Assignment 3: Project Output

To preface, I want to thank my parents for being so understanding of me while I bounced all over the place while making this project. Thanks for not being mad for being out past curfew. The walkthrough leading up to the Final Output is VERY long. For your convenience, please use the table of contents.

Table of contents:

Production

The Tracks (Parts of the Recording)

#1 - Fake Song Outro - Dear Diary by 4*IVERSE (Audacity and Ableton)

#2 - Radio Jingle Intro (Audacity and Ableton)

Aiden [ft. his sister] (Ableton; vocals on Audacity)

#4 - Karak Ad Jingle (Ableton)

#5 - Radio Outro (Audacity and Ableton)

#6 - Misc. Sound Effects

Mixing + Mastering(?)

Publishing

The Final Output

Final Thoughts for the Assignment:

Production

The script was finished shortly after the submission of Pre-production, but there were some rewrites on August 10. I came up with the original outline, but my partner, Aiden, made some suggestions that I really liked and decided to incorporate. To make it feel more natural, I told my actors that these lines were merely a guide and encouraged them to adlib or experiment with the dialogue if they wanted. This way, I could pick out the best take as I saw fit!

I’m a bit conflicted on adding a copy of the script as I don’t want listeners to read it alongside the final output. It’s not meant to be a 1:1 enactment. Again, it was meant to be a guide for what I needed to record and where to place it, and because it was “finalised” during the earlier phase of production, it doesn’t contain every bit of what I ended up producing. Real close, though.

Here’s how the pacing is meant to go: Song Outro -> Radio Jingle + Introduction -> Ad Jingle -> Interview Portion -> Call-in segment -> Radio Outro

And if anyone would still like to see the written script, here’s the link: rough script draft.

The Tracks (Parts of the Recording)

I turned out to have way more tracks than I initially thought, and, technically, I had to do mixing for individual “tracks” before I placed them in the final mix.

While I did record and compose most of the WAV files separately, I saved space by mixing some of them (mostly the sound effects that weren’t attached to any of the actors’ lines) in the same track. See Mixing+Mastering for more details.

I kinda overdid it with the list of planned equipment I mentioned in my previous assignments. It was, after all, plan on plans in case I needed an alternative. I recorded all of my tracks on my Lenovo Intel Core i7-based Windows Laptop or on my and my friends’ respective Samsung phones. Mixing was also done solely on my laptop to prevent any mishaps from transferring.

List of Software actually used:

Ableton Live 12 Trial - this app is finicky as hell. You have to manually change the settings to switch between headphones and speakers, AND the audio input and output equipment need to be connected BEFORE you even launch the app or it won’t register. It will also crash if you unplug either. Offers a lot of options, though, so I think it’s worth it. This provided the MIDI.
Audacity - Tried and true. I also downloaded a plug-in from MuseHub to use for it. Pretty neat.
Voice Recorder - default app that came with my phone. All my friends + my boyfriend and I are Samsung users, so it’s all the same.

Note: Bandlab was used exclusively for experimenting with the instruments; ultimately, no tracks made in the app were used in the final recording (and I have a lot of pictures, screenshots, and recordings to prove this). Mainly because it sounded bad when converted to a MIDI file. It also sounded like a creepy horror OST, in a bad way.

As I go over the making — the composing and recording — of each of the main individual tracks (and every production stage here on out), I’ll be noting down the chronological order. As in, the date and time of my work sessions. I recorded, like, 28 voice notes on my phone for this? Wherever and whenever possible, I would either screen record and take videos or screenshots of my progress. I would omit some screen-recordings of a few tracks because, well, it’ll be shown in the final output anyway.

Anyways, to begin:

#1 - Fake Song Outro - Dear Diary by 4*IVERSE (Audacity and Ableton)

Every radio show has music, and mine would be no exception! Typically, you’d hear some of the top hits of the month, but I wanted to take a step further and create an original song outro to kick off the skit. Also because I wanted to avoid using pre-recorded audio as much as possible.

SO, I decided on branding this song as a single released by a fictional Kpop group, 4*IVERSE. For some context, a few friends (including Eishi) and I created this fictional girl group years ago, and we would make concepts and ‘comebacks’ for them to have. I just have a knack for coming up with concepts and getting all creative director-y on ‘em. The making of this outro was mostly just personal indulgence.

Mini Progress Video:

August 13, 4:56 - 6:00 PM. Brainstorming starts; experimenting with melody.
Aug 14, 10:08 AM. Decided to go with a Bossa Nova type song, a popular genre in Kpop, as is the original inspiration. Kpop song inspo: Deja Vu by RESCENE, Lips by IVE & Sparkle by ARTMS.
Testing out Piano Settings [Mellow Piano (EP)] on Bandlab, following a tutorial on YouTube. Will import the MIDI track into Ableton. First halfish followed the tutorial, the rest I did whatever. Gonna add more instrument layers.
Eishi’s vocals are also featured here (every single piece of singing, except for Aiden’s one part, was done by her); she will also be providing me with feedback! Perks of living close by.
11:18 AM. Finished guitar/strings line (jazz guitar) on BandLab. Transferring the MIDI and WAV files did not work; it sounded goofy as hell. Use of BandLab is entirely discarded, and all tracks will be recreated on Ableton itself.
2:30 - 6:00 PM. Fixed shakers for ‘drum pattern’; took a break; fixed drums, working on guitar/keys. Nothing sounds good together. My ears hurt. By 3:30 PM, I am kinda satisfied and move on to coming up with fake lyrics with Eishi, who helped with some musical considerations. I recorded her singing some words and melodies; I tried the ethereal reverb option on Audacity again. Our first take sounded off because we used the wrong mic, oops. I did not touch panning at all; I feel no need to.
6:03 PM. The song's outro instrumental is finished, just gotta add vocals; added guitar after changing vocal melody. I consider it very listenable; the key was to put (the volume of) your instruments into the negative — not that you’re silencing it to the smallest decibel possible for human ears to hear, just to lower it so it all mixes well together. This is truly our mixing academia.
August 24, 10:17 AM. Dear Diary mixing is complete.

The final mix is clearly amateurish but I’m still proud of it. I actually composed a song!!! That’s crazy!!!!

#2 - Radio Jingle Intro (Audacity and Ableton)

August 10.
- 4:42 PM. I tried layering Eishi's and I’s vocals on Audacity, but it didn’t work; we don’t know how to harmonise. Instead, I used a reverb setting (from MuseHub’s MuseFX plugin) labelled ethereal on level 4-6. The reverb improved the ‘er’ sound in Wryn Mayer with the use of fade-ins and outs on the ends of the vocal tracks, as well as cross-fades.

One of the layered audio tracks was a tad bit louder than needed; changing pitch did not work. I ultimately discarded the layering and went with the original melody sung by Eishi.
I exported the reverbed vocal melody onto Ableton and found out that it was WAY too short, comprising of one bar. Tried adding synths, but it gave Star Wars, no thanks.
5:03 PM. I watch a music theory vid. I also realise I forgot the title of my own radio show in the intro; I record myself saying ‘113.3’ on Audacity; I try a repeating effect using the echo option on the ‘uh’ part of eleven, but I just sound silly. I duplicate the track instead; I also attach an equaliser effect to make it more vintage radio-like. Time to export!
INTRO JINGLE RECORDING DONE, August 10, 6:33 PM.

equalizer

cafe workstation

reverb

August 13
- 12:31 PM - working at a cafe.
- 1:00 PM. Thought of using lofi samples as inspo. Ex: blooming panic theme, lofi room on itch.io (also used this to demo instruments)
- 2:22 - 2:51 PM. Found a lofi music tutorial; lowered bpm from 170 to 110. I continue to ask for opinions and suggestions from friends.
- 3:17 PM. Recording demo finished! Just tweaking volume! (Done mixing at 4:50 PM)

#3 - Lines

Me (Ableton)

I play the role of the 113.3mHz Wryn Mayer Radio host, so I wrote my lines to be somewhat peppy and bold, with my character dropping when things go wrong. I may have sounded a bit tired when I recorded the lines, but people have reassured me that it sounds fine. Some of my dialogue is intentionally shaky, I would shift around in my seat and lean away to mimic actions in the scene.

And yes, the quality is meant to be slightly different from Eishi’s part because the characters are using different mics. Obviously, I wanted to accommodate the fact that I would be recording at two different (three, if you count Gia’s) locations, but also the fact that this is meant to be a college radio show. Emphasis on college, with only a couple good equipment (being the mic and audio mixer) + some crappy microphone they brought in from somewhere to accommodate a surprise guest. Because it’s a college, c’mon!

Started recording on August 12, 9:45 PM. I recorded this at my partner’s place, on my laptop, using the Maono XLR mic, which was hooked up to the audio mixer. I made the script so there are minimal notes for my dialogue, I change it as I see fit.
10:22 PM. Halfway through my recording sesh, I become very aware of my slight speech impediments and unclear enunciation. At times, I had to record the same line around 5 times to get it right.
Finished 11:21 PM.
When I reviewed my recording on August 13, 12:01 PM, I noticed that one line got recorded over; will need to re-record it.
August 15, 11:20 PM. Re-recording lines is difficult; the vocal tone isn’t the same and sounds out of place. I adjust the mic distance, experiment with gain settings on the audio mixer, and do vocal warmups to achieve a similar tone.

Eishi (Audacity)

Eishi plays a student-turned-star after a talent show mishap turns out in her favour. She’s meant to have a sweet and bubbly demeanour which may or may not be an act when she feels threatened by competition.

Writing her lines and directing her voice acting was SO fun because she was understanding and receptive to my nitpicks. Asides from me, pretty much everyone else recorded their lines quite quickly, Eishi being no exception. I believe she had a good amount of control in her voice and that was useful for getting those specific intonations I was aiming for.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I hereby declare that I am using a short clip of Eishi’s pre-recorded cover of “What It Sounds Like” from the film Kpop Demon Hunters. This cover, sent randomly on July 8th, served as inspiration for my project, and I built the narrative around the cover. This is the ONLY pre-recorded audio track, excluding some minimal sound effects. The original cover was also coincidentally recorded, mixed, and mastered on Audacity.

Started recording lines on August 10 (first of the bunch), finished around 1:25 PM. I gave Eishi the Blue Snowball mic to use, no audio mixer attached, because it’s a direct USB plug-in.
I finalised the script (with rewrites suggested by Aiden) and had Eishi record multiple takes + alternate scene versions of some lines.

some notes she took for her lines:

Gia (Voice Note app)

Gia portrays an excited fan of Eishi. I can’t lie, I used her as a carrier to vent out some frustrations of my own. She’s meant to be a student caller, so I gave her leeway to record her lines in any way she found comfortable; it’d sound much more natural that way! And, I’d just edit it in post.

She started and finished recording on August 13, 4 PM, in literally one take, which is impressive but also understandable considering she only has 1-2 lines. Her enthusiasm was spot on! Gia’s lines were recorded on a Samsung S25 Ultra phone, using the default Voice Recorder app, which files I will export and convert accordingly!

Aiden [ft. his sister] (Ableton; vocals on Audacity)

The unexpected guest. Aiden, my partner, portrays a caller who turns out to have a more sinister motive for joining the interview portion of the radio show. Since he’s also a caller, he was allowed to make noise and move around. Aiden also has a lot of cats and can’t control whether they meow or not, so if they end up in the recording (which they do for a SPLIT second), it’s all cool by me! The more noise, the better.

Aiden contributed a lot to his character’s introduction in the skit. I was having a bit of trouble when I was writing his lines during the “climax” of the plot, and he ended up suggesting some really good stuff.

No spoilers, listen to the full skit!

We have the same setup of my laptop, the Maono XLR mic, and the audio mixer.
Started recording lines and vocals on August 16, 12:19 AM. Finished at 1:09 PM. I had to stay past midnight due to some tech difficulties, luckily, he finished his part pretty quickly!
Most of his lines were adlibs and of his suggestion. I sat beside him to listen in on the playback through the Sony headphones and guide him accordingly; I also tried my best not to make any noise because it wouldn’t make sense if I were heard on his end.
His singing parts were also finished on the same day, with the plan to add heavy auto-tune during the mixing process.
Re-recorded singing lines on August 28 -> see Mixing.

#4 - Karak Ad Jingle (Ableton)

Advertisements. Radios have them. With a funky jingle to add! I love karak tea, a type of spiced tea which I consider one of my favourite drinks. It’s a warm and hearty drink that’s important in Bahraini (and the Middle East in general) culture. I wanted to give a nod to that part of my life in this small segment.

My idea was to have this jingle be loosely inspired by Arabic jazz, about 5 seconds. I wanted it to evoke a warm feeling, much like the one I get when I drink the tea, yum!

Started recording and composing on August 24, 12:15 PM. I pull inspiration from Yilah by Hadouk Trio; at 110 BPM. I also watch a vid on how to make jazz music.
Pour -> warm arab jazz music -> cue dialogue from my audio track
1:53 PM. I added shakers to the ad after intervals of a few milliseconds, but it felt overwhelming.

After asking for a third opinion from a friend (the second being my sister), she suggested placing the shakers forward; to lower the volume of the flugel horn in comparison to the shakers so they wouldn’t be at the same level together and, instead, a bit separate.

Using that as a basis, I thought that, instead of shakers throughout, I would place shakers in between the flugel horn's absence (when the horn note isn't held), and it would kinda alternate between each other. Some of the shaker notes were given different fading options.

#5 - Radio Outro (Audacity and Ableton)

I decided on a patty-cake type chant, complete with clap sounds. The “chant” will be Wryn Mayer’s slogan: Chickadee, you’re with me! Chickadee, fly fast and free! This also comes from the game I took inspiration from.

August 14, 6:16 - 7:08 PM. Eishi and I’s original rendition of the patty-cake recording sounded nice in theory, but it was too noisy when listening back. We record ourselves saying the line, and separately, the clap rhythm. This was done under my work desk because, I dunno, I wanted a sort of echo-y effect? The claps still didn’t sound right, so I aimed to recreate it on Ableton with it as a guide for the tempo.

August 24, 10:20 - 11:05 AM. Using the hi-kick motif to mimic the claps, I layered Eishi and I’s voices and added these to an instrumental-only version of the intro jingle for consistency. I added an equalizer to the voices to make them sound extra real. Unlike the intro, I do not want the voices to sound “vintage” and instead more natural.

Settings (many of which are used in some of the other tracks):
- Overdrive
- Reverb
- Glue Compressor
- Equalizer

#6 - Misc. Sound Effects

I recorded celebratory sound fx on Discord using the default soundboard.
Cheer sample used: https://youtu.be/tzgk7lX5sBk?si=eH1JDeoP8PNehpNd
- August 30, 3:30 PM, around 8 hours before my Ableton expired.
- Eishi and I layered ourselves, cheering at various distances, and did 2 takes at my gym. All of this was in hopes of making Eishi’s singing parts more natural with the added ambience/background noise. A similar effect was done with Aiden’s part, but less noisy to fit the narrative.
- It sounded like the crowd only consisted of two people. Because it does.
Static sample used: https://youtu.be/zSpg77VNQ8A?si=Ugl5tkws1CSXVYBn for the outro
“Silent”/White Noise: The recording sounded a bit,,, empty and a bit obvious that we didn’t record it in the same room (like a real radio show would). So, after a suggestion, I added an extra track that is literally just the natural background noise of my living room for a couple of seconds, and I copy-pasted it throughout the recording.

Mixing + Mastering(?)

I began the mixing process on August 24.

I imported the following tracks: Aiden and I’s lines, the song outro, the radio intro and outro, the Karak ad jingle, Eishi’s singing part (which I clipped into around 15 seconds), and other sound effects. I decided to process Eishi and Gia’s lines afterwards, considering they were recorded on different platforms (Audacity and a Voice Recording app, respectively) before importing them into Ableton. Some parts sounded empty, so I resolved to add a cheer sound effect eventually.

After importing all the tracks, I began to arrange them in order, cutting out any spaces of silence and leaving some blank areas for where the incoming lines would be placed.

Objective: to line everything up, then deal with volume adjustments later.

August 28, 1:24 AM. The countdown scares me.

I continue to work on mixing; this was a relatively less gruelling task compared to some of my other courses, and the only “free” time I allowed myself. I imported Eishi and Gia’s lines, trimming them down and arranging them in order. As I continued on, I finally reached Aiden’s lines. I was going to import his singing part from Audacity. When reviewing the file, I found out that the important lines had disappeared.

Yes, I panicked. I called him in a frenzy and asked if we could re-record it later that day at his house. He picked me up, and I stayed past midnight to continue working on the project from there, along with any other pending work. But before all that, I still wanted to use my time to arrange the tracks I DID have in order. Work with what I can, y’know?

I added the Airy Vocal EQ Three audio effect on Aiden’s lines; I needed it to be of “lower” quality because his role was “calling in” during the radio segment. I also added the Glue Compressor (one of the common effects I’ve used in the majority of my Ableton files). I added a static effect I had downloaded from YouTube and used a Distortion (Erosion) audio effect on a part of the outro.

Ableton decided to play with my emotions and automatically update, rendering me unable to work on the project for a couple of hours. I love the app, but it was a headache at times. Anyways, this signalled the end of my work for the day.

[I took August 29th as a day off because it was my younger sister’s birthday.]

August 30, 2:smth PM.

I found out I had 9 (NINE) hours left on the Ableton free trial. I freaked out. I thought I had another day or so. I get to working real quick. I added Aiden’s missing singing part and trimmed down some excess while keeping extra bits away in case I wanted to use them later. I performed my first listen-through, taking note of any changes I wanted to make.

Which were: in this picture, rip if u cant read my handwriting:

3:30 PM. T-8 hours.

What was left:

Clipping Aiden’s song + applying auto-tune. SO MUCH EXPERIMENTING. I originally planned on adding auto-tune to a part of his dialogue but the process of adding it to the clip was so gruelling, I abandoned it.
Adding the cheering fx + Celebratory sound fx
Raising my volume
Mastering ?

6:16 PM. T-3 hours.

Second corrections:

Extending Eishi’s giggle
Add a silent track [check Misc. Sound Effects]
Add horns (acapella; I kept it simple and just recorded myself)
Lower the gain on one of Eishi’s lines (“Everything alright?”) and adjust the spacing of conjunct lines to sound more cut off.

My track has excess background/white noise, attributed to the AC being on when I recorded it. I used the Mastering - Make It Loud effect and minimised that by putting the makeup setting all the way down at 0dB.

I added Overdrive to both Gia and Aiden’s dialogue to enhance the calling-in effect. I also applied the Glue Compressor to Eishi’s.

6:45 PM.

Exporting Time! I export it as both WAV and MP3 files.

I finished the project with 8 separate tracks! Technically, the number is WAY more when you count all the pre-mixing done for sound effects and the like, but yeah.

Publishing

When I tried to upload it to Soundcloud, my account disappeared. Idk what happened, as soon as I uploaded it, it disappeared. I feel like it got flagged because 1) it was inactive for a month, and 2) when I finally decided to post, I put a link to my blog post in the description, which would've been suspicious, I guess.

So after trying for like 20-30 minutes of trying to log in, i decided to use a backup account that i made like 7 years ago. I logged in, changed my password, cleaned it up and changed my username, and uploaded it. The final runtime is 7 minutes and 31 seconds. I so happy I'm done.

When I did upload the recording, I used a graphic design that I had made for the same fictional university during my last semester break. I just thought it was a neat way to utilise something I made for design practice!

ALL COMPLETE!!!!

The Final Output

Final Thoughts for the Assignment:

I'm so glad to be done bruh. I'll save my real final thoughts for the next assignment. Thank you for reading!

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