An introduction...

I am a composer of electroacoustic music, particularly it seems so-called mixed-media music that combines instruments and electronics.

I am a recording engineer.

Recently I have been thinking about the relationship between the two. Where do they inform or interpret one another? Where do they interact and suggest certain paths? Both require me to be sonically picky, a raw pursuit of sonic elegance and pristine-ness is where I feel the most commonality. More recently though I have been thinking about areas they might collide. I've perhaps not been at my most adventurous in mixing multi-track recordings of folk musics for example. However, it is the recording of mixed-music that has really led me to question my work.

At the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland I am relatively new to my job. Working day to day as a recording engineer is hard but fulfilling. I encounter many levels of performance from raw, but talented young students through to fully fledged professionals who just happen to also be studying. This work makes me acutely aware of just how important recording good performers is. I can capture a piano with sonic perfection but if it is not played with flair, skill and musicality it won't ever appear to be anything other than a mediocre recording. So I'm trying to capture a performance, not an abstract sound quality. It is a performance that I am seeking and using my skills as a musician I hope to help bring that out.

It was thinking about performance, mixed-media music and recordings that made me question what role recordings have in mixed-media music full stop. It seems almost problematic to me. There are two things going on here:

1. An acousmatic element projected by loudspeakers. There is a rich history of acousmatic music and it is music that has always been projected by loudspeakers.
2. Instrumental music, played by living performers. This music was traditionally seen as existing best within a live performance context although recordings are now extremely common and can be seen to shed new light on a composition.

Combining these two parts, one that involves invisible sounds and one involving sounds made by visible players seems to imply, to me at least, that it is important for those sounds to be made by a visible person. After all, the composer could have recorded these parts and mixed them into an acousmatic piece. It seems almost to necessitate a live performance.
So if it is important that they are visible, or perhaps perceivable, and this is an assumption I am beginning from, what of recorded realisations? Do the sounds of the instrument need to be clear and distinct? Can it ever be masked by the tape part? How can the recording engineer make the instrumental parts perceivably 'live' yet blended with the electroacoustic part?

It was questions like these that led me to begin researching this aspect of recording. It seems to me that at this point much thought has been put into the live presentation of mixed-media and fixed-media music by groups like BEAST, MANTIS, Sound Intermedia to name a few but less has been said about the way recording engineers and producers approach the question posed by mixed-media music.

Through this research it is not my goal to create a method. Different pieces will require different approaches. Music involving live electronics will differ greatly from pieces only involving fixed electroacoustic parts both technologically and philosophically. What I hope to gain for myself and to share with others is a way of thinking about the music that will lead me to more carefully consider recording methods in order to serve the music at hand.

This research is supported by an Athenaeum Small Project Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland research department. These are new awards in order to allow staff to develop or complete research. To best communicate what I am trying to do and achieve this is the project outline I submitted:

"I am applying to research the recording of music for instruments and electronics (mixed-media music). There is significant research into electroacoustic methodologies and the live presentation of this music in concerts. Despite this, there is little research surrounding recorded realisations of mixed-media music. Through this research, I aim to address issues of perceptual dissonance between the instrumental and electroacoustic parts in many mixed-media recordings. That is, they do not seem to share the same apparent acoustic space. I will develop a methodology, through practice, for approaching mixed-media recording. This research will not yield a fixed method, but rather a way of thinking about and developing strategies for recording mixed-media music. I will record my composition, Fata Morgana (clarinet quartet and fixed-media). The composition has an inherent spatial matrix. Therefore, it is an ideal starting point for this research. The goal will be to manifest these spatial perspectives through the recording methods. The work will be played by the Cameo Clarinet Quartet and engineered by Bob Whitney Aims: Plan the approach to recording this composition based on the spatial matrix present in the work. Record the instrumental and fixed-media parts with various microphone techniques and placements. Collate findings surrounding microphone techniques, speaker placements and projection of the electroacoustic part.  Objectives: Create a recorded realisation of Fata Morgana where the live and pre-recorded parts are distinct, yet musically blended within the same perceptual space. Document and disseminate good practices for the approach of recording mixed-media music in the context of existing research. I will specifically target Leeds International Festival of Innovations in Music Production and Composition (iFIMPaC).

Continue this research through the recording of further mixed-media music including the release of an album with Tom Poulson to be recorded in Summer 2014."



In my next posts I will be describing how and why I have chosen various recording methods prior to recording on June 25th. I will also make a post highlighting just what I am trying to capture from the clarinet part and the electroacoustic part.