Budget

                                  Budget

Below there is the graph of the budgeting of the gig  that took place on the 20th of May in the college theatre. In the graph of the budgeting you can see how many tickets we sold and how much money we made from all of it. We also had to put down how much money the performers, sound engineer, lighting and box office staff should get and how much money we spent on the chalk and hooks.
In the graph you can also see the outcome of the profit that has been left.

Headline Fee

We decided to give the headline act the most amount of money of £100 as they are the main people in the gig because they are the performers and people only come to watch them and most of the tickets sales are sold because of the fans wanting to come see them playing live. The reason why we didn't give the more is because the they would be getting more money from their merchandise sales.

Support Fee

We decided together that the support act would be getting half of the amount of the headline ac which is £50 and the reason why is because they are not the main acts. People come to see everyone in the band but most of the people come see the main acts. But it doesn't mean they won't be making more money because there still the money of the merchandise

Sound Engineer

Next on the graph we have the sound engineer, lighting engineer and the box office staff and we decided together the sound engineer £30 which will be getting more money than the sound engineer and the box office staff and the reason why we are giving them more money is because in a live show one of the most important thing is the sound, because without a good sound engineer making sure every instrument can be heard and the singers can be heard, the event wouldn't go well because people wouldn't hear things properly and they wouldn't enjoy it.

Lighting Engineer

Next on the graph is the lighting engineer which will be getting £25. The main job of the lighting engineer is making sure that the people performing can be seen by the audience. Most of the time people want different lights for different songs so they need to make sure they change the lights for each song and sometimes people want the lights flashing and again they are the ones in charge of it.

 Box Office Staff

Next and last on the graph is the box office staff which will be getting the least amount of money of £15. The reason why is because their job is the easiest one, the only thing they will be doing is getting the money from the tickets, giving the tickets to the people buying it and giving them their change. All

they will need to know is maths, and that's why they are getting this amount.

Overall, we came out with a profit of £111,66 which is really good but that is not it, we also made money with the bar.

Understanding Technology

Understanding Technology

What is ‘equalisation’ and how has it changed the working process since the early days of studio recording and mixing? 

Equalization means adjusting (amplifies or reduces) the balance between frequency components of a frequency and about the EQ, what it does is to allow you to cut certain frequency components.

Types of EQ:

Fixed EQ: Fixed EQ: The Fixed EQ allows the engineer to boost or cut certain frequencies and where the Fixed EQ’s operates, the frequency can’t be change.

Parametric EQ: You’ll often find the parametric EQ on a more expensive mixer because this is a special type for equaliser and what is does it to allow the engineer to modify the centre frequency.

Graphic EQ: What it does is to control the dynamics of a sound wave, it can be cut and boosted separately.

What is the polar pattern called that the U47 used for recording vocals? What is the polar pattern of the other microphone that was used previously? Why do you think the directional ability of the U47 helped in the recording process in this particular case?

Identify 3 differences between using a software mixer (like the one in ‘Logic’) and a hardware mixing console (like the Audient ‘Zen’ mixing desk in the studios). 

• In the mixing console you have the options to add in plug-ins like (Eg. Reverb, echo, amp designer, EQs, Dynamics etc) and you can also add read, touch, write and latch.
• The hardware mixers normally has pre-amps in it.
• In Logic Pro you can add as many channels as you want and you also has the option of changing things to stereo or mono.

What does a DI box actually do? What other benefits are there in using DI boxes in the studio?

BSS AR 133 Active DI Box

If you are an instrumental player and you want to record your guitar, bass or keyboard, the easies way is by using the DI box
because all you will need to do is to connect the DI box cable into your instrument and whatever you play will be sent to the mixing console. The reason why the ID box is easier is because with it, you won't need to place a mic facing the amp so you can pick up sounds because the ID box will do the job.
With the DI box you can also cancel the microphone picking up other sounds in the recording.

If you were wanting to source a simple audio interface for your computer/laptop in order to record guitar and a vocal at the same time, what main features would it need to have?

Give 2 real-world examples of audio interfaces that would be suitable for this.

Focusrite Scarlet 2i2

Mbox Audio Interface

You would need an audio interface with two inputs so you could record the guitar and the audio at the same time.

One of the audio interfaces I would use to do is the Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 because it is easy to use or the Mbox Audio Interface which is also easy to use, specially for the people who owns the music software pro tools because this audio interface comes with it.

Roles & Evaluation - Major Music Project

Roles & Evaluation - Major Music Project

Each person in the class had their roles such as posters, promotion, pre release, marketing, tech, lighting etc. Everyone worked hard which made our gig more successful.

Roles - Playback (Summer Gig):

Poster - Bianca & Demver

Demver and I were in charge of making the poster/flayers and putting them around college, because that is the easiest way of getting people to come to your gig by putting them around college so people can see it and by giving the flayers to people outside college which helped to promote our gig to the public inside college and outside. 

I was the one in charge of making the poster itself, putting all the information needed and making sure the look of the poster would grab people's attention with colour, pictures and font. While I was doing that, Demver helped me to put the right details on it, like address, price of the tickets etc. After finishing up with Demver's help, we started putting some of the posters around college and some near the entrance and we did the same thing with the flayers.

Lighting - Demver, Darlene & Bianca

The lighting in a concert is very important just like any other role, because it helps creates contrast and mood, for example, if the band is playing a love song the put red and white lights which goes with it or if it's a up tempo song then put mixed colours flashing at some points but it excites people but if the singers doing a A Capella song, then just the while light would be enough because everyone would be focused on the singer but in my opinion in a gig if there's no lights, I wouldn't enjoy as much.

Darlene and Demver were in charge with the lights, and what they did was to go through the set and talk between them which lights then think we suitable for each song and what I did was to ask the people performing which colour of the lights they wanted on their original songs and then tell Demver and Darlene which helped. After doing that we made a list with each song and what colour of the lights we needed on each song.

Social Media - Le-Shaun & Caitlyn

Another way of promoting yourself or getting people to come to the place where you are going to perform is through the Internet, social media. By creating a social media promote, for example, making an event on Facebook and inviting all your friends, by tweeting people you know on twitter or even making an video on your youtube page if you subscribers asking for people to come and by doing that, you will get more people to come to your gig, specially with Facebook because most of your friends and family members use it.

What Le-Shaun and Caitlyn did was to make an event on Facebook with all the information about the gig location, price of tickets and time and then they put all the performers as hosts so we could invite people from our own friends on Facebook. Caitlyn and Le-Shaun and some of us also shared the Facebook event on Twitter.

Pre Release - Garnett

Garnett's roll was to write about all the information needed about the gig the time, locations, price of the tickets and some other details and all that information was put on Facebook and shared on Twitter. After getting all the information needed and putting them all together, he submitted in onto a document and posted it on a Press Association which made it available for the public to view because it was on the association site. That role is very important because it is another way of promoting your gig and making the details about the gig available for everyone to see days before the gig.

Strategic Marketing - Donavon & Yemisi

What Donavon and Yemisi did was to talk to each other and figure out a way to get more people to come to the gig we were putting together with college and what they did was simply to ask in person people they knew, friends, family and even some other people from college, some of us also did the same which helped to get more people to come.

Tech - Andre Shanice

Andre and Shanice was involved with the production students because the were the tech team, what they did was to work on the sound quality, for example, the sound check of each performer making sure each person in the bad could be heard or if any of the singers wanted reverb or any other effect on their vocals they did to tell them so they could talk to the tech team and again make sure it could be added and heard by everyone.

Visuals - Dar

Dar made a montage video of all of the 2nd years. She put together some of the videos she took last year and some she took this year of us and made into a montage video with us performing, rehearsing in class etc. In the video Dar also included some of our songs, such as Priorities by Kieran, Prisoner by Yemisi, her own song and Darlene's.

Link of the video: Westminster Kingsway College Music (Montage Video)

Evaluation
In my opinion the entire gig went really well because we all worked really hard. Every performer wanted to put on a great performance and we did because we were so ready it that we could perform them with our eyes closed and the most important thing, we all had good time. Everything went as planned and the idea of having the bar and the DJ set before the actual gig was a great a idea because everyone was having a good time.
We were all happy with the amount of people that came to the concert, even though most of the people there were from the music department.
The first song of the actual gig was 'Take Me Back' which was cover. It's a uptempo song and it was a really good idea to start with it because it got people listening and enjoying it.
We were most worried about the amount of people that would come, but at the end of the day were happy because a lot of people were there and we knew they enjoyed every song and the night and which got us really excited and happy with the results of the how successful the gig was.

Video Killed The Radio Star

Video Killed The Radio Star

The music industry has changed drastically throughout the years, before the radio came out people didn't have many ways of listening to music, they had to go either to the store buy the records or go to the actual concert to watch them live, but when the radio came out only people who had music could actually buy it because back then it was luxury and not many people could buy it.

And different from back then, now a days we have so many ways of listening to music because it is everywhere, in adverts, movies, television, video games, people playing inside train station, you can go to iTunes and and download digital copies and music videos legally or going to music shops and buying Cd's but there is also so many ways of download music illegally now a days when back then the only way they had to download illegal music was through Napster when it came out in 1999 but it shutdown in 2001.

But the music industry wasn't the only things that has changed, the music business and technology too. the music industry has changed so much because now, they make so much easier for us to hear new songs of all genres and countries. 

Back then people were worrying more about how the music sounded and making sure it sounded good than exposing it.

in 1877 was invited the Phonograph by Thomas Edison and after his invention that's when it all started out and what I mean by that is, before people couldn't listen to music if they weren't on place where the band/artist was performing but after the Phonograph being invented people started listening to music through a was cylinder, they just put the was cylinder in the phonograph and sound would come out from it but the only problem with the Phonograph was the price of it and not everyone back then could afford it, only the people with a good life style, people with money.

The first instrument where you could actually recording things was wax cylinder which came out after the phonograph being released. The bad thing about the was cylinder is that you couldn't listen to the record too many times or it would melts because it was made of wax.

The first website Napster that was created in 1999, was the first website where people around the world
could listen to songs, share it and download for free but the bad thing about this website is that it wasn't legal because people was listening to music and downloading it for free which is illegal and because of that, the court and shutdown Napster completely.
But now a days, there are so many legal ways where you can listen to music for free without having to pay, for example youtube, bandcamp, soundcloud, etc but there are also so many illegal websites where you can not just listen but also download music for free or convert videos to mp3 etc.
Now a days, the most used and popular legal website to download music is iTunes, and it came out in 2001 by Apple.

Apple did not just created a legal way of download music through the portable music player iTunes, it also created the first iPod months after iTunes being released and with the iPod you could finally listen to digital music and not having to bring a bunch of Cd's, tapes etc with you everywhere because all your music would be in the iPod. 
But Apple wasn't the only one creating portable media players, Sony and Samsung and many other brands also made their version of the iPod with different looks which is called Mp3 player and it does the same things as the iPod.

They way we listen to music now has changed so much from how people used to listen to music back, the technology has created so many advanced products and different way of listening to music. It all started with the Phonograph in 1877 but not everyone could buy it because of how expensive it was, the from Phonograph to radio which was cheaper and people could afford to buy it, then from Walkman (CD player) to iPods and Mp3 players. There are so many question of what is coming, what the technology is bring for us next.

Song 2 Production

We first started by choosing which song we were going to record, what instruments we were going to use. The song we decided to do was 'Future Father' which is an original song by one of the people in my group Harry and we also asked him which instruments he wanted and he decided he wanted piano playing the main melody, a electric guitar doing some picking and vocals.
Before we started doing any recording of his song we needed to set up all the equipments such as condenser, dynamic microphones, the instruments, DI box for the guitar and bass and putting the microphone stands in the right place.

Piano - With the Titan
Condenser Microphone (Above)

We decided that the first instrument we were going to start recording was the piano and Demver was the one playing it. Even though in the original piece the starting instrument is a acoustic guitar, Harry decided he wanted a piano instead so what me and my group did first was to lift the lid of the piano to get a better quality sound of it, then we got one of the mic stand for the Titan condenser microphone and then we set up the position of the microphone facing the string on the piano.

Piano - With SM57 Dynamic
Microphone (Underneath)

After setting up the first microphone for the piano we set up another one underneath the Piano was the SM57 Dynamic Microphone, and the reason why we decided to use two is because we wanted to see which of the mic and which angle/position is better to get a good sound quality of the piano.

JamHub

After setting up all the microphones for the recording of the piano we started setting up the headphones for the people who were recording so they could hear us in the studio and we could communicate with each other.

What we did after was to get the XLR (Female), we then plugged the jack into the input of the headphones port in the JamHub and plugged the XLR (Female) into the A input. After doing that we got the headphone we were going to use for the recording and plugged them into the JamHub headphone port.

After that we got the XLR (Male) cable of the SM57 Dynamic microphone and plugged it into input one and the for the Titan condenser microphone we plugged into input two. We were making notes of every input so we knew what was what, and to save time.

SM57 microphone for the
electric guitar.

Then the next thing we started doing was to set up the Electric guitar for me. Because I was just doing picking on the guitar, the group decided to get a DI Box, plug the electric guitar into it. The input is used for the electric guitar was input number 3.

Again we decided to record in two different ways, so we added the SM57 dynamic microphone facing the body of the electric guitar so we could get natural sound of the picking of the strings. Then we plugged the dynamic microphone into input four.

After discussing what song to do, which instruments to use, who to play, what microphones to use, where they should be and plugging them all into the right input. we started the recording of the instruments. 

The first one who started recording was Demver on the piano. Because we didn't know the song really well, we asked Harry what the tempo of the song was, which was 90bpm and to sing along while Demver was playing so we knew the structure of the song and by doing that we had to pushed down the button on the mixing desk which allowed him to hear us in the other room and Harry singing.

We tried about 3-4 times before we were actually comfortable with the song and when we got the right recording of the piano.

Next thing we started recording was me playing the guitar. The process of the recording of the electric guitar was the same as the piano. Took me about 5 minutes to start recording because I didn't know the song really well and I was trying to find the right sound on the amp to fit the track. After spending few minutes working out on the chords and notes we started the recording of the guitar, but the other people in the other room where the mixing desk was they had a few problems with no hearing the microphone but the problem was on the output on Logic but after sorting it out we started the recording of the guitar and after two tries it was done.

After recording the instruments, we started setting up everything for Harry to record his vocals.

The microphones we used were the Titan condenser microphone facing directly to him and the D6 just standing on the right side of the Titan. 

The Titan condenser microphone was plugged into input five and the other microphone was plugged into input six.

We didn't take too long to record Harry's vocals because it was his song so he knew the lyrics and the structure of it, and we recorded his vocals perfectly on the first try and the song was completed.

The Joy Of Disco

The Joy Of Disco

Disco

In the United States, Disco wasn't really accepted or taken seriously because it brought every gays,

lesbians, bisexuals and Africans together. It was not easy for these people back then when Disco came up because it was seen from the society as a mental illness. In their heads, people who liked disco weren't right in the head so they discriminated and judged them.

Disco came up in the 70's after the stonewall riots and Americans, Latinos, Africans and the LGBT community were the only ones back then that enjoyed Disco and they are the reason why Disco got so much fan based/popularity. Most of the underground clubs in American were all about Disco, people didn't care if the space were small. Because of its
energetic atmosphere and funky/groovy dance floor people fell in love with it and also because that was the only thing people who weren't treated equally could all relate to without worrying and enjoy themselves.
Disco music is also the reason why gay, lesbians and bisexuals have the freedom they have today, not having to worry about going to jail or not for enjoying it.

The reason why the stonewall riots happened is because homosexual people had enough of being treated like nothing, having no right to speak to defend themselves. being discriminated because they liked someone from the same sex and having to worry about going to jail or not, because if you were seen dancing with someone from the same sex would be put in jail.

the Gay community had a local underground club that was owned by Mafia who provided drugs, alcoholic drinks, and freedom for the homosexuals and black people to be who they are without worrying about people judging them.

The stonewall riots brought up Gay and Lesbians,  Transsexuals and Drag queens all in one place to fight for their freedom and equality. It happened in June 28th, 1969 in New York.

http://www.ehow.com/about_4571817_disco-facts.html
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8F-sfxQHEyCbjZRNHhGNVZMeU0/edit

Elements Of a Score

Sir Duke:

A. In this section of the score there's a D quaver note with a natural sign in front of it and because this piece is in the key of B, the D note will be sharpened but because of the natural sign in front of it the player will know he/she will have to play the D note in its natural state.

B. In this section the chord is a F minor 7th chord symbol and the notes in this chord are F, Ab, C and Eb.

C. In music theory, NC stands for 'No Chord' which means the person reading the score does not play a chord in this section of the piece.

D. In music theory, D.C. al Coda stands for 'Da Capo' which in Italian means 'Beginning' and when the player sees it in the score he/she will known they need to play something from the beginning of the music until they encounter a coda then skip to the next coda sign to continue.

Is She Not Passing Fair:

A. In this section of the sections there is a 'Brace' and what it does is to connect two or more musical staves together.

B. In this section there's 'MF' which stands for Mezzo Forte which in Italian means moderately loud but because there is a  crescendo sign, the player will have to play it much louder.

C. This is a slur which means the notes will be played as gesture.

D. This is a tie and what it does it to join notes together which means they have to be played as one note.

E. In this section there's 'PED.' which means the pianist have to use the sustain pedal while playing.

F. Colla parte follows the singer or the soloist, so for example if the singer changes tempo then the player needs to change tempo too.

Solo Performance Evaluation 2

Solo Performance Evaluation

Before I start practising any of my chosen songs, I first organise them so I know in which order I’ll be preforming them. I looked back at some of the songs I played in my first solo performance  and picked the strong ones which were ‘Caged Bird’ and ‘I Want You Here With Me’.
The reason why I picked Caged Bird is because that is one of my original songs that I know confidently with flair and also because from my first solo performance set, that is the only song where I am playing piano and I know I would have no problems with that, the only thing I need to do was to add melody lines to it. With 'I Want You Here With Me' the reason why I picked it for my second solo performance is because that's the only song where there's a backing track and a guitar solo which is what I am doing but most of what I am playing is just me improvising on the top of the backing track.
After deciding which songs from my first solo performance I was going to pick, I added two more songs to my set list which would make up to 18-20mins.
I carefully looked at my set list of songs that I performed and during the half term we had before my final solo performance I on a new set of songs that I wanted to add to the final set list. each day I worked closely on each section of the song so I could get the best of it in time for the concert and play by memory.

Like I said before, from the first solo performance list the songs I decided to play again was Caged Bird and I Wan You Here With Me. I also added to more songs to make it up to 18-20mins and the other two songs I picked was my very own composition which I was working during the week off before the solo performance and another called 'Superhero' which is an original from a friend of mine where I did a Keytar melody line in the original song, so that is why I decided to use it for my solo set performance.

Each day I took time practising my guitar and piano solos slowly to perfect it for the solo performance and by doing that I started by going through each section of each piece where I found it hard to play or wasn't too confident about it. I took the opportunity to go to my guitar teacher and go through some of the pieces i found difficult. my guitar teacher and i have been going through some of the techniques that can really improve some of the passages i find difficult and they have been really useful for me and in general as a musician. One of the useful things that i do to ensure i play correctly in time and in rhythm, i use a metronome to help me play in time.  Also, using a tuner is one of the most important aspects of a musician and i must always be in tune whenever i play any type of genre.

Microphones

1)  As a general guideline, it can be said that dynamic microphones are best suited for live sound work, and that condenser microphones are more suited for use in a recording studio. What do you think? Give technical and practical reasons for why this may, or may not, be a valid statement (include diagrams if necessary). 

Dynamic Microphone

  Dynamic microphones are the most common microphones used in live sound work/live performances. They are made of a Diaphragm, a magnet and a copper wire. The dynamic microphones are good because it can handle loud sounds, and it can be used for hours, it works fine with loud sounds and the Dynamic microphones doesn't need external power for it to work but the Dynamic microphone has to be connected to a pre-amp because it has a low  output level.

The design of the dynamic microphone is really simple but it has a really strong material because if you drop it, it wont completely break into pieces. Dynamic microphones are usually cardioid or hyper cardioid which means they will only capture sounds from on specific direction.

Condenser Microphone

Condenser microphones are usually found in recording studios and different front the dynamic microphones, they are more sensitive, have a higher output level than the dynamic and have greater high frequency response giving a clear sound for the recording. Different from the dynamic microphone, the condenser microphone  requires external power (phantom power) so that's why this type of mics are usually found in recording studios, because using them in a live performance would not be a good idea.

One of the bad things about the condenser microphone is that they are not ship at all and they are fragile and can break easily so that’t why you need to be careful when setting it up and while using it. 

2)  What are the three main polar patterns found on microphones?

 Describe the differences and give examples of how each could be used (based on your own experiences if possible). 

There are three different main polar patterns found on microphones and three of them, captures the sound in different ways, and they are:

Omni - The Omni is very different from the cardoid and the Bi-Direction, and the reason why is because it captures sound from all directions, front, back and sides. One good example of this microphone being used is when there's a group of singers performing together, best known as choir because not everybody can have their one microphone to sing on it so the Omni will be the best choice, because it will pick up all the choir singers and instruments.

Uni-Directional (Cardoid) - The cardoid which has the shape of a heart can only capture sounds from on direction, so something like a vocal line because the singer only sings in one direction which will be where the mic is. They'd be found in recording studios.

Bi-Directional - The Bi-directional which has the shape of an 8 can capture sounds from both front and back of its diaphragm and captures two focused sounds with some ambiance. This polar pattern is not really used like the other two. They can be found in a recording studio or while someones having an interview, because we'd capture both voices.

3)  Dynamic and condenser microphones are the two most commonly used type of microphone found in the studio. Can you name any other types? Include their basic technical features and how, or why, they might be used. 

Shotgun Microphone - The shotgun is a different microphone and usually used in films, interview, TV stuff and video production. They are really good to capture the frequencies the human voice produces. Different from the other mics, this microphone has a different shape because it is a long, cylindrical microphone and with microphones people normal hold them with their hands but this one will be attached to a long metal pole and the person holding it will have to follow the actor/actress if it's being used in a movie or just staying still if it's in a interview, the person holding it can't be more than three feet away or the audio will sound distant and they need to hold it high above the person's head where it doesn't appear on the cameras.
With this microphone, you won't have problems capturing the sound you need if you're outside and for example it is windy, because you can still capture the sound you need and the reason why is because this mic has a special fur material which preventing the wind, rain, etc from intruding the sounds/audio you want to capture.

4)  Give suggestions as to what you might use the following microphones for and explain your answer: 

Audix D6

The Audix D6 is the most common microphone used in recording studios or live recording environments. The D6 is used to pick up the bass drum on a drum kit, it picks up a clean attack sound of the kick drum. The D6 has also a Uni-directional pick up pattern which means that the mic will only pick up a focused sound, so you need to put it in the right place so it picks up the right sound.

SE Electronics Titan

The SE Electronics Titan are the most large-diaphragm condenser microphones which are great choices if they are being used in a recording studio to record a singer or an acoustic guitar. The Titan provides a clear sounds of vocals, it doesn’t distort and it will pick up any sound, it doesn't matter if the singer sings high or low.

Microtech Gefell M300 

The Microtech Gefell M300 are the best choices for recording instruments, for example, if you use it to record an acoustic guitar and put one of the mics pointing directly at the neck of the guitar and another one pointing directly at the body of the guitar you will get the sounds effects of the guitar when is being strummed or the fingers moving up and down. The M300 can be used in recording studios and also in live performances.

5)  When using microphones, why is a mic pre-amp necessary? What features would you expect to find on a professional pre-amp (either standalone or as a part of a mixing desk)? 

A pre-amp is necessary for a microphone because it gives to it a boost, because the output of a microphone is very low and without the use of the pre-amp, the microphone can't be heard. On a pre-amp, you can add reverb, it can add tone, change the EQ and change the gain.

Solo Performance Recording

Solo Performance Recording

Stage Box

The first thing I did before the recording was to set up the stage for the performer. To start off I asked the person who was going to perform what she would like to have on stage for her performance. The only things she asked for was a microphone  for herself and the one we used was 'Shure SM58' and also a piano for the accompanist of one of her songs because the other songs were A Capella and a backing track.

After asking the performer what she was going to need, I picked up a jack lead plug for the microphone so I could plug it into the stage box so I could send signal/sound to the mixing desk and record it onto Logic Pro. I made notes on my phone so I could remember which input the mic was in which was in input 1 on the stage box.

Mixing Desk

After completing all the setting up of the stage for the performer I went where the mixing desk and the laptop were and opened Logic pro, created a new file, add four new audio tracks then I saved the new project I was doing so the audio files being recorded would have somewhere to be saved to then I named each of the audio track so I could know which one was what and started setting up the channels for each of them, the vocals were on channel 1, the piano was on channel 9 and the backing track were on channel 15 & 16 and then set up the inputs for all of them.

After setting up all the channels & inputs for the instruments and backing track I pressed the 'Mute' button of the 4 channels being used so I could hear the instruments and vocals, I then turned up the 'Gain' button on the mixing desk to 60db but only for the vocals and the piano because it wasn't sending any sound to the mixing desk and while using the 'Line level channels' to turn up the volume of the instruments and vocals I looked at the meter to make sure both of them was reaching to '0'.

After that I used a stereo plug cable and plugged it into the headphone socket of the performer's phone so we could use the backing track for her performance, I then turned the the 'Line level channel' for the backing track to make sure we could hear it and also to make sure logic was receiving it.

After checking if everything was working perfectly which was, I pressed the 'R' button of each audio track so I could record them, I then asked the performer to sing one of her songs for few minutes so I could just check if Logic Pro was receiving all the sounds and if it was recording properly with enough volume sound and everything was fine. 

Techlog

Roland Gaia SH01 (Synth)

How have you been using it ?

• By pressing different keys you get a variety of different sounds and also effects.
• I've been messing around with the effects you can get from it, such as reverb, distortion, phaser, pitch shifter, delay with panning and tempo sync etc.
• Even though it has less keys than the other synth, with the Gaia you can change octaves with the octave key, you can transpose, you can change the pitch.

What are the limitations ?

With the Gaia you can't record or save sounds in it and different from the other synths, the Roland Gaia has much less keys than the other synthesisers, for example, the Roland Juno-6 or the Roland AX-Synth.

How could you use it effectively in performance ?
The Gaia can be used in any song, because even though it is a small synth it has a lot to offer, it has many songs that can be added in any part of a song and it can be used to add texture.

RC-5 (Loop Station)

How have you been using it ?

I've been using it to record different guitar parts, for example, the rhythm and then the melody. I also used it to record a bass line or even me just tapping/drumming on the guitar.

What are the limitations ?

• With the RC-5 if you record loads of sounds then you can't go back and choose which instruments you want to delete or re-record, you can only delete the previous sound.

• With this loop station you don't have the control of the instruments, if you record guitar, bass and then you tapping on the guitar and then you want to stop one of them, then you can't because you don't have the control of the sounds you are recording.

How could you use it effectively in performance ?
The RC-5 can be very helpful if you are doing a solo performance, for example, if you are guitarist and you are doing a solo performance, in the beginning you can just start by strumming the guitar, then adding a bass line to your song if you want, then do some tapping on the guitar body and then just adding a melody line on top of it. Any other instruments can use it for the same thing,