Standards and Remixes

It was my distinct privilege to be asked to participate as a studio technician under the guidance of Rolf Kristensen from September to December 2019. My roles were primarily technical in nature within the disciplines of recording and mixing. My work during this time can be split into three separate sub-projects:

"I´ll Be Seeing You"

Nylon Guitar: Rolf Kristensen

Bass: Kjetil Dalland

Vocal: Torun Eriksen

My first excursion with this project involved the recording of the song "I´ll Be Seeing You" by: Billie Holiday. The recording method pre agreed upon for this song was that of a live performance style recording (no click) with the intention of keeping the take that was deemed the most desirable performance wise by the group. The studio setup was done in such a way so as to allow visual contact between the different musicians with Torun in the control room (with myself) and Rolf and Kjetil occupying the main recording room. A thick, sound proof, window connecting the rooms visually allowed them to interact and work off of each others visual cues during recording without the vocals bleeding into the guitar recordings. Additionally, the bass was situated far enough away so as so only cause a minimal amount of bleed into the nylon guitar and the amplifiers for the bass guitar were patched and recorded in another studio again, to minimise unnecessary bleed during recording.

The mixing process was somewhat straightforward, with a rough mix being established alone first with very little effort on my part (less than 1 hour). Later, Rolf and I sat through the rough mix and made adjustments until the mix was done. The reasoning for this mixes lack of extensive work can be directly attributed to the solid musicianship of those who preformed on this song. 

“This Masquerade”

Drums: Andreas Skorpe Sjøen 

Håvard Henriksen: Contra Bass

Bruno Gagro: Keys

Electric Guitar: Rolf Kristensen

This project was recorded with the intention of being worked on further in Los Angeles after the fact.

Not unlike the first project description, this project incapsulated what can be described as recording in the traditional sense however with the added intention of overdubbing certain elements. In this case, the drums were the least perishable element with the additional elements having the added luxury of being “re-recordable” should one take not meed the standards set by the production. The keys specifically were going to be voiced in separate ways and would therefore need to be recorded after the fact regardless.

The mix closely mirrored the first in terms of structure. Firstly, I was offered an hour or more to get the mix up to a “client ready” level so Rolf and myself could focus instead on accentuating the product sonically rather than spend time on fixing things. Overall I was pleased with the result.

“Remixes 1&2”

Drums: Andreas Skorpe Sjøen 

Håvard Henriksen: Bass 

Mette Leira: Vocals / Voiceover

The remixes projects are the result of a collaborative effort initiated by Rolf and carried out by fellow student Lars Kristian Lia (master). My role in this project was to record additional instruments onto a 2 remixed works. This was entirely done in “ovedub” format with the drums, bass and vocals being recorded separately over a space of time.

The drums specially served to be extremely educational for me during this process. Anders is an accomplished drummer, who owns a great sounding kit! This combined with my tried and true drum recording setup offered me with a drum sound that I was very proud of and very easy to mix.

In Conclusion

My overall experience with these projects has been one of education and enormous satisfaction. The skills I can take away from these endeavours are numerous and will no doubt serve my future works in a most complimentary way!