Collaborative with Tyler

See technical roles collaborative project here

See Madison collaborative project here

/24/02/2025/

The above video is me and Tyler discussing the plan we have for our collaborative project. He explained what we're doing for the project as well as the goals and restrictions and I explained our 6 week plan to complete the project in time for it to be marketed for the gig at The Loft which would be an ideal time to market it to everyone. 

1st song - travelling (coming home and waiting) - 128bpm 

2nd song - cool tuning (moving house) - 95bpm 

3rd song - slow happy song (settling down and kids) - 70 bpm

- Song get slower over course of EP to show the idea of changing from a city to the countryside as well as the idea of settling down and being calmer and less hectic as you get older

1st song ideas:

G A C G x3 Verse 

G A7 Am G chorus 

- going back home and waiting at home; partners, married, just them, coming from city home to countryside - Road never ends; 100 miles and 24 hours to go

2nd song cool tuning:

Ebef#be - Esus2 

6 Week plan:

Week one: songwriting week - write all three songs. Use writing verses separately to make it easier (time and writing) 

Week two: ghost tracks/demo

Week 3 - main recordings 

Week 4 - overdubs and artist photos, get started on mixing

Week 5 - mixing (Tyler) 

Week 6 - sending to Ditto and marketing plan in line with loft gig 

Boombox.io  - Dropbox for musicians 

Restrictions:

Time

Money

Resources:

College studios

Logic (logic at home as well as I'll (Tyler) be mixing) 

Goals:

Have a 3 song ep (acoustically driven) released in time with the loft gig with time to access playlists to maximise listeners. 

Roles: 

Mixing - Tyler

Main guitar - Tyler

Marketing - Freya 

Week One (/negative one): (stuff above as well)

We've spent this first week focusing on the plan and getting used to being back at college as we just had our half term. Being worried about it, I spoke to Tyler about it and he said that it would be best to start week one/songwriting next week as we don't want to rush it. I agreed because I think that writing the songs is the most important part of the project and so we might even spend multiple weeks writing them to make sure that they are the best that they can be before we record them. 

Week Two: /04/03/2025/

Today, we had only half an hour to do anything and so managed to write a rough chorus for a song in about 10 minutes. I think it's still a bit clunky but I'm going to polish off what I've already written and then Tyler said he's going to record and send me the guitar part for the verses as then I'll be able to write my verse and he can write his verse and then we can bring them together and reel in any parts which are widely different to the rest of the song and don't fit. We have also started to consider other instruments that we can include as I think Tyler will be playing the guitar for us. I had the idea of including piano (which he liked) and I also thought about including some kind of violin which I still need to pitch to him. 

Week Three: /13/03/2025/

This week, we managed to write another two choruses for the other two songs. These are shown in the videos above. We also recorded the guitar for the verses of the songs so that we're able to work on them at home. In the video below, it shows us discussing what we've done and what we still need to do - for example, we haven't started the demos yet as we've yet to finish actually writing the songs. Also, something we added to the songs that wasn't originally intentional was that we sing together less in the first song than we do in the second song and so, for the third song, we decided to have us sing together the most out of all three to show a progression in the relationship between the two characters. 

Week Four: /17/03/2025/

Tyler has unfortunately caught whatever virus is going around and so isn't in this week. Because of this, it means we're unable to work together on anything for the collaborative project. Luckily, we recorded the guitar for all of the verses last week and so we have those which means we're going to focus on writing separately. Everything feels very pressured at the moment as we also have the Unplugged gig next week which I am trying to market better for we're struggling to sell tickets and I'm also doing my own marketing for my album and also recording with Madison for our collaborative project. This means we really need to get a move on and start recording the songs. 

I want to finish writing the songs this week so that we have them available for next week where we probably won't record much because of Unplugged but it might give us a chance to get some of the vocals done and possibly the demos of the songs. I am very nervous about all of this and I'm going to have to get Tyler to let us record as much as we can at home because it gives us much more time and flexibility where I think it'll be much easier to get things finished. I'm hoping that we'll be able to get this done the way we want to by the deadline. 

Week Five: /24/03/2025/

This is the week of Unplugged which means that it's unlikely we'll be able to get a huge amount finished. Luckily, all of the writing that we need to do now is the verses and so we're doing that from home. I used the videos Tyler made a couple weeks ago to write some of the verses. I wrote them in chronological order. I struggled with coming up with melodies and things and I believe it was because I struggled with the timing as everything I've ever written against has been very simple guitar playing (as I don't have a huge amount of ability on the guitar). To help with this, I wrote down ideas for lyrics so that I wouldn't have to think of those whilst writing the melody and could just sing the words (adjusting them as needed). This worked well but I just struggled too much with the verse for the second song and so Tyler rerecorded it with a metronome which made it much easier for me to write to as I had something that was simple that I could follow and I wrote the verse for this song in the same fashion with writing the lyrics beforehand. The third song was also written in this same way. 

I find all of the verses challenging to write because of the timing as well as the tempo on all of them being much slower than what I'd usually write to and I also kept putting it off and procrastinating writing the verses because I felt intimidated and didn't want to ruin the chorus with a rubbish verse (I felt especially intimidated for the second song as it's my favourite). After doing my album for my personal project, I've become better at dealing with procrastination and just doing things which is what I ultimately ended up doing for these three verses.

Week 6: /31/03/2025/

This week, we're recording everything and we have a collective 7 1/2 hours to do this as we have three hours today and 4 1/2 tomorrow. Tyler has also pointed out that if we don't finish all the vocals in this time, we are both able to record at home and so we can use that as a last resort. 

/02/04/2025/

We spent the last two days recording at college in C17. I think that it went well although I would've preferred to have achieved more than we did. We spent the first day (where we had three hours) working entirely on the guitar so I didn't contribute a huge amount on this day as Tyler was playing in the guitar but I did get more used to properly checking sound equipment and the mixer on Logic to make sure that nothing was clipping and so that was cool and I know it for future times. I also got more used to the idea of having "takes" on Logic. This is where you record over the top of another audio file/recording and, instead of it replacing it, it keeps both saved as separate takes - I've always avoided this as it's rather alien to me but I got more used to it from this. 

On the Monday, we managed to record just the guitar for the first song - the reason it took so long is because of setting up and then also the difficulty of the playing. It took around 40 minutes to set up (I tried my best to help but unfortunately, my lack of knowledge on different microphones meant I mainly carried stuff when needed and observed what Tyler was doing) and then Tyler struggled playing with the metronome because the guitar part happened to be INCREDIBLY syncopated. 

On the Tuesday (4 1/2 hours), we managed to get more done. I arrived 45 minutes into the session as I had a piano lesson from 11:25 but Tyler had started setting up. He had difficulty from the room being left in a bit of a mess from the previous session but we sorted it and he recorded the second song guitar. This took us up to lunch (12:45) where we went to have lunch and then returned to record the last guitar part. Originally, we planned to also record the bass but, because of time restraints, Tyler decided it would be better to just start recording my vocals as he would be able to record his on Thursday when he comes in again. 

The first song was difficult as I struggled with the timing and so Tyler sang with me through the talk button (he was in the control room) which helped hugely for the chorus. I managed to do my verse in one take with the exception of it taking a lot of times to get the beginning right as I wasn't coming in confidently or at the right time. It also took two or three takes to get the ending right where everything slows right down as I, again, struggled with the timing. Tyler dramatically dancing slowly through the window definitely helped me with this. 

The second song I found much easier and did it nearly perfectly in the first take, we did one more take as the first two lines were slightly out of time and we also decided to slightly change the melody at the end of my verse (it was cut short). The last song was completely unwritten verse wise as I had written a verse but to the wrong guitar part (to the chorus guitar) which I think was a communication problem as I asked him if it was the right part and he said that it was. I spent the last little while improvising a melody over the top of the actual verse and then we ran out of time and so Tyler recorded a video of me attempting a verse (of course the one time he records it, it's probably the worst one I did) so I could remember the basic gist of what to do and then I was going to record my vocals for the last song at home. The video is below.

Today, I listened to the rough recording and Tyler sent me over the guitar parts for the song. I put them into Bandlab and then just kept recording everything I did and kept doing it until I'd polished it enough that I was happy with it. I had about ten takes on Bandlab before I had two takes of a finished product that I liked.

/11/04/2025/

I've now finished my vocals and things for the EP. Tyler needed to still do the bass and so he borrowed my bass guitar for it. He said that he struggled with the third song due to it having a difficult rhythm to stay in time with. He said that he'll get the mixes to me by Sunday and then we can sort out everything to do with Ditto. We decided not to add any other instruments as it sounds best more stripped back.

/19/04/2025/

Today I edited the photos from the photoshoot that Tyler and I did on Wednesday with my brother who took the photos with my sister's camera. We took a lot of photos of me and Tyler sitting on a bench in a park. Originally, he wanted to sit on the floor by a tree but, due to the weather, it was too muddy and so we decided to use a bench instead. We followed a lot of my brother's direction and before we took photos, I told him about all three of the songs and what they're about and the overall feeling and journey of the EP. He took photos of us from the front looking in different directions but then he took some pictures from behind the bench and we all agreed that looked a lot better. However, the bench we were sitting on wasn't optimal as the sun was right in front of us meaning we were too much of a silhouette. Therefore, we moved to another bench where the sun was on our left instead and this also had the added advantage of more greenery in front of us for the photo. Here's a good picture from behind on the first bench:

Here's the top two photos from the other bench that my brother and I thought worked well for the EP cover:

I was conflicted between these two as the first one has my head more turned which I think looks better but the second one is lighter and makes it look more professional and aesthetic. My brother put the two photos into a square (Ditto requires the cover art to be an exact square) so I could compare that way.

This helped as it meant I could see how well/badly the photos fit into this form. My eventual decision was the lighter photo as the bench fits in more as well as the better and more professional look that I said about before. 

I put the photo onto my phone and edited it just using my gallery features as I knew it wouldn't need much and made it look like this:

I just added a small vignette and turned up the contrast and the saturation a little bit, I tinted it with a slightly warmer look and I messed with the brightness to make it look optimal. After this, I put it into an app I have on my phone (ibisPaint X) and added the text. This is shown below:

I've sent it to Tyler and I'm just waiting to hear his opinion. I also think he's struggling with the time he has to mix the tracks as he was originally going to get them done last Sunday (to my understanding) and then it was going to be finished yesterday and now he's said today instead. It needs to be finished by tomorrow at the very latest but I have faith that he'll get it finished in time because I know that he works hard and gets stuff done. He told me that he's struggling the most with the fact that he recorded the guitar through a DI as well as two microphones on the higher frets and the lower frets of the guitar which makes sense. 

/21/04/2025/

I have now set up the release on Ditto for the 30th of April (Tyler had the idea of it coming out at midnight after The Loft gig as to use it as a countdown to the release). We had some trouble with the mixes. He did get them to me on Saturday as he struggled with timing due to working a lot. This stressed me out as it felt last minute and I also wanted to have an opinion on the mixes and for them to be able to be changed and stuff. Once I listened to the mixes, which he sent across to me using Boom Box, I thought they were ok but had some notes and I definitely think that they were too sparse and it didn't sound right but it's too late by this point to change that now. Here's the message I sent him about my thoughts on the mixes:

He said that the muffled vocals was likely due to using a ribbon mic at college and The Climb vocals are better as I recorded them at home with a condenser microphone. He also struggled to know where my verse came in for The Climb which is my fault, I should've communicated better there so I sent him a recording of me singing my vocals with the guitar track so he knew where it was. He said he'd definitely fix everything else. 

He got the new versions to me the next day and it was quite late due to him using Devon for mastering and he was busy that day and so that stressed me out but it was ok because he got the masters to me and I had enough time to upload everything to Ditto. I added him as a primary artist and it should upload on both of our artist profiles - just to make sure, I emailed Ditto and they asked for our Artist IDs and so I sent our Spotify Artist IDs (they didn't specify) and hopefully they'll get back to me soon letting me know if it'll work. 

Also, I wanted to sort out the royalty splits and so I went to the release and to royalty splits and added him with 50% and put in his email but it didn't work. I was a bit worried but after sorting it out with the other EP I'm doing, I think we just need to wait for the release to be approved first. 

I also said to him that we need to do more for marketing and we're going to discuss it tomorrow in the lesson before lunch.

/22/04/2025/

With everything set up on Ditto, I spoke to Tyler about marketing and he used ChatGPT to make a basic 7-day marketing plan which we modified to fit how we wanted to do it and it included doing something every day until the release and this would also in turn help to promote The Loft gig as it's purpose is to promote everyone's releases. 

Here's the marketing plan we have: 

For our stories, we had a blurred picture of the EP cover with the date next to it and we tagged each other for the first day. For the second day, we recorded and uploaded a video (see video here) as a joint post. Doing it as a joint post had the added advantage of reaching more people as it joins our two followings which, although probably mostly the same people, will have some different people (e.g., Tyler has 171 followers and I have 140). 

For the other days, we're going to be uploading them as joint posts. 

/01/05/2025/

We had a bit more marketing in the lead up to The Loft but I think due to the busyness of The Loft and outside factors caused a lack of communication and so we didn't entirely stick to our marketing plan. We only really uploaded another video of Tyler playing through the guitar part of one of the songs and then I added text saying about the cover art reveal and had it kind of loop (see video here). 

We did our performance at The Loft and I think that it went pretty well. We only had the chance to practise together about once last week and so the rest of our practise would've been at home to the recorded tracks as we both had access to them. There were very few mistakes and I only forgot the words once which was mainly frustrating because it was my favourite song and have never forgotten the words before but oh well. I think it'd have been better if we'd rehearsed it more beforehand as it would've gone more smoothly. Something that went pretty well, however, was the talking as Tyler is quite confident at talking to an audience and so it was easy for me to bounce off of what he said and it made for some nice little bits in between the songs whilst he tuned his guitar each time. This also then made me much more confident at talking for when I did my own songs after our collaborative performance. A challenge I found that I wouldn't normally have was that I didn't have an instrument to hide behind and this was hard as I've never performed without an instrument before. Despite its challenges, I was also quite excited to do this as it meant I could hold the microphone more and be more expressive where I can't while playing a guitar so it was actually pretty fun. I was much more nervous than I had expected to be and my mouth went very dry and I felt quite shaky and I think this caused the mistakes that I made. 

Evaluation:

Overall, I think that we performed the songs well and our voices fit well together. This also doubles up as a negative thing because there were parts where we messed up (e.g., Tyler forgetting the words, me missing my cue for my verse) but I think as a general statement, the whole thing went pretty well and we gave off a good impression of our EP. I'm also very proud of the songs we managed to write together. When we first started, I was worried about how the songs would turn out as I didn't know how our two styles would mix or if we'd change completely and I really didn't know what to expect but I'm happy with what we came up with. We didn't end up including some of the things we spoke about earlier in the process such as changing the holiday spoken about in the lyrics for each chorus of the third song (The Climb); we kept the chorus the same throughout the song. Another thing that I had originally envisioned for this EP was having more instruments such as violin or piano or a drum kit but we ended up with simply vocals, guitar and bass. Although this isn't automatically a bad thing because I think that it fits well for the second song as the negative space is used really well by Tyler's guitar playing, I think that the EP would've benefited a lot from at least a drum kit and then preferably some strings or synths to bulk it up a bit more as it felt too empty on some parts. 

I also think that the recording process was more rushed and so we had good songs but then I don't think the recordings do them as much justice as I feel they deserve. In my opinion, the vocals would've turned out better if I'd been able to just record them at home. Although it was good experience to record them at college and Tyler's were recorded at college, his were on a different microphone that was much better suited for vocals than the one that I was using as mine ended up sounding much more muted than his which annoys me. Another advantage of me having recorded at home is that I'd been able to have a much more polished final take on the EP. To prove this, I recorded my vocals for the last song (The Climb) entirely at home and I'm much happier with those vocals apart from a bit in my verse where I go a bit all over the place and I think I'm flat. That was my fault, I sent Tyler two recordings so he could use the best bits but then didn't replace that bit with the better version in the other recording as I didn't specify. But there were multiple bits in the other two songs that I wish I could rerecord either due to bad tuning or tone or timing. 

Despite some blips, I think that our communication was pretty good and we were mostly on the same page for the duration of making this EP as we managed to get our bits and pieces finished in time. Although, I would've liked for him to have finished the mixing earlier so I could have had more time to think about the mixes and if we need to rerecord anything but I understand that because of how busy he was at the time, that would've been difficult. 

See performance here

See finished EP (Spotify)