Music Recording: Purple Bamboo Melody

This is a screenshot of video editing and music recording project I did. The project was recording a song with a gentleman named Henry Wang. Mr. Wang plays traditional Chinese instruments such as the ehru and a bamboo flute. He has also recorded music for shows on Nickelodeon such as Legend of Korra and Kung Fu Panda.

The recording process for the song was done with myself and 3 other partners. Going into the project we were all at a complete loss. We had no idea how to record the instruments. We knew in advance that we would be recording Chinese instruments but we couldn't find much information on techniques to record. We used 2 AKG 414s and 2 KSM 141s in different positions to try to get different sounds of the instruments. Also during the recording, we had a videographer shooting video so that we could edit it into a music video.

The entire song is only 3 instruments, 2 ehrus of different pitch and a bamboo flute. Although we thought we were going to have a hard time recording because of the unconventional instruments, Mr. Wang was really helpful. Having already had experience recording these instruments, he would guide on positioning the microphones to make sure we got the best sound we could. He was incredibly patient and sincere with us and he made the whole process run smoothly. We were able to get a good amount of takes for all 3 instruments. We had to cut our recording session short because he had another engagement but he gave us more than enough to work with.

The mixing process wasn't too hard. I wanted to give the song a big feel and make it feel like it was being played in a Chinese temple so I added some reverb to all the instruments with a semi long decay time to give it that sound. The ehrus had some really harsh sounding frequencies in the higher range so I added a bell curve to bring them down but still have them audible. Because both ehrus were playing different melodies, I slightly panned them to opposite sides to make them more distinguishable when listening to the song.

After mixing the song, I took the video that was shot and edited together to make a video with the finished song dubbing it.

Overall, the project was a great experience. I got some knowledge on how to record some uncommon instruments and I also got to work with a very experienced professional. At the end, Mr. Wang told us that he usually charges a high amount of money to record but because we were students, he did it for free. That was really admirable of him and we couldn't thank him enough.