Project Red

Project Background

The objective for this project was to record, mix and produce 2 self penned songs by "Red". Red is a local artist that plays at a number of open mic nights and has been working on his repertoire to include more original material. For this project we decided that we would focus on original material.

Planning

Studio Recording Song 1 - September 2025 - Complete
Mix and produce Song 1 - October 2025 - Complete

The second studio recording session was planned for 6th March 2026. Red was able to provide me with a reference video of the song that he wanted to record which is always very useful. I like to know what to expect musically before I go into the studio.

Reference video for Song 2

Recording

The first recording session for Red was in September 2025. We recorded one song "In The Wood" in the University Studios.

For the second recording session on March 6th 2026 we worked on the preface of recording one song "The Dryad Song" bust as we had some time left after recording that song, we managed to record another number "Rowan Berry Blues"

As Red has little studio experience but is used to playing live with a drum machine, I decided that it would be beneficial to record a track from his drum machine for each song. This enabled Red to feel comfortable when he was recording rather than playing to a metronome click track.

The benefit of this approach is that there would be no "spill" from the drum machine during recording of guitar and vocals, leading to a clean recording. In addition, the song would be recorded at a fixed tempo which would allow me to program more realistic drums at the mix phase.

("Red" recording the vocal track in the studios)

Mixing

We had a good strong set of recordings and also multiple takes of each song so I had plenty of material to work on. We agreed that i would program drum parts, play bass and also play some slide guitar on "Rowan Berry Blues". I am by no means an expert at slide guitar but I persevered and managed to record some acceptable parts. 

I was able to make composite takes of Red's guitar and vocals tracks in order to choose the best parts of each take which added to a more professional end product.

Once I had programmed the drums, and added the bass guitar and slide guitar, 

I also had an idea of adding a harmonica solo and ideally this would have involved using a real harmonica recording. However, as we were not able to do this,  dug into my sample library to see what was available.

The use of samples plays a large part in music produced today. I generally don't use samples, preferring to record real musicians playing real instruments but have nothing against them.

Some musician / producers will develop songs purely using samples and can produce very professional results, mainly due to the quality of the recorded samples and there is quite an art to working with samples as each sample must be matched with the pitch / key and time of the song.

I was able to combine a number of samples to produce a harmonica solo that I thought would fit the song, although I left the final decision as to if it should be included to Red.

I was then able to move on to the mix.

The following video demonstrates me mixing "Rowan Berry Blues" introducing each component part into the mix.

Reflection

The sessions with Red were very enjoyable to work on. Red was well rehearsed and although he had not had much studio experience, adapted quickly to the environment where sometimes it can be slightly overwhelming.

There was little need to re-take the guitar or vocals tracks, although we did run through a number of takes so I could make a "composite" take, consisting of the best parts of each take.

We discussed the post-recording process and exchanged ideas about what instruments to use and the feel of the final production. As an added bonus, we had some time left in the studio and were able to record an extra track.

A very enjoyable project.