This final week was all about production for me. I added more vital parts to the song like some more piano parts and the vocals, and I added some extra guitar tracks like a melody that harmonised with the vocal melody and I also re-recorded the guitar solo because I wasn’t happy with the original one anymore. Communication was vital this week; we were finalising everything and the vocals still had to be put in the song, but I feel like we did very well under the pressure and got most things done in time to produce a high quality and interesting song. If we had more time, the song could be even better and more polished, but I am really happy with the final product.
Progressions And Strengths
This week, Lucy got to recording the vocals, which she then sent to me. I had to learn how to convert the file from an M4A to a WAV file as this is the file type I was working with, and the M4A file is incompatible with Reaper. This didn’t take long. Then, I put the track in Reaper and it hardly had to be quantized as Lucy did a great job on making sure she was in time to the rest of the track. I added some necessary effects to the vocals and then moved onto implementing the bridge piano section. This didn’t take long as it was just moving semibreves in time with the song and then adding the right effects again.
We had a plan weeks ago to add some drums to the song. I was going to record live drums nearing the end of the project to add them in, however this week, I bought a midi keyboard so decided that adding the drums by programming them in midi would be great, and would help me practice and get experience with midi inputs and how to work the keyboard. I created the drum track on Ableton as Reaper doesn’t have midi drums to use. I created my own drum rack that had all the necessary drums on it and recorded the drums using the drum pads on my keyboard. After recording, I quantized it easily and exported it to Reaper as an audio file so I could match it with the rest of the song easily by following the waveforms.
Nearing the end of the week, I worked on mixing the track and adding the desired effects to certain tracks. I added more production techniques like doubling up on vocals and guitar chords and panning each track left and right. This made these tracks more prominent and creates a sense of depth when listening to the song in stereo. I also put an EQ on everything to phase out certain frequencies and put reverb on things that needed it so the track sounds more airy and echoey. I also added a chorus effect on some guitar parts which copies the original sound and slightly delays it to thicken the sound. I also experimented with a delay effect on the piano chords so they play on every two beats instead of every bar; I feel that this progresses and drives the song forward. I then moved onto panning the tracks to the desired places to make the song sound almost 3D-like when listening to it with stereo sound. Finally, I mixed the volumes and made sure no tracks were clipping and checked for clipping on the master level, before exporting it and uploading it to Soundcloud.
Improvements
I think one of the most important things we middes out on with this song was the fact we didn’t have time to add a bass track. I mentioned that this would be a good idea last week, especially if we were adding drums as the two go hand in hand. A bass part would have pushed and driven the song to different parts and also given it some lower tones and interesting textures. The song doesn’t sound empty without this part, but I think if we added it it would sound a lot more powerful and thick.
On my part, I think the song in general could be better produced. This means that it could be more in time to the click as some parts are slightly out of time. Some might say that this adds authenticity and a sense of uniqueness, but I think that it is important for the song to be in time for almost all of the song. I could have also added compression to the instruments as this is a vital effect to use, but I don’t actually know how to use that; I just know what it does, therefore I would be messing with random dials and sliders in the hopes it changes something. If I had time, I think learning how to use and add automation on Reaper would have made for an interesting turnout. Automation would have meant I could have changed the panning or volume of instruments throughout the song, making the song flow better and sound more immersive. However, for a first try at mixing live instruments on Reaper, I think I did a good job!
During the drum making process, I made the mistake of not adding the different effects to every drum before recording it on Ableton; instead, I put the effects on the whole audio file after I put it into Reaper, as this is what I am used to doing. However, this meant that I couldn’t EQ or add specific effects to certain parts of the kit, therefore the EQ would be changing the whole kit when I added it on Reaper, instead of just EQing the bass drum by upping the lower frequencies, for example. This proved to be a minor problem when it came to finishing the song, but if I EQed the different drums separately on Ableton, it would have made my job easier and would have improved the general sound of the drums.