Problem:
When recording the bacon, the mic positioning was right next to a window and in the first takes of the recording, you could hear cars driving past.
Solution: The microphone was instead tilted so that the area which it was capturing sound from was in the direction of the source, the ceiling and floor. This solved our car problem but made it so that we needed to be extra quiet when moving around/ would need to cut out the parts where we did move (so walking strategically when the least is happening)
Problem:
The back bacon rashers were not sitting right on the grill (we wanted streaky bacon because they lay better but there wasn't any in stores); there wasn't enough surface area for heat to touch and therefore less of a constant sound.
Solution: We switched from the closeable grill to an open pan which made the sounds louder but it was still inconsistent. Then I remembered something my dad told me about getting back bacon to lay flat. I created 'Bacon teeth' by slicing into the strip of fat making small parts that look like teeth. This allowed less curling of the bacon against the pan's surface and a fuller, more consistent sound.
Problem:
Whilst setting up the piano we forgot that I needed to be watching the 'Shape of Water' scene in order for me to properly play to the cues in the scene. Unfortunately, it was already too late to move the equipment as it would have taken so long
Solution: My project partner suggested that I would watch the video from youtube on my phone and display it on the music sheet stand on the piano while playing- just like how I had been doing during practices.
But... we remembered that the scene we had downloaded has since been removed from youtube and I would have to use another one and proximate the start and ending myself. This meant that not only did I have to play in perfect timing with the video I could see in front of me, but I also had to (with some help) line up that recording afterwards. Luckily for us, the musical cues were practically spot on and were easy to sync in Logic. [More on that in the Week 6 videos]
Problem:
The Shure SM57 microphone was not working as expected. The sound coming through into the studio was extremely quiet and wasn't able to pick up the beginning of the volume swells. The microphone was also crackling.
Solution: With the presence of my tutor, I suggested using a different cable, in case the cable is broken, however, that did not seem to be the problem. Our tutor suggested a cardio condenser and this time it was a cardioid condenser microphone. We set it up roughly in the same way as the Shure SM57 was set up. I had to turn down the volume of the guitar as the microphone is way more sensitive with picking up audio. This also meant that the microphone would better pick up the sounds from the guitar amplifier, being as I was using the volume swell technique.
Problem:
The cardioid condenser microphone was picking up extra sound from the amplifier, and it was too obtrusive when my project partner was playing.
Solution: After I had suggested the idea, we decided to just record multiple takes- for authenticity- of single guitar notes (no fading in using the volume knob) which would get rid of the annoying background buzz and then later we would edit the individual audio clips in the DAW, lining them up where I knew they needed to go. (as I performed the piano piece, I knew exactly when each part was coming) and adding faders onto both ends to ensure a smooth transition.
Problem:
The talkback had stopped working and the sound coming from the recording room was extremely loud.
Solution: I asked a professional (a technician) for help. I explained the situation to him and disclosed what I had tried already showing that inputs were peaking into the red on the interface and it had just suddenly happened. Turns out it was just the units needing to be refreshed (turned off and on again) and it has happened before.
Problem:
When reloading logic, the file we had been working from was altered and things were out of sync with the movie clip... because there was no movie!
Solution: I remembered a talk with my tutor before and he showed me how to restore files back to a previous version and so upon doing that, we saw everything was back to just before we recorded the guitar parts which was fine because we needed to do it the new way anyway.
Problem:
My project partner was needed elsewhere to record bass parts and I was left for over an hour to do some tech stuff alone. We usually did this together because he has the majority of the research and knowledge working in DAWs but also because of differing opinions as it is our work so we want to both be pleased with the outcome.
Solution: As mentioned previously, I played the piano for the recording for clip one and so I knew the placement and natural flow of the music and where it would benefit from a lift using the guitar recordings. I lined them up to the scene and audio and locked their SMPTE position. Prior research regarding composition techniques and atmosphere creation gave me the idea to make sure the guitar was unheard during specific moments to put emphasis on the weightlessness and emptiness of a big open body of water. I managed quite well and efficiently by myself and once we were together again, we checked them with few corrections. This saved us valuable time.
Problem:
During the creation of the audio for Clip one (Shape of Water), I had both composed a huge amount of the musical material and also was mainly solo on the recording.
Solution: I suggested fairness in regards to moving forward with Clip 2 (Casino Royale). He can use main character themes for James bond and be in the forefront for most of the piece, playing and recording while I do background work and have less control over his parts to give him creative liberty and freedom completely as much as I can so that he does not feel 'useless' in the process.
Problem:
When recording directly into the DAW in logic, the audio file kept being shortened. It kept cutting out the beginning of each guitar audio track, skipping the first few seconds of silence. This meant that despite being in-time when playing to the metronome during recording, the finished product was shifted out of sync every single time we tried and sounded awful (not to mention it failed to line up with the scene how intended)
Solution: Although painstaking, shifting the audio files manually in order to line up with each bar was the only option. there seemed to be an input delay with the scarlet box. To try and make things easier though, we are doing separate audio recordings for each section so it doesn't have to be exactly perfect every single take. Also, to make syncing easier, my project partner started playing a few bars before each part, hitting the strings on beat one of the bar along with the metronome a few times before starting. This allowed me to quickly zoom in and align all hits with the start of the bars more accurately and quicker.
I created the sheet below to aid us when recording so that we line up each cues with the bar numbers and then each bar number is associated with a rough time of when something happens on screen:
