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Website traffic - check and analyze any website | Similarweb (2023) Similarweb. Available at: https://www.similarweb.com/ (Accessed: 16 October 2023).

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Tingen, P. (2023) Producing Lana Del Rey’s ‘Videogames’, Robopop: Producing Lana Del Rey’s ‘videogames’. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/robopop-producing-lana-del-reys-videogames (Accessed: 18 November 2023).

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www.youtube.com. (n.d.). 10 Singing Techniques to Improve Your Voice. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/Sqjvl35YeZk?si=08RxI9shBb7MPyPK [Accessed 18 Dec. 2023].

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I'm happy with how desolate the first verse this, it really helps exaggerate the key themes of the song (such as despair and loneliness)

I'm happy with the housebands contribution, being a perfect addition while not overpowering the acoustic feeling of the song.

I would like a bit more emphasis on the the change between the second chorus and the bridge. I will communicate further with the houseband to emphasise how big and clear of a contrast I would like to achieve from the bridge.

I still feel as though it is slightly too repetitive in terms of vocal melody. I will listen to more music around similar genres and gain ideas on how to differentiate certain points.

I like the tension and release feeling of the track. I feel as though I should allow the song to build up more until the bridge, allowing the final chorus and verse to feel like a much bigger release.

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So far I feel as though I am confident in my live performed version of my song, happy with how the houseband play it and feel as though I can submit a version of the song I would be happy to play on a tour.

I am slightly behind in my DAW version due to a setback. This setback was due to being sent the wrong version of my live string stems. I found a way around it by ensuring the stems were audio files instead of zip files. Now I have figured that out, I feel I can start making positive progress on the DAW.

With the knowledge I have learnt in my Music Production lessons, I feel confident that I will be able to create a clean mix with a little help.

In terms of my multimedia diary, I feel confident with the work I am producing. I would like to focus a little more on ensuring I am meeting all of the criteria and to evaluate and reflect more often. I would also like to include more evidence.

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Feelings:

So far I am very happy with the progression I have made. I feel like I have successfully made an attempt to work on each of my SMART targets, developed myself as a musician and created a song that I am genuinely proud of. I am quite sad how quickly this project has gone as we are nearly as the end of it now. I wish I had stuck to my timeline more, but due to the change of ideas I know that it couldn't be helped.

Evaluation:

I would have liked things to have gone further, but due to my time management lacking, I feel as if I have set myself up for failure. Despite this I will continue to put my all into this project as I have genuinely enjoyed developing my ideas throughout the project.

I've really enjoyed refreshing my knowledge of production, and expanding that knowledge over the past weeks. I feel as if I have come a long way from where I first started.

I am really happy with the opportunities that have been presented to me so far on this course. I have had so much time to collaborate with other artists to create music and memories that I will forever cherish. Furthermore, the string quartet opportunity has been my personal highlight so far. The fact that I got to work with live strings was very exciting for me as I had wanted to something like that for a while. It increased my confidence massively and will help me achieve an incredible sound in my DAW track.

Analysis:

This project has helped me massively in finding myself as an artist, figuring out what genres I best write in and the type of music I would like to make a career out of creating.

It has really allowed me to develop my songwriting ability, especially in the form of how I write music. Previously I was unable to write music by just freestyling along to music, but now I can confidently improvise verses and chorus's on the spot. This allows me to write more freely and authentically.

Action:

In the future I will attempt to manage my time better, creating more accurate timetables to the way i specifically work and to stick to them.

I will also take more advantage of opportunities such as open mic nights and shadowing opportunities.

I will continue to create more music, developing my skills I already have and begin releasing my music on streaming platforms.

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Techniques I have researched to better my singing.

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Techniques I have researched to better my singing.

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Below is a couple of videos I watched to help understand my knowledge of proper vocal techniques.

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After the formative I am not feeling as confident as I had hoped. I have struggled massively with time management, which is something I have always had an issue with. Due to health problems and mental health issues getting in my way, I was unable to submit a fair amount of my formative assignments. This really stressed me out as I originally thought i was very on track.

For the rest of the term leading up to our summative assignment I plan to hold myself more accountable for work that I may want to push back. I will be using a method taught to us in week 3 of our songwriting project management lessons, Eat The Frog. This is a method that requires you to tackle the most time consuming task first, not leaving it until last like I normally would. Hopefully, using this method will allow me to ensure that I don't miss anymore important deadlines.

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Above is a small bit of the new song I will be using for my project. So far i really like the chords and how the vocal melody flows.

To develop this song I would like switch up the melody a bit to ensure that the song has contrast. Expanding on the point of contrast I would like to add a very powerful bridge that is almost entirely different from the rest of the song. This bridge would be a point of release in the piece and I think would compliment it very well in the live performance.

I have also had the idea to not use the bridge in the DAW recording as a point of contrast between the two tracks.

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This week as part of Waterbears development week opportunities, I was reccommended as a candidate for a session with a live string quartet. The moment i heard of this opportunity i immediately started working on a demo of my along to send to the quartet. This demo consisted of raw vocals, midi strings and guitar.

After finding out I ad been selected for this opportunity I realised how well this would work for my project. As the live string quartet was going to be recorded into a logic file, it will allow me to take the individual stems and use them on my DAW recording.

The string quartet demo I created was also a perfect opportunity to work on one of my smart targets, composing for other instruments.

Overall I am very excited for this opportunity and the networking I will be able to do.

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This week has been very hectic as I have now decided to change my initial project idea. This is due to the fact that I wrote a song that I rally think has potential and would like to use this project as a means to develop it. My new idea for the two versions of the same song is as follows:

Live performance- A version of the song with a full band (house band). This will include small additions from each instrument to compliment the mainly acoustic song. I would like the evoke the emotions of hurt and remorse into the song and will communicate this to the band so they can alter their playing style around that.

DAW- A recorded version of the song with clean sounding acoustic guitar, midi strings (unless I can find live strings) and a main reverbed vocal line with stacks of harmonies to compliment.

The song is called Agnosthesia which means "The state of not truly knowing how you feel about something" where you look for hidden clues in your own behaviour to try and decipher your feelings.

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I successfully stuck to my timeline for this week and brainstormed lots of ideas for my two versions. I feel hopeful that I will be able to reach the goals I have set for myself and create work that I am happy with.

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Week 2-

Begin brainstorming ideas for my two versions of the same song.

Week 3-

Attempt to write verse 1 and maybe come up with a chord progression

Week 4-

Attempt to write a chorus for my song

week 5-

attempt to complete writing the verses

week 6-

Attempt to write a bridge that will pull together the whole concept of the song

week 7-

ensure I have chords in both a major and minor key

week 8-

polish any imperfections and start rehearsing the song in full

week 9-

begin recording the song to allow me to start mixing the DAW version. continue rehearsing for the live version

week 10-

have everything fully polished and recorded and mixed to submit for Summative!!

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My personal feedback to myself:

Work on how I blend my harmonies with others

Have more input

Have more confidence

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Our week 3 spark in our songwriting class was to write a song around the lines " As I walk this land of broken dreams". I joined a group of a few fellow songwriters and we began writing. For this challenge I decided to contribute by adding lyrics, vocal harmony and my own solo verse. This was very helpful for me as I don't often work with other songwriter, normally preferring to work alone. By using a free flow writing technique to help write this song, I believe it has developed my ability to free flow write. This is a positive thought as free flow writing was one of the techniques I planed on improving when we started the course.

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This song was written while i was trying to brainstorm ideas on how to convey the emotions of manipulation and toxicity into my song. 

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I came up with this idea for an album while brainstorming ideas for my two different versions of a song assignment.

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How to create tension and release in your lyrics. (LO2)

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How to create tension and release in your lyrics. (LO2)

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Change your phrasing from section to section.

Use imagery in the verses.

Take full advantage of the melody.

Make sure the hook is as desirable in your song as the punchline is to a joke.

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Stay By Rihanna uses an atypical length of verse, chorus and bridge. Despite this it is still a hit song. I would like to start writing more unconventially structured music, focusing on lyric writing and context rather than structure.

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Below I will be using the Gibbs reflective cycle to reflect on my very first LPW performance video.

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During this open mic night, I became friends with a photographer. He took some pictures for me and gave me his social media handle with the idea of meeting up again to take some more photos for an artist profile i'm hoping to create. Above is one of these photos

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A short video from the Waterbear open mic

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A short video from the Waterbear open mic

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This was a very cool experiences as one of my very first open mic nights ever. It did wonders for my confidence and was so nice seeing other artists perform.

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Strengths:

My ability to write lyrics that I am happy with in just a short amount of time.

Coming up with chord progressions to fit the emotions I plan to convey with the song

Weaknesses:

Free flow writing , I find it difficult to just freestyle to a progression, instead i have to write and think about each lyric at a time.

Creating more than just a chord progression, I find it difficult to create and alternative melody.

Production, I still lack the skills I need to fully record and mix my own tracks.

Opportunities:

Open Mic nights, I have been attending and performing at some open mic nights recently.

One on one sessions with tutors to help develop my skills in a desired field.

Writing music with friends, I have been meeting up with a few different people recently and jamming out and attempting to write music.

Threats:

Working too much, I need to prioritise my Uni work over my job so that I don't get behind with my work.

Illness, recently i've been quite ill which has been putting me in a situation occasionally in which I cannot practice or rehearse.

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Things to do next time:

Ensure the sing is in the right key for my range before I start rehearsing.

Ensure I properly communicate absolutely everything to the houseband and sound tech.

Use the proper mic technique and ensure i'm using a healthy technique to project my voice.

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Conclusion:

I believe i could have changed the key of the song to be higher, allowing me to sing in a more comfortable range and properly project the notes. Futhermore, I could have communicated better with the band and sound tech to make the instruments quieter and my microphone louder.

In the future, I will ensure that I know exactly how i want the song played and sung, eliminating the risk of a bad performance.

To handle this situation better, I would like to work on my music theory knowledge, allowing me to easily communicate a change in keys to the band to fit me comfortably. Futhermore, I would like to improve my mic technique, making sure i'm using the mic properly to project the cleanest notes possible.

Action plan:

-If a similar situation arose again, I would change the key of the song to fit my range. I would also communicate a volume check to make sure none of the instrumentation or vocals is being drowned out by other instruments.

-Some indicators that would help me realise a similar event in the future are struggling to hear myself when rehearsing, finding it difficult to comfortably hit the notes without having to push too hard.

-To improve in the future I plan to watch some youtube videos and online courses about music theory and refresh my knowledge. This would help me if I ever need to transpose any songs to give to the house band in future LPW lessons. Futhermore, I plan on finding a vocal exercises to better vocal projection and power.

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I think overall it went well, but there are definitely points of improvement to be made.

My past experiences of this song show the song in a different light, as the song was previously written for my vocals and piano. I am happy i tried this song in a band context as I had been wanting to play around with the genre for a while.

An area for improvement would be the volume of my vocals. As the song was in a very low key, it was difficult for the lyrics to be projected and heard.

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1- Lyrical idea first

Knowing the idea that you wanna write about.

"The concept of your song is more important that the content"

Bob Lefsetz

2- Music first. Write the topline first and then refine the lyrics.

3- Improvise within a band situation. Focus on writing the topline and lyrics, then refine the instrumentation.

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These are my smart targets for my first term in my songwriting course.

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Key Skills and Techniques I would like to improve.

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Key Skills and Techniques I would like to improve.

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I would like to improve my ability to compose on multiple instruments, such as piano, guitar and even potentially strings. This would allow me to create my ideal genre of songs entirely on my own, cutting out the need to find people to record with. Futhermore, I would like to improve my knowledge and skills in production, allowing me to create and produce my own work to eventually release.

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This is the video from my week 10 LPW lesson. This is the final rehearsal I will have with the houseband before my real assignment recording.

My final notes-

The change from the chorus to bridge needs to be cleaner and more exaggerated. The houseband know and will individually be working on it.

More reverb on my mic.

Need to balance the volume of the instrumentation. Will communicate with the sound tech on the day to ensure I'm getting the exact sound I want.

Warm up my vocals more. Consistency is key and I need to be as warmed up as possible to sing my very best for the performance.

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Peer review from Mookie of my LPW recording.

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Peer review from Mookie of my LPW recording.

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This peer review is very difficult to hear but here is a summary of some of the general points.

Good communication with the house band

-Enough to support the song but not overpower it.

Tone of my voice fits the song.

Wanted to see more audience engagment. Wants me to make sure the audience feels the emotions. Glance at each person indvidually to make it feel more personal.

Make the decision to stand up. This creates more presence on the stage while also allowing for a clearer vocal performance.

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This was a very helpful experience as composing for strings and working with live strings are two things I have always wanted to do. In this video they are recording the strings straight into a logic file over the top of my demo. They are also using overhead mics and mics scattered around, enabling me to also get a wider recorded sound from all the strings together to include alongside each individual instruments recording.

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I plan to focus mainly on a mix of indie and folk pop with influences from soul and rnb music. I would also like to experiment with writing more rock or punk music as while I feel i can successfully write lyrics for the genres, coming up with the melodies and instrumentation is something I struggle with

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I'm mostly happy with the mix of the live strings, though there is not much I can change about them I feel the volume and panning of them works nicely to compliment the track without overpowering it.

I would like to re-record the guitar if I can find time as there are still a few points that I can hear that are slightly off beat and a couple of chord changes that are not smooth enough for my liking.

I will also re-record my vocal as I feel I recorded it too quietly, limiting what I can do in terms of mix. This will otherwise be a problem due to the position that I would like the vocal melody to be in the mix.

I'm happy that with just these components I already have, the mix is full enough. I currently don't plan to add any other instruments.

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This week I had a tutor 1-1 session. I used this time to discuss what I am struggling with both in general life and in terms of my coursework. For the coursework aspect, we devised a plan to ensure that I keep on track with my work. Some of the points for this were:

Not allowing myself to put important work aside purely due to the fact that I do not have the energy. We realised that the easiest way to do this was to just sit down and listen to content that relates to the topic. This stimulates my easily distracted brain but doesn't distract me with other topics. I will be using this idea in the next week to trial how effective it is for me.

Another method is to lay out a proper list of things I have to do. This will allow me to tick them off once I have done them, allowing me to see my progress and motivate me to continue. I feel as though this will be very helpful for me as when I have lots of work to do I stress out, not knowing where to start and feeling as if I have made no progress at all

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This video was very helpful for refreshing knowledge on techniques I had already been taught, alongside teaching me some new ones.

For example he focuses on the importance of posture when singing. I have naturally bad posture and just after a couple of lines singing while focusing on posture, I could feel an immediate improvement in the quality and cleanliness of my notes. I also found myself straining far less.

Furthermore, this video stresses the importance of warming up the voice beforehand. I often forget to warm up and skip to singing. After watching this video I will be doing more vocal warmups as a health and safety point to ensure that I do not damage my voice. It will also help me keep my voice consistent when performing as my voice will be fully warmed up and I will be in full control. (www.youtube.com, n.d.)

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10 Singing Techniques to Improve Your Voice

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Some feedback from my formative Navigating The Music Industry case study

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Some feedback from my formative Navigating The Music Industry case study

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After handing in my case study, I got some very helpful feedback from my teacher that I will use to further develop my case study. The feedback is as follows:

Make initial observations informed by your research so far, regarding each Artist/Musician/Producer/DJ’s approaches to creation, recording, publishing, releasing, live performance and touring, distribution, marketing, promotion and selling music. To respond to this i will go into further detail on all the points mentioned, making sure I explain each thorougly to ensure I meet all of the assessment criteria.

You have made some initial observations of both artists, but so far this is limited to general career comments and songwriting. Please consider multiple approaches to live, studio, promotion and selling music as well as the creative process. To respond to this I will ensure I delve deeper into the ways each artist wrote, recorded, promoted and sold their music, allowing me to get a deeper understanding of exactly why they are each successful artists in their own respect and potentially help me when I start to release music.

There is no outline of label structure in your current work. Please examine the respective workings of both case studies to compare similarities and disparities surrounding the two artists you have chosen. To respond to this I will be researching each artists label structures, comparing them and going into why I believe their choices of label allowed them to progress in their careers.

There is no statistical analysis included as part of your work in progress. Please consider using well-sourced quantitative data relating to media and ticket sales among other items to add further weight to your observations and give the opportunity to contextualise your findings. To respond to this I plan on finding detailed statistics for each artist about things such as revenue, tickets sales and networth.

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As part of my research I decided to attempt to research the target audience that I would like to be writing for. I did this by researching an artist I feel i take inspiration from in past tracks with similar themes, Lizzy Mcalpine. Lizzy, a folk-pop artist with r&b and soul inspirations is well known for her song "Ceilings", which gained huge amounts of popularity on TikTok.

Mcapline's most popular within the the 25-34 age catagory. However, she is still very popular with a younger demographic, having around 22.5% of her listeners being between the ages of 18-24 (Similarweb, 2023). This is very important information for me to know as if I plan on releasing my music in similar genres, I can adapt my marketing and promotion techniques to fit the interests of these age groups.

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Feelings:

I am feeling slightly overwhelmed at how quickly the deadline has come around. Despite this, I feel confident in the fact I will be able to meet the deadline and produce work I am proud of.

I feel as though I have improved massively as a musician already, meeting so many of my SMART targets and learning so many valuable skills and techniques along the way.

Evaluation:

I am so happy that I have been presented with such an incredible opportunity to take part in this module. It has helped so much with my confidence in everything i do, allowing me to tackle problems that would usually set me back or make me feel like giving up.

I feel as though out of all of the components of the songwriting course, the writing of music itself is where I have improved the most. While before the course I was already writing and playing my own music, listening back now I can truly tell just how far i've come. Wether it be lyricism, instrumentation or even just creating concepts, I feel so much more confident that I can do anything on demand. This is so helpful as it allows me to write in any situation, which is an incredible skill to have early on as it makes me a likely candidate for opportunities such as being a session musician for other artists, and maybe even attempting to write for films or series.

I'm so happy with the opportunities I have been given to collaborate with other artists. When joining the course I struggled to work in groups as I have always thought that my unique way of writing could never work in a group context. However, ten weeks in, I am now so happy to collaborate on work. Where before I would sit and allow others to take lead, I will now confidently input ideas and even take lead of a group if necessary.

Action plan:

In the future I would like to ensure I am making the most of all of the opportunities made available to me. With my new found confidence and understanding of music, I will go into things with my head held high, knowing I can successfully communicate exactly what I Would like to gain from the experience and articulate exactly to people around me what exactly I can offer them.

I would like to continue working on my knowledge of production, making extra sure to focus and ask as many questions as I feel I need to in my production tools lessons. The more confident I become with producing and mixing, the better the quality of my music will be.

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How I will demonstrate contrast in my work.

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How I will demonstrate contrast in my work.

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My initial idea of this module is to write a song that when played in a major key, tells the story of a happy relationship; but when played in a minor key, will reveal the true nature of the lyrics portraying a manipulative and toxic relationship. In order to do this the instrumentation of the two versions will of course be in different keys. I plan to record the happy version, allowing me to use midi to add strings and pretty stacked harmonies. For the minor version I plan to use the house band, making the song in more of a rock genre, allowing it to sound spiteful and as if I am plotting revenge.

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This is a recording of my project song recorded in one of my lessons. Overall I am happy with the structure and sound of the song but have a couple things I would like to develop and work in.

These are:

Changing up some of the vocal melody lines to show differentiation and progression throughout the song

Become more confident with the movement between the chorus and the bridge. If I come in sounding unsure, the idea of the bridge will not work and will sound like it doesn't work in the song.

Brainstorm some ideas for differentiation in my guitar playing, changing strumming patterns or using inverted chord shapes.

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Through many videos, I attempted to learn how to safely and successfully project my voice. I wanted to focus on this after the issue I had with sound quality in my 1st LPW performance.

In a short summary, the most important things I learned were:

Sing from my diaphram, allow the power to come from lower down to create a louder and clearer sound.

Opening my mouth more will allow a cleaner sound to come out as there is more space for the notes to resonate.

Don't reach up for high notes or down for low ones, simply face them head on to avoid a strain of the vocals which creates a bad distortion in the voice and can be harmful to me.

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This open mic night was another good opportunity to increase my confidence and become more comfortable in a position where people are focusing on me. Furthermore it was a good networking opportunity as I met fellow musicians and got some valuable constructive critisism. I am happy with the amount I am pushing myself recently as I feel like I am improving massively in confidence and skill.

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In the video above I am rehearsing my song in the key I am recording my DAW version of the song in. This was very helpful as being in a lower key allows me to play around with my vocals and range a lot more. Practicing live for a DAW recording is something I still find very important as it speeds up the recording process if I already have an idea of what i'm doing.

In the actual recording I would like to try and play around with a bit more of my head voice to produce a slightly softer sound which will be perfectly complimented by the strings.

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Due to the fact I have now changed my idea, this mean my genres that I plan to create my two versions in have changed. I was most interested in researching anything regarding my DAW track. As I plan on having strings on the track alongside the acoustics, I decided to research artists and songs that have used similar compositions, look into their genres and even their target audience in terms of age.

For example, Lana Del Rey makes use of string accompaniment in many of her tracks. The one that I have always been most drawn to is her song "Video Games" from her 2012 born to die album. I was particularly interested in how her vocals were mixed to help blend with the orchestral arrangement beneath. In an interview,Brandon Lowry , who helped with the recording and mixing of the track, speaks about this. Lowry mentions that he took focus on the EQ of Lana's vocals. He speaks about accentuating the lower frequencies of the vocal take. This allows the vocal match the low earthy tones of strings. (Tingen, Producing Lana Del Rey's 'Videogames' 2023)

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Lana Del Rey has topped charts worldwide with her signature retro sound - and it all started with a demo that became a viral hit.

Released on the Internet in June 2011, Lana Del Rey's breakthrough hit 'Video Games' became an online sensation. Orchestral arrangements and otherworldly electronic sounds frame Del Rey's lost-love lyrics and bleak delivery, while the song's atmospheric and grainy video, cut together by the singer, perfectly complemented the whole high-art-meets-low-art vibe. Del Rey was duly signed by Interscope, which released 'Video Games' officially in October and saw it climb to the top 10 in the UK and half a dozen other European countries.

However, Del Rey encountered a backlash even before Interscope released her major-label debut album Born To Die at the end of January. Notwithstanding the fact that Del Rey had co-written all the songs on the album, there were accusations of her being manufactured, criticism of her voice, her lyrics, her change of name from Lizzy Grant, and of her live performances. Critics were divided as to the album's merits, but it has sold in large numbers, debuting at number one in the UK, Germany, and a handful of other countries, and at number two in the US.

'Video Games', the song that started it all, was co-written by Del Rey and Justin Parker, and was arranged, played and produced by Robopop, a then-unknown production duo consisting of Daniel Omelio and Brandon Lowry. Their contribution consisted of a serendipitous two-day romp through Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, IK's Miroslav Philharmonik Orchestra and various dance music sample CDs, culminating in Omelio laying down the track's electronic and orchestral arrangements in one inspired six-hour late-night session. He immediately realised he'd found a signature sound: "I remember coming home that night and telling my girlfriend that this was going to be a defining track for Lana. I knew right away that it was a pretty epic piece of work and that it would put her on the map and define her as an artist. It was such a heartfelt and real piece of music, that I felt sure that people would connect with it right away."

Two attempts later on by name mixers to 'properly' mix the track came to nothing, with everyone involved deciding that Robopop's rough mix had the magic. It was released on the Internet and later made it to the album.

Both Omelio and Lowry are the epitome of the 21st Century approach to music-making, having cut their teeth in music schools, rather than recording studios, and being entirely comfortable with working in the box. Lowry is a native of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and studied classical piano and music technology at Duquesne University. Omelio was born in New Jersey, but grew up in Pennsylvania and studied music theory, studio engineering and production at Syracuse University, where his main instrument was classical percussion (he also plays guitar, bass, piano, trumpet and drums). Both men moved to New York City to pursue their dream of a professional music career, and joined forces as Robopop three years ago, landing themselves a publishing deal with Cherry Lane/BMG, working out of the small and very basic BMG demo studio in New York City.

Come 2011, two of these demo projects would shape their future. One was a track they wrote and called 'Stereo Hearts', which was picked up by the label of the rap band Gym Class Heroes, and adopted by the band, guest singer Adam Levine and producer Benny Blanco. The resulting track became a major hit in dozens of countries. The other track was, of course, 'Video Games'. It was unusual, remarks Lowry, because while their demo of 'Stereo Hearts' went through "myriads of changes to the song and production, in 'Video Games' everything we did remained exactly the same".

Despite the success of the latter track, it was the last project Lowry and Omelio worked on together. They have since gone their separate ways, with Omelio retaining the Robopop name, and regularly working with Benny Blanco (amongst other things on Gym Class Heroes' most recent hit, 'Ass Back Home'), while Lowry assumed the professional moniker Sterling Fox, and continues to work on his own material and with up and coming BMG artists at BMG Studios. From the BMG demo studio in NYC he says, "Dan and I are still friends, but I just wanted to go into a different directly musically. I'm tilting more to the left in terms of production, doing things that are more unusual. It's a challenge, but I'd like to push the boundaries a bit of what pop music is doing. And yeah, 'Video Games' certainly is in that direction."

Lowry explains that they first heard the song as a simple piano/vocal demo made by Del Rey and Parker. "Dan and I were immediately excited about the song, and we suggested that we'd do a demo. We did this over two days in February 2011 at BMG Studios [see box].

"The first thing we did was slow the song down. I found out that Lana is influenced by a lot of downtempo music, and it seemed appropriate for this song. We pulled the tempo back to almost 60bpm, like a dirge, almost as if the whole song was in slow motion. We also made a few changes to the lyrical content and the melody."

Omelio adds: "We felt that the original demo was a bit rushed. Slowing it down gave it a more heartfelt feel."

The first step involved Lowry playing and programming the piano part using Steinberg's Cubase 6. Lowry explains, "I started in Cubase because I've used it for years and it has the audio capabilities of Pro Tools and the MIDI editing capacities of Logic, so it has the best of both worlds for me. I still use Cubase for the majority of my projects, especially when starting them. I spent about four hours doing the piano, playing the part as MIDI into Cubase, and then tweaking the MIDI until it sounded perfect. Because the piano is in the forefront so much, I wanted to make sure that it's perfect. I'm big on MIDI editing, making sure all the voices are in time and audible. I drew the velocities for every single note, because when you're playing it's easy to play certain notes harder than others, and that can screw up the voicings sometimes. I also edited the sustain pedal data in MIDI, so that none of the chord tones were holding longer than they were supposed to. These are very basic things, but a lot of people don't always think of doing it.

"I was using the 'Ambient Concert D' patch in Synthogy's Ivory plug-in. I may have tweaked the piano sound a little bit in Ivory, but most of the tweaking happened by using the Speakerphone plug-in by Audio Ease, the Waves H-Comp compressor and an [IK Multimedia] CSR hall reverb. The Speakerphone effect was cool because it expanded the piano sound, panning it out really widely. It's a plug-in that you normally use to get a megaphone or telephone effect on vocals, but for whatever reason I put it on the piano. The piano sound on its own was a little one-dimensional, and because it is so important in the track, I wanted it to sound more unique. The piano sounds in Ivory are made to cut through, but with the Speakerphone plug-in the sound became instead very muddy, and filled up the entire stereo spectrum. Basically, it over-inflated the sound and it also made it sound warmer."

The strangely treated, echoey piano track became a cornerstone for the other-worldly quality of the song. It certainly appears to have inspired Lana Del Rey when laying down her vocals. Lowry: "Once I had perfected the piano part I exported it as 44.1kHz/24-bit audio and imported it into a Pro Tools 8 session, and we recorded the vocals. I was pretty sold on the low end of Lana's voice. She has a great voice in general, but it is at its most unique in the alto range, so we wanted her voice to be in that range, and the Telefunken U47 AE worked great for that. It added a crazy amount of richness and depth to the vocals that really helped. It then went through the Avalon 737 with a little compression, and the Chandler TG1 EQ with a high-pass cutting off below 90Hz. We also did some EQing in Pro Tools to accentuate the lower frequencies.

"We did perhaps 20 different vocal takes. We didn't actually need 20, but the longer we went on, the more changes we decided to make. Honing in on the phrasing and small details in the lyrics and melody can really separate a great song from a mediocre song. Lana's vocal performance was really good. With most singers I'll go in and Melodyne problem sections, but her pitch was on point. With the takes we got, we didn't need to do any pitch correction, just some comping and minor timing corrections. She has a completely unique voice, with a large and interesting deep tone, and that's something all producers will seek out.

"The Pro Tools session is really simple: just five tracks at the top that were comped from the 20 or so vocal takes below that are greyed out. All the vocal takes are in the session, as I don't like using Playlists in Pro Tools. It's a bit of an old-fashioned approach, but I like to see all the takes I'm working with at the same time. Instead of layering vocals we went for a killer lead vocal with a few doublings, and then did some vocal treatments inside of Pro Tools. The vocals were bussed to an aux track and we had several plug-ins on the bus. In addition to the high-pass EQ, we had a Waves de-esser to knock out some of the pops and hisses, and a Waves compressor with a light ratio but a heavy threshold, and then another compressor, the H-Comp, with a higher ratio. I like to run multiple compressors in a signal chain, with none of them compressing too heavily. It does not 'small' the sound as heavily as one maxed out compressor. After that, we had an H-Delay and an RVerb, just set to a hall reverb, mixed in really high but with the bottom and top end rolled off, so the main reverb you were getting was mid-range. There's a lot of reverb in this track, mostly coming from the piano and vocals. Drenching things in reverb is part of Lana's signature sound. But as far as we were concerned, the effects we added were simply for vibe and demo purposes, as we fully expected the tracks to be mixed by an outside mixer later on."

Having laid down and edited and treated the vocal tracks, Omelio and Lowry exported the piano and vocal tracks as a 44.1kHz/24-bit stereo bounce and imported what they regarded as a 'scratch' track into Ableton Live 8. That evening at 8pm, Omelio began his epic orchestration and mix session, which finished at 2am. He recalls, "I guess the mood really took me. It was a kind of being in the zone thing. I locked myself in the room, switched off the lights and went full into it. I already had a pretty good vision of what I wanted to do before I went in, and the execution didn't take that long. I guess all the years of theory, ear and counterpoint training came in handy, because I was able to hear the parts in my head and play them in, and then edit them as needed from a counterpoint and melodic perspective. I didn't think about whether the parts would be replaced later on, I simply tried to make the strings and the harps and the other stuff sound as live and real as possible. There definitely was some tweaking involved after I had laid down the arrangement, but mostly it was about having a strong vision and a clear through process of what I wanted the track to sound like. I think I achieved that!

"Listening to Lana's voice and just the piano was really inspiring and it was easy to get creative. A lot of what we had used of Lana's singing was first and second takes, because you get the most vulnerable takes, and so her vocal really set the tone. When you're doing a pop record, you try to get as many takes as possible and then you comp and edit them to perfection, but with Lana we focused on maintaining and enhancing the natural vibe. I began by working in [IK Multimedia's] Philharmonik and went through string patches that felt the most real and the best connected to the sound of the piano and the timbre of Lana's voice. I think I found something called an Expressive patch and I also played with some compressors and reverb, delay, and really tried to make the strings sound as real and uncut as possible. I used the compressor, reverb and EQ inside of Philharmonik, but also plug-ins like RVerb, H-Delay, RCompressor and so on, all stuff that I work with a lot. Staying inside of Philharmonik, I then took a harp sound, then a chime sound, a choir patch, and a snare sample. Philharmonik has a palette of orchestral percussion sounds, and I selected some snare rolls.

"I felt that after the halfway mark the song needed some sort of drive for the ebb and flow of the track. The song starts haunting and thin, with piano and vocal and a reverse vocal effect, and then builds up towards the end, when it returns to the simplicity of the beginning. Perhaps it was the drummer in me, but I felt that it needed something to push it along, so I selected these American Revolution-type marching snare rolls that give a different and perhaps unexpected feel. I also added an 808 subkick, because a lot of Lana's album is very hip-hop orientated. I was fishing around for sounds and heard this 808 sub which almost sounds like a bomb going off, and maybe it was because of the American Revolution snare drum part, but that low-end explosion really seemed to fit. It comes in at the one of every bar, and even though it's a rudimentary kick pattern, it served well as low end.

"Finally, I added audio WAV files from various dance music sample CDs that I cut up to make them fit. Lana's managers were adamant that they wanted a little Robopop in there, ie. electronic goodies to go with the stripped-down, organic feel of the song. Some of these files were white-noise textural things, taken from an electronic music sample pack, and intended for use in breaks in electro or trance loops. When I do hip-hop stuff, it sounds cool to put a white noise track, or a clap or a stadium applause track in, and duck it and put tons of reverb on. It's a sweet texture that lifts the song.

"I was mixing as I went along, even though I expected to track to be mixed by another mixer later on. When I'm working on a track, I always try to make it as sonically pleasing as I can, as opposed to keeping everything dry. I like for everything to sound pretty neat and tidy and on point. I will try to make the pre-mix as good as possible - make it as sonically tasty as I can. I did it in Ableton, because it's the first program that I ever got into, and it is very user-friendly, and I know it like the back of my hand. It's really quick, and for me it's a comfort thing, as I'm used to making everything sound crispy and sonically pleasing in Ableton."

Lowry, who has the Ableton project in front of him when we speak, provides more details of his former partner's work: "Philharmonik is a cheaper orchestral alternative to East West or Vienna, but the sounds are very versatile if you know how to tweak them. For a producer, it's important to listen to classical or jazz music once in a while, so you know how instruments are played and are supposed to sound. Dan layered the strings with choir and hard techno synth pads, which created some nice sustained tensions in the last chorus. He filtered the pads to give them the bowed feeling that the strings already had, which was clever. When you do a song at 60bpm, you need something to keep the listener from falling asleep so he used these transitional effects from a dance sample collection and sprinkled them in the space between the vocal phrases. Many of them were run through Autopan and the Filter Delay, which is an Ableton Live plug-in.

"The finished Ableton Live session had 32 tracks in total, which is not a lot. At the top, in blue, is the stereo bounce of piano and vocal that Dan was working to. There then are five tracks of sample library sound effects (Audio 3-7), which as I mentioned before, had the Ableton Filter Delay plug-in and Autopan on them. They had filters on them and Autopans to move them in the stereo field, and were kind of buried in the mix.

"Tracks three and four contain the white noise, tracks six and seven have bleepy, synth-sound arpeggios, sounding a bit like video-game sounds, and 11 is a sweeping sound effect. Tracks 12-13 are the 808 sub, and tracks 14-30 have all the Philharmonik stuff, with legato (14-20) and pizzicato strings (22-23) and the choir, harp and snare-roll tracks. The harps were on 24-26 and were panned for each swipe, the snare is on 27-28, and the church bell that opens the song on 29-30. Track 32 is a timpani.

"As I mentioned before, most of the reverb in the track was on the vocals and piano, but there were some reverbs on the strings as well. Dan bounced his final mix from Ableton, with an L3 [Waves limiter] and the [IK] T-Racks S3 Classic Compressor on it, with some slight stereo image manipulation, and an EQ with a 2dB hump in the low shelf below 200Hz and above 2000Hz. That was it. The piano and vocal stems never got dumped in the track dry. We anticipated doing that later, as we regarded this mix as a work in progress. We came back to it in June 2011, when I took another stab at mixing it and added the yellow piano track [2]. In my mind, some of the orchestral stuff would also be replaced by live instruments, and we talked about using a live harpist. But there was something cohesive about Dan's mix, even though it was more lo-fi. It seemed to gel better, so we ended up rolling with that."

According to Lowry, the decision to release the rough mix wasn't as unusual as it may appear, because the boundaries between the different music-making disciplines are increasingly getting blurred. He remarks: "It's important for both producers and mixers to understand that the differentiation between mixing engineer and producer is becoming less and less clear. Most of the productions I do today are 90 percent mixed by the time they get to the mix engineer, if they get there at all. With label budgets being the way they are, a producer who is also a good mixer has a distinct advantage. At the same time, mixers need to be flexible enough to take on production tasks, whether it's layering drum samples, or changing the song structure, or even learning music theory and sitting in with good producers."

With regard to 'Video Games', Lowry admits that he's "not sure how or by whom the decision was taken to put our rough mix on the Internet. But once that was done, it quickly began accumulating a lot of attention in high-profile blogs and became this viral sensation. At this point, she got major record-label attention and signed to Interscope, and there was again a lot of discussion about what to do with the song. But everybody had already heard the rough mix version, which is why it was decided to officially release it as well. Yeah, I'm aware that there's been a lot of controversy since then, with the name change and charges of her being manufactured, but you have to listen to the music and base your judgements on that. At the end of the day, she came into this studio unsigned, co-wrote the song, was there for the sessions, and definitely was the creative force behind this song. All the production, apart from the piano, was built around the vocal. It was the lead vocal that helped to keep things focused rather then distracting. It's difficult to produce an instrumental track and then throw a top line over it. The vocal and the song always need to be in charge, and were in the case of this song."

Omelio concludes: "From the moment I met Lana and heard her demos, I knew there was something real there and uncut and not processed. This song was very emotional, and the ebb and flow of the strings really matched her voice and the lyrics, and the whole package showcased her in a way that had not been done yet. There are a lot of indie artists with their own style and sound, and I felt that with Lana there was something that was, and is, new and vulnerable and natural, and that is something I really jumped onto. The end result is a beautiful mix of dark and light, dirty and clean, sweet and innocent, and this bad-girl thing. Lana portrays both sides in the song, and you can hear it in the way she changes her vocal timbre in different sections, and in where we doubled or tripled her vocals and panned them out with a softer timbre and some reverb, and also in the very intense first vocal in the first verse. That's where it immediately hits you."

'Video Games' is discussed in the Mix Review column elsewhere in this issue.

BMG Studios, where 'Video Games' was recorded and mixed, is located on Broadway in New York, and consists of two acoustically treated rooms with the most basic of equipment: Studio A contains a computer, a set of Yamaha HS80MS monitors, an Avalon 737 preamp and Chandler TG1 EQ, a Telefunken U47AE mic and some keyboards. In short, it is probably more modestly equipped than many readers' home studios, yet it was in these unassuming surroundings that Daniel Omelio, Brandon Lowry and Lana Del Rey wove their magic. As Lowry remarked: "It's just a pre-production room, but it shows that you don't need the craziest setup to produce records that are successful. We were working entirely in the box, and while outboard is great, if you're limited in your studio setup, you simply have to make do with what you have. There are plenty of people who have outboard and don't know how to us it. Conversely, when you know how to use the in-the-box tools at your disposal, you can get great recordings. There's no doubt about that."

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Robopop: Producing Lana Del Rey's 'Videogames'

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Lana Del Rey has topped charts worldwide with her signature retro sound - and it all started with a demo that became a viral hit.

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In the video above, I am accompanying a fellow Waterbear student on her Summative LPW performance. This was a really cool opportunity for me as I got to witness how things are done in the performance course.

From this experience I feel as though I once again got to grow in my vocal performance confidence, singing a song I was not very familiar with and singing harmonies that extended all the way to the top and bottom of my range.

If I were to have another similar experience in the future, I would definitely ensure I rehearsed more with the entire band, allowing me to get a proper feel for the song and gain some valuable experience in working in a cover band context

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Exploring new forms of music with friends :)

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Exploring new forms of music with friends :)

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In this video Mookie, Alex and I are exploring the idea of free writing. We had nothing previously written and just decided to play what felt write. Alex played a simple yet gorgeous progression on the guitar while Mookie added vocals. I decided to try an instrument I had never yet played before and picked up the hand pan. This was a great experience for me as it was great to practice the idea of writing without an idea or concept, which links closely into my smart targets.

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Overall, I am not doing very well in following my original timeline created in week two. This is due to the change up of ideas for my project. While I would have liked to have kept to my timeline, I am not too upset about it due to the fact that I feel like I am still progressing at a good rate.I feel comfortable that I will be able to produce my best work by the time the deadline comes around.

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record my guitar part

add my live string parts

add main vocal melody

add vocal harmonies

begin the mixing process

add more orchestral instruments through midi if it sounds too empty

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I feel as though I have started the process of recording my song a tad late, but I have not let that panic me and have made progress.

This week I managed to properly format my live string quartet into my logic file. This had taken me a while due to the fact that I had originally had the wrong files downloaded, which became midi files when added into a logic file.

After that was recorded, I recorded the guitar progression. This took a couple attempts as the timing was proving hard to match. To get around this, I listened to the original demo track I had sent to the live string quartet and played along to it. This helped me get a much better understanding of the tempo and I managed to get a guitar recording I was happy.

I took a demo recording of the vocals to see how it would all fit together. By doing this I can now listen to it and critically evaluate the things that I do and do not like.

I now know that I want the vocals to be more fronted in the track, which can be achieved during the mixing process with things such as EQ, panning and using multiple vocal effects such as reverb.

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Verse 1

Break my walls

make yourself at home

just take it all

rip the skin from my bones

Verse 2

Dug my own grave

six feet down

it's the only place

I can feel safe and sound

Chorus

But, at the end of the day

I wish you would say

that you miss me and you want me.

Maybe, I'm not okay

and I shouldn't stay

my friends would agree and be angry.

Verse 3

hide myself away

erase you from my mind

now i'm sure I shouldn't stay

i'll leave my life behind.

Bridge

But steady

don't make choices in anger

these feelings may linger

but till the end I will not know.

I'm ready

to think these things over

and maybe get sober

just let my burdens go

Chorus.

Verse 4

Broke my walls

made yourself at home

just went and took it all

now my realities unknowns.

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This is a video from an open mic I performed at this week. This was a great opportunity to practice my stage presence and develop my confidence when Performing

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As mentioned previously, I went slightly off track with my timeline due to the fact I changed my concept. Despite this, I feel as though I'm back on track once again. All I have left in terms of my DAW recording is:

Recording the final vocal melody line

Adding some vocal harmonies

Mixing the track and polishing

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A few points on the mixing of my DAW track.

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A few points on the mixing of my DAW track.

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Above is a screenshot of some of the mixing I have done to this track.

I did some corrective eq on the string quartet, cutting some of the high end and boosting some of the frequencies for each track individually. This allowed me to create a more consistent sound throughout the string part, helping it merge evenly into the rest of the track.

I created a bus send for reverb (Bus 11) , applying in to the majority of my tracks. Using a bus is something I was taught very early on during this terms Production tools lessons. The use of a bus allows me to evenly reverb multiple tracks together, creating a smooth distribution end ensuring the attack and release of the reverbed tracks aren't out of time with eachother.