May 8 - Tasks list

Task	What I’m at	What I need
Record the various parts for the song	Recorded just about everything except the melody. Want to experiment with additional parts if I have the time.	-transcribe the melody (almost done!) -record it (using this http://www.caseyrule.com/projects/piano/)
Mix all the parts	I just have all the parts slapped on the track right now	To have all the parts recorded so I can put them together properly
Adjust each part’s volume, stereo balance, etc.	I have some parts adjusted just for experimentation	All the parts mixed so I can mess around with each track’s volume :’)
Add sound effects	Nothing	Watch some tutorials on various sound effects in Audition
Time coordinate the tracks to make sure they line up properly	All the tracks are just mashed atop eachother – they play at the same time, but it’s not at the level of variation I want	Once I have all my tracks recorded, I’ll play around with the timing
Adjust pitch	I haven’t adjusted anything yet	Again I need all my parts recorded first! I will just experiment with pitches myself, since I’ve already learned how to do it (see previous genius hour post about the “Gorgeous” mix)
Create a visual demonstration (with audio bars) for my final presentation	Nothing	Search up tutorials on how to create audio bars
Make and upload the video	Nothing	The audio bars
Start writing and recording a new song (that’s actually my own) if I have the time	--	--
Mix that new song and also prepare it for presentation	--	--

 I'm working alone. The benefits of working alone, especially for a creative project like this, is that I get to control what the song sounds like-- maybe I wouldn't have liked the other person's ideas for how the song should sound, or the quality of their recordings. But I think it would have been nice to have been working with someone else on this who is maybe more knowledgeable in music than I am, since it's difficult for me to do much if my comfort zone is so small. If someone else could experiment alongside me, they might come up with something much better than mine sounds, and I could learn something from that. Working with someone else on creative projects can be great since you can feed ideas off each other. 

May 1st - problems I foresee and whether or not I still like genius hour?

What problems do I foresee and how can I solve them?

Right now I'm almost done recording all the parts for my song and I'm running into a couple of problems:

1. I can't record well using the MIDI program - the rhythm is slight off because it's hard to play quickly on the keyboard. I can get around this by recording small sections at a time and putting them together in Audition. 
2. I'm not good with putting together different types of instruments D: I just have violin right now, but I'm trying to incorporate some other sounds so it doesn't sound so stringy. I'll just have to keep experimenting. 

Do I still like genius hour?

YES! I really wish I had more time to do genius hour! To be honest whenever I finish my programming assignment I hop onto Audition to keep working on my song. I've never really done anything like this, with mixing my own music, and I'm having so much fun with it. I think it just opened up a completely new hobby potential for me. I'm still pretty bad at it, but I enjoy doing it nevertheless.