Planning for EP

-
For this unit we have been put into groups and will be creating an EP in each of our groups. I am with Alex and Harvey. This EP will be released on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes as these are the most prominent music streaming services so would get the most exposure.

Here is a list of the projects that will be created for our EP. It includes the roles we'll be taking on each project. The roles assigned were picked based on our skills and familiarities; we all have different strengths as artists so we tried to select accordingly.

Jazz
Producer, Mixer, Engineer: Alex

Rap
Producer, Mixer, Engineer: Alex

 Lo-fi
Producer: Lloyd
Engineer: Alex
Mixer: Harvey

R'n'B
Producer, Mixer, Engineer: Me

 Afroswing
Producer, Mixer, Engineer: Harvey

We have also listed our main musical influences, and the principal thing about them that inspires us. This gave us some extent of focus for the project and mutual understanding of what interests us individually. I listened to albums by some of the artists below and was impressed, especially by Jay Dilla's work. This made it better working in a group than had we kept to ourselves.

Lloyd:
· The Beatles; combinations of styles
· David Bowie; inventive composition
· Radiohead; complex emotions

Alex:
· The Atlantic 5 Jazz Band
· Jay Dilla
· Chopin

Harvey:
· Pete Rock; use of sampling as it is unique.
· Dr. Dre; mixing of drums
· Jae5; melodies that aren't too complicated and leave enough room for the artist.


---

Here is a session diary of what I plan to do. Creating this has helped focus my direction. Lessons are on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays so that is when we can be most productive as we have more equipment readily available.

May 6 - Discuss our main influences and settle on the tracks we want to do (starting with genre).
May 7 - Assign roles, make a plan, and decide on session musicians.
May 10- Find out the models of all equipment.
May 13- Start RnB song (a MIDI project). Lay down chords and develop an ensemble of instruments.
May 14 - Have RnB finished (mixing, etc).
May 17 - Begin Lo-fi song.

May 20 - Have Lo-fi song done.
May 21 - Finalise EP and order tracks.
May 24 - Publish

Sessions:

Lo-fi
Mic setup: Rode NT1A for Alex on acoustic guitar; short-distance recording. A condenser mic is ideal for picking up the frequencies involved. We picked guitar as it can be a laidback instrument ideal for the tone of lo-fi, and Alex as he's the best guitarist in the group.
Set up headphones so he can hear metronome without it interfering with recording; metronome is necessary to use the recording as a sample, for working with varispeed and such.

The session went well, we would have liked to have gotten more samples than we did but were pressed for time. Next time we would plan sessions to fit into timeslots more ideal for what we are doing. We worked well as a unit I thought, setting up and getting things done as quickly as we could.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unit 14 Task 3; Faults of recordings/performances

-
For Task 3 I have recorded an interview podcast: https://soundcloud.com/lloy2-908796191/unit-14-task-3https://soundcloud.com/lloy2-908796191/interview-1 It discusses the following three recordings: > Dreams Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpICbfRbDGQ > Skyview Temple : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fV17aNKHXw > Pokémon Symphonic Evolutions - Part III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx2LEjSzEk0 The questions and answers were recorded separately in different contexts, so they are slightly mismatched. For example, the answers were quieter than the questions, so I had to use an expander.
Read more

Unit 14 Task 4 - Texture of resources and acoustic environment in recordings

-
https://soundcloud.com/lloy2-908796191/yokloh-forested I created this piece of music to demonstrate sonic and musical components. I imagine it playing in a game, maybe in a woods section. This is because the instrumentation and style is often associated in games with this kind of setting, especially instruments like the piccolo which leads the piece. The piece is polyphonic , meaning multiple sounds are being played at once. These instruments are double bass, cellos, violins, (separately) string ensemble, tambourine, maracas, piccolo, bassoons, glockenspiel, and alto flutes. The use of polyphony gives a sense of life and character to the piece, as if multiple personalities reside within it, embodied by the different textures matching and contrasting; if it was monophonic the piece would sound lonelier. Furthermore, the more instruments are present in a piece, the more of a distinct identity the piece takes on as the different instruments interact in their acoustic environm...
Read more

Unit 29 Tasks 2-4

-
For tasks 2, 3 and 4, I was put into a group with classmates Cameron and Alex and it was our job to set up and manage a live sound venue for a performance in the college. Planning Before setting up we had a planning meeting wherein we discussed things like what instruments we needed to provide for, how to provide for them (eg. mics), and timings. The sheet on which we roughly outlined tech was unfortunately lost, but it was a simple enough setup to not be completely necessary and we did get by based on memory. Really we should have created an online document with something like Google Docs or Word Online, which would have been much more secure and also easy to modify on the go for everyone. I organised all the backing tracks we were provided with into one folder and ordered them according to the set list. The laptop this was on was connected to the Qu-24 mixing console, which everything else went through, by a mini jack-to-jack cable. Setting Up This step took the longest. Where ...
Read more