Final Evaluation.
For Units five and six, I was tasked with creating a song and a music video to go with it. I knew this would be a great opportunity to have some fun with my music and really take my time to learn about the more technical side of music. One of my favourite aspects of this assignment was the collaborative part. Working alongside my band and friends has been amazing since we all have our own strengths and use them to help each other out. Adding on to this, I appreciated that the teachers were open to helping us out in the studio if we were stuck technically, it's that support that I think kept me from panicking too much throughout so I'm very thankful for the continued advice. I also really enjoyed trying out the role of a sound 'engineer' within the studio. I would help set up all the mics and equipment in the recording room which will clearly be a helpful skill in the future should I decide to release and record more songs. Aside from the more practical part, another highlight was recording footage for the music video. I found myself filming a lot of the different shots and experimenting with angles and movement. This was something completely new to me as I've never done any filming before so it was great and definitely something I'd like to try again in the future.
Despite all these amazing aspects, there were moments I found this work stressful. For example, in the beginning of using the studio, we often ran into technical issues which, no matter how much we tried, we couldn't seem to resolve. This definitely put us behind schedule a bit but we were lucky that the teachers and some second year students often helped us out. We also made the mistake of not recording drums first due to our drummer being away. We jumped straight in with the guitar parts but then found it extremely difficult to sync our drums up to it afterwards. This made us waste a lot of time getting the timing right so next time I think we'll need a bit more practice and to have a clear recording order planned. Finally, one last final issue I found I struggled with personally was editing the music video. I had made the assumption this would be the easiest part of the assignment and left it until the last minute. It ended up taking much longer than I assumed and I became very stressed out. Similar to my other points, I think most of this could've been avoided had I planned out my work better. Next time, I am going to ensure I have a clear idea of what exactly I'm doing before I begin to make sure it all goes as smoothly as possible.
Personally, I found these two Units to be the most challenging yet. With such a small timeframe as well as so much to do, I found myself struggling with getting everything handed in as well as ensuring it was all up to my expectations. Despite all the stress however, I did enjoy. I feel I've learnt so much more in these two Units and it's significantly bettered my understanding of Logic. Although it was time-consuming, I was very interested in the recording side of everything and learning just how much a song can change with it's mix. I also didn't realise how important double-tracking for vocals was initially but I soon discovered it added a lot of depth that was needed to the song. I've also loved having the opportunity to use a professional studio and experiment with our own sounds and settings throughout. When it came to editing, although it was stressful, I found it extremely interesting and even began to experiment with some video effects and this is something I'd definitely like to play around with more in the future. Overall, I think the creation of the song 'Memory' as well as its music video has been a really fun experience and it's given me a bit more insight into what it's like to be a professional musician.