WB03 by Liam Benn

Initial ideas

liambenn67 — 2022-01-24 21:40:39 UTC

For this semester, we have to create/perform 2 contrasting tracks. I have decided to follow on from last semester and have decided to do 2 original tracks that I will write and record over the next 10 weeks.

Today I have started a track which I am extremely happy with. I will add a MP3 file of the track thus far to this post.

As for the required submissions, I am thinking of doing a YouTube style playthrough this semester. This has it's advantages and disadvantages.

CPW practice video

liambenn67 — 2022-01-26 15:53:57 UTC

Video of the practice of our performance for Friday

Finished track 1

liambenn67 — 2022-01-26 15:54:59 UTC

This week I have spent time on mixing and finishing this track. The structure of the track is now finished, however there is still some mixing that needs to be done.

The track says it is 6:17 long, however this is just an issue with logic bouncing the track out. Once the music stops the track is finished.

Week 1 entry:

liambenn67 — 2022-01-26 16:55:22 UTC

Both of my tracks will be the same type of genre, however they will both have a different feel. My tracks will consist of one cover and one original. I will collaborate on the live performance aspect of this module and may help people out with their performances.

Development of ideas

liambenn67 — 2022-02-02 16:20:55 UTC

Initial Riff Idea

liambenn67 — 2022-02-02 16:21:18 UTC

Developed riff idea

liambenn67 — 2022-02-02 16:21:37 UTC

Week 2 entry:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-02 16:21:59 UTC

This week has been a lot of mixing and rehearsing of my original track. I am planning to start deciding on my 2nd track beginning from this week and plan to have it decided by next week however this may not be the case.

CPW Performance - Hold Back The River

liambenn67 — 2022-02-02 16:22:08 UTC

Rehearsal of track 1.

liambenn67 — 2022-02-02 16:25:11 UTC

SWOT Analysis:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-02 16:26:37 UTC

This is a SWOT analysis of this semester and WB03 as a whole.

After creating this SWOT analysis, it's become clear to me what I need to spend the most time on this semester such as mixing, mastering and performance/presentation of the tracks. I also have realised that I need to book things in advance with Waterbear, specifically small pond rehearsal and recording facilities. These tend to go very quickly and need to be planned ahead of time.

Personal Practice Routine:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-02 17:16:11 UTC

Project proposal

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 15:59:08 UTC

CPW Practice - Chain Of Fools

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 15:59:55 UTC

Chain of fools - Aretha Franklin

Week 3 entry:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:11:11 UTC

This week I have been mixing my track 1 and deciding on my next track. I plan to have this decided on by the next week.

The deciding on the second track has not gone very well this week as I have been very preoccupied with the 1st track and other things outside of uni work, but overall I believe I am still on track/slightly ahead of my plans for this semester and this assignment.

Week 4 entry:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:11:19 UTC

This week I have fully decided on the 2nd track I will be doing. I have decided to do the track "Don't kick it" by the band "The Totemist".

This week has been very rocky in terms of working on WB03 and so not much progress has been made, however I believe I have finished the mix of the first track, leaving just the mastering process before this track is finished. This is the track I will be submitting for the formative and for the summative as a DAW track.

So far I believe I have been making progress on my SMART targets.

I have also taken up playing with Sal, Lewis and Jamie on their summative performances whilst also agreeing with Felix to do the same track and record together, collaborating on our summative performances. This will add another layer of stress to the summative deadline but i have limited the scope of people i help out with their summative in order to allow myself greater quality vs quantity balance.

CPW video

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:11:38 UTC

Cocoon - catfish and the bottlemen

Quality vs Quantity:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:37:02 UTC

In my opinion quality takes precedent over quantity. I believe my submissions exemplify this as both of the tracks I will be doing are roughly 3 minutes in length meaning there are less parts to work on and allowing me to really perfect the parts.

I've been thinking about adding a solo into the DAW track, but I'm not sure yet as that will add another part to perfect and will mean I will need to go back and remix the track and remaster it, which will add another few days of work and possibly lower the quality of the track.

Another aspect of the quality vs quantity i have had to consider this semester is the quantity of people i help vs the quaity of my performance on other's tracks. I have decided to turn some people down on helping them with their performances as i have already taken up multiple tracks in multiple genres and i would rather focus on the quality of my performance on all tracks rather than the amount of tracks i play on.

This does limit my scope and experience with playing with other people, but i feel as if prioritising quality will not only allow everyone else in the bands feel comfortable with the performances, but also will allow me to be seen as more reliably good at the tracks i play and will allow me to give enough focus to my own summative performance/studio recording.

Week 5 entry:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:56:16 UTC

This week was a relatively bad week as I did not feel motivated and let myself fall behind on the work that needs to get done. I will have to catch up over this next week on the work and rehearsals.

Week 6 entry:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:56:23 UTC

This week I practiced the cover track more and improved on my playing of the track. I also finished the final mix of the studio track I will be doing for this assignment. This has helped me catch up on the work I missed out on in week 5. I have booked a rehearsal slot for next week to rehearse the track for the live performance. This should hopefully allow us to get the track under our fingers and get a solid performance before the final performance.

I also agreed this week to help out Reece Mayhew on his summative performance. This is on top of helping Sal, Lewis, Jamie and Felix with their performances so my workload will be very packed for the rest of this semester, but hopefully it should help me to get a better understanding of my own music as well as everyone else's music.

Week 7 entry:

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:56:30 UTC

This week I rehearsed the second track I have chosen to play for this assignment. This session went very well and we ironed out most issues we had with the track. We have booked a feedback slot for Wednesday the 30th with our tutor Liam Kearly. This will be extremely valuable feedback as Liam was the drummer who played on the track, meaning he should have the best possible feedback on the playing and on all the intricacies of the track and will massively help improve our performance.

Week 8 entry: Your niche

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:56:36 UTC

My niche is a very large proportion of a small community. The genre and niche i am working in is very specific as it includes a lot of home studio music creation and production, low tuned guitars, lots of double kick on the drums and heavily distorted bass whilst preserving clarity. These all come together and combine with very ambient layering beneath the tracks using synths, strings and other software instruments.

Bands currently working within this niche are bands such as Architects, Periphery, Animals as leaders etc. These bands are all very heavily rhythmical and similar even though they all are different. For example animals as leaders is a very instrumental based band with no vocals, whereas the other 2 bands are very vocal reliant, yet they are still often compared. With my music i aim to fit this niche whilst taking a more standard structural approach to the music in the same way Architects do as it has been proven by Architects themselves that this actually helps to create a more marketable sound.

Week 9 entry: Active and critical listening

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:56:43 UTC

My studio track is in the key of A minor using a drop tuned 7 string guitar to reach the very low notes i need to add some thickness to the sound. This is all whilst trying to mold the guitar tone to preserve clarity in these lower registers with a low tuned and distorted bass guitar beneath all of this. There are a lot of synths in this track beneath the clean guitars and a very prominent melodic synth beneath the main riff. The drums are very straight forward with a heavy emphasis on the kick drum following the guitar rhythms whilst the cymbals are holding down the tempo, acting in a similar way to a metronome. The track is a constant 4/4 but uses rhythmical devices to feel like it is moving into 5/4 in a certain section of the main riff. This is becuase i extended the main riff by 1 bar whilst the drums continue in 4/4, throwing the timing intentionally. In the clean section there are 2 different tones on the double tracked guitar, the amp and effects used are the same, however they use 2 different pick up selections on the actual guitar. The track has a big dynamic shift into the clean section and has a very weird almost "jolty" section later in the track before the final chorus section.

In the live track, the track slowly builds up in dynamics, instrumentation and layering into the main chorus riff. This is to give the chorus riff way more emphasis when it hits. The track uses heavily layered guitars in the original mix so we have had to try to compensate for the by adding multiple guitars into the live performance and molding our tones to fill the dead space that is lost in the live version vs the studio version.

Week 10 entry: Reflection

liambenn67 — 2022-02-16 16:56:49 UTC

CPW rehearsal - Always on the run, Lenny kravitz.

liambenn67 — 2022-03-16 16:19:34 UTC

In this, I played the higher riff and the guitar solo.

CPW Performance - Exes and Ohs - Elle King

liambenn67 — 2022-03-16 16:27:20 UTC

CPW Performance - Always on the run, Lenny Kravitz

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 14:03:43 UTC

CPW performance 1 - Mountains, Biffy clyro

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 14:03:58 UTC

CPW rehearsal - Mountains, Biffy clyro

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 14:04:19 UTC

Totemist - Don't Kick It practice 1

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 14:12:09 UTC

Totemist - Don't Kick It practice 2

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 14:12:27 UTC

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 16:37:49 UTC

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 16:38:11 UTC

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 16:38:25 UTC

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 16:38:39 UTC

My research: Production techniques

liambenn67 — 2022-03-23 16:40:31 UTC

Levine, M., 2015. Periphery’s bassist/producer on recording drums, EQing, plug-ins and more. [online] Audiofanzine. Available at: [Accessed 13 April 2022].

Fumo, D., 2018. How to Record Djent in Your Home Studio. [online] Reverb. Available at: [Accessed 13 April 2022].

Mynett, M., 2009. Mixing Metal. [online] Soundonsound.com. Available at: [Accessed 13 April 2022].

Totemist rehearsal video + feedback

liambenn67 — 2022-04-07 10:18:23 UTC

This week we performed the cover of the totemist track to our tutor Liam Kearly, who also was the drummer who originally played on and wrote the track. Liam explained to us the issues with the speed at which we were playing the track, saying that we were playing it too fast up until the point where the lead guitar comes in. This he explained was probably due to a feeling of tension throughout the track causing us all to play it faster. We took this advice and played it slower at the right tempo and it helped massively in the improving the performance. He also gave me and Felix some advice on guitar tones and spoke about how our guitar tones were very similar to the point that it is hard to tell who is playing what part. We have changed this and tweaked our guitar sounds to give some better texturing to the track and allow the parts to be more distinguished.

Sleep royal blood practice

liambenn67 — 2022-04-07 10:26:05 UTC

This is a video of a rehearsal of Sleep by Royal Blood for Sal's summative performance.

Narrow head Hard to swallow live practice 1

liambenn67 — 2022-04-07 10:27:51 UTC

This is a video of a live runthrough of the track for lewis and jamie's summatives.

Hard to swallow narrowhead live video 2

liambenn67 — 2022-04-07 10:29:41 UTC

CPW performance 2 - Mountains, Biffy clyro

liambenn67 — 2022-04-07 10:36:11 UTC

Reece Mayhew original track practice video

liambenn67 — 2022-04-07 10:51:06 UTC

This is a rehearsal of Reece's original track that i am helping him out with. The first minute of the video is a lot of talking and waffling however the performance is still in the video.

Contents PDF

liambenn67 — 2022-04-12 13:33:20 UTC

Here is a PDF explaining week by week what is included in this multimedia development diary.

Reece final summative performance

liambenn67 — 2022-04-12 19:29:09 UTC