i’m running on a little under 5 hours of sleep. so i’m too exhausted to focus on working on my track. but i got some helpful advice from my peer group, and from a producer who follows me on instagram. so here are my to-dos for this weekend: 

1. lower volume of high hat

2. add reverb to drums

3. add OTT to bass and play with the 3 bands (started doing this a bit and def gives some oomph and roundness to the bass)

4.  clean up the bass and drums to be more in line with the 2nd lead (which would’ve been easier to do if my midi would record properly after the 3rd track)

and turns out the midi recording issue may be tied to my hardware, as suspected. it’s a nagging concern bc i don’t think my current workaround is sustainable and really adds extra time to my production process. but i’m too tired to think about it for now.

after a bit of a “breakthrough” on my track since yesterday, i was really happy to see this comment today on my loop from yesterday. this guy in my peer group is prob being nice but i’ll take it! this is exactly what i’d want ppl to feel from listening to music! 

day 16

we are more than halfway through the course! 

this is a pretty big departure from my first track's lofi-ish vibe, and it was fun to  experiment with a completely different style. i had 0 vision for the vibe or sounds for this track, and really had no idea what to make of my samples once they were in ableton so struggled with creating this WIP.  

the intro needs some work to make it sound less sparse/boring but my brain's tired! i wanted to try incorporating different samples hence the weird hod podge of sounds in the intro.

i am getting the hang of using ableton, and am feeling less frustrated. obv still lots to learn, but a lot of the slowness/emotional struggles have dissipated. 

can you make out my cat's unintentionally recorded meow? i transformed them into the bass lines that "respond" to the microwave beep melody. #catlady beatz!

also, i got a comment earlier on my first track. one of my peers had given some really awesome feedback, and then he commented again to say HE WAS HUMMING MY TRACK! so my track got stuck in his head. that is pretty cool for my track to be “sticky” with one person at least! 

just watched my video lessons on fx, automation, and layering and andrew’s real-time production process. 

i am feeling:

1. overwhelmed at how much i don’t know in how to create effects, how much i have to start experimenting to find the sounds that i like for my track, how much i have to learn/experimenting in order to actually become somewhat good at beatmaking if i end up (hopefully) continuing this after my course ends.

2. inspired at all the possibilities in creating sounds for a track

i spent most of today just learning and noting what techniques and ideas i want to try adding for my track. tomorrow i will actually work on my track.

i have a “beatspiration” spreadsheet i’ve been tracking on/off to note tracks i especially like, and which parts in the track that i want to eventually emulate. i started this spreadsheet a few years ago and now that i’m finally learning to create beats, i can put this to use!

i have some vague ideas in where i want to go with my track but it’s a matter of finding the right notes/melodies and executing them, and then adding the effects. i am hoping that the more i exercise this new skill and keep experimenting with new sounds and getting out of my comfort zone, i can hopefully get better, and the more technical stuff will come more easily to me. but i feel like that’s a far ways off. 

day 3! the “updated loop” sound file is my progress at the end of today.

while at work today, i was still feeling a bit discouraged and down about yesterday’s crappy outcome for my loop, and my negativity was compounded by the feeling of being worse than some of the more advanced students in my peer group. 

my good friend told me today that the only person i’m competing with is me, and all i have to do is be better than yesterday as my goal. reshaping my perspective this way was really uplifting for me, and a lot of the heavy negative mental burden went away. 

lofi hiphop playlist was playing in our office today, and jinsang’s affection (one of my first introductions to lofi years ago) came up. suddenly, i got some ideas jump out at me from the track, and i had to write them down on a sticky note in the midst of sketching out some website layouts for work. 

i got home a bit later after a work event, and immediately got to work on building out my track. i decided to start jamming at the piano first, and ideas came a lot quicker to me this way.

main changes:

-changed chord progression

-added bass

-changed melody

i def feel a lot better about where this track is headed now! and it’s been helpful to have very supportive people in my peer group who are giving me encouragement and advice on how to improve my track. 

the only frustrating thing is that ableton is having issues whenever i try to record a 4th midi track, so i’ve been having to export midi tracks as audio files, create a new project, and layer audio files with midi files and repeat due to technical difficulties with the midi recordings once i hit more than 3-4 tracks in my project. really frustrating and time consuming, and also hard to keep track of which audio recording has which midi tracks. dunno if it’s my computer that’s too old that it can’t handle it. not sure how sustainable this workaround is to endure the rest of the course. i could try going back to garageband, but features are def limited compared to the sounds/instruments i’ve been using on abelton.