Evaluation of practical task - Music production

As part of the diegetic soundtrack within our product, we decided to create our own music as not only could we have the exact soundtrack we wanted, we didn't need to worry about copyrights over the soundtrack as we made the track ourselves. Myself and Charley performed the piece and it was produced and edited by Amy and Tia. The song is called "living a lie" and as opposed to being parallel to the genre, we decided that a more upbeat track would make the conclusion to the particular scene seem more abrupt and would also sound more like something a teen girl would listen to when running.

 We started off by first being shown our way around the recording program by Charley's dad, who kindly lent us his studio and technical skills. And then went on to create a basic drum track which I could play along with as I can't keep time to a metronome which we realised after the first two hours of recording.

After creating the drum track, we went about recording the main guitar track for the song. This took some time but we eventually had the guitar track recorded to the standard we wanted and then set about recording the vocals.

Because we didn't have a vocal booth, a way in which we managed to reduce the background noise and vocal echos during recording, we ended up holding a duvet surrounding the microphone as a way of absorbing any vocal echos and as a shield to prevent any background noise coming from outside.

 After the first day of recording, Charley and her dad sat down together and created other backing tracks, including: bass, drums, secondary guitar, strings and a synthesized organ. On top of that, they created a harmony track which enabled me to have a vocal guide to help me harmonize with Charley's voice to make the whole recording sound neater.

The product we had at the end was then exported as an Mp3 file which we could later use as a compatible file format in imovie to use as the diegetic soundtrack for when the girl is running.

The lyrics and chord progressions for the song are:

Living A Lie

Verse    

I used to stay awake with you

Talking till two

I was in love with you

But you were blocking my view

And every single time you spoke

I couldn't cope

Never wanted to let go

But now I struggle with hello

Pre chorus

Just open your eyes

And you will see

Chorus

Now I'm flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day to day

I want to find you now

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie

Verse 2

Do you remember the time

You lay by my side

I couldn't call it then

Never thought that it would end

And every time you smiled at me

I could never believe

This was never meant to be

The end of you and me

Pre chorus 2

Please just open up your eyes

And look at me 

Chorus

Because I'm flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day 

I want to find you now 

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie

Middle 8

I wish that I had known

How much we had to grow

But it's okay

I was better alone anyway

Chorus

Now I'm flying 

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day

I am flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day

I want to find you now

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie

The chord progressions were:

Verse: Am, C, G, F x2
Pre chorus: G, F
chorus: C, Am, F, G, C, Am, F, Fm7

Middle 8: G, F, Am, G, G, F, Am, G

Day 4- Recording- Evaluation

After school on Wednesday the 6th of January, myself, Tia, Charley and Dave all went back to Charley's house to re-record the song that we had started recording. Prior to this date, Charley and Dave had both been working on practising their individual parts to the song as well as Dave practising and going over his solo on the guitar so that they were both well prepped for the evening and we could get the lyrics and melody down as quickly as possible.

When we arrived we set up the recording room again and Dave played the guitar track into the mic; it took a couple of takes but it was a big improvement on the last day. Charley then sang her part of the song; again we used the duvet behind the mic so that the sound was a better quality. Trying to find the right key proved to be quite difficult because we had all been singing it in different keys so it did get quite confusing however once Charley found the key that suited her voice well she managed to sing her part really well. Then it was Dave's turn to sing his parts and also the harmonies. To begin with he just sang the harmonies from memory listening to the backing track but once we put both Charley's and Dave's vocals together the harmonies weren't quite smooth enough and so Dave re-sang his part but this time we played Charley's part through his headphones so he could harmonise straight from hearing her part. This worked a lot better, even though some of the harmonies were still slightly off (but this was fixed just by turning Dave's harmonies down a little bit)

After the guitar and vocals were down, we were then able to add in other instruments like an electric guitar, strings, drums etc. which turned the ballad into a more upbeat song, ideal for running to. We were really pleased with the end result:

Filming Evaluation - Day Three - The Song

On Tuesday 29th December, Amy, Tia and David came to my house to record the song. They arrived at around 10:30 and we began straight away. Before this day, we prepared the lyrics of the song (written by Amy) and I worked out the chord progressions of the song with the help of my dad.
The song is as follows: 

Living A Lie

I used to stay awake with you

Talking till two

I was in love with you

But you were blocking my view

And every single time you spoke

I couldn't cope

Never wanted to let go

But now I struggle with hello

Just open your eyes 

And you will see

Now I'm flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day to day

I want to find you now

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye 

Cos we were living a lie

Do you remember the time

You lay by my side

I couldn't call it then

Never thought that it would end

And every time you smiled at me

I could never believe

This was never meant to be

The end of you and me

Please just open up your eyes

And look at me 

Because I'm flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day 

I want to find you now 

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie

I wish that I had known

How much we had to grow

But it's okay

I was better alone anyway

Now I'm flying 

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day

I am flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day

I want to find you now

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie

We decided David could play the guitar on the track as well as singing, so he was given the task to practise and perfect playing the song on the guitar, as well as learning what to sing with it. 
However, when it came to the day, David had not properly learnt the song and we had been unable to practise and perform it together due to time constraints and so we spent longer than we should have done on simply recording a reference track on which to base the rest of the composition of the song. This left us with quite a large problem, as we did not use our time efficiently and as a result we did not record enough audio to be able to create the song. 
All four of us underestimated just how long it would take to record and mix the song, and so we spent quite some time dawdling and not making efficient use of our time. 
In the day, we were able to record my vocals, the guitar and David's vocals as well as creating a drum track to go alongside it. However, David's vocals are unusable as we have decided to instead use harmonies in the duet parts of the song. This means that we will need to schedule another date to record the extra parts of the song, and this will give us time to properly rehearse the song before we record the final audio. 
Tia did most of the mixing of the song on the day and my dad instructed her on how to use the software (Sonar X3). 

Filming Evaluation - Day Three - The Song

On the 28th December 2015, we met up at Charley's house at 10am. From then on, we were rehearsing and practicing the song in which we had written and composed together. The song would be used during the running scene, as I would be running to it. The lyrics are:

Song lyrics for 'Living a Lie'

I used to stay awake with you

Talking till two

I was in love with you

But you were blocking my view

And every single time you spoke

I couldn't cope

Never wanted to let go

But now I struggle with hello

Just open your eyes 

And you will see

Now I'm flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day to day

I want to find you now

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye 

Cos we were living a lie

Do you remember the time

You lay by my side

I couldn't call it then

Never thought that it would end

And every time you smiled at me

I could never believe

This was never meant to be

The end of you and me

Please just open up your eyes

And look at me 

Because I'm flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day 

I want to find you now 

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie

I wish that I had known

How much we had to grow

But it's okay

I was better alone anyway

Now I'm flying 

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day

I am flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day

I want to find you now

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie

In our group, we were lucky to have the talented musicians, Charley and David. They could both sing and play guitar, and coincidentally, Charley's dad was an amateur music producer, having the appropriate software, skills and equipment necessary to assist us in the recording and production of our song.

After David arrived a little later than planned, we had already ran through the song multiple times and were ready to get straight in. Unfortunately, David didn't know the song as well as we had hoped, so the majority of the morning was spent teaching him how the vocals and chords go. 

Whilst Amy and Charley were teaching David and ensuring he knows it perfectly, Charley's dad, Guy, was teaching me how to use the software, Sonar X3 Studios.

This was a very exciting opportunity as I knew exactly what to do and so we could get on with it. Charley and David started with warming up their vocals by doing some simple practices. Then, we had to record a reference track, which would enable us to fit the lyrics precisely with the tune, and also re-record parts of the song if there were areas which didn't sound too good. David got his guitar and ran through the song a few times with Charley until he knew exactly what he was doing. This took a long time to do, as David didn't know the song as well as we thought he did, but this meant that Amy and I could re-watch our footage and check we had everything, also it enabled us to run through the software and ensure that we could use it accurately.

Once we had the reference track, Guy taught me how to add some more instruments onto the track, so that it sounded more like a professional track. This added depth to the song and made it sound more realistic as a professional song. We also experimented with the tempo, until it was accurate, which ended up being 115.00, with the timing of 4/4. 

In Guy's recording room, it was similar to a study, so that meant that it was not sound proof. Charley lives near a main road, meaning that there was a lot of background noise which we wanted to eliminate. We ended up using Charley's duvet to hold around the microphone, so the background noise would be blocked out. This worked effectively but was very tiring to hold up! 
Charley recorded her part first, as this meant that David would be able to listen to Charley's recording and harmonise to her. After we had recorded all of the lyrics, and the guitar, we put them together and listened back to it. Unfortunately, it wasn't at the standard that we were hoping. Charley and Guy re-recorded her part in an attempt to fix the song, but it was unsuccessful, after working on it for a full day, we decided to go home and think about how we could improve it.

We planned to go back to Charley's house after school on Wednesday 6th January, so that we could re-record the necessary sections. This time, we hoped that they both knew the song perfectly, but there were still a few tweaks in Davids vocals that needed adapting. Again, the beginning of the session was used going over the song, but granted, this was partly because we were waiting for Guy to finish work in order for us to go into the recording room. 
This time, we knew what we needed to do so we worked more efficiently and managed to get everything re-recorded. That was all we needed to do, as Guy was walking Charley through how to use the software so she didn't need us to be there for the editing process of the song. Overall, although we were limited for time as it was a school night, we worked better than we did on the initial day, which could be due to the fact that we knew exactly what we needed to do and how we were going to do it.

Filming Evaluation- Song- Day Three

Filming Evaluation- Song- Day Three

For the beginning of our opening, we have planned for a girl to be jogging to some music in her headphones in the woods. We discussed this and thought for it to be realistic, she would probably be jogging to a current pop track, however we aren't allowed to use copy-righted music. We researched some uncopy-righted music and there weren't any that a typical 16 year old girl would be listening to so we decided that to make the opening more legitimate and also to show more skill, we could record our own song which would avoid any copy-right issues; a lot of films also have pop soundtracks that they use during the film and then release as a single. 

Charley and Dave can both sing (and play the guitar) and we experimented firstly just having them sing individually and then choose one of them to sing the track, but then they sang together and the tones of each of their voices really complemented each other. We also thought that having and male and female voice could represent the male killer and the female victim. 

The next thing we had to do was write a song and this was probably the most problematic bit we faced because none of us had written a song before. The group kind of ignored this issue for a while until it came down to a few days before we were breaking up for Christmas and we realised we still didn't have a song. Myself, Charley and Tia tried to write a song during one of our free periods but we only came up with a first verse and chorus and we didn't think we'd be able to fit guitar chords with it. So one evening I came up with a set of lyrics for a pop song and with it a basic tune. I then recorded it and sent it to the group. We all agreed that we would just have to work with what we had and just rely on the production of the track to make it sound really good.

Charley's dad has a recording room in their house with instruments, microphones and computer software to mix songs, therefore we all met at Charley's house at 10.00am (Dave was late again) and we firstly just went over the song briefly and then discussed what we had to do that day. Unfortunately, we had to keep changing parts of the tune and so this made it hard for Dave because he wasn't too familiar with the chords or lyrics at the beginning so this took up a lot of time. 

Dave has has more experience playing the guitar than Charley so he played the tune into the microphone. First of all we had to record a reference track which was just going to be used to get our timings right and for Charley and Dave to sing to. Guy (Charley's dad) taught Tia how to use the Sony software so she was working the computer whilst Dave was playing the guitar. It took a long time to get it right though so if we were to do this again, we would have ensured that Dave had fully learnt the chords before the day so it would have been quicker. Once we had the reference track down, Tia was able to add some percussion onto the track to give it a heavier beat and this also made it more of a pop track and less acoustic so it was more ideal for someone to be running to. After finding the right drum beats and also the correct tempo, Charley and Dave were then needed to record some lyrics.

Because we were just working in a house, to sound-proof the area in which they were both singing into and to avoid getting any interference or background noise, we used Charley's duvet and held it in a semi-circle around the microphone and the person singing into it. Charley was up first because then Dave would be able to have Charley singing through the headphones and he would be able to harmonise to it. After having worked out who was singing which parts of the song, Charley sang the first two verses and then up to the end of the chorus. We then put that onto the track and then it was Dave's turn to harmonise with Charley. He then recorded the pre-chorus and the chorus along with Charley and the next two verses. After putting them together and listening to them back with the track, it sounded okay but it wasn't at the level that we wanted it. Charley decided to re-record her part but it was still out of time. By this point it was about 6:00pm and we had been going for about 8 hours straight so we had to call it a day. We hadn't finished recording the whole song with both the guitar chords (because we needed to record the bridge) and the lyrics and we also weren't happy with what we had done. Therefore, we have decided to meet after school on Wednesday to start again and re-record everything and both Charley and Dave have agreed that they will learn the song inside out so that we can maximise time on Wednesday. This day wasn't a complete waste of time because it showed us that we really need to know the song and it's also given us new ideas for when we rerecord. The mistakes we made yesterday have taught us a lesson and hopefully we will be able to record the song more quickly and more effectively, giving a better result and track to work with for editing our opening. 

Song lyrics for 'Living a Lie'

I used to stay awake with you

Talking till two

I was in love with you

But you were blocking my view

And every single time you spoke

I couldn't cope

Never wanted to let go

But now I struggle with hello

Just open your eyes 

And you will see

Now I'm flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day to day

I want to find you now

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye 

Cos we were living a lie

Do you remember the time

You lay by my side

I couldn't call it then

Never thought that it would end

And every time you smiled at me

I could never believe

This was never meant to be

The end of you and me

Please just open up your eyes

And look at me 

Because I'm flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day 

I want to find you now 

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie

I wish that I had known

How much we had to grow

But it's okay

I was better alone anyway

Now I'm flying 

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day

I am flying

And I'm not crying

I'm living my life

Day by day

I want to find you now

Some place, some where, some how

I need to say goodbye

Cos we were living a lie