Project Proposal
Production Project Files (80%)
Progress and Management Records (20%)
As I set out in my proposal, this project was to be a self produced solo album by myself, in a neo-folk/ alt genre. I chose this genre as it best fits the way I write songs, and the production style and techniques I tend to employ across my work.
The songwriting for this assignment began during the summer between second and third year, as I knew there was a lot to be done and I thought it important to get a head start. During this time I wrote around 10 songs from which I would choose the strongest options. To help myself decide which was best I recorded a demo track for each song (see appendix ), to later be developed when I had made my decision.
Once the year had started I set myself a plan to follow so that the assignment would be finished in time. (see appendix). The first stage of this plan was to build out each song as a sort of backing track first, before later sorting out the vocals. I chose to do this because at this time I was unsure whether I would use my own vocals, as they are not my strong suit, or if I would find someone who could track them for me. I decided that I would have to make my decision on this by January, so as to give myself time to find someone if I chose not to use my own voice.
During this first stage, my main focus was fleshing out instrumentation and structure, as I knew many parts of the album would be quite minimalist at times, and I wanted to ensure that these parts could work without being too bare. As I knew this would be a solo project, this limited my acoustic instrumentation to the instruments I can play, being guitar and piano, which meant a great deal of my time would be spent trying different ways of manipulating these instruments to get different timbres. This resulted in a few useful sounds, most of all the droning tremolo picking on my guitar which is used throughout the album.
After all the tracks had demos with instrumentation that I thought was fitting, it would be time for the recording. As the majority of tracking was to be done in the box, in my house, I needed only two studio sessions- both for piano in two different songs. These sessions took place on the 22nd of November 2025 and the 21st of April 2026. I was unable to find anyone to help me with these sessions so I made sure I had plenty of time to set up. I used a stereo pair of AKG C414s spaced evenly from the strings as I find these mics to work extremely well on pianos, giving clarity and warmth (Unfortunately my phone camera was broken during this time so I was unable to collect pictures). I used Logic Pro’s take-cycling feature to go from the control room to the piano and record takes without needing assistance.
All guitar tracking was done in my room using an AKG C214. As my room is not sound-treated, and even for a bedroom has quite a bad sound for recording in, I bought some sound panelling, which, alongside my bed sheet, would be used as shielding to help with background noise. As well as this, the space underneath my desk caused a lot of low frequency booming resonances, which I counteracted with another bed sheet covering this area. (see appendix). Though at this time I was unsure whether I’d use my vocals for the final recordings, I did use my vocals to help build parts of the track, as lots of my production choices involve using processed vocals for pads and instrumentation.
The final stage was to be mixing and mastering the tracks, which was to be done in my room, and two of my housemates rooms, so I could get different reference frames and ensure my mixes were consistent across different systems.
As the playing of instruments was entirely down to me, there was not much need for contingency planning in regards to other people’s schedules, with the exception being the possibility of me getting a vocalist. This meant that the only real contingency planning I had to do was myself ensuring that I stayed productive and working at the project.
Evaluation
The scope of this project was to create a modern-folk solo album in the box, highlighting the production style and instrumentation that represents me as an artist best, to a standard that is ready for release. I also had potential aims for being able to play songs from this album at gigs etc, if I found that I could make my voice work.
In some ways, I achieved these goals; I was able to showcase a good amount of what I feel is ‘my’ sound, and there are parts of the album I am proud of, however I would not say that this album is, as a whole item, ready for release. There are elements that I would say worked effectively, but much of the album sounds somewhat amateur. The main cause of this was a continued set of personal issues that affected my motivation throughout the year. From a project management perspective, this could have been mitigated by making this album with an amount of collaboration, so that I would have external, social motivation to stay on top of the work.
The aforementioned personal issues affected the plan I had set for myself; they meant that between the months of December and March I got very little done, which meant that I had to rush stages and didn’t have time for reflection on tracks that weren’t as well made as they could be. A way this could have been solved would be if I had set myself interim deadlines, whereby a certain track or stage of the process had to be finished, as opposed to my rough timeline.
For the most part, my methodology did not hinder the instrumentation I was able to use; with the exception of a couple tracks, I was happy with the choices of instruments and found they fit well. The exceptions being there were a few times that I thought a violin or cello would have been very useful.
When I started back up on the project, I set myself a new set of deadlines and rules, to ensure the project would be completed in time, which worked effectively given the circumstances. I knew it was too late to try and find a singer, as if I was unable to after a short time then I would be cutting things far too close. To help this problem I leaned into using techniques to help mask the bad vocal takes, such as pitch correction, vocal stacking, longer reverbs, and emphasising a musical style that is less vocal-focused.
My main regret with this project was that I was unable to spend the time needed mixing and mastering it, so it has lots of unpolished moments that do stand out quite strongly. The time constraint also meant that I couldn’t get vocal takes that were good enough for something that I would feel is worth releasing, as this is something that takes me a long time.
To summarise: there were many elements of my original vision that I feel I met well; the instrumentation and musicality of the album as a whole I feel represents me very well, and was effective. Despite this, due to in part my own planning, and in part circumstances out of my control, the album isn’t as polished and professional as I would have wanted. If I am to release this album, I will spend a good deal more time re-recording the vocals, if not getting a new vocalist, and leave myself proper time to undergo the mixing and mastering of each song. As well as this, I would probably record a different song or two, as on reflection I no longer think one of the tracks works well in the way that I produced it, and may be better suited to a different genre or style of production entirely.
