29 December

I’ve rearranged the entire room for the studio. It feels like it will be easier to record guitar and vocals from now on.

I’m cleaning up the Logic project, naming all tracks and regions. I cut them up a bit carelessly since I know I’m going to re-record everything with cleaner sound. Now it’s time to build the vocal structure. At the moment it’s too short, about 1 minute 40 seconds.

I’m thinking it’s about the connection and dissonance between safety/anxiety, friendship/depression. The safe part will remain the same throughout, and the depressive part will become longer and more beautiful with each repetition, tempting and tricking you into wanting to stay in that phase.

Maybe I can add happy call-and-response parts in the B sections to be able to find my way back to A. I’m thinking the song should end on a happy A section, but it’s unclear whether it stays there, or if the future leads to an even longer B section.

This is what it looks like now:

And after a couple of hours of listening and testing:

I have now re-recorded all the guitar tracks and it sounds decent. Not great, but no mistakes that I can hear. I’ve also started adding MIDI tracks for some kind of brass harmonies instead of vocals. It’s leaning toward something that could turn out well.

31 December

I’ve now found a harmony for trumpets (for the moment), both a sad and a happy one, with third harmonies on each if needed. They sound like they could be played simultaneously with call and response.

I’ll probably need to re-record the main guitar, since it’s a bit too active and would benefit from some pauses here and there.

I need help finding the right instrument for the brass, and the right EQ/amps or similar for the guitars.

I need to figure out where to place reverb, whether all instruments should go to the same bus or not.

I record about ten simple bass lines to try to find the right one. An upright bass probably fits best with the guitar, but a synth bass from Zebralette has an incredibly beautiful sound. It may be hard to choose.

7 January

Zoom with Henrik

• Decide whether this is a song to be sent as a worktape/demo to someone else to finish, or if I want to polish it 100% myself and release it on Spotify.
• The drums work, but would have been better without AI.
• The trumpets work when there are two, but overall sound plasticky as data trumpets.
• The guitar amps sound like “too much.” It’s good that they differ, but make the differences less obvious, perhaps by using amps on a bus.
• Brass is the correct choice for the sad section. Consider whether the same instrument should be used for both happy and sad.
• Pads are totally fine. Choose one.
• Bass is totally fine. Could be remade into a country-style walking bass.
• The trombones sound fake. Exaggerate reverb or something similar to agree that it’s okay that they’re fake. Then try it with a pad that suits the exaggerated sound.

11 January

I decide to create a few new tracks for the melody. Previously it was one track with all harmonies for simplicity. Now it’s split into:

• Up (1)
• Up (2)
• Down (1)
• Down (2)
• Intro (1)
• Intro (2)

This is to be able to pan the harmonies, and so that if I change my mind later, Up and Down can have different instruments to distinguish them more clearly.

I decide that the trumpet is the positive voice, and other instruments take turns being the negative ones.

It sounds a bit too robotic and repetitive. You can hear that I copy-pasted at the end. I think I should record all the harmonies by hand now that I know which instruments should go where.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlCgFs6iNnE

12 January – Critical Friend

I planned to show my song, as well as all the videos for 5b.

• Things come in and out.
• Softer transitions.
• Pleasant panning.
• Keep the dynamics before the final chorus.
• Outro needs to be redone.
• Trumpets can be used to answer the vocals.
• Good foundation with the guitars.
• Good drive with the drums.
• The trumpets sound good.
• Lower the flutes, or EQ them.
• The strings at bar 41 were too much of a hit. Skip the strings.
• Change the melody after chorus 2.
• Add ambience to the project.
• Change attack and release.
• Erun should be raised one octave, less squeaking.
• The form is too long if it’s meant to be instrumental.

13 January

I’m not happy with how it sounds, but I submit it anyway. The only thing that was wrong at the seminar was that vocals were missing. I made it easy for myself and added a choir track as MIDI.

It’s mixed, mastered, and double-checked at loudnesspenalty.com.

I’ve uploaded the song to SoundCloud.

I wish I had done it better. I’ve spent 5–6 hours recording new trumpet harmonies and it sounds a lot better. It helps that nothing is copy-pasted, and that I can play on the keyboard instead of guitar, and use the mod wheel for articulation—but only on certain instruments. That’s where it fell apart. The trumpets sound good, but other brass instruments don’t have that function and still sound MIDI.

I’m thinking of waiting until I get BBC Orchestra in three days, even though the course will be finished by then. Better that I finish school and improve the song later than go for some middle-ground option.

I spent the entire day yesterday working on vocals and lyrics, but nothing sounded better than what I’d already played on MIDI. I think I need to rethink things the next time I start a song. Maybe the vocals need to come before everything else, just to know that it works for my voice.

I’m not happy with the song as an artistic work. But I am happy with the school assignment, with what I accomplished, what I learned, and the knowledge I developed.