Musings from a Matchbox

Having worked on this task as a piece called “Whisper Not”, I ended up with an unsatisfactory result, in that the takes that I had recorded could have been better and required a lot of chopping and changing, which would degrade the quality of the finished project. In this event, I decided to start again with a new piece. I recorded a gospel choir, accompanied by piano, contrabass and drumkit. Firstly, I recorded the intstruments, as a basic starting point and as a guide for the vocals to be added later. This I did by using Rode NT1As, an SE Z3300As, 2 Oktava MK-012s, and Shure SM58s.

After the instruments, I recorded the choir using 2 SE Z3300As in Blumlein configuration, two Oktava MK-012s in AB and the soundfield microphone suspended from the ceiling. 

I have included diagrams on paper with my CD. 

The mixing mainly involved Equalising and balancing the many different signals together. I stripped the silence out of the vocals and kick drum, as they had picked up other sounds such as the headphones and the snare. I then compressed many of the tracks through submixes and put an overall reverb on the master track.

I have completed the commercial. In the end, I chose the waltz as the style in which to compose my piece, and I think the results are quite pleasing. I have violins, violas, celli, and contrabasses accompanied by timpani and cymbal crashes, and also a glockenspiel harmonising the melody, which the violin plays. I had originally intended to include the piano, but felt that there was already much happening in regard to orchestration, and that adding anything more would make it too complex. 

While the violins play the melody, the violas and celli are arpeggiating, although the latter at a slower rate, and the contrabasses and timpani play strong single notes to accent the downbeat. The timpani also, along with the cymbals, musically represent the various explosions and crashes that the advertisement depict.

I didn’t include a jingle as such for the Dell logo, as I felt it wouldn’t fit with the piece, and that the way the music finishes exactly when it appears would be enough of an impact for people to remember the name.

http://www.divshare.com/download/7345706-696

This task is pretty much completed and ready. Again, I may change parts yet, but as it is, I am happy to call this a day, so to speak, for now, and move on to other things. Most recently, at the suggestion of my classmate, I added more musical expression to movements such as blinking and reaching to grab Tom’s tail and stretching it, for example.

http://www.divshare.com/download/7257933-e3a

I have hopefully finished tweaking and changing this, now with a piano section at the end and some distortion and manipulation to follow the picture. I have also changed the music I had before and mixed it to my own satisfaction. I may change it still, but for the moment, I shall be content to work on everything else, and be prepared to hand in this version:

http://www.divshare.com/download/7257869-6b5