Audio production of the song 'Empty lies'

In the diploma thesis, they wanted to explore the processes of recording, editing, mixing and mastering a song through a practical example. The result of the diploma thesis was a successfully recorded arrangement of the song Empty Lies and acquired knowledge covering the pre-production or organisational, production or recording, and post-production part, which includes editing, mixing and mastering. They also learnt to handle professional studio equipment, became familiar with signal flow in the studio, expanded their knowledge of microphone placement and selection, and learnt to operate various audio programmes that audio production engineers use for recording songs around the world.

Solution and method

In the diploma thesis, they wanted to explore the processes of recording, editing, mixing and mastering a song through a practical example. They chose the song Empty Lies, ** which was made in an 'in the box' production. They made an arrangement of the song, ** recording acoustic drums with multiple microphones, bass guitar and guitar through an amplifier or DI box, keyboards with a MIDI controller, and female vocals. In doing so, they handled pre-amplifiers, compressors, limiters, EQs, DI boxes.

They also used analogue and digital audio effects. They learnt how work proceeds in a professional studio and collaborated with musicians, whether professional or amateur. In pre-production, they assembled a team with which they could carry out the next phase – production.

In this phase, they recorded acoustic drums (Matej Horvat), bass guitar (Teodor Amanović), guitar (Teodor Amanović), keyboards 1 (Andrea Atić), keyboards 2 (Luka Knez), and vocals (Andrea Atić). For recording, they needed three three-hour sessions. The post-production stage was carried out by each individually at home or in their own studio, under the supervision of the mentor.

This was followed by selection and editing of recordings, where they eliminated all superfluous recordings and selected the best ones. In this phase, they also corrected mistakes and gave the song its almost final form. During mixing, they edited the roughly arranged recordings in even greater detail using various tools (EQs, various compressors, limiters, de-essers, audio effects …).

They addressed the dynamics of the recordings, frequency balance, and also added various audio effects for better flow and blending of the recordings into a whole. They built the sonic image of the song with each instrument or vocal separately in the mixing phase. When they moved on to mastering, they began processing the recording as a whole. Using compressors, limiters, EQs, imagers … they unified the recording into a whole and gave it its final sonic image.

Results

The result of the diploma thesis was a successfully recorded arrangement of the song Empty Lies and acquired knowledge covering the pre-production or organisational, production or recording, and post-production part, which includes editing, mixing and mastering. They also learnt to handle professional studio equipment, became familiar with signal flow in the studio, expanded their knowledge of microphone placement and selection, and learnt to operate various audio programmes that audio production engineers use for recording songs around the world.