During the last semester of Nyssa's university degree, she was involved in the Vermilion Studios Team. Vermilion Records is a student run record label and Vermilion Studios is the student team in charge of recording the Vermilion Artists.
Below are some recounts of the projects that she was involved in, written by her.
VERMILION STUDIOS
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Red Le Clerc
This was the first session I had back in the studios after Covid 19 happened. It was a relatively simple session, we just re-recorded some acoustic guitar for one of Red Le Clerc's songs. This was a nice start to the semester as it let me refresh my memory and skills with working in the studios. While tracking we ran into some trouble with some white noise and found out after some troubleshooting that it was the lead that was faulty. After we switched the lead, everything went smoothly.
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Jon Marsden
The second session I was involved in was a session with Jon Marsden. In this session we recorded some guitar, and then Jon Marsden had his saxophonist in to record a saxophone solo and some backing lines. I helped a little with tracking, but during the session Jon and the saxophonist were figuring out what he should play, which took up most of the time.
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The Letter Elle
During my first session with The Letter Elle, we were in the studio with all the synthesizers. The pianist wanted to try and see if he could use any synths that were available, but he ended up just using his small synth that he brought with him. The other Vermilion Studios students I was with in this session mainly took control and I helped out where I could. After fiddling with the synths which took quite a while, it was time to record the guitar. I track the guitarist's takes and this took us to the end of the session.
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The Letter Elle
The next week, I had another session with The Letter Elle. In this session they were recording a different song, and brought their drummer. We spent the beginning of the session setting up and patching the drum kit, then we recorded it. After the drums were recorded, we tracked guitar and bass for the song. The other Vermilion Studios students and I took turns tracking in this session and everything went smoothly.
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Callum and Lara
In my first session with Callum and Lara we tracked vocals and guitar. Vocals were recorded first and we comped them afterwards. The majority of this session was practice as Callum had to practice his guitar part to solidify what he wanted to record. I tracked during this session and after recording lots of takes, Callum and I comped which parts that he liked best. In this session we were using the DAW Logic rather than Pro Tools which is what we usually use in the studios. I use Logic on my own laptop so I knew the basics but a few things were different because we were in the studio.
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Bamboo Bonsai
Nearer to the end of the semester I was involved in a studio session with Bamboo Bonsai. In this session we recorded drums for two songs, and guitar for two songs. This session was very efficient as he knew what he needed to get done and did it with no hesitation. I helped track a little in this session and shared that duty with other Vermilion Studios students. Everything went well and Bamboo Bonsai got done what he needed to this session.
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Callum and Lara
The very last studio session that I had was with Callum and Lara. In this session they wanted to finish mixing one of their songs and add little bits that needed to be added. Callum had wanted to add some claps in the song as it was a sort of Spanish-inspired style. So Callum, Lara, McKai (the other Vermilion Studios student) went into one of the studio rooms and looped the record so we could do a clapping section in the song. This was really fun and I had wanted to do that for quite a while. Once we had added that to the song, there was a little more mixing to be done. Once we listened to it one more time we decided to finish there so it could be sent off to mastering.
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Callum and Lara
The second studio session I had with Callum and Lara, I was the only Vermilion Studios student present. During this session we were working on a different song. We tracked vocals, and then bass. There was more comping and we prepared all the tracks as stems to be mixed.
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Franz Dowling
For Franz Dowling's session I was the only student present but it all went very well. Franz wanted to record a completely new song which included vocals, acoustic guitar, banjo and violin. It was a very stripped back song and as a violinist I wanted to be on this session. By this point I had learned a lot more throughout this semester so I felt a lot more confident being in this session alone. I knew a lot more about which microphones to use for specific instruments and could run a studio session all by myself. We recorded acoustic guitar and vocals together as Franz wanted the acoustic/rustic feeling, then violin and banjo separately. Nothing went wrong in the session and I am proud of myself for being able to do it alone.
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Vermilion High - Gio Okesene
During the semester break there was the Vermilion High Program being held in which high school students who had entered got the opportunity to come into the studios at QUT and record an original song. The Vermilion Studios team were the producers during the week and helped out on sessions with the high school students. The first session that I was involved in was Gio Okesene's session. We pretty much recorded a whole song in a day and got everything that needed to be done e.g. vocals, piano, guitar, drums, etc. done. I helped out a little in this session as another student was engineering.
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Vermilion High - Kate Tarvit
For Kate Tarvit's Vermilion High session I was engineering for the majority of the day. We were there all day recording drums, vocals, guitar and piano. There was also the chance during these session to offer some artistic advice or direction. Some of the Vermilion studios students offered help with things such as structure of the song and other things like harmonies to add. After all the Vermilion High sessions were done, mixing the sessions became an option. Multiple students mixed the sessions and I mixed a version of Kate Tarvit's song.
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4zzz Mixing
Another option for mixing this semester was the 4zzz Live Delay sessions. Last semester because of Covid 19, we had mixed a lot of these, however there were still more to do. I worked on one session, 'Hazards of Swimming Naked'.