Tonally for the song, I've chosen a more overdriven sound for the guitar and for the bass, I've chosen to get have a slightly clean tone but it is overdriven slightly but in the amp I have the drive up more so when I'm picking harder for the chorus and breakdown the grit of the tone comes through. This is all very similar to how Linkin Park do their tones so stylistically I'm on the right track for the sound I wanted.

As for production, I know for the guitars they quad tracked in Linkin Park songs because of their being 3 guitarists so for me to get that full sound I decided to only have 3 tracks: centre, hard left and hard right. With this I was able to get the song in the beginning to sound almost as if it had a low pass filter on it but when the full intro idea comes in, it has a more full and in your face sound.

I've found whilst writing my song, that I like to try and almost get the exact sound of the artist/group I'm trying the emulate but then after I've finished, I'll look at the track and go where can I add my own flair and through that this is where this track has gotten too. This also helps when it comes to gathering ideas for a song as I'll listen to a lot of that artists songs to get a foundation and from that a riff or melodic idea will sprout and I'll get straight to recording it.

My track as a whole is on the faster side being 193BPM which helps with a very driven feel but also gives a sense of urgency. As for the time signature is 4/4 and the key signature is D minor however I'm using a lot of the phrygian mode using a lot of minor 2nd intervals between the open and first fret. This helps to give a more darker, mysterious sound but as well as that in the breakdown I'm using chromatism from the 3rd to the open fret.

As for the harmonic structure, I'm using a lot of power chords but I do include octaves coming out of the chorus into the vamp before the 3rd verse. As for rhythms, I use dotted rhythms and muted racks across the strings. This helps the riff give a sense of drive but never deviates over the bar line. The muted rakes across the strings help divide the riff and help it sound less muddy having the open strings playing through the whole thing. This also gives a more percussive sound

to the song.

I have chosen to submit my formative as a live performance and DAW piece over the alternative recorded demo as I found that I could create a song within the time period without an issue. As for if I wanted to work collaboratively or on my own I chose on my own as I already have the sound I want to create which will lead me to writing the piece a lot easier without trying to find other people to learn and play my music.

In producing this track, I believe I will learn how to effectively EQ and compress my work through my production lessons helping create a more balanced and well mixed track. As well as that, this track will help me get used to tracking different instruments on my own but when getting into a studio it will help me as I will be comfortable in the process. Another thing that will help me is comping together parts that maybe I didn't quite get right in one take but I got right in another and comping them both together for a seamless track.

I don’t believe there will be many challenges in this format as in writing the track but my main challenge will be remembering to document what I’m writing.

When it came to coming up with the initial riff, I was just playing Linkin Park songs and had accidentally played the riff wrong but still liked the sound of what I had played. However, what I played wasn’t that easy to play so I changed some notes around and changed some of the rhythms to fit into the time signature. Once I had done that, I went into my DAW and found a tempo I liked which was 193 BPM and I chose the song to be in 4/4.

After last week's update, I wanted to learn typical chorus chord progressions in the heavy rock, grunge, nu metal genres to help me with writing my chorus for my track. After listening to songs like Faint, Papercut and One Step Closer I realised that they all follow a similar progression Im - III - VII - IVm. So while doing this research I wanted to follow a similar progression but instead of going up and down the fretboard I wanted my progression to be ascending with these pushed quarter note rhythms with dotted notes as well to create a sense of urgency in the piece. Being in a minor key, I chose the phrygian mode as it contains the iim chord which creates this tension between in IIIM and Im chords which helps leading back into the next section of the song. 

I had this idea after playing around with this week's song Treasure by Bruno Mars. My group decided to do what Bruno’s band did for the second verse at the GRAMMYs with the pushed  chords to help create a new feel to the song.

As well as that, I chose to spend time writing the drums to the next section i wrote. I wanted to slightly change the drums in the second verse because I didn't want it to sound too repetitive so on every other bar i displaced the kick on the third beat.

As a band, i felt that there was a clear communication between the band on where parts were. Because I was ill the lesson before, I hadn't practised with anyone so I stepped in for this band and managed to get through the song as a band with never rehearsing with me.

I'm going to use what I've learnt in my production lessons to start to EQ the guitar, drums and bass tracks.

The stressful part was trying to navigate uni work with work and trying to fix not having WIFI but coming to the end of the term, I felt that I have now found that balance and am able to take it into new term.

Producing my track, I have learnt that it takes a lot more time than I thought to mix and master a track and that through EQ, you don't follow the audio wave you take certain frequencies and duc or boost. When I first saw the difference in my guitar tracks after they had been EQ'd was unreal and now whenever writing I now have created a cheat sheet for myself.