5/28 Update

I had my mentor meeting today, the first in a couple weeks.  I was able to catch him up on my progress so far in home recording and work in the studio.  I also specified to him a bit on when the final presentation was and what his role was as he was uncertain.  I am planning to share one of my songs on google drive later tonight.  On another note, JP unfortunately had to cancel our meeting today last minute as something came up, as of what I am unsure.  Hopefully I can put our final song together next week so that I won't have to worry as the deadlines approach.

Arranging songs in ableton

As my project nears to an end I need to finalize my songs on ableton.  I am only doing one song by myself, the other three are in the studio, and therefore have not arranged a song by myself yet.  I was rather unsure where to begin because Ableton can be tricky to use when you aren't 100% certain of what you are doing.  I decided to watch a video of a tutorial on arranging songs in Ableton that can be found here, https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/arranging-track-live-9-new-real-timedemonstration-point-blank/ .  It is a thirteen-minute video by Ski Oakenfull that is a step-by-step example of how he assembled one of his tracks.  Although he uses some very advanced techniques that I will most likely not have to use, his video is fairly helpful in getting me off on the right foot.  I'm not going to arrange my song tonight as I have other work piled up, but I sure hope I get it done in the next couple of days.

Memorial Day weekend

Although activity has been picking up over the last few weeks of my project, this weekend, I won't be able to work on it as I am out of town. My sister is getting married and so I have been quite busy over the past few days. I look to continue my good fortune this coming week though as I attempt to put some more finishing touches on my material.

Mentor meeting / studio time 5/21

Well today I ended up without my mentor meeting and studio time with JP.  I guess there were some miscommunications, I'm not sure where Wayne was, and JP forgot to tell me, or maybe I forgot that he told me, that he would be out of town this week.  It's not too much of an issue though as I don't have much left with JP and we have almost a month, I just don't want to leave everything to the last minute.  Now that I know my date, I can start preparing exactly what I will have for my presentation within an appropriate time table.

Update 5/20

So over the last couple days I've been working on a song by myself that is almost complete, it just needs to be arranged. It has drums that I am fairly pleased with and sound pretty good for my skill level. This will bring my song total to 4, 3 with JP, and one by myself, although none have vocals which is alright with me for the time being.  I think the song I did by myself really shows my overall growth in recording. I started out the project without a clue as to how to record or get good quality. Now I have a fairly polished tune with about 8 different audio tracks with very good quality. Multi-tracking has allowed me to get a sample of different sounds and put them together in a way I wouldn't ever have imagined them. After I arrange this one and finish arranging the ones with JP, I will focus on preparing for my presentation on either the 8th or 22nd.

Drums/beats

I tracked some of a new song yesterday before work. I got part way through the verse although I may re-track most of it though because I'm not quite satisfied. I have guitar, piano, bass, and I may mix in some horn. The one thing I would like to do in the next week or two is get better at making beats and drums. It's definitely my weakest area and it's important because I don't have a lot of rhythmic elements in my couple home-recorded tracks. It's definitely something to work on, but it may take time and so it might be after my presentation that I actually finalize these songs.

New setup

I am officially the most excited I have been since the start of this project. JP came over today to help troubleshoot my recording issues. First we organized all the space so things are much tidier, I'll post a picture at the end of this post. He also fixed every sound quality issue we had with the piano and guitar, and we set up the monitor speakers. The guitar is being recorded with the mic and is sounding great. After he left, I began recording a new song and was very productive, as I'm most of the way through tracking it. I now basically feel no pressure in finishing this project and feel very compfortable recording. It was a good day! Here's a couple picturse of my new setup. Pardon the picture quality.

Monitor Speakers

My monitor speakers just recently arrived in the mail. The difference between monitor speakers and regular speakers is that the former can work as a recording output so that everything you're playing can go through the motu and laptop and then back out through the speakers.  Before I had to use my tv to serve as the output so hopefully these new speakers will have better sound quality and less delay. When I say delay I mean the amount of time it takes for the sound I make with a given instrument to be out putted by the speakers. I will get them set up tomorrow when JP comes over to help me troubleshoot all of my issues.

Next week

For my scheduled studio time next week, JP is going to come over to my house and try to help us get set up with everything working properly. Although I'm missing an hour of studio time, this will help me a lot in the long run if I can record at home with little to no technical issues. I haven't attempted recording at home since last Sunday so I hope this all goes over well.

Update 5/7

So as it turned out, Wayne had to cancel our weekly meeting as he had a scheduling conflict that he was not aware of.  This means that we were not able to do the things I had vaguely outlined in the last post, but that's alright as I am sure it can wait another week.  I had another one-hour session with JP as well although we were not very productive and I think kind of on a different page for most of the session.  His computer also crashed in the middle of mixing so that didn't help.  I'm hoping I'll be able to venture towards the finishing stretch of my project in the next week or two.

Out of the Rut - Assigned Journal Activity

Monday we were given a journal activity to complete called "Out of the Rut" to help everyone get back in to the swing of things and stay productive throughout the warm weather.  One of the prompts we were given was to make a list of three things that I should talk to my mentor about this week.

Part 1. Quick Lists
 The first thing is probably continue the talk about my lack of an ability to record guitar.  Wayne advised me to email his son Jesse, a recording expert.  We have had limited contact as I took a few days to get back to his e-mail but we'll probably discuss the matter more thoroughly.  Another thing we'll probably talk about is my latest recording session and first complete arrangement of a song, although it still needs editing.  Lastly, this week Wayne and I are going play some guitar together.  This will give me a chance to show him some of my less finished work.

Part II. Partner Read
As part of the partner read I chose to read Aidan Bates' blog.  He is another wise student who is in the process of creating a short film.  He has talked a lot about different techniques of acting and filming such as zooming and trying to create more emotional expressions.  He has also talked about scheduling times to film and looking to find times that the whole cast can be there for which he has expressed some concern in.  I think this has been one of his biggest obstacles as it is hard to continue on with the project when he has no film to edit.
Macro/micro: From his entries I have not seen any intention to write direct films as a career.
In the larger scheme of things, I think the project serves to him as something he was able to accomplish with a lot of work and is something he can look back on and remember.

Back to the basics

 I just started re-recording some of my songs that I'm working on outside of the studio as I realized I didn't use a metronome to find the tempo.  The metronome is a fairly new tool to me on Ableton as it took some research to be able to use it correctly. Finding the right tempo is really important because without setting the correct tempo, the loops won't have clean 4/4  bars, and they will be slightly off the grid make mobility more difficult.  For example, one of my progressions had a 3.0.2 loop during the default tempo setting which, although sounds the same, is harder to record over with out getting the tracks out of sync from one another.  It was frustrating to make these loops as the grid didn't have these distinct points.  Although it is slightly frustrating to re-record some of the material I have been working on, it will make my life a lot easier heading forward especially when adding drums and other rhythmic elements.

4-hour block recording session

I just got out of my first multiple-hour block session with JP and am pretty excited.  We definitely accomplished a lot and I now feel as if I am nearing three complete songs with him.  They're all pretty rough right now, but they keep getting closer to a more complete song.  Each song still needs vocals however I believe Aidan will be helping to write lyrics so I am feeling some progress in that regards as well.  I wish I had taken some pictures of the studio and my hands-on process with equipment, but unfortunately it slipped my mind as I read the comment on the previous entry after I returned from the studio.  In my next entry I'll try and post one of the songs in its current stage.

Recording sessions continue

Last night I also had my first recording session with JP in about a month. Although it was only an hour long, it felt really good to listen to some of the stuff we had been working on and continue arranging some of the songs. We added some drums and percussion elements to one of the songs but mostly were focusing on finalizing it. I mentioned my problems with recording guitar and he said I could always just export the file to work on it with him at the studio. We could then do the guitar tracks with his equipment. Although this is not a permanent solution, it will help for the current song I've been working on. To make up for lost time we've also set up a time on Saturday in which we will have a four-hour block. I'm very excited for this because I've felt we haven't had enough consecutive time to really get into a song and I think we can get a lot done during this next session.

Mentor meeting 4/30

Yesterday I had my weekly mentor meeting. We briefly discussed my issues with recording guitar and he is referencing me to his son who is advanced with editing software as I believe he is a soun or recording engineer. I also showed Wayne some of my material that I had been working on myself, although it is quite limited.  I have a couple songs that I've been working in by myself that consist of simple loops including bass, piano, and maybe another harmonic elements. I still need to get better with using electric drums.  I hope I will have something more to show next week.