Weekly Reflections
Reflection #1 - W10 T1
Attached is a screenshot of the foundation I built in Logic with an electric piano track, four vocal tracks, and three different synth tracks, as well as an audio file of the song so far. You can also see the structure I chose for my cover (I removed one chorus and halved the length of the intro); intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, outro.
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So far, I've recorded the electric piano and synth parts, but only some rough vocal parts, which I might end up rerecording. I haven't recorded any guitar yet either. I plan to do those reasonably soon, and to start my notation once I figure out how to.
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Some problems I encountered were the key of the original song and the notation.
The original key made a majority of the song sit a little bit too high in my register to sound comfortable and had one note that was too low for me. To fix these, I transposed the song down by one semitone and changed the melody slightly so that the low note was higher.
I'm going to ask Miss for some help with the notation problem.
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I've known this song for a while now, and I really like it, so I'm very excited to see how my own version will turn out and play around with it.
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Here's my graphic notation plan:
Reflection #2 - W11 T1
This week, my main task was finishing the first draft of vocals. I rerecorded both parts in the chorus, and also layered my voice in three tracks covering two different octaves for strength and thicker texture. I also added a harmony in verse two and recorded vocals for the bridge.
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Additionally, I altered the structure of the song once again. In the original, a third chorus followed the bridge. In my cover, I halved the length of the bridge and layered the third chorus over it. I did this by adding only one of the two vocal parts of the chorus on top of the bridge to keep the cover clear and to ensure that no clashing of pitch or rhythm occurs.
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I have included a screenshot of the cover file in its current state in Logic as well as the audio file for this draft. You can find the original song here.
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I think that my next steps will be notating the electric piano and vocals, and then recording the guitar and notating it too. Then I can notate the synth parts and make any finishing touches.
The main problem I encountered this week that I didn't know how to set out the vocals for the chorus. I wanted something more interesting than two tracks doing call and response. To solve this, I duplicated one track twice to make a total of four (three for one part, one for the other) so that I was singing two tracks in a low octave (each panned to opposite sides) and one in a high octave.
Reflection #3 - Holidays W1
I added a lot of new things this week. My biggest tasks were notating all electric piano and vocals on noteflight, recording guitar, and rearranging synth parts. I also added a melody in the intro, adjusted the master EQ, and changed EQ on the vocal, synth, and electric piano parts.
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In the screenshot of the file in Logic, you can see that I rearranged some parts. There is now a melody and a synth part in the intro, guitar now replaces synth in the choruses, and I added more synth in the outdo and let the vocals repeat. I've also attached an mp3 of the cover as of this week, and you can find the original song here.
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Next week, I'll notate the guitar, synths, intro melodies, and any other changes I made. I'll also work on making the guitar sound nicer.
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One problem was that I wasn't particularly happy with how the guitar turned out. No matter how hard I tried, it kept sounding tinny and aggressive. I think this may be because I recorded using the pickups on my acoustic guitar, whereas it usually tends to sound nicer when I simply play in front of a mic. I'll continue working on that next week.
Another problem I encountered was the notation of a certain vocal rhythm halfway through the second verse. I tried so many different things, and I was almost sure it was triplets, but the triplet button on noteflight wasn't working. In the end, I went with a dotted rhythm which sounds just a bit strange, but pretty close otherwise.
Reflection #4 - Holidays W2
I didn't do much in Logic this week other than fiddle with the guitar for a bit and alter the volume levels of each track.
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After giving the assignment a break for a few days and listening again, I came to the conclusion that the sound of the guitar had started to grow on me. I didn't mind it much anymore, so I just made some tiny changes to EQ and called it a day.
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I also notated the remainder of my song (guitar and synths) and the notation stage is now complete. In order to keep all parts on one page, I had to merge a few tracks into one part on the score, but it didn't cause any problems.
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I've attached an m4a of the cover as of this week.
Reflection #5 - W1 T2
This week, I finalised my cover. My score was already finished after last week, so this meant that two of three parts of this assessment were finished. All that was left was my comparative analysis.
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Before I got to the comparative analysis, I made a few tiny changes to the Logic project. These were mainly to do with volume automation, more specifically that of the vocals. In the attached screenshot, you can see all of the vocal tracks with volume automation.
The first one is the harmonies. I brought up its volume right before the chorus as a way of manually compressing the sound, as this part was quieter.
The other three are the ones that sing "you're dead to me" in the chorus, bridge and outro. I brought them down during the bridge and outro to blend them more with the rest of the song and allow the lead vocals in the bridge to have full focus.
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I didn't really encounter any problems this week, because since it was almost done, there wasn't much left to do. It's now finished, and I'm really happy with the end result.
Below is the final audio file.
I've also attached a pdf of the final score and a score mp3. (I had to convert it to soundtrap so it deleted some parts and messed with their sound)