Recording sessions:

To begin with, I had to find the right tempo for all of my tracks, as I was playing along to a metronome- so I sent all of my song titles with the tempos on it to Mr Clark in an email.

In the first session, I began by playing Crazy Eyes on the guitar to the metronome. As my guitar is just an acoustic and not an electro/ acoustic, I had to record my guitar through a mic. We had to test which part of the guitar sounded best with the mic in front of it. The best part to have the mic turned out to be in front of the lower neck of the guitar. This place the guitar sounded whole and had a nice ring. Before I recorded the guitar I needed to check the levels and look out for the green light so that I knew that it wouldn’t be too loud or sound messy (crackly).

The guitar to crazy eyes has both strumming and picking - Picking in the verses and strumming in the chorus'. I took three guitar takes of crazy eyes so that I could listen back and see which one I played best in. I went wrong in a couple of the takes, however, Mr Clark said that it was okay because he will go through and edit them, overlaping my mistakes with other takes we have done which I hadnt made a mistake on; this will make the song sound more professional and not ammature.

I then took another three takes of the vocals of crazy eyes. Me and Mr Clark decided to double up my voice as it is a trick which people use in the music industry to make the singers voice sound stronger and more whole, giving it more power. Once my voice was all doubled up, Mr Clark edeited the song, however, there is a guitar mistake near to the beginning which has not been overlapped.

Next I recorded my song called 'Hippy Girl'. I set up the recording equiptment in the same way. Most of the song is picked on the guitar, so this one is a disaster if I was to go wrong near to the end... Which is what happened. Once I had gone wrong one time- I kept going wrong in all of my other takes of this song. I ended up taking quite a few takes of this song so that I had definitely covered all of the guitar parts right so that Mr Clark could mix them together and cut out any mistakes. After recording the guitar to this song, I felt that I had wasted quite a lot of time! (almost half of a lesson!) which is valuable time in a recording studio.

A couple of weeks later when I stayed after school to record the vocals of the song, I realised that I wrote 'Hippy Girl' when I was 12 years old and some of the lyrics were really cheesy. After having a funny conversation with Mr Clark about the lyrics of the song we came to a decision that I should go home and think of some alternate lyrics for the song.

I went home and tried to figure out some lyrics, however it was a lot harder than it seemed and I had a terrible case of writers block! I decided to get rid of the song 'Hippy Girl' on the album.

After deciding to get rid of 'Hippy Girl' I recorded my next song which is called 'James Bond'. I wrote James Bond for my best friend named Elizabeth. The song is basically about me being there for her whenever she needs me and how she'd always do the same. The song is based on nature and has a few personal jokes in there as well. Again, I recorded the guitar first, the song is mainly strumming a particular riff but has finger picking in the very beginning. I took quite a few versions of this song on the guitar as after school, the orchestra was playing and I was able to hear them in the back ground as I was listening back to the recordings, so every time they stopped and had a break I tried to quickly record the song... But obviously this plan wasnt the best. It resuted in me getting quite frustrated about the orchestra and playing badly.

When I had finally finished recording the guitar for 'James Bond' I could take a few versions of the vocals. I tried to use variation in my voice on the vocal takes so that I had a lot of choice when listening back to see what sounded good and what needed improving or just cutting out so that I could mix and match what sounded good and put them all into one song. With this song all recorded I saved it into its own file and left for Mr Clark to equalise and add effects.

There was no major problems with this song and I was quite pleased with the outcome. Again, Mr Clark doubled up my voice to make it sound whole and more professional, however, in this song you can tell that there are two voices as both the takes are not the same. In some parts of the song, the doubled voice sounds good, however, not in all of the song. There are parts where it doesnt sound good with both of the voices as there is a little bit of a clash between what I have done with the two vocal takes.

Next we recorded my song named 'Who'd've knew' - Awful English I know, but oh well. I also wrote this song a couple of years ago so that probably explains the incorrect language. I have recorded this song before in the school studio, which I did in one take (one guitar and one vocal) so I had competition... With myself. Also when I recorded this song before Kye Voice, a member of the 6th form played the violin along over the top of the record and edited it for me- this sounded really good. So this time I had to make the song sound even better.

When it came down to recording the vocals for this song I had a cold, so my voice didnt sound very up to scratch, although I did try. I was very disappointed by this as my guitar takes werent as good either. I had to take a lot of takes of both my voice and the guitar, also no other instruments were added in the amount of time that we had. Therefore the version of 'Who'd've knew' was a lot better the last time I recorded it. With this song fully recorded, we took the best guitar take and again doubled up the vocals.

In a double lesson of music I recorded my song named 'Numb' - again this is another personal experience I have written about which means a lot to me so I really wanted this one to sound good- as I did with all the others.

The riff for this song is based around the C chord with the capo on the second fret. By accident, when I recorded the guitar first, I recorded the guitar with the capo on the 4th fret. Obviously, when I came to recording the vocals, it was very high and I realized when it came down to me doing the harmony, the high notes might prove to be too high for my range. However, again in the time we had to record all of this, I didnt have enough time to record the harmony, so that wasnt an issue (although I was very dissapointed).

Finally, I recorded my song named 'Done' which was quite ironic to end on. Openig up a new file I recorded the guitar first, setting up as usual with the mic placed in front of the strings near the lower neck of the guitar. I took around 7 guitar takes as this song is very short so I had some time to get it right and also there is a lot of picking in this song so a lot of takes would cover the mistakes I had made when Mr Clark mixes the song.

The lyrics to this song were really carefully thought of from yet another personal experience that I have written about. So whilst singing it, I tried to ensure that I did the song justice. However, as there were music exams happening in the music block at that time, the studio is connected to A3, the recital hall, so I was not allowed to record with the lights on so that I didnt distract the students who were having exams. This was really weird as I was stood singing in the dark, but this created a mellow mood which was actually quite nice.

Again with this song, my voice was doubled up to the sound of my guitar with no other instruments added.

Things I would change: Next time I record a song or album, to ensure that I have enough time to add other instruments, harmony and edit my voice and guitar, I will use my time in the studio more wisely. I will do this by setting myself a time limit for each song and stay after school if I exceed this limit. Although I did this (stay after school), it was at a late stage and as my exams were coming up I couldnt stay many other nights after the couple that I did. Next time I will ensure that I am completely organised with my time keeping of all of the songs and be absolutely sure of which songs are going on the album.

Also, if I had more time, I would re-do the vocals, so that there was no need to double up my voice as to me sometimes it didnt work and it makes all of my songs sound similar and I would like all of the songs to have different qualities about them. I could make these different qualities by adding other instruments such as the violin or bongo drums.

I would also begin to record earlier so that I gave myself more time to get the songs perfect instead of having songs which I am not completely happy about.

Overall, I think that the final product is good... However, I am really dissapointed that it is only me who features in the CD as I was desperate to add other instruments in to my songs to make them sound original and I also had lots of ideas. Although I do think that for my first CD it is nice and something I can keep forever.

I hope to come back to school when my exams are over and adjust my songs and re record some things and finally when I am happy with the CD, I will sell it on iTunes and at school.