A4: THE LAST BLOG ENTRY

“One step foot then one step back but I'll make sure”

– 2nd verse of "2 months in"

I’ve said it in my pre-production blog and my latest Assignment 3 blog that I have always been a fan of making music and listening to it, but this course made it different. From learning about the human ear anatomy to mixing tracks to make the audio listenable, I have learned my ways on how to work from this course. Not only have I gained an ear for audio editing, but I also gained a heart as well for making many more by continuing this journey outside of this course. With that said, I’d like to discuss all the important points that happened in the past 3 months during MMS 172 and how I felt about my work and myself.

THE FIRST FEW WEEKS

The starting weeks of the MMS 172, I was able to see what path we were heading onto. Challenges and weak points of myself were spotted during the first few weeks where I explored and planned what was ahead of me. Opening the modules and learning what’s in them in the first few weeks were out of pure excitement. I wanted to learn about audio editing more than I know now. I wanted to listen and analyze, explore more about what is out there in the audio developing. My passion for music was burning (a little bit exaggerated but true), hoping to improve on my skills. From writing my introduction forum where I shared my love for music to finding out classmates having the same passion, it made me want to start early. Of course, later I found out that Prof. Al had announced that the course was not focused on music only but rather audio and sound itself. This pushed me to think about all kinds of sounds (white noise, silence, music, etc.) instead of limiting myself into applying all of what I’ve been learning to just music itself. Although music and songs are my main application of these lessons, I took interest in including and testing different waveforms from different sounds. Bonus 1: Sound Meter Trials were one of the fun exercises I did throughout my 2 years of being in UPOU and I remember being excited to share about psychoacoustics and how it applied to different places. Realizing now, the reverb effect when mixing relates to it as it also gives an echo, small, big, or hallway effect when applied to a track. Quick side story, I was fact-checking the reverb and psychoacoustics through Google just to make sure my assumptions were correct and upon searching, I accidentally wrote psychoanalytics instead of psychoacoustics and it gave me an answer to psychoanalysis instead of psychoacoustics.

Not related but I thought it's funny: Psychoanalysis and reverb (Nice to know HAHA)

THE MIDPOINT

By this point, I was acquainted with who’s in the class. As someone who’s been in the music industry for a year, I saw familiar names of classmates who did music professionally, making this course more exciting for me. Although I was not close friends with some of them, I was able to admire their works from afar and their thoughts about the journey they are taking in this course. Lessons were starting to make sense and I had the opportunity to experiment and apply what I’ve learned to drafts I was making with Audiotool (the DAW I decided to use at the time). With psychoacoustics, one of my favorite lessons, I switched place to place from every part of the house, finding the comfortability to sing and record without having to worry about noise and reflection of sound. Turns out, the best place to record was my table outside our bedroom. Although my recording was not the best, my best effort was reflected with a sound, good enough to mix. This portion of my blog isn't as long as the others as this only consisted of me experimenting and exploring the course as I prepare for the final project. This was also the weeks I decided to switch from Audiotool to Audacity (explained from the last blog) and bought a TANK-G effects pedal that served as my interface.

THE FINAL WEEKS

The discussion forums helped me to foresee who’s familiar with what they are doing before this course, which made me hooked into knowing more about them. For example, I was excited to see John Michael’s cover of Tollgate as I saw his discussion forum post in Optional: Multitracking and like I said in my reply there, his vocals and guitar were clear and dry. It was pleasing to my ear! While writing this, his final output isn’t available yet so I’ll be coming back to this blog after a while to go ahead and update my thoughts about his project. But for now, his demo in the optional discussion forum is what I imagined a beginner’s good audio mix demo is.

I’ve also stumbled upon a few friends’ works such as Alexis Alviso’s cover song, Tajah Alacapa’s church music choir, and Stephen Agtoto’s storytelling. The first final output I listened to was Alexis Alviso’s cover song of Padaba Taka by dwta. Her version of the song is calm, makes you feel like you’re sitting on a beach enjoying the breeze of wind. To be fair, she did sing the song with a ukulele which gave off beach vibes. At some points, I can hear the reverb of her voice. As a beginner, her work was good. Tajah Alacapa’s work was the most clean work I encountered in this course. Although it can use a little reverb, her work wasn’t damaging to the ear unlike mine when I first mixed it (haha) and I actually got the time to work with her side-by-side during the mixing stage of her work. Lastly, Stephen Agtoto’s final output says a lot about his character (which isn’t a bad thing), and I enjoyed his storytelling as his narration was clear and hooking to listeners. Reading his blog as he shared how he went from wanting to read a manhwa to producing an archived interview log from SCP Foundation, it was impressive for him to realize his limitations and freedom when he compared the two project drafts.

TANK-G Effects pedal in use for practice rehearsals

Worked with Tajah and she let me use her headphones

“I've tasted the bittersweetness of having to put all my effort into making my demo songs

sound good only to find it horrific the next day”

– Elisha from Pre-production blog

My ears were drained a lot during the mixing process. This isn’t even me complaining because the last time I edited a mix, my left eardrum was damaged. We had to go to the doctor and I had to reduce wearing headphone gear. I’d like to think my ears were a little helpful and good to me this time as it didn’t hurt as much as the last. My work isn’t nearly as good as I expected it to be but it was the best I can do as of now. I’m not just talking about editing and mixing tracks complimenting each other but rather I also need to improve on my musical skills as much as I am learning this course. Even though some tools and knowledge were already familiar to me when I first started reading the modules, especially with the mixing effects, I still had a hard time applying it to my mix. I was confident that I’ll be able to produce a pop mix demo but my lack of skills in composition disappointed me. However, the application of the post-production lessons became my favorite part of the project as I got to experiment with different effects and how they make the sound better or worse to the ear. One time during mixing, I turned on the loudness normalization (LUFS measurement) by accident and played it after awhile without noticing it being the last step I did, my ears were almost damaged but by that time, my ears were already used to loud sounds as I work on the project almost 2 hours every day.

Funny story, while I was listening to some of my coursemates’ works, I realized what I lacked and what my mistakes were in my final mix. Because of this, I decided to revise at the last minute. If I hadn’t taken a break, given up, and just listened to their work, I probably wouldn’t have spotted what’s wrong with my mix at the time. Considering most of them have good mics and the money to buy the right gear, their work matched with the expectations I had set for them, having a clean and raw mix. Which is what I lacked. I tried my best to record in a quiet space that has walls but you see, my house is filled with nature around. Trees, birds, and all kinds of rodents roaming around. You might think, why shouldn’t I just close a window or go to a room with a door. Our windows are made out of broken wood and our room doors are made out of curtains. Although I was sad that I can’t keep up with the quality of my friends’ work and how they can just buy gear for a subject we are taking, I was still passionate about this project and put my best effort into it. I realized what I need, lacked, and what I need to improve on, and maybe in the near future, I’ll be able to do that when I’m able to be in a good recording place.

OVERALL..

After finishing my final FINAL mix, I was ready to upload and finish this course. So, here I am, writing my final blog post. My knowledge in audio had widened and I got to apply what I learned from the past year (not only from this course but also my experiences) that made me grateful that I was able to continue with doing what I love. Comparing my final project to my last project in ARTS 1, I can say that I’ve improved in mixing my tracks to better compliment each other. My ARTS 1 project that was included in pre-production was made in BandLab and had a lot of flaws, including obvious autopitch, crackle sounds from the microphone, and overly used effects like reverb. I tried to avoid these mistakes again in my final project here in MMS 172. I was also able to identify the differences between BandLab and Audacity but that’s for a different blog next time I write here. Looking back to my pre-production blog, I beat myself up too much to the point that I believed I won’t be able to make a decent audio mix. Unfortunately for my pre-production self, I did make a decent audio mix that is bearable to listen to. From the start, I always believed that my work won’t turn into industry-level work unlike my other coursemates who did it professionally. However, with the fun I had and the lessons I’ve learned, I know I’ll come a long way in the next few years.

Side note: I was given a feedback comment by Prof. Al in my pre-production blog, to get a mic stand instead of just holding onto the mic while listening. I actually did this with my ARTS 1 project but the reason why my mic produced crackles was because of the wrong position of the mic and the loose port of the earphone jack which I avoided this time as much as possible!

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse