katherineburr

As well as featuring in the music video, I did the audio engineering, mixing and mastering. I am especially proud of the tabla (Indian drums) recording which was a new instrument for me.

My approach, as an audio engineer, was to first create a click track for all musicians to work with. I set up the choir recording first – this involved four over head mics in pairs to get a good stereo sound. Every singer had access to a set of headphones to keep in time and pitch.

We recorded the main choir section by section, and over dubbed lead lines and an additional harmony. I then mixed the choir and lead lines, moving some around and ensuring they were panned correctly.

On the day of the filming, I was asked to also record the tabla player. After a little research, I choose two pencil condensers and used them in an x y pair, just above the tabla player. This picked up a lot of the texture in the sound, which Nirmal was pleased to hear.

The final mix and mastering session was a few days later, ready for the release of the video on Indian Independence Day.