So today I’ve been recording a violinist, an incredibly talented violinist named Andrew Sutherland in the Multitrack Studio for my first movement ‘Innocence’.

Audio advisor Steve Kirkby kindly let me borrow his treasured Neumann U87 (over 2 grand in a tiny little wooden box) to use as the close mic (cardioid setting) and I used an AKG C414 as a secondary room mic. I placed them like so:

In retrospect I probably should have wrapped the cables around the stands but anyway… The high placed mic is the close U87, placed up there so as to capture the sound emanating upwards from the bridge and f-holes of the violin.

This is the view from the control room:

Aaand this is the man himself doing his thing:

For my first of the three movements, ‘Thesis: Innocence’, I needed to capture the sound of innocent childhood joy and wonder, and what better way than to spend 2 mornings baby-sitting my wonderful little niece Sophie, with a microphone recording subtly on the coffee table for most of the time, as she somehow already knew what a microphone was and had already grasped the concept of stage-fright.

Needless to say, I ended up with over 2 hours of material to sift through, and while her voice is very cute, editing that down into many few-second-samples was a little challenging:

I would have got some pictures but unfortunately she’s a little bit camera shy, so I didn’t manage to take any photos without risking her going all quiet, but here’s a picture of the portable solid state recorder I used to record her:

This is a Marantz PMD-661 Handheld Solid State Recorder and I used a standard condenser microphone with XLR input, adjusting recording parameters as and when needed.

The very initial idea was to combine string sections, such as violin and cello, with some modern electronic beats, much like the band ‘SomethingALaMode’.

After some thought into how I could give the concept some solid academic value, I decided upon having 3 ‘movements’ that complemented each other in some way with an overlying narrative. Below is the first sketching actually thinking about how this could be done.

I first looked at natural ‘triads’ in the world, such as solid, liquid and gas etc… but I finally decided upon German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel and his well known triad ‘Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis’.

It states that:

A thought is affirmed (Thesis) which on reflection proves unsatisfactory, which propels the affirmation of its negation (Antithesis) which also on reflection proves inadequate, and so is again negated for utmost adequacy (Synthesis).

An example of this would be the French Revolution (Thesis), the reign of terror that followed (Antithesis), resulting in the Constitutional State of Free Citizens (Synthesis).

So I started thinking about the connotations which Bi-polar disorders and others but eventually concluded how this theory demonstrates happiness in general throughout our lives:

From innocent childhood joy and wonder (Thesis), to indulgent teenage obsessions with video games, money and even recreational drugs (Antithesis), to integration into adult society where we have calmed down a bit and can find happiness in the little things, or maybe even becoming a parent.

These are very early rough ideas…

Hi there! I’m Jon Jarvis and I’m in my 3rd year of BA(Hons) Audio Production at Lincoln Uni.

This blog is going to detail my progress throughout the production process of ‘Audio Project 1’, my first semester audio project.

I have decided to do this project on my own , so as to test my individual production skill using a variety of recording techniques and Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) such as Pro Tools and Logic.