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The Stranger
Date: September 2022
Style: Pop
Label: Skippy Music
ISRC: NL7PC2200002
Producer: Antoine van Kampen (AvK)
Note: This production was the final assignment I did for Sound Education Nederland
Lyrics, Composition and Arrangement
Lyrics and composition by Daphne Reijnoudt (DR). Arrangement by DR & AvK. Produced by AvK
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Performance
Lead vocals and piano by Daphne Reijnoudt. Background vocals by performed by Claire (UK) and Juliet [and here] (UK). Violin melody by Joylin [and here] (Romania). All other tracks are virtual instruments (VSTi).
 Clair Virginia (backing vocals) |
 Juliet (Backing vocals) |
 Joylin (Violin) |
Summary of the production
Daphne Reijnoudt, with who I played together in Recover in the past, composed a song and lyrics (The Stranger) that she had put on SoundCloud (see below). She recorded only piano and vocals. This was a descent recording although there was clipping at several moments and some aspects of the performance could be improved. Moreover, I felt that this was a nice song to change and improve the arrangement.
- I reduced the length of the song (originally about 5 minutes);
- I changed the chord progression of the bridges;
- I made the piano part more interesting;
- I added background vocals (two female singers were hired);
- I composed several cello, violin and viola parts that, subsequently, I played using Native Instrument VSTi’s and East West Virtual Instruments;
- I asked a violinist to record the violin melody line and used this to replace one VSTi track;
- At a later stage I also decided to add drums (composed in BFD3) and bass (played on the Komplete Kontrol S88 using Native Instrument VSTi’s) to make more impact.
Although the initial idea was to do all recording ((background)vocals, pianos, strings) at Trypoul Recording Studios, this was not pursued because of the difficulty in finding musicians for the string section. Therefore, the piano part and the lead vocal were recorded in my home studio (Skippy Studio). For the background vocals and violin, I asked session musicians through Fiverr to deliver their parts.
I chose to make the bass and (kick)drum rather heavy in the second part of the song. However, not more than other comparable commercial reference tracks. Although I hesitated for a long time, I felt it was possible since there are no other instruments in the (mid)low range, except for the cello, which I high-pass when the bass guitar comes in.
Given the fact that it is virtually impossible to fully master your own mix, I was very conservative with the mastering and did not apply any EQ (otherwise I would have made EQ changes in the mix). My mix and master are found below. In addition, I asked Hans Weekhout from Jellywood Studio to master my mix (see below).
Recording
Background vocals and violin were recorded at the studios of Claire, Juliet, and Joylin respectively. Piano and lead vocal were recorded at Skippy Studio.
12 July 2022: recording session with DR at Skippy Studio (Den Bosch). We recorded two versions of the song: one without metronome (thus, having tempo changes as the original recording on SoundCloud), and a second one with a recording to the grid (118bpm). Instead of the metronome click I had a simple drum pattern (BFD3) playing as guidance. This second recording was used to add additional instruments and background vocals.
We recorded the Nord Stage 2 piano (without reverb) and the vocals (Shure SM58). I had a room microphone setup in addition (sE2200a MKII). In the end I didn’t use the room microphone since it did not contribute to the sound. I also tried using the sE2200a for the vocal recording but this picked up too much of the key noise from the Nord while DR was playing. The Nord, and vocals were recorded into Cubase. Simultaneously, I made a MIDI recording of the piano part. DR was provided with a headphone mix (BeyerDynamic DT880 PRO; which actually had some leakage into the microphone) directly from the Behringer X32 and Behringer Powerplay Pro XL headphone amplifier. A little reverb (Lexicon MPX500) was added to this headphone mix (not recorded into Cubase).
In total we recorded the song 14 (!) times during our 3-hour session until we were satisfied with the recording. Some takes recorded the piano and vocals simultaneously, while for others we first recorded the piano and added the vocals at a later stage.
 Setup for vocal and piano recording. Backside of Shure SM58 (unidirectional cardioid) pointed to the keys to avoid too much key noise. |
 Room microphone sE2200a MKII (this recording was not used since the keys of the Nord were clearly audible). |
While mixing the song I found out that something went wrong with the vocal recordings (likely I have driven my pre-amps to hard. The vocals sounded harsh and distorted after processing (compression etc). I tried to clean up using spectral editing (Steinberg SpectraLayers, and iZotope RX) but this also reduced the top-high too much. We decided to have a new recording session.
19 August 2022. Second recording session. This time I recorded the vocals with the sE2200a MkII (large membrane condenser) as main microphone since we didn’t have to redo the piano, and the Rode NT5 (small condenser) as a backup. I recorded the sE2200a through a Neve pre-amp clone (Golden Age PRE-73). This time, both recordings sounded ok, but I decided only to use the sE2200a recording although the NT5 added some nice top high, I felt that that was unsuitable for the song.
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Famous Skippy Studio double mono recording setup with sE2200a/Rode NT5 (left), and recording session in progress (right). I corrected for phase at a later stage (of course).
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Second recording session in progress.
Arrangement
The piano part played by DR mainly consisted of chords with little variation. Since I also recorded Midi, I decided to use the Midi track and to edit in some more variation. The Midi track was played back using one of the pianos of the Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate 13 library, and then rendered to a wav file.
The initial idea was to complement the song with a string section (cello, viola, and 2 violins) and gospel/soul background vocals. It turned out to be difficult to find a string section
- Contacted a few musicians without response.
- Also placed advertisement on some forums (e.g., Strijkersforum).
- I contacted Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten who pointed me to the FHK Meeting point for advertising my project. No response
- I contacted the External bookings office of the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. Didn’t want to cooperate.
Therefore, I decided to abandon the idea to hire a string section (and, therefore, to record everything at Trypoul Recording Studios). Consequently, we also didn’t record the (backing) vocals in this study even though I discussed with Erwin Motman the possibilities of hiring the New Gospel Sensation for the background vocals. Erwin even gratefully offered to compose and record some vocal harmonies himself would I not hire the New Gospel Sensation. In the end, I didn’t make use of his offer.
Given this situation, I composed the individual string parts for cello, viola, and 2 violins. (Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate 13: Session String Pro’s, Amati Viola, Strativari Violin and Cello, and violins from the East West Symphonic Orchestra library. At a later stage I added an string ensemble at two moments in the song and added a violin melody in the intro, middle part, and outro. This part was later replaced by Joylin with a real violin.
I was provided with many vocal harmony tracks by Claire, which I only used for the second part of the song. She also provided me with a lead track that I blended in during the first chorus and the second part of the song. For the first chorus I needed something different. I asked Juliet to provide with with some simple harmonies using only consonants/vowels instead of doubling the lyrics.
Once the strings were added, I felt that the song lacked impact and variation. Therefore, I decided to add drums and bass for the second part of the song. The drums were composed with BFD3 and the for the bass and used one of the Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate 13 bass guitars that I played on the S88 keyboard.
Mixing and Mastering
Mixing was done in Cubase Pro 12. Mastering was done using WaveLab Pro 11.1 by Antoine van Kampen. A second master was made by Hans Weekhout of Jellywood Studio.
At a later stage of the mixing Hans Weekhout provided me with some very usefull feedback on my mix:
See next two videos to get an impression of the Cubase and Wavelab projects:
Composition notes:
Chord progression with some notes to myself:
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SoundCloud
The original version of The Stranger (vocal/piano)
The final mix (full version)
Master 1 (Full version; Antoine van Kampen, Skippy Studio)
Master 2 (Full version; Hans Weekhout, Jellywood Studio)
Feedback
Feedback (in Dutch) from Sound Education Nederland (Erik Spanjers, Studio Sylvester)
Files
Multitrack (unprocessed 24bit wav files), Mastered audio files (wav, mp3, DPP), and Wavelab project are available through [Dropbox].
