Flowers Evaluation.
Recording and producing Flowers was by far the most enjoyable part of Project 3 for me, Originally the track was supposed to feature Piano as the main melodic / rhythm driving instrument, however it was not possible to collaborate and record any Piano parts at a acceptable quality for use within the song, and I myself lack the playing skill to perform the Piano part myself, This was a shame as the original piano parts in the sections after each chorus and before the final chorus (Which can be heard in the original demo on the presentation page) really gave character to the track. However, with this lack of Piano being the case it presented me with an opportunity to be creative and see what I could come up with myself with the instruments available to me to fill this gap / role within the song.
This would be the first time for me recording parts myself for an original song, I have worked with covers and re-interpretations before but never something original, I used existing skills and understanding from music theory throughout the year, matched with my technical abilities on guitar / bass combined with Chantelle’s outline of the chords and structure used in the song, The end result featured an acoustic guitar, 2 electric tracks, a bass track and a solo track used effectively with controlled varied tones and panning to create a full sounding rhythm and lead instrument section in the song I was satisfied with.
This is the main logic project for the track (Pre Mix), You can see the drum tracks, bass & guitar tracks and the vocal tracks.
In terms of the production and mixing side, the first challenge I faced was creating convincing guitar and bass tones from within Logic Pro, I have a guitar amp but do not have a suitable mic to record it with so I had to adjust to using software amp simulation for all guitar work on this track, It took a lot of experimentation in creating my own settings and effect choices to get tones I was happy with but this was a fantastic learning process and start into the world of software amp simulation – Following on from producing this track I feel much more confident in recording and mixing my own or others guitar parts using a audio interface and a DAW then I did before the project.
The other main challenge in the production and mixing of this track was the vocals, Initial I was concerned that it was not going to be possible to get a high quality and clear sounding vocal with the lack of equipment involved and available, again however I was excited and impressed to find how powerful modern music technology is in its ability to shape and edit audio as required, The vocal tracks for Flowers were all recorded with standard mobile phone earphones (with mic) over a 3.5mm connection in a laptop! From the final mix making use of all 3 tracks and use of compression, equalisation & reverb I feel the end result of the vocal sound is more then acceptable all things considered, The trained ear / musician can for sure identify shortcomings in the vocals as a result of this low quality audio source, but in the final mix and to the general listener I think the quality is convincing and of a good standard.
The Mixer Window for Flowers (Pre Mix), You can see the effects used on each track including the equaliser shapes, varying volume levels for doubling vocals and fitting the whole track together
In terms of difficulties faced and areas for development with Flowers, More time could have been spent on my part learning and creating a guitar solo part for before the final chorus, the solo in the final track sounds great but feels very cut short as it is only 4 bars long, in hindsight a 8 or even 12-16 bar solo may have been more effective in breaking up the track before the final chorus.
Additionally, although as discussed I am pleased with the overall sound of the vocal tracks and the mix, I faced great difficulty compressing and volume levelling the different vocal parts and takes to sit right in the mix and be consistent throughout the track, Towards the end of the project I was demonstrated some new techniques and tools within Logic which I could have used to aid this issue – And will be sure to use them in the future, Track Stacks & Normalisation would have made this part of the mixing much simpler then I made it by splitting the track into many parts – It was good to experience this and learn a new way
The main Logic Project for the final mix of Flowers, you can see visually the difficulties discussed around the vocal tracks and getting them to fit together and with the rest of the song.
In conclusion I am pleased with how this song came out, The mix is good, and the track builds to a impactful final chorus and meaningful ending. It was a great experience in recording and shaping guitar tracks as well as dealing with audio from less then ideal sources.