My plan for this week is to continue my topic research and build on ‘Sad Steph’.
Monday 30th March 2020
Worked on topic research. Scales and Intervals.
Tuesday 31st March 2020
Worked on topic research. Scales and intervals.
Thursday 2nd April 2020
From recording my melody onto Reaper last week. I spent today figuring out the facts of the song. And by that I mean the chords I used and what the bpm is/should be. Using an app to figure out the bpm of my melody. I used the tap function and it averaged at 55bpm.
PROBLEM SOLVING
I had to look up online what the guitar chord I was using they are I think I'm in the key of G. If I was using Logic I could highlight the chords and it would automatically tell me what the chord is.
Note of my use of chords:
Em, B5, G, B5 (x2)
Csus2, Em (octave higher) (x2)
I think I'm in the key of G.
Key of G : Gm, Am, Bm, C, m, Em, F#
RESEARCH
Compared to Ableton and Logic, Reaper does not come with many MIDI instruments.
So I had to research into free VSTs as I would like to incorperate piano into 'Sad Steph'.
This is a very useful website that links straight to free to use VSTs.
I'm mainly interested in piano and synth VSTs because I have a Fender amp that has loads of presets that can be altered, alongside having pedals.
PRACTICAL SKILL
Connecting my MIDI Keyboard and drum controller into Reaper. I followed my guitar chord progression.
So far everythign sounds raw. However, I want to keep this track simple with not too many layers. My hope is that ech track will have it's own space to breathe and shine, hopefuly, giving off a sad atmosphere.
Something that I didn't expect to try or come up with was vocals. From repeating the melody multiple times a vocal part kept popping up in my head. To not forget it I recorded it humming.
FEEDBACK
I had my first one-to-one with one of my lecturers. We now have a google docs document labeled: FMP Formative Feedback. This is for our lecturers to note any comments about the progress of our work. This is going to be valuable to me since having pointers and ideas thrown at me will keep me motivated.