[{"content":"","date":"4 June 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"All articles","type":"posts"},{"content":" Adrian de Lima is a UK-based violinist and composer, specializing in classical performance, electronic composition, and sound design. My work Contact ","date":"4 June 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"Home","summary":"","title":"Home","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"4 June 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"My work","summary":"","title":"My work","type":"categories"},{"content":" Playlists ","date":"4 June 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/performances/","section":"My work","summary":"","title":"Performances","type":"categories"},{"content":"Today marks one year from my final recital at the University of Birmingham (UoB), marking the end of my degree, so I decided to write this retrospective on my experience performing there.\nDuring my time studying at the UoB, I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in a number of performances with different ensembles run by the university. In this article I\u0026rsquo;ll be discussing my experience playing the violin in these ensembles (I\u0026rsquo;ll leave my piano playing for another time), and what I learnt from the experience.\nUoB Philharmonic Orchestra # Previously to arriving at UoB I\u0026rsquo;d not had a huge amount of orchestral performance experience, and so I was somewhat apprehensive joining the UoB Philharmonic orchestra. I still remember the shock of my first rehearsal, a \u0026ldquo;come and try\u0026rdquo; rehearsal open to anyone before the auditions. We rehearsed the main theme from E.T., which just so happens to be a really challenging piece of music, and certainly isn\u0026rsquo;t very sight readable. Fortunately after my first semester in the orchestra my sight reading had improved a lot, and I feel like I found my place in the orchestra.\nThe auditions for the UoB orchestras were another source of stress in those first few weeks at university, but fortunately they were handled extremely well, and served more as a placement audition to determine where you\u0026rsquo;ll be sat in the orchestra you\u0026rsquo;re auditioning for. We\u0026rsquo;d prepare a piece of music of our own choice, and also perform 2 short extracts from the orchestral repertoire for that semester. It was amusing when we would rehearse the extracts as an orchestra, as one could easily tell that was a portion of the music that everyone had practiced more than the rest.\nI also joined the String Orchestra in that first semester, which was a much more chill experience as an un-auditioned orchestra, catering to a wider range of skill levels.\nConcert Highlights # Over my time at UoB I stayed in the Philharmonic and String orchestras, slowly working my way up the chairs of the first violins. We played a variety of repertoire, from film music by John Williams and Ennio Morricone to symphonies from the greats like Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. My highlight concerts would either have to be our performance of Tchaikovsky\u0026rsquo;s 5th Symphony, or our film music concert consisting of extracts from the Godfather, and various works from Ennio Morricone\u0026rsquo;s films.\nLeading the String Orchestra # During my final year at UoB I was fortunate to be able to take over as principal violinist in the String Orchestra. As the principal, one has considerably more responsibilities including needing to do any solos, know the music inside out, and have final say in bowings. It was an extreme honour to lead 3 concerts over the course of the year.\nChamber Music at UoB # Alongside performing with the orchestras, I also participated in a lot of chamber music. I ran on the UoB Music Society committee as Chamber Music Manager for a semester, which gave me not only the opportunity to participate in many chamber groups, but to also organise performance opportunities for the society\u0026rsquo;s chamber groups. I was in a couple of piano trios in my first year, performing part of Arensky\u0026rsquo;s piano trio, and Moszkowski\u0026rsquo;s Suite I (op.71) for 2 violins and piano. In my final year I had the opportunity to be part of a quartet performing the first movement of Dvorak\u0026rsquo;s string quartet no. 12 and another group playing Copland\u0026rsquo;s Appalachian Spring. It was a really enjoyable thing, being part of the chamber music network and coming together each week to make music in a low stakes environment.\nSolo Performance and Recitals # That wasn\u0026rsquo;t all though. I studied music, including solo performance. This involved recitals at the end of my 2nd and 3rd years, alongside regular performance platforms during the semester. These were great opportunities to perform music you were working on, and receive feedback from the head of performance. And I can\u0026rsquo;t forget the soloist competition, where I performed Mendelssohn\u0026rsquo;s Violin concerto with piano accompaniment (Thanks Toby!) for the opportunity to perform it with one of UoB\u0026rsquo;s orchestras. I ultimately didn\u0026rsquo;t win the competition, but what a fantastic experience to learn an entire concerto and play to my peers.\nLooking Back on Three Years of Music Making # Even though UoB isn\u0026rsquo;t a conservatoire, it offers fantastic practical music making opportunities for its students, whether they study music or not, and I highly recommend it for the organisation and work that the University Music team put in to give these high quality experiences to the student body. I\u0026rsquo;ve spoken from the perspective of a classical orchestral musician, and haven\u0026rsquo;t even touched on the fantastic work done by the Jazz and Folk societies, or the incredible choral work done there. Here\u0026rsquo;s to a great 3 years of performing at UoB!\n","date":"4 June 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/performing-at-the-university-of-birmingham/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Performing at the University of Birmingham","type":"posts"},{"content":"Anyone who\u0026rsquo;s used Sibelius before has been through the pain of listening to the General Midi sound set. It\u0026rsquo;s frankly embarassing how bad it still is in 2026.\nFortunately Sibelius comes with some options to remedy this. You can install the Sibelius Sounds pack (Previously Sibelius 7 Sounds) if you have a legitimate copy of the software (don\u0026rsquo;t worry I won\u0026rsquo;t judge) but these are pretty mid aswell.\nNotePerformer is the next best option, and is quite user intuitive, but is very resource intensive, introduces a lot of latency to playback, and is quite pricey ($129 at the time of writing) for what it is, especially if you already own some instrument libraries for use in your DAW.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s where ReWire comes in. Developed by Propellerhead (Now Reason Studios) and Steinberg in 1998, its become an industry standard for communication between musical software. As of 2026 it has been discontinued by Reason Studios, but at least for now it is still supported by both Sibelius, and REAPER.\nIt is extremely finicky to get working right however, so that\u0026rsquo;s the purpose of this article.\nWhy use ReWire # Why use ReWire It\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;free\u0026rdquo; - Obviously Sibelius isn\u0026rsquo;t (unless 🏴‍☠️) and REAPER technically isn\u0026rsquo;t, AND you need to have an instrument library/sampler, but there\u0026rsquo;s plenty of free samplers out there (Have a look at Spitfire\u0026rsquo;s Labs and \u0026ldquo;Decent Sampler). It has less latency for playback than NotePerformer. You can use audio fx, change instrument sounds and mix sound a lot easier than through Sibelius\u0026rsquo; UI. You can play movie clips/other audio easily, making arranging for existing music a breeze. Software Details # Software Details I\u0026rsquo;m running the following software. If something looks or behaves differently, check what version you\u0026rsquo;re running.\nMacos 15.7.5 Sibelius 2025.4 Build 7105 REAPER 7.71 ReWire (Comes with REAPER) \u0026ldquo;Kontakt 8\u0026rdquo; Basic Setup # If you just want to be able to play your Sibelius composition with another piece of music (e.g. a backing track) and have them be synced, ReWire is really easy to use.\nYou will have to account for latency, so for best results use General Midi, or Sibelius Sounds playback inside Sibelius.\nMake sure Sibelius is closed. In REAPER create 2 tracks. The first will house your backing track. The 2nd will house your ReWire plugin. Under FX, search for and activate ReWire:Sibelius/x86_64 Sibelius will automatically launch. Open your score. Now when you press play in Sibelius, REAPER will begin playback (and vice versa). Note: You\u0026rsquo;ll want to make sure your REAPER session (and backing track) is set to the same tempo as your Sibelius session, or composing won\u0026rsquo;t make much sense. If you have tempo changes in your Sibelius session, check the \u0026ldquo;Allow client to set tempo\u0026rdquo; box in the ReWire plugin.\nMake sure you close Sibelius first once you\u0026rsquo;re done, otherwise REAPER gets stuck waiting for it to close.\nAdvanced Setup # The basic setup has the flaw of you need to listen to Sibelius\u0026rsquo; awful audio.\nThis setup allows you to pipe your midi data from Sibelius into REAPER, and control all your sound there. This allows for easier mixing, FX, and VST use.\nNote: The Windows systems don\u0026rsquo;t have a native virtual MIDI pipeline like Macos does, so you\u0026rsquo;ll need to use a third party software for the following step. There\u0026rsquo;s a great article here detailing the specifics using a virtual MIDI pipeline called LoopBe.\nOpen Audio MIDI Setup, and then press ⌘2 to open the MIDI Studio. Double click the red IAC Driver Below the \u0026ldquo;Ports\u0026rdquo; box, click the + to create a port. Rename this to whatever you want (Mine is \u0026ldquo;Sibelius Bus\u0026rdquo;). Click Apply\nInside REAPER, open preferences (⌘.)\nUnder Audio -\u0026gt; MIDI Inputs, enable your newly created port - Apple Inc. - IAC DRIVER - YOURPORTNAME by clicking in the spaces to the right (Input, All, Control), and then click Apply.\nBack inside the main editor window create 2 tracks - Track 1 is for ReWire (add it under FX), Track 2 is for your VSTi (In my case I\u0026rsquo;m using Kontakt 8) Record arm Track 2 by pressing the red button on the track. Change your input to Input:MIDI - Apple Inc. - IAC DRIVER - YOURPORTNAME Inside Sibelius, open the play tab, and click the little square in the corner of the setup section Click the \u0026ldquo;New\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo; button and name your new playback configuration. In the list of available devices on the left find your IAC DRIVER - YOURPORTNAME device, and activate it. Under Manual Sound Sets, make sure your IAC DRIVER - YOURPORTNAME is selected, and the sound set is set to \u0026ldquo;(none)\u0026rdquo;. If nothing appears here, restart both Sibelius and REAPER.\nCheck \u0026ldquo;Use manual sound set\u0026rdquo;, and set the number of channels to the number of instruments on your score.\nUnder \u0026ldquo;Sound Settings\u0026rdquo; set each channel\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Sound ID:\u0026rdquo; to the name of your instruments, and APPLY.\nInside the main Sibelius window open the mixer with M , and then press the top green button 2x to see the assigned sound sets. Assign each of your instruments to IAC DRIVER - YOURPORTNAME and then the appropriate channel (Click where it says \u0026ldquo;Unallocated\u0026rdquo;).\nBack inside REAPER open Kontakt. You can load multiple instruments into one instance of Kontakt, so do so for each of the instruments in your score (You can save this as an instrument Multi under File-Save Multi as\u0026hellip;) In the instrument header, set the channel of the instrument to Port A[From Host] and its corresponding channel number in Sibelius.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re Sibelius instruments should now be routed to the audio of your Kontakt instruments inside REAPER. Note playback and general playback should sync automatically, and you can customize your Kontakt instruments as you see fit. If you want to have separate instances of Kontakt for each instrument that\u0026rsquo;s ok (but more resource intensive), just make sure to assign your MIDI channels correctly in the instrument header. I\u0026rsquo;ve written this with Kontakt 8 in mind, but the above steps should work with any sampler, just look for MIDI Input settings.\n","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/using-rewire-with-reaper-and-sibelius/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Using ReWire with REAPER and Sibelius","type":"posts"},{"content":" What I\u0026rsquo;m covering in this article # This article is written based on work I did at the University of Birmingham for my final year sound recording module. This module focused on the theory and basics of setting up and recording a session, alongside some basic editing techniques.\nThe assessments for the module consisted of a solo recording session based in the controlled acoustic environment of a studio, and a duet session recorded in the UoB\u0026rsquo;s Elgar Concert Hall.\nIn this article I\u0026rsquo;ll be covering the recording process for a classical recording session, alongside the comping process, and some basic reverb and mixing techniques.\nI won\u0026rsquo;t be covering advanced mixing and mastering in this article.\nWhat goes into a professional recording? # So what goes into a professional recording? Capturing a performance might often seem like black magic, but the process is actually quite straight forward once you get the hang of things.\nThe first thing to understand with recording music, is that there is also a considerable amount of artistry in the recording and post proudction processes themselves. There\u0026rsquo;s all sorts of decisions made both in the recording session and in post production that influence the resulting music. The goal often isn\u0026rsquo;t to directly capture what you\u0026rsquo;ve heard exactly, but to create the artist\u0026rsquo;s vision. A recording engineer, an editor, a mix engineer, or a mastering engineer all put their own artistry and interpretations into the recording to make the captured music larger than life.\nBecause of this, it\u0026rsquo;s important to touch base with the project lead (whether that\u0026rsquo;s the musical artist or their producer) to make sure that your vision of the project doesn\u0026rsquo;t eclipse their own.\nIn the real world decisions are often made based on budget and time constraints, but assuming these aren\u0026rsquo;t a problem here are some considerations to make before the recording session:\nAcoustic environment # Generally recordings are done in either an acoustically treated studio, or a concert hall. The most important factor to consider when picking a location to record is \u0026ldquo;is it quiet?\u0026rdquo; This is very important as background noise can ruin a perfectly good take, and even though it is technically possible to remove noise in post, it\u0026rsquo;s far from perfect and the ideal is to not need to do it in the first place; noise significanlty and unnecessarily increases the post production workload, and means you have to spend more time on fixing poor audio instead of making good audio great.\nYour next decisions for environment are dictated by whether you want real or artificial reverb. If you decide to go the artificial route you\u0026rsquo;ll be recording in a studio, or acoustically treated space, to get as dry a sound as possible (since all the reverb will be added in post, we actually want to minimize room sound).\nRecording in a hall might be your only option if the ensemble is very large. You\u0026rsquo;ll always want to have a pair of room mics when recording in a hall to capture the reverb of the room.\nBoth kinds of room have their advantages and challanges to work with. Studio spaces tend to be smaller, and even though using artificial reverb means you have a lot more control over it, sometimes the instrument still sounds strangely dry despite having a considerable amount of reverb. On the flip side you can put your musicians in a much bigger sounding hall than you could ever likely have access to.\nRecording in a hall is often more expensive, and complicated to set up, and while hall reverb is more natural, it\u0026rsquo;s also susceptible to background noise leaking in. When dealing with real reverb you need to be especially careful to make sure the sound has finished decaying between takes, so you don\u0026rsquo;t end up with weird cuts in the reverb while editing.\nEquipment # The equipment you use depends on what kind of musicician/s and music you\u0026rsquo;re recording. The equipment needed for a vocal quartet is very different to what is needed for a solo violin, or a jazz band. This is also another rabbit hole when it comes to budget, as microphones become expensive very quickly, so it\u0026rsquo;s important to know exactly what you need.\nIf you decide to purchase equipment, remember second hand audio equipment is usually quite a good option (microphones are designed to run for years when handled properly, so even when second hand they should still have a lot of life in them). Renting equipment is also a good option, especially if it\u0026rsquo;s a one off project.\nEquipment needs vary drastically, but a general signal flow is as follows:\ngraph TB A((\"Microphone (pair)\")) --\u003e B(\"Pre-amp\") --\u003e C{\"Interface\"} --\u003e D(\"Recording device (computer)\") This can be simplified, such as using a recording device like a Zoom F8 which comes with interface, recording device and pre-amps all bundled in a single box. Most popular interfaces, or mixing desks also come with pre-amps aswell, so if you\u0026rsquo;re not looking for the specific sound of a pre-amp (they can quite drastically change the sound of your recording depending on model) your money is more wisely spent on a good interface, than on separate pre-amps.\nMicrophones # Microphones come in three main types:\nCondensor Dynamic Ribbon A Presonus PX-1 condensor mic Condensors are your most common for recording sessions. These very sensitive microphones, and usually require extra power, called Phantom Power (48v)\nA Shure SM58 dynamic mic Dynamic microphones are used more in live sound settings, as they tend to be more robust than condensors or ribbon microphones, and they don\u0026rsquo;t need extra power, instead needing a lot higher gain (than condensors) to work.\nA melodium 42Bn Ribbon mic Ribbon microphones are more niche. They\u0026rsquo;re an older technology using an electrified strip of gold foil (the ribbon). They tend to be quite fragile, so are used more for their warm vintage sound.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s endless equipment recommendation lists online, for equipment I\u0026rsquo;ve used check out my recording session examples here and here.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s important to decide how many microphones you\u0026rsquo;re going to use for each musician. Each microphone is a single mono channel, so if you need to capture stereo sound, you\u0026rsquo;ll need to use a pair of matching microphones (this is important so that each channel is matched). There are various setups that you can use, which I describe below. If you have enough channels, feel free to use a stereo pair on a soloist, even if you end up only using one channel for them in the end. Grand pianos usually need three, drum kits often use 5. Anything more than a duet and it\u0026rsquo;s wise to keep the setup simple, with a single mic per musician, as you\u0026rsquo;ll very quickly become constrained by the number of channels you have available on your interface.\nPolar Patterns # Different microphones have different patterns that they pick sound up in, called polar patterns.\nThe most commonly used patterns are cardioid, which is good for picking up sound directly in front of the microphone and rejecting sound from all other directions, and omnidirectional, which is used for picking up sound in all directions equally.\nFigure 8 can be used to cancel out unwanted sound using a setup called a mid-side pair\nSuper/hyper cardioid can be good for picking up a bit of room noise, but they\u0026rsquo;re very situational.\nShotgun is very directional, and so is often used for picking up very specific sound sources.\nNothing in this world is 2D, including polar patterns. Here\u0026rsquo;s what cardiod looks like in 3D. The next step is to decide where you\u0026rsquo;re going to place your microphones relative to your musicians. One thing to consider is that your microphone is essentially your listener or audience member, so you\u0026rsquo;re free to experiment putting the listener in places they could never be during a performance, such as right in the middle of an ensemble, or far away, or inside the piano\u0026hellip; the possibilities are endless (though some obviously sound better than others, I personally would never recommend putting your audience behind your performers, that will just sound bad).\nMicrophones are usually setup in pairs so as to capture stereo sound (a single microphone is a single mono channel). There are three main pairs, arranged with very specific measurements so as to avoid deadzones in the middle of the pair:\nAB XY ORTF\nAn AB pair consists of two parallel omnidirectional mics facing the same direction, and at the same height, spaced 40-60cm apart. These have a quite a wide stereo image (the pickup range), and are very versatile, especially if placed a bit further back from your sound source.\nAn AB mic pair An XY pair consists of two cardioid microphones with their tips (capsules) at 90° from eachother, placed on top of eachother. Their stereo image is narrower, which makes them good for close micing, especially on soloists.\nAn XY mic pair An ORTF pair is rather complicated. It\u0026rsquo;s again two cardioid mics, but their capsules are 17cm apart, and at an angle of 110°. As such they usually are setup with a special mic bar that has the measurements already set on it. It\u0026rsquo;s a good middleground between AB and XY, and especially good for piano, if you only have two mics to spair for the piano.\nAn ORTF mic pair If you have three mics to spair, a better option for a grand piano is a setup called an LCR, or Left Centre Right. It can be good for picking up a balanced stereo image of the entire range of the piano, but it\u0026rsquo;s absolutely not necessary, more of a luxury if you have a mic to spare.\nAn LCR setup on a grand piano When setting up room mics, or stage mics in a hall one usually just places a single microphone at either side of the stage. Since these are just picking up reverb from the room, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter if there\u0026rsquo;s a deadzone in the middle of the \u0026ldquo;pair\u0026rdquo; due to it being extremely wide.\nFor soloists you generally don\u0026rsquo;t want to position the microphone too close due to what\u0026rsquo;s called the proximity effect which makes bass frequencies boomier, but also so far away as to capture too much of the room(100cm-150cm is a good rule of thumb).\nRecording methods:\nThere\u0026rsquo;s different methods for recording, which vary depending on your setup, the music you\u0026rsquo;re recording and how much work during the session you\u0026rsquo;re willing to do vs in editing in post.\nMultitrack recording is where you\u0026rsquo;ll record each voice/instrument of your ensemble at a different time (often in a different room), with them listening to a click track or a backing track (or the rest of the performers that have already recorded). This is really good for pop music, or situations where you need to isolate each instrument/instrument group, but for classical musicians it can feel quite limiting to play to a click (we love our rubato).\nMultitrack recording session in REAPER Another effective recording method is to record the session straight through. Multiple takes are recorded in one continuous recording, which is then later split up into individual takes and comped in post. This is nice especially when there\u0026rsquo;s rubato involved in the performance, or you\u0026rsquo;re recording in a situation where you can\u0026rsquo;t monitor the session (such as in a large concert hall). It does however involve a lot of post work, and relies on meticulous note taking throughout the recording session, running the risk of missing a section that needed another take.\nYou can comp during the session if you\u0026rsquo;re recording straight to a DAW, and you\u0026rsquo;re monitoring from a control room. This isn\u0026rsquo;t always possible (especially with concert halls), but leads to the least amount of post work, and means you can make sure there\u0026rsquo;s a good comp before the musician leaves for the day. The last thing you want to do is to call them back in to re-record a section of music.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re not confident comping live during the session another effective method is to use take folders, and audition takes afterwards. This is like a hybrid aproach between comping during the session and recording straight through, as all your takes are in the right place, ready to be auditioned and comped after the fact. This is my prefered method personally.\nDuring the recording session # So the big day has arrived? Here\u0026rsquo;s some tips to stay organized during the recording session.\nMake your musicians comfortable. A comfortable musician will play better. Also hope they\u0026rsquo;ve prepared well; the recording session isn\u0026rsquo;t a rehearsal session, and there\u0026rsquo;s only so much polishing garbage you can do in post (trust me, I\u0026rsquo;ve tried with my own work, it\u0026rsquo;s painful), so it\u0026rsquo;s important to capture a high quality performance from the start.\nAlways do multiple takes. Even if you think they got it on the first try, do at least one more. It\u0026rsquo;s always better to have extra than to need a take you don\u0026rsquo;t have. I always aim to have at least two full takes of the entire piece.\nMake notes during the performance about passages that need redoing. Also make use of markers in your DAW. The more notes you make now, the more time you\u0026rsquo;ll save relisting to everything. This is especially useful when recording sessions are long. Note things like start times of takes, where the take is in the music, and any errors that need correcting - it\u0026rsquo;s very useful to have a full score of the piece for this.\nKeep things moving. It\u0026rsquo;s easy to get bogged down in a passage that isn\u0026rsquo;t going well. If you have limited time it\u0026rsquo;s better to make sure you have the entire piece recorded than a single problematic section.\nDo takes until you\u0026rsquo;re happy. If the musicians still aren\u0026rsquo;t getting it right, keep at it (if you have time). They\u0026rsquo;ll complain a lot more if the final product is full of mistakes than they will for having to play so much in the session.\nPost production # In post production it\u0026rsquo;s very easy to lose the plot, so it\u0026rsquo;s crucial to stay organized, and set deadlines so you don\u0026rsquo;t end up in production hell.\nThe main steps in post production are as such:\ngraph LR A(Comping) --\u003e B(\"Clean up\") --\u003e C(Mixing) --\u003e D(Mastering) Comping # Comping (or compiling) refers to the process of selecting the best parts of the best takes, and stitching them all together to get a complete \u0026ldquo;best\u0026rdquo; track. There\u0026rsquo;s a couple different methods you can use, but they all follow the same basic principle of cutting a good section, and crossfading with other good sections.\nYou can produce a comp right from the recording session by re-recording sections, replacing the old problematic ones. I personally don\u0026rsquo;t like this form of comping, even though it significantly reduces the work load, as you end up losing the old material, and especially with more problematic sections things get messy quick.\nComping can get out of hand very quickly Swipe comping is a very popular comping method used with take folders. It\u0026rsquo;s really easy to get a good sounding comp, however things need to be setup right to begin with. Swipe comping works best when the piece is played to a click (things get complicated with tempo changes as not all the takes will line up anymore), and all the takes need to be placed in a take folder (this process varies per DAW used).\nThe other method is manual comping, which works well if you\u0026rsquo;ve done a straight through recording, or if there\u0026rsquo;s significant tempo variation between takes. It\u0026rsquo;s a lot more fiddly however, requiring a lot of manual nudging of takes to get things to fit right.\nA tip for editing in REAPER (my preferred DAW for recording) is to use a sub project. This will render down your project with all your mic channels and mixing into a single track, and keeps things nice and simple in the editing phase, as you\u0026rsquo;re only working with a single \u0026ldquo;proxy\u0026rdquo; audio file. The disadvantages of a method like this are having to wait to render the file each time a change is made in the sub project, and not being able to move any of the audio regions in the sub project without messing up the main project. Things can also get complicated during the clean up stage, as you can\u0026rsquo;t edit the proxy audio directly, and instead have to edit the sub project, which can consist multiple tracks.\nDuring the comping process try and keep the audio as natural as possible - most of the post FX comes after the clean up stage.\nSpeaking of clean up:\nClean up # Clean up refers to cleaning the audio to make it perfect. This involves noise reduction/removal, pitch correction, and if necessary timing correction. After this stage you should have an MVP (minimum viable product). Hopefully there won\u0026rsquo;t be very much clean up to perform, as clean up often involves destructive audio editing which will degrade your sound quality.\nNoise reduction can be done by simple EQs (generally there\u0026rsquo;s some bass frequencies \u0026lt;500hz that can be safely removed). If there\u0026rsquo;s a pop or click (squeaky chairs are the bain of my existence) noise removal can be effective. I like to use RX11\u0026rsquo;s spectral repair tools to directly remove the noise from the source audio, but a similar (and much cheaper) effect can be had using volume automation to mute a small portion of the audio.\nFor pitch or timing correction use software like Logic Pro\u0026rsquo;s flex time/pitch or Celemony\u0026rsquo;s Melodyne. These kinds of software analyze the audio file and present you with a piano roll editor that lets you adjust the pitch/timing of individual notes. Be careful with how much you use these tools as it\u0026rsquo;s very easy to turn your recording into a robotic (autotune) sound. Small changes can be very effective, so if moving an entire note sounds robotic, try splitting the note in half and only editing half of it. Generally these tools perform poorly when it comes to vibrato, so beware if you want to avoid robotic sounding music.\nMeloydne let\u0026rsquo;s you edit pitch like you\u0026rsquo;re editing on a piano roll I put the clean up stage after the comping stage, because a recording session can be very long, and I don\u0026rsquo;t see the point in cleaning up hours of audio that I\u0026rsquo;m not actually going to be using.\nThe next stage is mixing. This involves balancing audio levels, balancing the fequency spectrum (using EQ filters to make sure instruments overlap as little as possible in the frequency spectrum so the sound isn\u0026rsquo;t \u0026ldquo;muddy\u0026rdquo;), and compression if you\u0026rsquo;re working pop music. It\u0026rsquo;s at this stage aswell that I\u0026rsquo;d start using some artificial reverb.\nI won\u0026rsquo;t be going into much detail about mixing here, but there\u0026rsquo;s some more detail in the examples below. After this stage you should have a completed song that sounds good on your system.\nThe final stage is mastering, which refers to balancing volume for streaming or physical release. This is crucial as all systems are different. Some people will be listening through bluetooth headphones, some through Hi-Fi speaker setups, so it\u0026rsquo;s important that the track sounds good on a wide range of listening devices.\nAfter this all that\u0026rsquo;s left to do is to release your music. Remember to check that you have copyright/permission to release it and credit your artists. These days the best way to release a track is through a distribution service, which will publish to all major streaming platforms at the same time and keep things simple for you. There are cheap/free options out there, but they usually take a cut of any revenue you might make from the song. Distribution services come in all shapes and sizes, choose one that fits your needs. I\u0026rsquo;d say the one thing to make sure is that you can safely transfer your music from whatever distributor you choose without losing your song streaming stats, that way if your distributor doesn\u0026rsquo;t work out you\u0026rsquo;re not locked in with them for the long haul. A good article comparing the different distributors can be found here.\nExamples # Here are two examples from my sound recording module with a full breakdown of the process used to record and edit them. I go into much more detail here about the post editing, so do check them out.\nSolo (studio) Duet (concert hall) ","date":"30 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2026-03-30-what-goes-into-a-professional-recording/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"What goes into a professional recording?","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/bach/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Bach","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/recording/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Recording","type":"tags"},{"content":" Solo Violin Recording - Bach Loure (BWV 1006:II) # Adrian de Lima · J.S. Bach Violin Partita no. 3 in E major BWV 1006:II. Loure. Recording Session Information # The recording session was 1 hour long, including setup/down, with the recording running for 38.24. Noa David, the performer played Bach’s Violin Partita no. 3 in E major BWV 1006:II. Loure. The session was recorded and edited in REAPER.\nThe layout of the recording session Since it was a fairly simple setup and I had extra equipment and channels available I decided to setup two pairs of mics (which was overkill). I setup an XY (1) and an AB (2) pair at 1-1.5m away from the performer, but in the end I decided to not use the AB pair, as the XY pair provided the sound quality I required, and the AB pair didn’t add anything further to the mix. I had them positioned above the player, facing down towards the bridge of the violin. I also instructed the performer to avoid moving too much, as this can change the sound of a take in a narrow pickup pattern, making comping harder.\nMicrophones # The microphones used were setup as follows: The Neuman KM184 is ideal for XY or ORTF setups because of its small footprint and the ease of aligning its capsule in a pair. They are however, quite pricey.\nThe AKG C414 XLS II is also very pricey, but somewhat more versatile because of its alterable pickup pattern, allowing it to be used in many different setups. The capsules are quite hard to align due to the shape of the protective mesh, and its footprint is larger than the Neuman.\nThe finished comp edits were in the following locations:\nEdit Locations # Edit Locations Edit # Location in Score Start Time (Wav) Start Time (Source) Notes 0 Up beat 0:00.000 6:17.644 Beginning of piece 1 Bar 1.1 0:01.839 3:19.895 2 Bar 1.3 0:03.555 11:56.139 3 Bar 1.5.2 0:06.049 6:23.644 4 Bar 2.2.2 0:08.626 12:01.510 5 Bar 2.6 0:11.652 6:29.008 6 Bar 3.1 0:12.830 13:20.307 7 Bar 3.2.2 0:14.260 3:32.906 8 Bar 4.6 0:22.852 12:54.404 9 Bar 5.2.2 0:25.500 14:27.021 10 Bar 6.6 0:33.632 3:51.500 11 Bar 7.1 0:34.431 15:48.102 12 Bar 7.4 0:36.949 14:38.506 13 Bar 7.6 0:38.531 33:54.063 14 Bar 8.2 0:40.267 16:48.438 Take +2.10db 15 Bar 8.3 0:41.136 6:56.108 Take -2.10db 16 Bar 8.5 0:42.784 16:51.164 17 Bar 9.4 0:47.156 7:01.526 18 Bar 10.3 0:51.520 18:10.111 19 Bar 10.5.4 0:54.209 18:40.052 Take -1.6db 20 Bar 11.3 0:56.919 7:10.835 Repeat 1 21 Up beat 1:00.030 11:52.398 22 Bar 1.1 1:01.900 3:19.901 Reused take 23 Bar 1.3 1:03.511 7:17.128 Take -3.6db 24 Bar 2.1 1:07.259 6:24.965 Take -3.6db, Reused take 25 Bar 2.2.2 1:08.493 12:40.088 26 Bar 2.4 1:15.347 6:32.643 27 Bar 3.4 1:16.562 12:48.242 28 Bar 3.5.2 1:23.632 6:40.374 29 Bar 5.1 1:26.018 14:28.352 30 Bar 5.4 1:30.034 3:48.764 Take -0.6db 31 Bar 6.2.4 1:32.526 14:34.912 32 Bar 7.1 1:33.654 16:42.560 33 Bar 7.6 1:37.643 17:18.408 Take -1db 34 Bar 8.2 1:39.681 16:17.761 Take -1.4db 35 Bar 8.6 1:43.209 16:52.060 36 Bar 9.3 1:45.843 16:23.878 37 Bar 9.4 1:46.543 18:04.943 38 Bar 10.5 1:53.990 18:39.591 39 Bar 11.3 1:57.200 7:10.900 40 Bar 11.4 1:58.061 18:16.714 B section (after Repeat 1) 41 Bar 11.5.2 2:00.257 4:17.884 42 Bar 12.2.2 2:03.299 20:42.775 43 Bar 12.4 2:04.704 8:13.790 44 Bar 12.6 2:06.794 4:24.193 45 Bar 13.1 2:07.672 20:47.170 46 Bar 13.2.2 2:10.293 4:27.303 47 Bar 13.5 2:11.553 8:19.897 48 Bar 14.4 2:17.073 9:43.641 Take -0.4db 49 Bar 14.5 2:18.274 22:06.620 Take +4.6db 50 Bar 15.4 2:23.203 21:39.690 51 Bar 16.3 2:28.565 24:16.492 52 Bar 17.3 2:34.321 35:42.946 53 Bar 18.4 2:41.518 24:30.020 54 Bar 18.5.2 2:44.040 8:50.353 55 Bar 19.1 2:45.330 5:02.023 56 Bar 19.4 2:47.590 31:45.253 57 Bar 20.4 2:53.106 31:25.082 58 Bar 20.5.2 2:55.405 31:53.285 59 Bar 21.4 3:01.181 5:17.285 60 Bar 21.6 3:03.136 32:01.122 61 Bar 22.3 3:05.860 27:20.315 62 Bar 23.5 3:14.808 32:12.810 63 Bar 24.1 3:17.008 27:31.595 B section (Repeat 2) 64 Bar 11.5.2 3:24.689 9:27.674 65 Bar 12.1 3:26.475 20:41.561 Reused take 66 Bar 12.5.2 3:31.199 4:24.202 67 Bar 12.6 3:32.021 20:47.170 Reused take 68 Bar 13.3 3:35.112 20:11.369 69 Bar 13.4 3:36.037 8:19.925 Reused take 70 Bar 14.3 3:40.478 9:42.508 Reused take 71 Bar 14.5 3:42.829 21:35.115 72 Bar 15.4 3:47.396 36:17.364 73 Bar 16.4 3:54.399 23:21.787 74 Bar 17.1 3:57.372 24:20.396 75 Bar 17.2.4 3:59.258 35:42.741 76 Bar 18.4 4:06.445 24:30.020 Reused take 77 Bar 18.5.2 4:09.046 23:35.653 78 Bar 19.4 4:12.944 31:45.270 Reused take 79 Bar 20.4 4:18.437 31:25.080 Reused take 80 Bar 20.5.2 4:20.768 33:07.711 81 Bar 22.1 4:28.349 32:01.109 82 Bar 22.3 4:31.164 27:20.332 83 Bar 23.5 4:40.119 28:45.842 84 Bar 24.4 4:46.213 27:35.786 End of piece Here is a copy of the score, highlighted with the edit points for the comp:\nAnnotated score # Annotated score Despite our best attempts, and multiple takes being recorded, there were unfortunately some issues that couldn\u0026rsquo;t be resolved in the recording session. These mostly had to do with instrument noises, and loud breathing, which would have been lessened by setting the mics up a bit further away.\nA lot of comping had to be done to fix poor intonation, or squeaks from the instrument, which would not have been necessary if the performer had longer notice to prepare for the session. This just serves as a reminder that preparing beforehand saves a lot of work afterwards.\nIssues that couldn’t be resolved # Issues that couldn’t be resolved These issues couldn’t be resolved, either because there were no good takes of the section, or because there were no good edit points near the issue.\nIssue # Location in Audio Issue 1 1.2.13 Loud breath 2 2.3.37 Loud breath 3 4.1.80 Tuning issue 4 4.4.40 Wobbly note 5 5.2.77 Audible shift 6 7.3.93 Harsh note 7 8.1.92 Loud breath 8 8.4.34 Harsh note 9 10.2.19 Harsh note 10 11.2.77 Loud breath 11 12.2.53 Loud breath 12 12.4.81 Loud breath 13 13.4.98 Tuning issue 14 14.3.17 Harsh note 15 17.1.46 Harsh note and tuning issue 16 17.4.23 Tuning issue 17 18.2.77 Slight tuning issue 18 19.1.34 Tuning issue 19 19.3.37 Harsh note 20 20.4.16 Slight tuning issue 21 21.1.84 Tuning issue 22 21.3.36 Tuning issue 23 24.1.80 Harsh/broken note 24 25.2.42 Fingerboard noise 25 28.1.41 Fingerboard noise 26 29.2.84 Loud breath 27 29.4.70 Loud breath and wobbly note 28 31.1.84 Loud breath 29 31.4.46 Loud breath 30 33.4.65 Loud breath 31 35.2.14 Audible shift 32 37.1.88 Loud breath 33 37.3.28 Harsh note 34 38.1.73 Harsh note/tuning issue 35 38.4.49 Harsh note 36 39.3.51 Split note 37 40.1.64 Harsh note 38 41.1.34 Loud breath 39 41.3.83 Loud breath 40 42.2.17 Loud breath 41 44.1.53 Harsh note 42 46.3.41 Harsh/wobbly note 43 47.3.96 Loud breath 44 48.4.45 Loud breath 45 50.2.42 Slight tuning issue 46 50.4.15 Tuning issue 47 51.3.51 Tuning issue 48 52.2.79 Audible shift 49 53.1.20 Fingerboard noise 50 54.2.87 Harsh/split note 51 55.1.91 Loud breath 52 56.1.63 Loud breath 53 58.1.60 Audible shift 54 59.4.82 Loud breath/harsh note 55 61.2.07 Loud breath 56 61.3.76 Wobbly note 57 62.4.41 Tuning issue 58 63.2.12 Harsh note/tuning issue 59 65.2.31 Tuning issue 60 67.4.97 Loud breath 61 69.3.86 Tuning issue 62 70.3.12 Loud breath 63 70.4.38 Split note 64 72.4.14 Tuning issue 65 73.3.53 Loud breath 66 74.2.45 Loud breath 67 77.1.80 Harsh note 68 78.1.74 Tuning issue 69 80.1.95 Loud breath 70 80.3.74 Tuning issue 71 83.2.62 Loud breath 72 84.3.46 Loud breath 73 85.4.79 Loud breath 74 87.3.20 Tuning issue 75 88.3.85 Loud breath 76 91.3.09 Loud breath 77 93.1.16 Loud breath 78 97.3.86 Loud breath 79 99.2.53 Loud breath 80 99.4.24 Tuning issue/harsh note 81 101.3.02 Loud breath 82 103.2.42 Loud breath 83 105.1.28 Tuning issue/wobbly note 84 107.3.73 Tuning issue 85 108.4.97 Harsh note 86 110.2.03 Loud breath 87 111.3.76 Loud breath 88 111.4.96 Tuning issue 89 112.4.15 Loud breath 90 115.3.68 Loud breath 91 116.3.67 Loud breath 92 117.3.30 Loud breath 93 117.4.28 Tuning issue 94 118.2.47 Harsh note 95 119.1.76 Harsh note 96 119.3.60 Tuning issue 97 120.3.58 Tuning issue 98 122.3.42 Loud breath 99 127.2.09 Loud breath 100 127.3.19 Harsh note 101 128.3.62 Loud breath 102 130.1.75 Tuning issue 103 135.3.60 Loud breath 104 140.2.23 Loud breath 105 142.1.15 Loud breath 106 143.4.87 Loud breath Further editing information # I worked with two REAPER sessions, one for my source recording, which included all my microphone tracks, and all my mixing edits. I then imported this into a second, Edit session as a sub-project, and worked on my comping edits, and reverb in this session. This method allowed me to edit my source recording mix independently from my comping edits, leaving a single stereo track to work with in the Edit session.\nThe mix session # A screenshot of the source recording, showing all the tracks labelled for their respective mics, and panned accordingly. Ultimately, I decided not to use the A/B pair, since they didn’t add anything of value to the mix, hence they\u0026rsquo;re muted here. An EQ has been applied to the ORTF. I applied a High pass filter to remove the unnecessary low frequencies around 200HZ, and a Low pass to roll off the high end slightly around 20kHZ, to reduce the harshness of the source recording.\nA screenshot of the EQ applied to the ORTF pair. I decided the levels were good with the one pair of microphones, so didn’t change the faders, leaving them at default. With the A/B I found too much of Noa’s breath sound was picked up, alongside too much room sound, which was undesirable as I added atmosphere in post via an artificial reverb, rendering the room sound irrelevant.\nA screenshot of the master mix of the source recording. The edit session # In my editing process I liberally used markers to decide where to put edit points and mark out issues that needed resolving. In my edit session I applied a unique colour to all the different takes, so that it was easy to tell where edits were and which takes I used.\nThis session is also where I did the majority of my post processing work, applying an artificial reverb to the source sound, as the recording studio had a naturally dry room sound, and my goal was to make the performance sound like it took place in a concert hall.\nI used 4 main tracks, a REVERB track, which contained the artificial reverb, an EDIT track, which contained the final edit of the source recording, a TEMP track where I would temporarily drag my takes for editing, and then a TAKES folder, which contained all of my various takes for different parts of the piece, lined up with where they happen.\nOn the REVERB track I used an FX chain of two EQs, and an impulse response based artificial reverb. On my REVERB track I began with an EQ to take out some of the inaudible low end of the reverb. Since the violin is a heavy in the treble/high frequency, I also reduced out some of the high frequencies. This also helped with cutting out some of the breath noise in the reverb, removing it before it ever reaches the reverb. Next in the FX chain was my artificial reverb, for which I used an impulse-response based reverb plugin called ReaVerb. I chose an impulse response which fit my desired atmosphere the closest, by having a nice long decay of 3.9 seconds, while still maintaining the attack of the close recording. This channel had no dry signal coming through, since that was completely supplied by the Edit track. I also added -18db of gain so that the reverb wasn’t too overpowering at low levels. I ultimately decided on a bass level of +0.27db for the reverb track. Finally in my FX chain I introduced another EQ just to roll off the high end of the reverb slightly, so that it wasn’t too bright. During the recording process I inserted a marker at every new take, which made splitting the source recording into the various takes easier in the Edit session. I began with two full takes of the piece, which formed takes 1 and 2. I then split the piece up into various sections, and worked through them chronologically with Noa, aiming for at least two takes of each section (some problematic sections had considerably more takes). I then lined up all the takes under their respective sections in the full take, which made auditioning different takes much easier.\nI named each take track according to the bar number it represented, and a tag (e.g. T1) indicating which take number it was. I also made sure, as mentioned earlier, that all my takes had a different colour to make identifying them easier.\nI worked with a full take, splicing in alternative takes as necessary to correct mistakes in the performance. A big challenge I faced was the amount of breath noise that was picked up in the recording, which made a lot of normally good edit points such as rests difficult to splice into without cutting the breath short.\nThe stereo image of my EDIT track was a little too wide for my liking, so this was reduced to 49%. I also reduced the volume of some of the takes that I used, so that they matched each other, this has been labelled in my edit table above. In my editing process I would extend the audio past the point at which I wanted to cut and overlap my takes. I would then adjust the crossfade region to happen exactly at the desired cut point, just before or after a note as sounded to mask the transition. The volume of some of takes was increased so as to be uniform, as Noa moved slightly over the course of the session, rendering some takes slightly louder than others.\nA screenshot showing before and after finishing an edit. I made sure to begin and end the track in silence, fading the beginning and end takes slightly as well, to avoid any pops/clicks from background noise. I rendered the file slightly longer than the audio region, to avoid cutting the reverb tail short.\nA screenshot of the beginning and end of the piece, showing my slight fade in/out. Rendering # I rendered the final piece via the master mix, as a WAV at 48000 sample rate with 24 bit bit depth. I made sure to mute the TEMP track, and all of the take tracks, only rendering my EDIT and REVERB tracks. I set my bounds as Time selection, making sure to leave a tail at the end of my selection to allow the reverb to decay without being cut off. ","date":"27 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/solo-recording-bach-loure/","section":"All articles","summary":"An assessment for my sound recording module consisting of a solo violin recorded in a studio setting","title":"Solo violin recording session","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"27 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/violin/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Violin","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/duet/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Duet","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"27 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/elgar-concert-hall/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Elgar Concert Hall","type":"tags"},{"content":" Vocal/piano duet recording session # Adrian de Lima · Me Llaman la Primorosa from Rossini’s El Barbero de Sevilla Adrian de Lima · Faure’s Les Roses d’Ispahan. Recording Session Information # The music was performed by soprano singer Jessica Baldry and pianist Toby Baker. They performed Me Llaman la primorosa from Rossini’s El Barbero de Sevilla, and Faure’s Les Roses d’Ispahan. The recording session took place in the Elgar Concert Hall and ran for 40:44. It was recorded on a Zoom F8, using an LCR mic setup for the piano, a stage A/B pair for reverb, and an A/B pair and spot mic for the vocals.\nUltimately, I decided to not use the vocal A/B pair, as I thought the stereo pair didn’t fit as well within the frequency spectrum of the piano as the spot mic did. The stage A/B pair did an excellent job capturing the natural hall reverb, which is the primary reverb used in this recording session. The recording was edited in REAPER.\nMicrophones # The microphones used were as follows: The AKG C414 XLS II capsules are quite hard to align due to the shape of the protective mesh, and its footprint can be quite large, but it makes up for these shortcomings by being very versatile because of its alterable pickup pattern, allowing it to be used in many different setups.\nEdit Locations # Below is a table for each piece detailing the edit locations for the final comp.\nMe Llaman la primorosa edit points Edit # Location in Score Start Time (Wav) Start Time (Source) Notes 1 Bar 1.1 0:00.980 5:06.236 2 Bar 2.1 0:02.954 0:31.395 3 Bar 3.2 0:05.425 5:10.770 4 Bar 6.3 0:10.663 36:31.848 5 Bar 10.1.5 0:17.152 0:45.466 6 Bar 11.3.5 0:20.048 5:25.690 7 Bar 14.1 0:23.831 36:44.998 8 Bar 14.3.5 0:25.260 5:30.957 9 Bar 16.1 0:29.602 0:57.613 10 Bar 23.1 0:49.528 15:14.722 11 Bar 31.2.5 1:01.260 37:21.748 12 Bar 33.2 1:05.305 15:30.442 13 Bar 34.1 1:13.647 37:35.434 14 Bar 38.1 1:21.164 1:48.820 15 Bar 40.2 1:26.201 37:48.066 16 Bar 41.3 1:28.874 1:56.486 17 Bar 42.1.5 1:29.954 33:22.424 18 Bar 46.1.5 1:37.024 16:02.496 19 Bar 47.1 1:38.464 33:30.999 20 Bar 47.2 1:39.113 16:04.610 21 Bar 49.1 1:42.207 6:48.284 22 Bar 50.2 1:45.401 38:06.386 23 Bar 56.2.5 2:05.076 33:56.417 2nd ad-lib scale 24 Bar 56.3.5 2:10.706 38:32.682 25 Bar 63.1 2:22.001 16:48.305 26 Bar 65.1 2:27.999 38:49.745 27 Bar 79.1.5 2:57.272 13:23.830 28 Bar 81.1 3:00.614 39:22.230 29 Bar 85.1 3:07.575 12:36.254 30 Bar 87.1.5 3:11.861 35:02.932 31 Bar 88.1 3:13.356 39:34.652 32 Bar 89.1 3:15.139 35:06.229 33 Bar 90.3.5 3:18.315 39:39.646 34 Bar 92.1 3:21.044 35:11.982 1st ad-lib scale 35 Bar 92 3:24.926 39:47.103 2nd ad-lib scale 36 Bar 92 3:28.731 35:19.727 3rd ad-lib scale 37 Bar 92.3.5 3:38.165 4:07.207 38 Bar 93.1 3:39.219 8:48.184 Les Roses d’Ispahan edit points Edit # Location in Score Start Time (Wav) Start Time (Source) 1 Bar 1.1 4:04.451 22:26.119 2 Bar 7.2.5 4:18.538 19:14.899 3 Bar 12.1 4:27.447 27:00.163 4 Bar 19.1.5 4:40.946 19:38.093 5 Bar 34.2 5:11.677 23:33.963 6 Bar 36.2 5:15.391 27:46.407 7 Bar 38.1 5:18.234 23:41.159 8 Bar 40.1 5:22.161 27:53.095 9 Bar 43.2 5:28.813 20:26.538 10 Bar 45.2 5:32.754 23:55.947 11 Bar 47.1.5 5:36.115 28:06.785 12 Bar 54.1 5:49.216 29:57.027 13 Bar 55.1 5:51.060 24:14.929 14 Bar 57.1 5:54.940 20:53.591 15 Bar 58.2 5:58.138 24:21.589 16 Bar 65.1.5 6:11.631 30:18.297 17 Bar 66.2 6:13.432 24:36.984 18 Bar 68.1 6:16.280 28:46.014 19 Bar 71.2 6:22.629 24:46.222 20 Bar 73.1 6:26.122 30:32.135 21 Bar 74.1 6:28.068 28:57.173 22 Bar 75.1 6:30.082 30:36.044 23 Bar 76.1 6:32.606 29:01.785 24 Bar 81.1 6:43.209 21:41.675 Annotated scores # Below are copies of the scores for each piece, annotated with the respective edit points.\nMe Llaman la primorosa annotated score Les Roses d’Ispahan annotated score Issues that couldn\u0026rsquo;t be resolved # Despite our best attempts there were unfortunately some timing issues that couldn\u0026rsquo;t be resolved in the recording session. Below are tables for each piece detailing these.\nMe Llaman la primorosa issues Issue # Location in Audio (Wav) Issue 1 00:02.3 All piano takes had performance errors, this is the best one 2 00:11.0 Piano key click 3 00:12.5 Loud breath 4 01:24.3 Best take, however there’s unfixable note wobble (wide vibrato) 5 01:26.2 Out of time entry 6 01:29.7 Out of time entry 7 01:37.3 Wrong piano note 8 01:53.5 Best vocal take, however piano has performance errors 9 02:23.3 Mouth noise click 10 03:20.1 Slight click in the reverb Les Roses d’Ispahan issues Issue # Location in Audio (Wav) Issue 1 04:17.8 Mouth noise click 2 05:11.6 Pedal noise change, followed by mouth noise 3 05:56.8 Can\u0026rsquo;t get edit to work, therefore wobbly note 4 06:17.9 Very wide vocal vibrato, no good take 5 06:25.7 Breath noise 6 06:35.4 Wobbly note Further Editing Details # I used two REAPER sessions to edit the recording, first a MIX session for mixing the recordings and adjusting the levels and EQs of individual mics. I then imported this as a sub-project into an EDIT session where the various takes where comped together to fix any performance errors.\nMix Session # The mixer of the MIX session. This is the mixer of the MIX session. All the individual tracks are included in track folders to allow easier editing of EQs for each microphone pair. Note the VOCAL AB wasn’t used in the end, so it’s muted. Each track is hard panned to its microphone respective direction. Most of the levels are left at their default values, with a slight reduction in the STAGE AB volume, and the CENTER channel of the PIANO LCR, to allow space for the VOCAL SPOT in the centre of the mix. Markers were inserted in the MIX session, indicating the various take positions. These were automatically embedded in the sub-project file in the EDIT session when rendered, making cutting easier. The EQs # ![](group_recording_pics/eq1.png) An EQ with a high pass filter was applied to the **STAGE AB** folder at about **250 Hz** to reduce the muddiness of the reverb. The top end is also cut slightly to reduce harshness when stacked with the other mic pairs. ![](group_recording_pics/eq2.png) Again, a small high pass filter is applied to the **PIANO LCR** and **VOCAL SPOT** to reduce the muddiness of the piano, in both the piano microphones, and the audio bleed in the vocal microphone. ![](group_recording_pics/volume_automation.png) The **VOCAL SPOT** was placed slightly too close to the singer, and as such picked up quite a lot of mouth noise and had some harsh plosives and breaths. To reduce this, I briefly reduce the volume of the vocal spot during rests using volume automation as pictured. Below is a table of the edits in the **MIX** session where I reduced the vocal spot’s volume. Volume Edits # Volume Edits Edit number Start time in source 1 08:50.893 2 08:54.746 3 19:52.103 4 20:08.931 5 22:39.572 6 23:34.061 7 27:06.439 8 27:58.443 9 28:15.221 10 28:48.485 11 35:15.410 12 36:37.670 13 38:18.701 14 38:25.373 15 39:08.744 16 39:40.876 Reacomp compressor settings A small amount of compression was also added to the VOCAL SPOT to reduce the level of the louder sections, especially in Me Llaman la primorosa. I used ReaComp compressor and found a threshold of -17.6dB and a ratio of 5.59:1 worked quite well, without over compressing the vocals.\nBeginning at 15.16, 33.22 and 38.49 in the MIX session I also periodically lowered the volume of the PIANO LCR slightly, to better balance it with the voice.\nEdit Session # Importing the MIX session into the EDIT session as a sub-project renders the MIX session down to a single track, which allows much easier editing and keeping track of takes. I make sure to set a unique colour for each different take, so that it was easy to tell where edits are made and which takes I used. Both pieces were edited on their own tracks, with their own REVERB buses to allow both pieces to have different reverb settings.\nThe splices for the comp happen right before the beginning of a note, with very small crossfades to mask the edit point. A big challenge with this edit was working around large vocal phrases, and piano pedal changes that carry over the end of a phrase.\nThe volume levels were left at their default values, because all the mixing had been done in the MIX session. The levels of the REVERB buses are adjusted respectively to mix the artificial reverb with the natural hall reverb.\nFor Me Llaman la primorosa I used two different EQs, before and after the artificial reverb, to adjust the sound of the reverb track. I boosted the lows and cut the highs of the reverb both before and after. I decided to use a little bit of artificial reverb to compliment the already exellent hall reverb.\nThe reverb for Me Llaman la primorosa I decided to use a smaller amount of artificial reverb due to the speed of the piece, in order to keep the clarity of the music. I used an impulse response based reverb, with a decay time of 2.5s, and applied -18dB of gain inside of ReaVerb.\nThe reverb for Les Roses d’Ispahan For Les Roses d’Ispahan I wanted to go for a more ethereal sound, so I used a long 3.9s impulse response, again with -18dB of gain, but the level of the reverb is higher in the final mix. I used an EQ to cut some of the high end before the reverb, so as to keep the clarity of the vocal material in the mix, without too much reverb on it. A small fade was applied to the beginning and end of each piece to avoid any clicks/pops Rendering # Finally, I rendered the piece to a single WAV file, using Time selection bounds, 48khz Sample rate and 24bit PCM bit depth.\n","date":"27 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/group-recording-vocal-duet/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Group recording session","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"11 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/compositions/","section":"My work","summary":"","title":"Compositions","type":"categories"},{"content":" Musical Concrete # Adrian de Lima · Musical concrete This album consists of a series of short pieces composed in the style of Pierre Schaeffer\u0026rsquo;s Musique Concrète. These pieces were written as compositional exercises while studying studio composition at the University of Birmingham. They were composed individually, but I\u0026rsquo;ve decided to include combine them here as an album, since the thematic material is fairly similar. The title of the album is an obvious play on words on the style the pieces are written in.\nWhat is Musique Concrète? # Musique Concrète is a style of music that involves recording everyday sounds, and abstracting their origins, so that the listener can\u0026rsquo;t tell what source the sounds come from. There\u0026rsquo;s a heavy focus on the raw material of sound, and on manipulating sound in inovative ways, less on traditional melodic material.\nEach piece in the album focuses on an everyday object or material, which I recorded in a studio setting and manipulated into the compositions using REAPER DAW and various plugins from GRM.\nAlongside learning how to use REAPER to manipulate sound, the studio composition module at UoB involved a considerable amount of listening work. Each week we would listen to a variety of compositions from other composers in the field, and write our thoughts in a reflective listening journal. I\u0026rsquo;ve included those thoughts here.\nReflective Listening Journal # I find the concept of manipulating a sound beyond its original natural shape fascinating, especially the idea of extending the resonance of a sound long past its natural decay. The notion of creating impossible sounds has been very influential in my compositional journey, as I have strived to create contrast between the “real” and the impossible, by manipulating recognisable sounds to no longer conform to their physical limitations.\nDirk Stromberg Rising Tones # Dirk Stromberg’s Rising Tones is a piece composed using source sounds emitted by radio telescopes. Stromberg focuses mainly on rising pectral tonal material throughout the piece, creating a sound that can seemingly rise infinitely. This pitched material acts as a drone which gradually oscillates by varying the rate at which it pans left and right, coming in and out of phase with itself. About halfway through the piece, a bass frequency which behaves like a shepherd tone is introduced, always rising, but never reaching the top. This tone eventually settles, as a new textural material of granulized, shimmering bells takes over the rising pitch. The piece gradually fades out at the end, implying that these tones continue to rise beyond the scope of human hearing.\nI really like the way Stromberg uses an abstract sound and manipulates it to become impossible by the laws of physics, never reaching a peak, while still keeping a sense of familiarity by obeying the limitations of human hearing.\nMichael Pisaro Still Life with Cicadas # An album that plays around with our sense of hearing is Michael Pisaro’s Still Life with Cicadas, Waterfall and Radu, which consists of field recordings of natural sounds such from cicadas, and silence. I appreciate how Pisaro combines simple sounds to create a complex texture that can paint a vivid picture in the mind. It is also interesting how he creates such an unnatural space by the sounds’ movement.\nThe 2nd track of the album begins with the sound of just one cicada, with none of the background noise one would normally associate with them. The cicada’s sound periodically cuts to complete silence, returning in a different location, an effect which acts like the insect is teleporting to different positions in a vacuum. About 1.30 a tinnitus-like hum is introduced, which creates the impression that the silence has become too much to bear and now the brain is filling in the perceived missing noise. This is further emphasized when at about 2.30 the sound of rushing water is introduced.\nThe picture builds, with hums, cicadas, crickets, running water and traffic all painting an image of what silence might sound like to an ear that fills in the void of sound with repetitive background noise. This material gets all layered together at 4.30 to create a collage of background noise which grows to become unbearable due to its deafening volume, and conflicting harsh frequencies. At 6.00 a resonant electronic sound is added as a more “musical” element, acting as some kind of background drone, like the electrical hum of a ground loop, creating some kind of underlying bass element to the more recognisable natural sounds.\nFrancis Dhomont Forêt Profunde # Francis Dhomont’s work Forêt Profunde has also been quite influential to my compositional process, especially the movements Chambre interdite and Musique de chambre.\nChambre interdite or Forbidden Room is aptly named for its use of door sounds. It opens with a very close, dry, opening door, which then suddenly cuts to an frozen abstraction of the sound, creating a lovely contrast between the recognisable sound of a door, and its manipulated clone. Dhomont uses a lot of freeze, reverb and stretch FX in this movement, as a way of creating impossible spaces. While Still Life focuses on impossible movements of sound, Dhomont creates unnatural spatial atmospheres.\nAt 0.47 there’s an interesting transition between spaces, as a creaky door with a lot of reverb sharply cuts to a completely different atmosphere which sounds like some roomy far away location. Dhomont emphasizes the contrast between these spaces by these quick, unnatural cuts, an effect I have found to be inspirational in my own work.\nMusique de chambre or Chamber Music uses instrumental sounds as a basis, with a dissonant and busy texture of pizzicato strings creating a chaotic atmosphere throughout the movement. Instead of disarraying the strings by the use of FX, he uses a chaotic arrangement of the material itself to abstract its sound, so it is difficult to tell which instruments are playing what.\nOut of this chaos emerges a peaceful piano solo, as a moment of calm in a storm. This material is parodied at the end of the movement by a detuned piano, which is layered with an extreme delay, causing it to quickly devolve into a chaotic texture similar to the initial pizz strings.\nHaving found this contrast between the peaceful, unedited melodies, and the chaotic textures to be quite satisfying, I have attempted to subtly enrich my own compositions in a similar way.\nMonty Adkins Five Panels no. 1 To Luke # Five Panels no. 1 to Luke by Monty Adkins has also been a huge inspiration for my compositional process. The piece contrasts complex granulated textures with the pure clean tones of guitar harmonics in a simple melody. Five Panels is a fantastic example of Adkins’ compositional style of balancing timbre, tone and texture. Each piece focuses heavily on rich and soft resonant material with underlying granulated textures that keep the slow-moving tonal material interesting. No. 1 was especially inspirational to me because of the way the natural guitar harmonics gradually become more abstracted over the course of the piece, with the reverberating tails of the notes extended to create a wash of sound.\nI love the way the initial background texture gradually increases in layers and overtakes the harmonics, while in contrast the harmonics swap roles and replace the granulated material as a background texture. I also like how Adkins maintains the underlying calm of the opening harmonics throughout the piece, in spite of the increase in agitation in the textural material. Gradually, this agitated texture that has taken the forefront diminishes, leaving a long, pure, harmonic that is reminiscent of the opening purity of the piece.\nMonty Adkins Memory Etching # This piece uses a lot of long sonorous textures, with bell-like sounds creating interesting gestural elements that emerge out of these textures. There’s a variety of sound sources, such as wind chimes, music boxes and rattling glass objects, but these get obfuscated over the course of the piece.\nAdkins creates interesting, randomised, rhythmical elements, which I suspect is achieved by freezing and shuffling the tails of some of the sound sources. He also does a really good job exploring the full frequency range.\nMonty Adkins Memory Box # Created with mostly music box sounds, this piece has a very nostalgic atmosphere to it. There’s an underlying texture, as of someone turning the music box, which has a lot of reverb on it to extend the decay of the bells. As the piece progresses, more abstracted/edited elements are added to the piece, defocusing the original music box.\nMonty Adkins Forensic Embers # This piece has a more ominous atmosphere. It explores bass tones, with some ethereal string like sounds over the top. There, long held tones are accompanied by more granular textural sounds, which add some attack to otherwise fairly static textures. An organ is added about half-way through the piece, to tie the various timbres together, and create some harmony.\nMonty Adkins Radiant Moon # This piece is similar to Memory Box, in that it focuses on the bell like qualities of a music box, but Adkins makes liberal use of vinyl player noise and static, which creates a lovely crunchy texture, with a retro feel.\nArvo Pärt Für Alina # This isn’t a piece of electro acoustic music, but it really fits the style of music I’m inspired by for my compositions. It explores the timbral elements of the piano, playing with its bell-like sound qualities. Pärt uses the sustain pedal to create a wash of texture by the overtones that come through when holding the pedal down, which I think is a really interesting and underused technique.\nMonty Adkins Clockwork Cities # This piece makes use of freeze a lot, freezing the decaying notes of a guitar to create textural elements, accompanied by the occasional attack of the beginning of a new note in typical Adkins style. For some of his material he clearly doesn’t try to hide the loop point so that it creates a rhythmical element. He also shuffles various sound elements around to create movement by increasing the chaotic nature of the textures. There’s an interesting use of taps, and various string sounds, which are obfuscated by layering them in such a way that they seem to be mechanical, like the insides of a clock working.\n","date":"11 February 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2025-12-29-concrete-music/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Musical Concrete","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/adrian-de-lima/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Adrian De Lima","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/composer/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Composer","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/film-score/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Film Score","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/logic-pro/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Logic Pro","type":"tags"},{"content":"For my final year composition class at the University of Birmingham I was tasked with rewriting the music for the trailer to Oppenheimer. I wrote this in \u0026ldquo;Logic Pro\u0026rdquo;, using a mixture of Kontakt instruments, and the \u0026ldquo;Vital synth\u0026rdquo; engine. I\u0026rsquo;ve finally decided to share it here.\nAll the rights to the visuals fall Universal Pictures as the original rights holders.\nRescored Trailer # For a comparison here\u0026rsquo;s the original trailer:\nOriginal Trailer # I began my scoring for the trailer by creating a tempo map. I marked out scene transitions using a marker track, making sure to lock the SMPTE time of the markers. I then adjusted the tempo so that scene transitions predominantly aligned with beats. There were quite a lot of changes to the time signature required to remove or add beats where that helped reduce large shifts in tempo, as I aimed to avoid variations greater than 30bpm over the course of the piece.\nThe marker and tempo tracks The piece is scored for hybrid-orchestra (or traditional orchestra and synthesizer, with a lot of SFX and synth pads used throughout), reflecting the thematic material of Robert Oppenheimer pushing technology to its limits to bring us into the nuclear age. I used a deep Pharlight synth whenever the bomb was onscreen (beginning at 0:37) to create an uneasy atmosphere, reflecting the dark history of nuclear weapons.\nThe second half of the trailer uses a metronomic drumbeat to symbolize the driving force behind technological advancement, and the incessant countdown to the first nuclear test. The piece is structured in three distinct sections, building in intensity throughout its duration. It opens with sparce strings, which grow with the addition of basses, and celli. The brass join alongside the lower strings, with a rising melody consisting of long held notes.\nKey scene transitions are highlighted with a high-pitched ping created using a highly processed piano patch, alongside a lot of reverb. The ping anticipates the percussion, and helps to create an airy atmosphere, similar to the beginning of Sebastian Haas’ Last Days of Earth (Last Days of Earth, published by Immediate Music). With the first percussion hit of the piece at 0:28 the brass crescendos to a mini climax as the trailer shows a wall of fire. The percussion begins to gain momentum with the transition to a drone shot of the desert at 0:32. I used a combination of Armageddon drums, Action Strikes, and Ferrum drum patches combined with delays and reverbs to give different sounds and rhythms to the drums throughout the piece. I experimented with lining up percussive hits with the trailer beats, like at 0:43 where the percussion lines up with each collision of a fireball, ending in a larger hit coinciding with the fire cloud. The percussion hits serve as a transition at 0:45 to a driving synth rhythm which makes use of an arpeggiator, serving as the backdrop to a clearer melodic line on a haunting Ashlight synth patch. This melody builds towards the climax at 1:19, where the main melodic motif for the piece is heard, consisting of falling sixths, similar to Göransson’s original violin melody for the trailer. Following the sixths is a descending scale with the brass and strings crescendoing towards the title card. Flutes are introduced here as well, to support the upper strings, and basses are reintroduced.\nWith the climax I aimed to create an expansive orchestration, drawing inspiration from the likes of Gianfranco Pedroli’s United We Stand for the use of a loud, harsh, Vital synth, doubled by brass, and accompanied by a soaring upper string section. 1:41 is composed in a free rhythm so that the explosive hits fit the trailer’s scene transitions, followed byt he reintroduction of the metronomic percussion straight afterwards, to bring the trailer to a close with a series of percussive fills, and a massive hit directly on the title card.\nMy goal with this composition was to match the atmosphereric tension of the trailer, while also building in intensity, through layering instruments, and increasing the complexity of the orchestration as the piece progresses. While the piece does work on its own, it is first and foremost composed with the SFX of the trailer in mind. It\u0026rsquo;s written in D minor, heavily emphasizing chords I, III, V and VI. Despite this, however, the tonality is quite ambiguous at points, especially in the opening, and the arpeggiated synth sections.\n","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2025-12-29-oppenheimer-trailer-rescored/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Oppenheimer Trailer Rescored","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/orchestral/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Orchestral","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/brazil/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Brazil","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/christmas/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Christmas","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/italy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Italy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kevin/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kevin","type":"tags"},{"content":" Playlists ","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/music-videos/","section":"My work","summary":"","title":"Music Videos","type":"categories"},{"content":" See Amid the Winter Snow # Merry Christmas!\nWe hope you enjoy our rendition of the popular carol See Amid the Winter Snow, arranged by yours truly. This carol is very special to me, having performed it at my first Christmas carol concert in secondary school.\nMany thanks to my brother Kevin for helping put this together, despite being on different continents and time zones! This year I\u0026rsquo;m spending Christmas in Brazil, while Kevin\u0026rsquo;s still Europe based, hence the contrast in climates in this video 😂\nI had a blast arranging this carol for string quartet. Shoutout to our digital twins for helping fill it out.\nLyrics # 1. See, amid the winter\u0026#39;s snow, born for us on earth below, see the tender Lamb appears, promised from eternal years. Refrain: Hail, thou ever blessed morn! Hail, redemption\u0026#39;s happy dawn! Sing through all Jerusalem, \u0026#34;Christ is born in Bethlehem.\u0026#34; 2. Lo, within a manger lies He who built the starry skies; He who, throned in height sublime, sits amid the cherubim! [Refrain] 3 Say, ye holy shepherds, say, what\u0026#39;s your joyful news today? Wherefore have ye left your sheep on the lonely mountain steep? [Refrain] 4. \u0026#34;As we watched at dead of night, Lo! we saw a wondrous light; angels singing \u0026#39;Peace on earth\u0026#39; told us of the Savior\u0026#39;s birth.\u0026#34; [Refrain] 5. Sacred Infant, all divine, what a tender love was Thine, thus to come from highest bliss down to such a world as this! [Refrain] 6. Teach, O teach us, Holy Child, by Thy face so meek and mild, teach us to resemble Thee, in Thy sweet humility! [Refrain] Credits/socials # Violin/arrangement/editing - Adrian de Lima Cello - Kevin de Lima Original composition - Edward Caswell\nVideography - Sabrina Sanchez Moreira, Gabriela Vieira\n","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2025-12-29-see-amid-the-winter-snow--christmas-2025-music-video/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"See Amid the Winter Snow","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/youtube/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"YouTube","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/adrian/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Adrian","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"29 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/birmingham/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Birmingham","type":"tags"},{"content":" Moon River # Moon River composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, here arranged by Denny Wang and performed by Adrian de Lima and Toby Baker. We performed this piece to celebrate graduating from the University of Birmingham. Given the difficulty of filming at night, it features the university\u0026rsquo;s iconic clock tower Old Joe playing the role of the moon. Socials # adriandelima.music @AdriandelimaMusic @tobyb1506 @nicolegisbourne Lyrics # Moon river, wider than a mile I\u0026#39;m crossing you in style someday (Someday, day) A dream maker (Maker, maker) My heartbreaker (You heartbreaker) Wherever you\u0026#39;re goin\u0026#39;, I\u0026#39;m goin\u0026#39; that way (The same, the same) Two drifters off to see the world There\u0026#39;s such a crazy world to see We\u0026#39;re all chasin\u0026#39; after all the same Chasin\u0026#39; after our ends Moon river, wider than a mile Crossin\u0026#39; in style someday My dream maker, heartbreaker Wherever you\u0026#39;re goin\u0026#39;, I\u0026#39;m goin\u0026#39; the same Two drifters off to see the world It\u0026#39;s such a crazy world, you\u0026#39;ll see (What I see, who I become) (What I see, who I become) We\u0026#39;re all chasin\u0026#39; after our ends Chasin\u0026#39; after our ends Life\u0026#39;s just around the bend, my friend Moon river and me The ducks # The best part was when some ducks came to listen as we were recording, felt like a Disney princess 😂 Many thanks to all those who helped me put this one together, Toby, Nicole, Tevin, Noa!\n","date":"29 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2025-08-29-moon-river/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Moon River","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"29 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/uk/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"UK","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/concerts/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Concerts","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"30 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/republished/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Republished","type":"tags"},{"content":"An evening of concert featuring Lalo \u0026amp; Bridge by Adrian de Lima and Toby Baker at Wylde Green United Reformed Church.\nAs a final year performance student at the University of Birmingham, you\u0026rsquo;re offered the opportunity to perform at a local church in Wylde Green. It\u0026rsquo;s a fantastic opportunity to practice your recital repertoire, so I decided to take advantage of it.\nOn 16th Feb 2025, I performed a selection of minatures by Frank Bridge, and Lalo\u0026rsquo;s Symphony Espagnole to an audience of about 30. It was a great time, despite the cold.\nMany thanks to all who came to support, to my accompanist, my friend Toby Baker, and the team at Wylde Green and UoB Music, for the opportunity to put on this programme, we had an awesome time!\nThe recording was done unofficially by my mother.\n","date":"30 July 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2025-08-04-wylde-green-concert/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Wylde Green Concert","type":"posts"},{"content":" Mary did you know? # An arrangement of the popular Christmas song \u0026ldquo;Mary did you know?\u0026rdquo; performed by myself and my brother Kevin.\nEvery year Kevin and I do a Christmas video for the family. This year we decided to step things up a bit from our previous videos. The video is recorded in on a hill overlooking the picturesque South Horrington estate. Lyrics # Mary did you know That your baby boy Would one day walk on water? Mary did you know That your baby boy Would save our sons and daughters? Did you know That your baby boy Has come to make you new? This child that you\u0026#39;ve delivered Will soon deliver you Mary did you know That your baby boy Would give sight to a blind man? Mary did you know Your baby boy Would calm a storm with his hand? Did you know That your baby boy Has walked where angels trod? When your kiss your little baby You\u0026#39;ve kissed the face of God The blind will see The deaf will hear The dead will live again The lame will leap The dumb will speak The praises of the lamb Mary did you know That your baby boy Is Lord of all creation? Mary did you know That your baby boy Would one day rule the nations? Did you know That your baby boy Is Heaven\u0026#39;s perfect Lamb? This sleeping child you\u0026#39;re holding Is the great I am Featured comments # Many thanks to @kevindelima5713 for working on this project with me. Check out our other Christmas moosic (from the last couple of years) here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_mdQGleTrdjFSLJPEGyckg5KZoqG1w_W\u0026si=QLQx7VIPmmCkvUIy\nMery Christmas 2024 all! - Adrian de Lima, 24 Dec 2024, YouTube\nSocials # adriandelima.music\n@AdriandelimaMusic\n@kevindelima5713\nThreeHourAverage\nCredits # Lyrics: Mark Lowrey\nMusic: Buddy Greene\nArrangement: Ariyan Ashrafian \u0026amp; Adrian de Lima\nViolin: Adrian de Lima\nCello: Kevin de Lima\nRecording engineer: Robin Clarke\nVideography: Adrian de Lima \u0026amp; Kevin de Lima\nEditing: Adrian de Lima\n","date":"24 December 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2024-12-24-mary-did-you-know/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Mary, Did You Know? Christmas 2024 music video","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"24 December 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/somerset/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Somerset","type":"tags"},{"content":" Mother and Child by the Sea # Adrian de Lima · A Mother and Child visit the seaside Living much of his life in Dresden, Dahl never forgot his Norwegian homeland, basing a lot of his landscape work off of his memories of the landscape and trips home 1. His \u0026lsquo;Mother and Child by the Sea\u0026rsquo; was painted during a difficult time in his life, not long after the deaths of a lot of his family, and the same year that his great friend and inspiration Caspar Friedrich passed away. Some see the work as a homage to his friend, or as a reference to his own childhood, waiting for his father to return from his fishing trips 2.\nThe painting # Dahl, Johan Christian Clausen; Mother and Child by the Sea; The Barber Institute of Fine Arts The painting is on a small canvas, in a way inviting the viewer in for a closer, more intimate viewing experience. It depicts the silhouettes a woman and child waiting for a fishing boat to return. I love the contrast between the cold moonlight and the shadowy landscape, as it leaves a lot of the details of the scene up to one’s imagination. The child appears to be excited, but we can’t tell what the mother’s attitude is and there’s no way of knowing whether the trip has been successful or not.\nIn my own compositional response to the painting I wanted to create an impression of a natural landscape from sampled sounds, and then, similarly to how Dahl uses light to obscure details and ignite the imagination, abstract the sonic landscape with further processing.\nProgramme Notes # The small painting invites the viewer closer for a more intimate look. As one views the scene, the sound of waves appears. Shades of darkness and light envelope both the visual and sonic world, as sound recalls the memories of a childhood spent in the outdoors.\nMy compositional response to Johan Christian Dahl’s painting Mother and Child by the Sea, created using sampled audio and electroacoustic processing techniques, explores the ideas of memory and nostalgia within the painting. It takes the listener on a journey from the recognisable shoreline, to an abstract sonic world via electronic processing, combined with hints, or memories, of a natural scene.\nA photo of the painting in the Barber Institute of Arts Compositional Notes # Dahl painted the Mother and Child by the Sea while living abroad in Germany, not long after the deaths of his wife and three children, and the same year his good friend C.D. Friedrich passed. I’ve always seen this painting as quite a forlorn work, with its eery moonlight peaking from behind dark storm clouds on a strangely still ocean. While I was composing for the piece, however, I came to look at it under the light of nostalgia rather than forlornness.\nThe painting depicts a scene where a mother and her child watch a fishing boat, presumably piloted by the father, come up to the shoreline, with the child excitedly pointing towards the boat. As I researched the work I considered two main interpretations of the scene. My first idea, based on the context the work was painted around, was that the painting might represent a journey into the afterlife with his own wife and child watching, or perhaps waiting for someone like Dahl himself arriving in the boat. My second interpretation, and ultimately the one I settled on for my compositional response, is that of Dahl and his mother excitedly waiting for his father to return home from a fishing trip, a nostalgic view of his past, and his homeland in Norway.\nI began my composition with a quite literal sonic representation of the painting, a crafted seascape, created from sampled audio. I used a variety of samples from a water bottle, some rocks, a rain stick and a saltshaker, combined with processing effects, such as freezing and stretching to abstract the sounds from their source. I used this processing to create long textural sounds which I layered and shaped into waves and shoal via EQ automation.\nThe advantage I found from synthesizing my seascape instead of doing a field recording of the sea, was that I could easily transition my various elements and layers into a more processed sound world over the course of the piece, slowly increasing the amount of processing on the various layers. The majority of my processing is done with realtime automation, so as to allow tweaking to the sound right up until I render the final file.\nThe piece follows a journey, beginning with the listener observing the shoreline, and hearing the mother’s laboured footsteps approach, quickly followed by the excited child rushing through the gravelly beach. The listener’s viewpoint is then taken under the water, where one begins to hear a more alien sound world. I associated the deep bass groanings with the sound of the boat, from an underwater viewpoint. This middle section is much more heavily processed, dipping between the abstract and the less abstract in such a way as to mimic that lucid state when one is half awake, or perhaps, drowning. In the middle section I introduce the idea of memory, harking back to Dahl’s nostalgia for his homeland, with the inclusion of faint birdsong, like one might hear in a forest glade or mountain valley, in contrast to the seagulls heard at the beginning. The piece ends as it began, returning to the surface, to the shoreline, and to the recognisable world.\nAdrian de Lima · Some source sounds\nRepublished from here and here (Archive.org).\n","date":"14 November 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2024-11-14-a-mother-and-child-by-the-sea/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"A Mother and Child by the Sea","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"14 November 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/dahl/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Dahl","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 November 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/johan-christian-dahl/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Johan Christian Dahl","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 November 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/mother-and-child-by-the-sea/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Mother and Child by the Sea","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 November 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/music/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Music","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 November 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/painting/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Painting","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"14 November 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/sound/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Sound","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"25 October 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/neusymar/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Neusymar","type":"tags"},{"content":" Malotte\u0026rsquo;s The Lord\u0026rsquo;s Prayer # Composed in 1935 by Albert Hay Malotte, The Lord\u0026rsquo;s Prayer sets the classic prayer given by Christ in Matthew 6 to song. This rendition is sung by my father, with myself at the piano.\nThis song has a lot of history in my family. My father orginally learned it to perform with my mother at the piano. Then my brother took over, before I myself learned the piece (safe to say, Dad\u0026rsquo;s been performing this song a long time). I\u0026rsquo;d always wanted to do a project with him, and finally convinced him to give this a go. This project also served to wet my feet in video editing. Lyrics # Our Father, Which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come Thy will be done, On earth As it is In Heaven. Give us this day, Our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we Forgive our debtors. And lead us not Into temptation. But deliver us from evil. For thine Is the Kingdom, And the power, And the glory, Forever, Amen. Socials # adriandelima.music @AdriandelimaMusic Matthew Abesamis Credits # Pianist: Adrian de Lima\nVocalist: Neusymar de Lima\nWords: Jesus Christ\nMusic: Albert Hay Malotte\nCinematography: Matthew Abesamis\nEditing: Adrian de Lima\n","date":"25 October 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2024-10-25-the-lords-prayer/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"The Lord's Prayer music video","type":"posts"},{"content":" The Musings of a Guitarist # Adrian de Lima · The Musings of a Guitarist This composition is my end of 2nd year project at the University of Birmingham. It uses a variety of recorded harmonic sounds that are manipulated to create an atmospheric piece in the style of Monty Adkins.\nCompositional Notes # At the time of composing I was greatly inspired by the work of Monty Adkins in his first of five panels entitled To Luke. Determined to compose a piece in a similar style, I decided on guitar harmonics as a basis.\nThe Musings of a Guitarist opens with fairly unaltered natural harmonics, played on an acoustic guitar, which then transitions to an electric guitar, with increased alterations to the sound. I experimented a lot with bringing sound material in and out of focus by repeating melodic material with a narrower frequency spectrum. This allows the piece to progress from clean opening harmonics, to a hazy wash of conflicting harmonic sounds towards the end. As a contrast to this wash of sound, I used different timbral elements of the guitar, such as tapping the body, or playing above the nut to create a more percussive texture.\nTechnical Details # I began this composition with a recording session. I enlisted the help of a friend who plays guitar, and we went into the studio and recorded a series of sounds from an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, and a violin. These consisting mostly of harmonics, but there were also some useful miscellaneous sounds extracted from the session, such as rubbing the wood of the instrument.\nThe session was then cut in REAPER to separate the elements out into individual bites and create a sound library. After the original sound bites, consisting mostly of one-shots were cut, I proceeded to generate more textural elements through post processing, using various GRM plugins, PaulxStretch, Cecilia 5 and TS2 to stretch and manipulate the sounds into something almost unrecognisable. Examples can be heard here.\nAll in all I ended up with 293 individual sound bites, only a small fraction of which were used in the final composition.\nI then began to collage the sounds into chunks, which were then treated as melodic phrases when fitted into the structure of the whole piece. The entire piece is composed in REAPER\nA Screenshot of a phrase of the electric guitar melodic material I used a lot of low frequency material to act as an underlying bass for these phrases, to give the piece more of a sense of cohesion.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a significant amount of automated panning in the piece, with background material rotating around the listene creating a sense of 3D space (Listen to the violin pizzicato material at 1.35 with headphones and see how it rotates around the listener\u0026rsquo;s head). All mixing in the project was done via volume automation aswell, so that individual sound items could be mixed in the session instead of the entire track.\nScreenshot of the project mixer, with the parent folder tracks collapsed The structure starts fairly natural with sparse acoustic guitar harmonics over a low frequency bass. This gradually builds over in complexity over the runtime of the piece.\nScreenshot of the opening harmonic melody material Some clicky material created from tapping the guitar is used as a stark contrast to the the flute-like harmonics. The middle of the piece features a lot of stretched harmonics, creating textures that last longer than the natural decay of the harmoncis. The electric guitar starting at 1.27 features a lot of reversed material and reverb, obscuring the initial attack of the notes, making it sound more like a synthesizer than a guitar. This only gets more prominant as you approach the midpoint, and the electric guitar features more heavily. The piece ends with a very stretched out, almost never-ending, singular harmonic, to create the idea that the guitarist keeps on musing into eternity.\n","date":"29 May 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2025-12-29-the-musings-of-a-guitarist/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"The Musings of a Guitarist","type":"posts"},{"content":" Ripples of Sunshine # Adrian de Lima · Ripples of Sunshine Compositional Notes # This is one of my first forays into MIDI composition. I primarily used Spitfire Audio LABS and Logic Pro instruments.\nThe brief was \u0026ldquo;ambient listening\u0026rdquo;, so I decided to go for soft strings playing pizzicato and harmonics in the first half, and synthesizers in the second half. The cello melody was made using the LABS Cello Moods, a patch that changes pitch depending on the length of the note, allowing the rapid creation of seemingly complex melodies, from not very many notes at all.\n","date":"7 July 2023","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2025-12-30-ripples-of-sunshine/","section":"All articles","summary":"","title":"Ripples of Sunshine","type":"posts"},{"content":"Music has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. I was fortunate enough to have parents brave enough to sacrifice their time, money (and ears) for me to be heavily involved in music making throughout my childhood, taking violin and piano lessons at a local music school in Mallorca, Spain where we were living at the time. Upon moving to the UK, I continued my studies of music at secondary school, leading pursuit of my passion at the University of Birmingham where I graduated with my bachelor’s in music in 2025, specializing in performance and electronic composition.\nMy journey into music technology began during a period working as a performing arts technician at my old school. Going in with little to no experience in sound tech, I quickly learned that there’s more to a microphone than just plugging it in, and that sparked an ongoing fascination with sound design and recording. Since then, I’ve been mixing, composing, and experimenting with tech to bring my ideas to life, going so far as to structure a majority of my degree around recording and manipulating sound. Previous Next What really drives me is sharing my music with others and providing the means for music to inspire them. I believe in everyone should have the opportunity to follow their dream and think there’s something incredibly rewarding about supporting others in pursuing their passions, whether it\u0026rsquo;s through collaboration, mentorship, or just sharing knowledge along the way.\nCheck out my work here Contact Me ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/aboutme/","section":"Home","summary":"","title":"About me","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"If you would like to get in touch with me, you can find me at the following socials:\nInstagram LinkedIn My music can be found on the following platforms:\nYoutube Soundcloud Spotify Or for business/booking enquiries, email me below:\nEmail me ","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/contact/","section":"Home","summary":"","title":"Contact page","type":"page"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"}]