• All of my assignment work was completed thoroughly.

• My assignments were handed in on time.

• I felt that I developed as a producer; I spent more time producing and experimenting with my music than I ever have previously.

• The events side of the term was successful; I was part of a well organised group and we were able to throw an event which we made profit from.

• I think the research I conducted for my case study was thorough and in - depth, which meant I was able to produce a detailed piece of work in regards to the artists I chose.

CONS:

• I think I could have organised my time better, at times I felt like I was rushing to get work done, such as my development diary.

• I could have been more committed to the second track for my EP, I chopped and changed the track that I wanted to use which ultimately led to me having less time to work on my final piece.

Examples of songs with vocoder or interesting vocal effects:

Radiohead - The National Anthem; uses either a vocoder or reverb being sent to a short delay with high feedback at 1:36

Daft Punk - Around the World; uses a vocoder on the vocal hook that plays throughout the whole song

Auto Tune:

I think auto tune can be used as a cool effect in music. I think it can work well in rap music if not used excessively. I think you have to have a half decent voice to begin with for it to actually work though.

Good example: Lean 4 Real - Playboi Carti

Bad example: The Bone - IceJJFish

Travis Scott is a prime example of an artist that made auto tune their staple. It features on almost every song he’s ever made.

This session was useful as it introduced me to a new way of making my music innovative. For the most part, I tend to produce music that doesn't contain vocals, however I could start to introduce vocal hooks or full vocals into my production with some interesting vocal effects to be inventive.

Innovation can be expressed in technique, style, genre, sound, phrasing etc..

This module can be used to break the boundaries in music

Examples of innovators:

Coki was an innovator in the dubstep scene. He was one of the first to combine weird synthesis with dubstep.

“Innovation is the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness or competitive advantage.” (Hudson, 2014)

I also completed a quiz in this lecture, that asked questions regarding techniques, performance & innovation:

1) What does innovation in music mean to you? 

Innovation in music, to me, means developing on pre existing ideas/ genres and driving these developments forwards to become your own.

2) Can you highlight any bands, producers, musicians, artists, DJ's etc. that you feel are innovating in the music industry today? If so, provide an example of how?

Tim Reaper is a good example of an innovator in todays music industry. He has taken the old stool 94’ style or jungle and adapted it to the current day. He uses complex modern production techniques and blends it with the old school style of. Jungle.

3) What key areas would you like to explore to push yourself into new territories?

I would like to push myself with arrangement and sound design. I think being innovative in these areas would really help set me apart from other producers.

4) How might you use the Learning Outcomes (LO’s) for the study block ahead to explore and create something exciting?

Im going to attempt to combine 2 genres into 1 track, or merge 2 styles together, such as dubstep & jungle.

Here are my notes:

• I don’t like how expensive music is to buy now, as a DJ paying nearly 2 quid for every tune I buy is getting a bit much; I could think of a way of platforming music and getting artists paid without charging so much

• Club night where the dj is hidden and there is a no phones policy; dis have freedom to play what they like and punters are there to enjoy the music

• As a low level DJ, I find getting gigs quite difficult without the necessary connections. An app that allows DJs and promoters to make posts and collaborate with each other online could be helpful for DJs and event planners alike to form new connections and take the next stepping stone into the music industry.

Skills - DJing is my primary performance skill and is something I have been doing for 5+ years so I believe I am at a relatively high level in terms of skill, I also played the guitar for 7 years until around a year ago so that is a skill I could utilise in my work if it felt appropriate, and it might be an area I look to improve on this term. I would say that my main production skills are my sound design and drum arrangement; I am not at a high level with sound design, however it is a tool I use in all of the music I make and it is arguably the most important factor in the electronic music I make. I would like to look into improving my mixing and learning new mixing techniques as sometimes I feel like my production can become stale, as I am overusing the same basic techniques such as simple compression, delay and reverb which can lead to my songs being a bit uninspired and stale.

Systems - Soundcloud is a system I have utilised in the past to showcase my music as it is free and easily accessible, I also use Spotify for general listening. In this term I would quite like to explore how to release music using different distribution platforms other than Soundcloud. Soundcloud is great to star off with, however I feel like I am at a point with a few songs of mine that are ready to be released on a larger scale (Spotify, Apple Music etc.)

Technologies - the main technology I use in my day to day music production is FL Studio, which I have been using exclusively for around 3 years now. I find it the most user friendly DAW and the basics are relatively easy to understand which has allowed me to progress with my music production skills in a relatively short timeframe. I use lots of digital synths in my work such as serum and vital which I feel comfortable with, however this term I would quite like to incorporate hardware and analog synths into my work; I think this could add some interesting variations in my work and could lead to me making something more innovative, instead of just sticking to the same digital synths.

Methods - I think one of the methods I utilise the most in my production is drum layering. When I make drum and bass, I tend to try and make high energy jump up which almost always consists of loud, punchy drums, which requires layering multiple kicks and snares to make sure they are hitting correctly throughout the track. I am starting to make some jungle music at the moment, which also contains lots of drum layering with sampled breaks. I would like to include more sampling in my productions this term, in order to use pre existing ideas in an innovative way.

History:

• Early synths were monophonic 

• Polyphonic synths allowed for chord playing 

• Unison mode:

Kraftwerk are a good example of synths in use, ‘autobahn’, ‘trans europa express’ etc

Moog minimoog was a staple in Kraftwerks music 

Eventually replaced minimoog with creamware minimax ASB and Studio Electronics SE-1 in their later work.

ARP Odyssey; defining mono synth of the 1970s 

Inspiration research:

Coki - Goblin: Most likely made in Reasons subtractor synth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd3s_jubB_s 

Youngstar - Pulse X: Used ReBirth RB-338’s 909 emulator to create the drum beat with lots of distortion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrz7LQnvCrg 

Serum:

Serum is a wavetable synth with 2 main oscillators, a sub oscillator and a noise oscillator. It has 3 envelopes available to use as well as 4 LFO’s which can be applied to different settings on the oscillators, filter and FX to allow for greater control and movement. It has an inbuilt FX panel and dedicated filter.

You can also see the FX panel in the screen recording above, in which I have applied some dimension for some extra width, distortion, multi - band compression for a more polished sound, reverb for warmth and an EQ to remove a small amount of high end as it was getting a bit harsh.

• So far, I have only started one track and I am not very far in, however I am wanting to explore using sampling in innovative ways. I am using samples of strings and flutes as melodic elements within a dark and low end driven dubstep track to create contrast. I would like to go more in depth with sampling techniques, and one I am planning to try and implement is recording elements I already have in the track with room reverb and then manipulating them back in FL studio to create a completely new sound to use elsewhere in the track.

• Although I have not started a second track, I have a good idea for how I might make it innovative. The two genres I am listening to the most currently are dubstep and jungle, so I want to find a way to combine the two together. I am either going to use a dubstep song structure and use jungle drum elements to form a piece, or have one drop of a track at 140bpm, and eventually speed the track up and have it become a jungle song by the end.

SAMPLING

HISTORY

• 1900s - jazz musicians would perform licks from other artists as a sign of respect

• Pierre Schaffer used pre recorded samples that were manipulated (musique concrete)

Pierre Schaeffer -- Études de bruits (1948) - The samples used in this piece have been looped in places, time stretched and pitched up and down, which are techniques still in use today. This piece of work set the groundwork for sampling as we know it.

Fairlight CMI was the first commercially available digital sampler

Sampling birthed hip hop; producers sampled funk and soul records, making great use of drum breaks for form beats. 

Hank Shocklee from Public Enemy said the reason he sampled was due to the price of music equipment at the time, it was more affordable to take samples from other records to make something new.

Grandmaster Flash began scratching records which became a staple in the hip hop genre. (The origin of scratching on vinyl on YouTube)

New models such as the Akai MPC allowed sampling to become more accessible which allowed many producers to flourish 

Doing research into early sampling, such as works from Pierre Schaeffer, really opened my eyes into the posibilites of using almost anything you can think of as a sample and turning it into music. This sessin has inspired me to look into more detalied and nuanced ways of sampling, such as recording and using sounds from everyday life.

I will demontrate how I implemented it into the track in a seperate post below this one.

To add some interesting effects into this part of the song, I automated delay on a clap, as well as time stretched the female laugh vocal.

I haven't got around to including any of these elements in my track yet but I am definitely going to attempt to use them to make an interesting soundscape for the intro.

I automated a large reverb on the main synth in the last 4 bars to almost completely drown out the sound to further indicate that the track is changing, and I also automated a bit-crusher (see next post for settings) on the drum bus to degrade the quality. You can also hear a reversed vocal which is a vocal I am planning on using in the next section of the track, I have reversed it and added reverb to act as a transition. between the two halves of the drop

Aleatoric Music- a style of music that incorporates chance and unpredictability.

John Cage:

 made a piece that consists of a blank score with the only requirement of the performer to be there for the duration of the piece; the intention was that the sounds inherent in the performance would become the music.

Karlheinz Stockhausen:

A German composer, in his 19 Klavierstucke compositions he used various grids and formulas which introduced controlled chance into his work. 

Earle Brown:

25 pages - a set of one page scores to be played by 1 - 25 pianists in a variety of combinations, pages were without clefs and notated symmetrically, so that the orientation is reversible.

Criticisms of aleatoric music: can lack direction, can be seen as childish and unskilled, can be seen as pretentious, can be discordant and jarring.

Benefits of aleatoric music: can inspire unique ideas, can introduce variety.

Learning about aleatoric music was beneficial to me as it is something I have not heard of previously and it was interesting to see a very unique and innovative method of music production. I cant say it will be something I will utilise this term but it has definitely inspired me to start thinking outside the box with my production and potentially conducting more research into other methods of production I haven't heard of before.

An interesting technique I used in this section to add to the dissonance is automate a plugin called Valhalla Space Modulator; I used a preset called 'Tight N Low', described as an 'unidirectional barberpole flanging/ pitch shift'. This gives a really cool unsettling feel to the flute, creating contrast to the last part of the track.

To add to the broken feel of this part of the track, I removed some hi hat elements as they were the drum elements providing the most structure.

The 'outside' sample has a bitcrusher and a delay applied

The 'speaker' sample has a large reverb with the dry level all the way down.

The Juno comes in at the 9th bar, which I have also automated a low pass filter on to give the same effect as the MS 20. I added a vinyl crackle sound with both of these elements to add to the unsettling feeling.

The vocal I used in the main drop is also used here, but pitched down an ocatve and stretched out.

At this point I have only come up with one track idea that I think has potential to be an innovative piece. I spoke to Bob to ask for some advice on how to move forwards in this module and progress with a second track, and after listening to what I have so far he suggested the idea of making 1 piece of music, with 2 different ideas incorporated together. This idea really resonated with me as I think I would be able to build something new out of what I have already made so far and combine it all together to make a piece of music that takes you on a 'journey'.

My plan for this is to create a transition from the dubstep part of the track I have already made and build it up to ultimately become a jungle/ drum and bass track. I think this approach will be more beneficial than if I was to make two separate tracks as I am able to think of fresh ideas that build off of what I already have, I can also use this as a form of innovation.

Conducting this research was definitely useful as it gave me an insight into how my favourite artists operate and think during their creative process. I can take elements from artists such as Burial and put my own twist on what he does in order to form my own creative process.

I am planning to add more to this section to fill it out however I am mostly happy with how it currently sounds.

Alongside this, I included some white noise risers.

Carrying on from the transition part, I used the same dissonant flute sound used in the second half of the dubstep drop. Underneath this, I made a new flute riff using the original sample using a plugin called Amigo (see post below this one). I am going to have this slowly filtering in simultaneously with the tempo increase, which is going to go from 140bpm to 170bpm over the course of 16 bars.

Iconic sounds:

Phill Collins: Gated Snare - found accidentally in 1979 when his drum playing was picked up by the microphone the audio engineers used to talk to the band; it wasn’t supposed to record any music but it had heavy compression which made the resulting sound. This mic also used a noise gate.

Jimi Hendrix - used pedal effects expressively and made the guitar the lead act of his songs, instead of the singing. He utilised fuzz, wah wah and distortion. He also used the thumb of his fretting hand to play bass notes on the guitar, this gave him more freedom to create distinct voicing with his other 4 fingers.

50s - Distortion; supposedly first used in the 50s by people such as Willie Kizart who poked holes in his guitar amp to produce a warm fuzzy sound.

60s - fuzz, wah wah; utilised by Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles, defined the ‘psychedelic’ sound being pioneered at the time.

70’s - Slap bass; used in funk & disco music, Larry Graham was the first to perform the bass in this way.

80s- Gated Snares; Discovered by Phil Collins

This was definitely a beneficial task for me as it allowed me to realise that inspiration and/ or creative ideas are able to spawn completely by accident, such as Phil Collins and the gated snare. It also gave me an insight into musicians that thought outside the box with their performance techniques, such as the slap bass. Experimenting and trying weird and out of the ordinary things when making my own music could ultimately lead to me producing something innovative.

A good press release contains a catchy title, an image of the topic of the press release (artist image for example), includes a quote from the artist discussing the topic of the press release, contact details/ social media links, where to find the topic of the press release.

^ All of these elements seem to be included in most good press releases and are the things I am going to make sure I include in my own press release.

A good example of a press release that I can draw inspiration from is a new article I found on https://djmag.com/ regarding a new single from an artist called Barry Can't Swim.

https://djmag.com/news/barry-cant-swim-shares-new-single-person-youd-be-listen

This is an example of a decent press release, the title clearly states what is being discussed and is to the point, it presents an image of the artist which allows the reader to familiarise themselves with who is being discussed if it is the first they have heard of them. A short description of the track is provided with a Spotify link that allows the reader to listen to the track being discussed. It includes many necessary elements needed in a good press release and is very snappy, however I would include a quote from the artist talking about the track, as I think this would allow the reader to establish more of an understanding of the track and the artist themselves.

I am going to model my press release in a similar way to this DJ Mag press release, as I think the music I am making this term would be a good fit for a website like DJ Mag. I am going to make a magazine style cover for my press release as well as a second page describing the track.

The amen break is being ran through an EQ to take out some low end and then into a drum bus with multi - band compression and saturation to beef it up and fill out the frequency range.

The 808 is a sample from a jungle sample pack, which I have ran through EQ to boost the low end but clean up some muddiness as well as some saturation to bring some harmonics out, helping it stand out better in the track.

The pad has delay and frequency echo automation which is what makes the pad sound like it is swelling. I will include more detail about the pad in a seperate post.

The drum breaks used in this section stay the same as what I have been using previously, however there are some different chops in this part to keep things interesting

A second interesting point to talk about in this section is the introduction of a new drum break. As heard in the screen recording, I automated the pitch knob to increase every bar, and then reset to normal. I included this as pitch bending on drums was another common technique used in old jungle production. This break is being ran through a bus containing all of the breaks used in the track so far, and also has some simple EQ removing the lows.

The next page includes the information about the vinyl giveaway i mentioned in the press release post last week. (see below for page 2)