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Alchemea Students Produce a Song for Release
-The song was produced by Alchemea students on the Studio Diploma course 2010.4 during a Production Workshop class headed by Alchemea Principal Christian Huant. This production workshop is a regular lecture on the curriculum.
For this workshop, in order to give the students as realistic an experience as possible, Christian selected a song in demo form i.e. just vocals with piano or guitar accompaniment but complete, with lyrics and melody ; in other words, ready for production. The song is called In My Stoli, written by independent artist Kate Borkowski www.kateborkowski.com.
Alchemea tutor Marcel van Limbeek recorded and mixed Kate’s upcoming LP, Beautiful Little Fools, on which In My Stoli is featured, but both Kate and Marcel felt there was an openness to the song that might allow for it to move in a direction outward from its origin, so it became an ideal starting point for the Production Workshop!
Marcel gave Christian a simple vocal and piano version from the recording session, to be used as a basis for the workshop. You can also listen to the original finished version here: www.kateborkowski.com/music
Day 1: Production
The first part of the workshop involved discussions about the song itself: lyrics, structure, melody, performance. While not in a position to re-record the performance, there are plenty of production tools in today’s armory that could fix such problems if they were present.
The song, in its original form, was found to have an intro, a verse that moved into a ‘bridge’ section (although the piano arpeggio remains the same), a chorus where the piano arpeggio changes and becomes minor, and then a repeat of this structure a second time, ending with a slightly longer ‘second chorus’. While the basic structure is traditional and therefore no cause for concern, the team decided to make the song more commercial by enhancing the bridge through subtle arrangement and instrumentation in order to distinguish it from the verse (as the verse and bridge originally use the same chord arpeggio), as well as making the chorus more uplifting by removing the original piano part and replacing it with a more open chord sequence, backed by more powerful instrumentation.
The lyrics were found to be introspective, slightly sad / dark, dealing with the often opposite yearnings of the rational and irrational mind, portrayed as a dialog between 2 lovers (‘She says…’, ‘He says…’). This opened up discussions about a potential contrast in the arrangement, using a combination of traditional (strings, acoustic piano, live drums…) with cutting edge sounds (glitch electronics and modern beats). Also, both verses could receive a different treatment, one slow and orchestral, the other fast and beat driven, to underline the dialogue in the lyrics.
The recorded performances of piano and vocal were more than adequate. Some minor tweaks may prove necessary depending on the chosen style for the production as some genres demand more accuracy than others. It was also unclear at that point if the original piano recording would be used at all, in full or in part, or replaced. In particular, it was noted that the vocal melody in the chorus was the same as the arpeggio played on the piano at that same point.
Then the discussion turned to the style. Echoes of Kate Bush were present in the vocal, and many students immediately saw the theatrical / orchestral potential of the song. Christian was keen to ensure the production would be current, and not just a pastiche of 1970’s Bush hits. Many ideas were explored, from the orchestral and exotic to more conventional pop/rock or chill-out electronica (even dubstep!!). Other reference artists included Joanna Newsom, Allie Moss (‘Corner’) and Sigúr Ros. Christian suggested that there was potential for a Björk-type track, thanks to Kate’s distinctive vocals and the orchestral / electronic contrast discussed when analysing the lyrics. The team seemed to agree that this was a good direction and Christian suggested students listened to Björk’s ‘Jóga’ as a potential reference.
Each student was then left to their own devices, to come up with some musical ideas. While some had definite tasks in mind, others just explored and experimented. By the end of day 1, most students were hard at work on various elements which had to be ready, bounced and delivered for the following morning.
Day 2: Recording
Day 2 started with Christian importing all the various bits of work into a master session (and urging the last few stragglers to deliver their piece if they wanted it to be included!). The team then put all the pieces together and decided on what worked well, what didn’t work with the mood and / or other elements, and which ideas needed to be tweaked or developed further. After a bit of editing, ruthless chopping and some heavy tweaking, the track started to take shape as a unit.
While Christian worked on this, Marcel took the students to the studio where they would set-up, tune and mic up a live drum kit. It was felt that some live drums would benefit the sound as a whole, giving the track a live edge and more contrast with the electronic beats. Ex-student Raoul Terzi (session drummer, currently studio assistant at Sarm West studios and Alchemea supervisor) kindly accepted to pop in and spend a couple of hours playing variations on ideas the students had come up with sampled loops on Day 1. Raoul proved to be excellent: professional yet relaxed and delivering the goods in just a few takes!
By the end of the day all the key elements in place and an emerging arrangement that underlined the song’s structure and mood changes in line with the discussions of Day 1.
Day 3: Post Production
Day 3 saw more tweaking of the key elements and the addition of minor additional spot effects and sounds that made the production more interesting. The best bits of the live drum recording were edited in place and this signalled the end of the track-laying. After endless tweaks, due attention to detail and fine-tuning work, a general balance started to emerge.
The string arrangement did cause a lot of discussion, in particular the texture of the samples used and the chords played at various points in the song. Some last minute re-programming was in order, using better samples which would then be run through some valve equipment in order to give the programmed samples a more organic feel, and then bouncing the whole thing again. Similarly, finding the right passing notes for the bass line going from the second verse to second bridge proved difficult and required a few attempts until everyone was satisfied.
Day 4: Mixing
Where the balance was tweaked, EQ and phase clashes were resolved, dynamic control applied and effects / panning were added. Hardware Lexicon reverb applied to the strings emphasised still further the ‘organic’ sound the team was looking for. Automation (vocal effects in the second bridge, spot delays, piano melody in the final chorus outro…) provided the final touches before finally laying down a couple of alternate versions of the mix.
Day 5: Mastering
Alchemea guest tutor Anthony Lim kindly took the team to his studio in Beethoven street in order to give the track the best treatment that high-end analogue and digital processing could offer.
Voilà!
Full Credits
In my Stoli (Alchemy Elixer Mix)
Song written by: Kate Borkowski
Vocals: Kate Borkowski
Bösendorfer Piano: Kate Borkowski
Vocals recorded by Garey Shelton at Garey Shelton Productions (Seattle, WA)
Piano recorded by: Marcel van Limbeek, at Martian Engineering [http://www.martianengineering.com].
Piano appears courtesy of Tori Amos.
Production & Mix: Christian Huant and Marcel van Limbeek with Alchemea SSD students 2010.4*
Live Drums recorded by: Marcel van Limbeek with Alchemea SSD students 2010.4 at Alchemea studio 1.
Mastering: Anthony Lim with Alchemea SSD students 2010.4*
Live Drums: Raoul Terzi
String arrangement: Jack Powell, Sebastian Acosta, Sigurmon Sigurdsson, Jaya Madhvani
Electronic Beats: Sigurmon Sigurdsson, Sebastian Acosta, Will Riddell
Bass: James McNeill, Sigurmon Sigurdsson, Sebastian Acosta
Glitch work and effected vocal: David Royse
Reversed Piano: Jack Powell
Additional Piano: Jaya Madhvani, Sebastian Acosta, Sigurmon Sigurdsson
Additional Percussion: Matt Doughty, Jack Powell, James McNeill
Harp: Jaya Madhvani
Timpani Rolls: Matt Doughty
*Release version mixed by Marcel van Limbeek and mastered by Marcel van Limbeek and Alchemea tutor Neil Pickles.
Kate Borkowski
The KBM Group | PMB 356 Mercer Island, WA 98040 | +1 206 579 7373 | kateborkowski.com
