#production analysis

Song: Bad Girls Club- Falling in Reverse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzLZN1K-PUE

Chronologically

1. Sample of women laughing and talking

2. Synthesizer for intro and percussion

3. Ronnie Radke’s Vocals

4. Other voices for harmony

5. Different Synthesizer pattern

6. Electric Guitar 

7. Human drums

8. Synth bass line

9. Electric guitar

10. Electric bass 

These sounds repeat in patterns throughout the song to create the verses and the chorus.

11. Backtrack of Ronnie laughing at 1:44

12. Ronnie speaking before the bridge at 2:32

13. Sample of women chanting in unison at 2:43 that then repeats again at 2:55

14. Ronnie joining the chant at 2:49 that then repeats at 3:00

15. Sample of a woman saying Ronnie’s named and laughing with other women

Bad Girls Club- Falling in Reverse

Fashionably Late (2013)

Guitars, guitars, and more guitars. In the Eagles’ iconic “Hotel California,” the band uses multiple layers of guitars and melodies to create a dense musical texture. The song opens with two 12-string guitars playing similar, but not quite identical melodies. Underneath them, an electric bass plays one note per chord. It sounds like there is a little bit of maraca or shaker in the early measures. When the intro melody repeats, there is another guitar line playing, which is not as similar as the other two. There is also an acoustic guitar which is strumming single block chords. 

The vocals come in with “On a dark desert highway...” and the drums join them on this entry. There is reverb and compression on the vocals, and reverb on all of the instruments, except for the drums. The bass line changes here, and there’s an electric guitar playing chords. “There she stood in the doorway...” the second verse is mostly the same, except for the addition of another electric guitar harmony. 

“Welcome to the Hotel California...” is sung by 3 members of the band in harmony, with the background vocals also echoing the main melody. When they are not singing, an electric guitar is playing little melodies. This pattern remains the same throughout the entire chorus.

“Her mind was Tiffany-Twisted...” The electric guitars are still present and playing melodies in close harmony, while a 12-string guitar is added to the mix. The 12-string is playing single notes, and is very subtle. “So I called up the captain...” all of the guitars continue, and another electric guitar is added. We also hear high harmonies on the guitars and vocals. The second chorus follows the same pattern and instrumentation as the first. 

There is a moment of total silence before the fifth verse begins with “Mirrors on the ceiling...” The instrumentation of this verse differs from the rest in that it is the introduction being reprised, rather than the usual verse melodies. The instrumentation returns to normal, with more intensity, at “Last thing I remember...”

In the long guitar solo section, Joe Walsh and Don Felder play electric guitar solos, while the verse instrumentation continues underneath them. There are times when the other electric guitars support the solo melody. The song ends with the solos and instrumentation repeating and slowly fading out. 

Collaborators:

Sanita Lustika provided help with creating the model of the ship in Maya. I would say she received 5/5 for her contribution and knowledge of Maya.

In return, I provided her with copywriting services, since her project required a lot of text. I made sure that all the text fitted with the tone and point, was easily understandable, and was grammatically correct.

Code:

This is the bullet creation code which finally utilizes all the audio data.

IEnumerator SyncToAudio(List<float>[] pitchData,List<float>[] timbreData, List<double> startData,List<float> duraData,double time){         yield return pitchData;         yield return time;

//waits for those to be received         audio.PlayScheduled(time+3);

//some leeway before playing, in case of lag. time represents when the audio is ready to play                           for (int k = 1; k < startData.Count; k++){             float[] noise=Array.FindAll(pitchData[k].ToArray(), (float x) => x>0.6);

//some filtering of data             int nois=noise.Length;                         while (AudioSettings.dspTime < time+0.7+startData[k]) yield return 0; // wait till the desired dsptime             for(int i =0; i< pitchData[k].Count; i++){                 if(pitchData[k][i]>0.99){

After the conclusion of the project, I think that I have successfully achieved the project goal of creating a music-centred shmup game. I took the initial concept and determined the crucial elements of it, planned out how I would achieve those features, and created a game which included all those essential features. However, I also selected some features which would be desirable for my game, but not essential. In terms of those features, I did not successfully incorporate them into the planning at the initial stages; they were left to the end of the plan, and I did not end up completing those features. So, although I was able to correctly prioritize the tasks I needed to complete, I did not effectively manage my development time to include features that, though they were not crucial, were still important. I also did not pay enough attention to the graphical side of the game, either during planning or during development. In addition, I did not properly manage finding contributors for those tasks such as graphics which I had problems with on my own; only the spaceship model was created by a contributor. In a way, the lack of contributors was not accidental; particularly in terms of coding, I felt like I wanted to understand the whole game creation process, and if I had someone else help with code that would not happen. However, choosing to share aspects of the creation process with others should have been part of the process itself, and I did not emphasize that enough.

User testing for this project consisted of having participants play a version of the game, recording the session using the Silverback software. Participants were asked to complete tasks in the game, including a full playthrough of a short level. Some also uploaded music to the game, though not their own music, but tracks already on the system. All participants provided useful feedback about their experience. Some of the feedback was taken into consideration when working on the next playable iteration of the game. One of the comments on earlier versions of the game was that the user found the large amount of bullets overwhelming, and they were unable to complete the goal of shooting the notes in time with the music, which gives a higher score. Therefore, when working on the next iteration of the game, what Patterns in Game Design refers to as “illusionary rewards” were added – a line representing the threshold a “note” passes when it occurs in the song, and a visible effect on the note to show when shooting it would increase the player's score multiplier. The colour of the bullet's explosions also changes when it is shot “in time”. With these additions, players were more easily able to select targets, and most could explain the purpose of the “threshold” line without being told.

At the beginning of the project's development, one of the initial tasks once the concept had been finalized was to decide on what features were “essential” and what features were “desired”. Once these lists had been made, it was possible to create a plan for the project, where the essential features were ordered and prioritized. It was apparent that certain features could only be completed after others were finished, so the plan was designed with these stages built-in. Once they were achieved, the next stage would immediately be moved on to – the task would only be completed as much as it needed to move on to the next stage, and then it would be focused on later and polished.

The first stage once concept research had been completed was to create an initial “proof-of-concept” style prototype, which would interpret the data of a single track. This did not include code enabling analysis of external music tracks.

Stage two was refining that prototype, by developing the music interpretation and basic gameplay. Once both were at a satisfactory level, stage three was the development of the capacity to retrieve and analyse a track selected by the user, and then apply the gameplay and interpretation developed in stage two. At this stage, the graphics not connected to the music data would begin to be developed.