Week 3+4

(Date: (29)/(04)/(25) - 'Blossom' (final touches, mixing)

Planning and Production

Complete instrumentals on second track to a satisfactory extent, and mixed to a satisfactory level. (Mostly-completed)

Complete the final steps towards research for my second song and start the writing process (Completed)
Do lyric analysis and research. (Completed)
Do media research into any inspiration outside of music as a creative source. (Completed)

Write the opening all framework to my third potential song, structuring it with the original lyrics and creating instrumentation. (Half-completed) ...completed only the basic framework of instrumentation, wanting to finish it better in the coming weeks if I have time (However - it looks unlikely, and now reflecting, a bad opportunity for the time I had).
Contact any local studios in Exeter, or professionals in mixing/mastering... (Incomplete)
Practice vocal techniques in screaming - control my fry-screaming better. (Completed)
Finish the first song to a satisfactory degree. (Half-completed)
Finish the second song to a satisfactory degree. (Half-completed)
Record another separate track of guitar on top of the original mix for the second song - to focus on a guitar lead. (Completed) (Not the final attempt - but sounds okay)...

Research

Complete genre research on modern shoegaze lyricism and genre conventionalism in aesthetic with the likes of Zeruel, Wisp...etc and how that applies to the trends now whereby there are more darker aspects of shoegaze with serpahic imagery and association with more angsty grittier imagery - more grunge influenced. Evaluating how modern shoegaze got darker, grittier - whereby bands and artists now use more wispy and ghostly lyrics, how these from a literary aspect alongside the engulfing instrumentals create a whole new imagery whilst maintaining the same origin in sound, even in the artist themselves this imagery can carry on in style - having aesthetic choices of angels, crosses, dark grayscale colour choices of black, white, grey and colder hues of blue contrast to old shoegaze bands. Interpretations and shifts in culture etc... (Completed)
Explore mastering, rather than just mixing and how that can contribute to a more professional final sound. (Half-completed)

Practical Skills

In the video example - as demonstrated below, (similar to the last one in prior weeks). I do a walkthrough on how I achieve the general mixed sound alongside the reverb settings on the extra guitar track for my second song - which is isolated with the general mix. Saving them together as one track in post as like the last song - as to soak the entirety of the track in it's own reverb and eq - just generally enhancing the bass of the track - to create that 'punchy' sound similar to Zeruel's production in songs like Avalon, whilst also maintaining my own sound - being almost fuzzier and heavier due to feedback across all instrumentation creating a wetter heavier. Again this is only a demo - and so far I am still fairly inexperienced, so this is subject to change later on. The original instrumentation, isolated - kept in a different file saved to my Google drive and desktop for later use, and my now - finished demo track, saved also to my SanDisk drive in case of corruption etc...All the same steps, this also includes experimentation whereby I walkthrough how I actually record the guitar and how it wasn't in my usual conditions and setiings yet the demo of it actually sounded quite fitting for the track...being in a small room, just soulfully jamming out to the song whilst leaving space - sound distorted from my mac speakers in naturally enclosed reverb and such. I also briefly touch on potential vocal mixing, pre-set by myself for the future with some fx which are from Apple, without any further plug-ins that in my substantial research I talk about - such as autotune, which I explore, find, and installed some autotune plug-ins for later usage...

No funny_1.mp3

As seen here - this was a take of a cover - whereby I recorded part of the dethtech song I wanted to cover - this being a snippet, however now, I am planning on reserving this for any later projects in the future, despite this, I thought I would share it. I recorded the guitar and drums myself - with some drum parts being arranged to match the original in timing more better/midi - as I do not drum and so it was a little unusual trying to replicate this exactly, so backing up on midi helped a lot. Some audio issues with how it was mixed can briefly be heard - which I think was from contact drumming, however this was as it was just a brief attempt.

1001Record250602042414.mov

Evaluation and Reflection

These two weeks I achieved a good standard of work with what I was aiming for - now completing the majority of the process for my second song and doing further genre research, as well as learning and picking up skills in midi usage and drumming, understanding how to use midi on my project for any corrections or organisation in maintaining the integrity of the songs as being clean and irreparable to things such as unexecuted timings and dragging/rushing on any aspects, experimenting with more fx such as binaural processing... (reflecting on this, the one thing I should have done is potentially live record my learning process in all of this, or with drums, learning the drumming section of the cover song, searching how to use midi with logic well - the drum plug-in source I had got from this was: https://stevenslatedrums.com/ssd5/ - with 2gb worth of vst application)...

So far I am less stable in reaching my goals before the deadline, now I have uncertainty with my original plans of having a 3rd song, which I have now decided to not stick with the initial decision to make a cover of Dethtech's 'the joke isn't funny when ur the punchline'- seeing how things are closing in on the coming weeks - this won't change. What I could do to help this process is routinely spending time focusing down, now on mixing and just making my songs into demo's before releasing onto soundcloud - prior to spotify where I will launch at a later date, potentially in the summer, whereby I will release, promote successfully - to a higher standard than my peers around me and at my own level and conditioning now, this time mostly completed with the demos, and all setup.
And whilst I have completed lyrics - i am most likely not going to finish my vocal capabilities in time where i will be comfortable to sing on the demos - this will be included within the confines of the setup as something i will keep working towards as a musician myself.

As seen above is an empty preset opened in a fresh logic file but the vst is easily accessible, free and includes a good library of sounds to adjust to recording with - experimenting and learning all this - as it is useful to have also for future projects, and if I wanted to expand to a paid vst later on...

Next Steps (aims and objectives for following week)

Next week I plan to finish my songs as demo tapes, focusing on mixing/mastering.
Start to finish my coursework and focus on things such as covers, accounts, subscriptions needed etc...
Keep doing vocal exercises.
Reach out to local studios.

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