Speech Evaluation

Well, considering that I have now completed my presentation for this project, the last thing that I have left to do is to complete my evaluation for my presentation. Might as well run through what I was graded on. Considering that there are five categories to be graded on, I will grade each category 6 out of 30 points. 

The first category is that is must be four to five minutes. I have done practice runs several times, and that are all between 4:40 and 5:00. Though I don't know how long I talked for, considering there didn't seem to be any big delays during the presentation to drag it on, I am pretty sure that my speech was around 5 minutes long. I'm going to give myself a full 6/6 for this one. 

The next category was visual component. This seems to be split into "Presentation" and weather it drove the presentation or not. Well, I did have a presentation, so that's a couple of points there. However, I also felt like my presentation wasn't as good as it could have been. This was partly because the presentation that I used was not my first: I had completed a presentation on prezi that I couldn’t use because I realized that you cannot import audio files into prezi. Aside form that, though, I think I did well and I don't think the presentation drove the presentation. I give myself a 5.5/6

The category after that is “content,” which is split into several different subcategories. The first category “inspire through your passion,” was pretty difficult for me to do, one can only record a song if they play an instrument, which I’m pretty sure not most of the audience could do. However, I did get some applause after I finished recording my song, and I could see a person bobbing their head to the song, so that’s one person. Ultimatley, though, I feel like I wasn’t abe to inspire that many people. However, I did have a very clear product (My song, or the 30-second clip used), I felt like I showed a pretty clear process, and I felt like my purpose was really clear. As such, I give myself a 5/6 for this category.

I felt as though my organization was pretty solid. The fact that I started clearly and managed to show my purpose at the beginning and the end I felt helped really get the message across. I also feel like I did a good job transitioning form slide to slide. Overall, 6/6

For my delivery, I felt like it could have used some work. For one, unlike some other people, I used notecards when presenting. I decided to use notecards because I didn’t want to just stand there, doing nothing because I forgot what I was going to say. However, I feel like I might have used these notecards a little too much when presenting. In addition, I also felt like I made lots of speaking mistakes, and said things such as “um” and stuttered a lot. I felt like this detrected from my presentation a lot. As such, I give myself a 4.5/6 here.

Overall, though, I think I did a pretty good job. As such, I give myself a 27/30 

It's Finished!

Sorry for the delay for this post, but at long last, my song is completed.

                                                                                Bam

This seven weeks or so paid off, in that now I have a completed song to my name. Pretty good, if you ask me.

The final stuff I had to do, once I finished, was to mix everything and take all of the raw recorded stuff and make it sound good. Most of it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be: it was mostly adjusting the volume for individual parts to make everything even, as well as adding other things such as adjusting the pan setting and double tracking some stuff. There was also some things that I wanted to be EQ’ed, which I would then export that part, open it in audacity, and adjut the EQ using it. There were some parts where, if I didn’t like the take that I did, or found an easy way to adjust the sound using my amp or effects, I might just rerecord that part. Pretty effective, if you ask me.

As such, I can, and have now started to work on my presentation. My presentation will mostly be focused on how you should not back down from something just because it looks intimidating. Instead, you should keep pushing forward. That intimidation is why I didn’t start recording for a while. However, I eventually decided to try to record a song, and I managed to succeed in learning how to record and produce a song.

For my demonstration, I will feature a 30-second excerpt from my song (I can’t show the whole thing, as it’s over six minutes long) that will play at a certain point during my presentation. I’m not going to be actually bringing in a guitar because the point of my project was not to learn a song on guitar, but to record a song. Considering this is probably my last blog post before my presentation, I might as well give you guys a recap of all of the stuff that I used.

Software:

• Presonus Studio One 2 (A DAW with a very easy-to-use interface. It costs 100 dollars, however, it comes bundled for free with the audiobox seen below) http://studioone.presonus.com/

• Hydrogen Drum Machine (A drum machine software designed for linux with betas in mac and windows. It requires you to manually place where each note is play in a pattern, so while this makes it harder to get the drum beat right early, it pays off in the end, with it being 100% prescise. It’s also free)  http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/

• Audacity (A free Audio Editing program that I used to EQ some parts. Pretty optional) http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Hardware and stuff like that:

• Presonus USB Audiobox (A device that converts your microphone or guitar input so that it can be recorded onto your computer without it sounded awful. Also comes with Studio One 2, as mentioned above. Costs around $150) http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AudioBoxUSB?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=PPC&utm_campaign=none&device=c&network=g&matchtype=&gclid=CNXLmI6xqrYCFVGf4Aodxy0A5g

• Audio-Technica ATH-m50s (I probably forgot to mention this: Good-quality headphones are pretty essential, as they can help determine wether your song sounds good or crap. I also use these specific headphones for more than just recording, but I was fortunatley able to get them for under 120) http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATH-M50S-Professional-Monitor-Headphones/dp/B004ZG9TMA

• 1/4” – 1/8” Audio cable and/or Microphone (The ¼’-> 1/8’ Audio cable is what I used so I could capture my amp’s output directly to the audiobox, using the headphones input on the amp. This is probably  not a good idea if you’re not using a guitar amp, so you should probably get a microphone to use instead)

And there you have it: a way to record your own stuff. While I’m at it, I might as well post my song itself: