionate about this area of recording and set out to make a radio-style location report. Along with this final project, there was a variety of practice recordings to perfect the techniques of using the equipment. Along with recording in different locations, I had the opportunity to be the boom operator, director, talent, camera operator and sound engineer.
Classical Music
One of the modules taught at university allowed me to record classical instruments such as the piano and flute solo in a concert hall. This has taught me a lot about reverb and how that plays a part in the mixing stage. These more classical recordings tend to be the most rewarding, as you can work really hard to get a clear-sounding recording. Instruments like the flute have been interesting to record as they tend to clip and sound more scratchy in a recording. These recordings helped improve my knowledge of microphone placement, and the lessons learned are applied when I go into a studio, as I am thinking more about the sound I want and how that can be recorded from an instrument.
