Above is a short clip of my formative submission for 'I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus'. This is just a demo to showcase my song idea, consisting of a backing track from Youtube and a vocal track I recorded. I added 'Space Designer' reverb to create space in the vocals and equalised it. This is all I did to this track due to it being only a demo - I will be performing this live on video for the summative!

Channel EQ - With this I used the preset 'low focus guitar' to equalise this song.

Silververb - This type of reverb created the glossy guitar noise, as well as softening out the sharper notes.

Compressor - This helped to make the guitar sound louder, as well as pushing down any harsh notes in the mix.

Bass - 17/10/23
I MIDI inputed the bass using my Alesis keyboard and choosing the 'Liverpool Bass' preset sound. This is a soft bass sound with no distortion and compliments the song well. I didn't add much to this, however added a reverb to make it sound less harsh.

Drums - 17/10/23

I sampled a hi-hat, kick and snare from Splice. The drums have the AuLowpass filter, taking inspiration from 'Moon Song' by Phoebe. This creates the thud sound. I also added some compression and reverb to the drums as a whole as I wanted them to sound quite 'spacey'.

Vocals - 24/10/23

Channel EQ - I used the present 'Softened Lead Vocals' which is self explanatory. This just cut out any harsh/ high frequencies in the mix.

Noise Gate - I used this to cut out any background noise as the microphone I used (RODE NT1-A) is quite a cheap option, so this isolated my vocals in the recording.

Tape Delay - I always only use a slight delay to fill out the empty spaces where I am not singing. It is very subtle and hard to hear as I only really use it to make one melodic phrase glide to the other.

Spring Reverb - As advised from my production teacher, I used a spring reverb as this is something he picked up in 'Moon Song' and 'Garden Song' by Phoebe Bridgers. It is a very delicate but effective reverb that adds to her soft tone.

Compressor - I used a compressor, once again to limit any harsh notes in the mix. This is supposed to be a cosy and intimate song and I didn't want anything to be too sharp on the ears.

Attached above is a table of information I found out from videos, interviews and other sources on the two initial case studies.

Blue - Anything I have learned in my weekly lessons that I have taken inspiration from to use in my project OR Feedback.

Purple - Everything to do with my project work itself (explaining my work).

The video above mentions a snippet of an interview conducted on Phoebe, where she states that the Gibson guitar she uses is very rare and that there are not many at all in the world. As well as this, it is theorised that Phoebe uses a microphone worth around £30k, extremely out of my budget! Although I cannot mirror her sound identically, there are some recording and production techniques I could use. On the recording side, the video mentioned using a rubber pipe to create the muffled guitar sound. On the production side Phoebe uses a low pass filter in order to create the muffled guitar and the ‘thudding’ kick drum. A handful of other stuff I have recognised on the track are distortion, spring, plate and reverse reverb, saturation and also mentioned in the video: the lossy compression plug-in. Phoebe cuts out a lot of high frequencies in her songs achieving the dark and soft tone. Looking into Phoebe’s song writing, her songs are never just about one subject matter. She explores a lot of different topics and mentions things that seem personal between her and the person the song is about. This is a repeated theme for phoebe and I think it really matches the vibe or her music.

The table above is my plan for the summative over the next few weeks. Like before, I have colour coded everything based on: DAW track, Live Performance, WB06 and written work.

I will be updating the last week when I have completed work, as well as using an additional app to control daily to-do lists/ tasks so that I don't fall behind like last time.

For my live performance band I am using only a drummer and guitarist as I want to achieve the acoustic vibe. I have sourced my band from people I have known since college, as a lot of people on my course are booked up for summative work, and I did not want any extra stress from people pulling out last minute like last year.

This way, the bands focus is on me and not elsewhere, and I am able to get lots of rehearsal time with them.

During my production session I showed my tutor the track as I had met a dead end with what I wanted to do. The feedback he gave me was very useful in that my guitar sounded to like it was DI recorded, and not very authentic. To combat this he suggested adding an amp to my guitar to give it a sense of realness so that is what I did.

Today I had a search around for places to record my summative performance and ended up booking a rehearsal room in South London where I am from. This rehearsal room is laid out in a way that I can record my live performance here.

Today I practiced vocals for my summative, trying to focus on my technique. Above is a small snippet of my rehearsal session where I tried to copy the soft vocals like Beabadoobee conveys in 'You're here thats the thing'. After listening back, I think my tone is great, however I think I could reach more into my head voice instead of my chest voice in some places.

This study plan was much more realistic and effective than the last ones I created. This is because I took into account how long tasks would take when making it.

I have finished my work early as I put the vocals over the video track on the day of the performance, however giving myself more time took the stress away. I also did have an academic support booked that I cancelled as I want to utilise my final project management lesson for support.

Overall, I stuck to the plan and even finished earlier than expected!

As previously mentioned, I was leaving the last few weeks until a later date to create my final study plan. This is because I didn't know how long each task would take or where I would be.

I am behind my study plan, however on track with my assignments. My study plan was unrealistic and did not take into account how much time and effort was needed for each task.

Now I am in the final stretch of my work, I updated my study plan to the above as I now understand how much time it will take to complete tasks.

For tomorrow's performance I am going to bring my Macbook, DI box and my Shure SM58 microphone. This is because I want to record vocals straight into logic so that I can overlap them with my video recording so that you can hear my vocals more clearly - they will be completely unedited just overlapping them solely so that I can be heard.

I will use a light and a stand so you can see me well in the performance. Also, I will be sitting down in my performance which is a stylistic choice as the song does not require a lot of movement - just subtle and tasteful.

Today's performance went really well and I think I gave the song what it needed. I engaged with my band mates and the audience/ camera which is something I usually find hard to do. I also swayed and used hand gestures to execute the fun and wholesome vibe in the song, and generally gave my best.

What I would do differently next time is perhaps get my whole body in shot and even stand up/ interact with the drummer more. However, I do not think it was necessary to my performance it could have just made it more interesting.

Overall I think I am most proud of this vocal performance as it shows what style of music I like to sing and my vocals sound technically very good.