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For this module, I have decided to create a track to showcase in my final major project which will be a 2 track EP. This FMP will include artwork, marketing and production of these tracks. I started this project by researching into a successful artist I have taken inspiration from many times over the years, Diplo. I was inspired to research into him because I've noticed that he's very much a musical chameleon; he manages to constantly stay relevant in the music industry by consistently collaborating with new artists. This is something I'd like to take inspiration from in order to apply to my own career.

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Strengths: Good knowledge of production and techniques in the genre of my EP.

Weaknesses:

Lack of knowledge of marketing and general branding.

Opportunities:

Using social media and short form platforms such as TikTok to boost my brand and music.

Threats:

Due to these social media platforms, many artists are competing for listeners and the pool of talent on social media has become very concentrated.

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In researching Diplo, I found that he manages to stay relevant not only by constantly collaborating and forming super groups such as Jack U, Silk City or Major Lazer, but also pushing his ability as a producer. He is always touring and immersing himself in new music from different corners of the world; wether that's travelling India solo as a young DJ and taking inspiration from listening to people playing the sitar and tabla, or later on finding himself infatuated with the Brazilian Favela music scene and signing unknown musicians to his label to bring this sound to the U.S. Diplo is forever adapting himself to new genres and influences that makes his brand always changing and giving listeners a fresh new sound instead of clinging onto one golden goose and running a sound into the ground.

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Following my Diplo research, I thought about how I cold push myself artistically and move out of my comfort zone, much as he does. I started looking into Granular synthesis, as I am still relatively new to the concept. I looked up a few videos on the many different techniques to making cool sounds using Quanta. One of these that I really liked was the method of stacking lots of synths to make a big chord hit and then re sampling that hit into Quanta to make a massive synth that fills pretty much the entire frequency spectrum. Another is using modulation on the position that Quanta is sampling from to make the synth move as it's being played and create a lot more depth and variation to the sound. After watching a few videos on this and experimenting with it a little bit more, I felt confident I could use these tools to create some really cool sounds.

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7 Best Ways To Use Quanta from Audio Damage | Granular Synthesis Tutorial

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This week I decided to begin on a demo trying to use what I had learnt from my granular synthesis research. I started with a loop I found in logic and put it into alchemy to start plating around with. I decided to switch from Quanta to Alchemy because I was having issues with using modulation using the free version, as it was very restricted to what I could actual automate. I then used an LFO on the position of the sample playback, and added an arp to give it more movement and energy, and had created a much more interesting synth loop.

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After I had my granular synth loop ready to go, I decided to add some bass and drums to start fleshing this out into a demo. I created a basic bass pattern, using two patches in vital, one just a mono sub bass and the other a moving Reese to give it a wide feel, with the Reese in a wide stereo field, but the sub in mono to still give the bass punch. After this I also added a basic drum break I found on splice, and finished the basic 8 bar loop. I wasn't too sure how happy I was with this, however it had defiantly pushed my out my comfort zone and was sounding a lot different to what I usually make, so I think the experimentation was a success overall.

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After my experimentation with my first demo, I wasn't too sure how I felt about it, so I started a new demo to try experimenting with this idea a little bit more. I pulled up an old remix I had attempted around a year ago but was unhappy with how it was sounding, I then took my spliced sample of the original track and ran it through alchemy’s granular synthesizer and got some really cool sounding instruments when I also messed with automation and lfo modulation on the position of the sample within alchemy. I then redeveloped these samples into some big drop pads.

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This week I continued my demo by designing a bass patch, and getting a basic drum break to create a very cool spacey drop section I was happy with. I then also took the basic 8 bar instrumental from the intro of the song, I used an A.I. stem splitter to extract the vocals so I could mix them into the drop part of my remix. I’m very happy with this song so far, but think I can push this idea further using remixing with granular synthesis.

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This week, I needed some focus group feedback, so I gave my housemate and fellow producer of 5+ years Filip or FullMoon and interview to see where he thinks I should take these tracks and which elements he enjoys. Overall, he said he really liked the vibe and the atmosphere of the track, with the synth swells and powerful baseline contrasting nicely with the angelic vocals. However, he said that because of the nature of granular synthesis, my synth sounded quite messy timbre-wise and didn't sit in the mix as nicely as other elements. This is because in order to achieve these massive and layered, textured sounds in granular synths, they play hundreds of tiny samples from the original sound, all layered over each other creating this new synth. I do admit I have struggled mixing the synth with the other elements, often struggling to find room for the mids of the baseline and vocal.

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This week, I began research into how I should be marketing my project. Luckily due to the research I am conducting in my Wb09 module, it gave me a lot of good pointers with how I should approach marketing in this project. I already identified Diplos approach of staying cutting-edge and on trend with the production itself, I now need to replicate this on the marketing side. I have been looking into how TikTok has affected marketing and it couldn't be more obvious how much it's needed to expose your music to a wider audience. When researching into a Vox study, I found that out of 125 artists identified as gaining vitality through TikTok, a whopping 106 found themselves on editorial playlists after the fact. This shows a direct connection between social media vitality and success in your musics popularity.

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With my feedback from Filip and my marketing research considered, this week I polished off my demo track, and began the planning of how this EP will be marketed. I decided to go with a content plan, spanning over 10 weeks up until the release date. This will include detailed ideas over 3 platforms: YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. This is because I have identified these as the current leaders in short form content and contain the broadest audience for me to promote my music to.