Research: Portfolio

AUDIENCE PROMOTION - Audience promotion involves mainly linking your audience with your social media, along with merchandise. From what I found, using social media is vital in gaining an audience. Promoting your work and upcoming gigs around social media will allow others to re-share your work to their follower base. In regards to merchandise, creating your own personalised clothes with your name/logo can be great at giving you an image as an artist. Furthermore, potential fans seeing other people wear this can massively boost your visibility in your selected scene let alone the economic boost selling merchandise would give you

Here, Dave has created limited edition merch, giving the normal benefits of merchandise but also creating hype over the clothing and in turn hype over the project

MUSIC INDUSTRY RESEARCH - Promotion within the music industry contains huge involvement from labels. If an upcoming artist was to sign with a label, that label would assist with promotion via their social media and sharing around with their certain industry contacts they may have. Promoting their artists is a win-win situation for record labels as an artists success will lead to more label success. Signing to a label may also allow fans to take you more serious and view you as a professional musician

Here, Dave's record label has promoted the same promotional pictures on their Instagram

SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION:  For artists to become successful, using a professional social media page is essential in doing so. Being active on these pages is also just as important as having them. Posting regularly, keeping followers updated of your work is directly linked to better sales, streams and gig attendance. Taking advantage of stories on apps such as snapchat and instagram can have a massive impact on the promotion of you. Updating fans on what your'e doing day by day will boost fan engagement and will help in showing fans your personality

Here, Dave is sharing snippets of his personal life, engaging with his audience

TRAP PRODUCTION TRENDS:

MUSIC VIDEO

MY MUSIC VIDEO:

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS

MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS

A$AP Rocky - Praise the Lord (da shine) - ft. Skepta
Released June 5th 2018

TYPE OF MUSIC VIDEO - The video entails a performance video, featuring 'A$AP Rocky' and 'Skepta' both lip-syncing their verses around their respective cities. This is complemented with a comparison like montage of scenes and shots that capture the cultures of both London and New York City, pushing the video further than just a performance video. 

CAMERA ANGELS/SHOTS

This video includes a lot of different shots and a lot of different shots going at a very fast speed, even at sometimes pacing at 1 shot per second. Personally I think doing so emphasises the complexity of the setting and does well at showing a bit of everything they used to work with.

SHOTS OF SETTING 

The Video's drive is centred around split-screen visuals, contrasting and comparing both cities. The director includes medium and log-shots of the blocks and towers around the cities that give a gritty outlook on life of the residential areas of both cities.



PEOPLE
Within the video, we are presented with many different faces. Such shots include some medium close-ups of these faces, highlighting their contemporary fashion and style. The split screen also comes into play here where we see these mainly young faces compared accordingly to their city, displaying the hard similarities but also the slight differences between the youth of both these cities

COLOUR
Colour has a huge role in the connotations of this video. The split screen shot's are differentiated massively by colour, NYC follows a warm pallet while London contrasts with a colder set of colours.
There is also a big lack of bright colours within most shots, instead there is a large presence of grey/black colours, highlighting the grit of the video and where the video was shot

AUDIO TASK

1. WHEN SHOULD WE START MIXING OUR MUSIC AND WHY - You should begin to gain-stage straight away by lowering the levels of most of your tracks trying to not to increase over -6db. Doing this will allow you to boost levels where necessary towards the end of the production process.

2. WHAT TOOL SHOULD WE USE FOR THIS PROCESS - the cross-faders

3. NAME THE TECHNIQUE BY WHICH WE MOVE SOUND FROM LEFT TO RIGHT - Panning

4. GIVE THE MAIN PLUG-IN WE USE FOR TREATING DYNAMICS OF SOUND - Equaliser (EQ)

REVERB

WHAT IS REVERB: In music Production context, reverberation is an effect/plug in you can apply to your sounds in order to recreate the natural ambience of real rooms and spaces.
WHY DO WE USE REVERB: Reverb can be used to add a sense of depth and acoustic sense to a sound source. longer decay size gives the sound of a larger space. In a mix, the combination of multiple reverb devices with different settings helps to separate instruments adding clarity and interest to the overall sound.
WHAT TYPE OF CHANNEL DO WE USE WHEN SENDING REVERB: The effects channel which is located in the inspector section
NAME 3 TYPES OF REVERB: 
- Chamber Reverb
- Dark Abyss (specific to Chroma verb)
- Hall

Production Task

1. A plug in is an external piece of software that allows you to add speciality features and effects to your music. You can get these online for paid or for free but logic provides a really good set of plug ins with the software. There is also synthesiser plug ins that allow you to access classic synths and samplers in logic
2. Plug ins live in the inspector Collum
3. Compressor, Reverb, Expander
4. Plug ins allow producers like myself to add life and character to my music. Without the use of any plug in effects my music wouldn’t sound well produced and I like sound pretty lifeless. Also without the use of any synth plug ins I wouldn’t have a source for many of the MIDI sounds I use such as the es2 
5. I use reverb a lot on my melodies and chords as well as expanders and limiters and I also use compressors on my drums. I use many synths such as a very modified es2 for my bass as well as ultra beat for my drums

Decades Context Table

1960s	JAMES BROWN - FUNK CHORDS	Building 7th chords is just like building triads only you keep stacking thirds Funk derives from blues, which is based on african rhythms and harmonies rather than the western diatonic scheme. Their use makes the sound a lot more different In Western music, these chords are generally dominant chords which are used to resolve harmonic and melodic structures. They are really heard as the “1” (tonic) chord in a sequence. In funk they are.
1960s	JAMES BROWN - FUNK RHYTHMS	Subdivision of the pulse (eg. into 16th notes or semiquavers.) Rhythmic dissonance (conflict between rhythmic figures based on different ways of organising the subdivisions.) Funk music’s birth resulted from a cultural revolution happening in the Afro-American community based on ideas of “Afrocentrism”, black nationalism, and civil rights. While Western music may consider rhythmic elaboration as no more than “mere ornament”, African music considers it vital to the process.
1970s	STEVIE WONDER – SYNTHS	Stevie wonder explored a new sound with the TONTO synth. It gave a grittier and edgier sound than traditional instruments A lot of people don’t consider the Moog an instrument, in a sense, and they feel it’s gonna take a lot of work away from musicians and all that. But I feel it is an instrument and is a way to directly express what comes from your mind. It gives you so much of a sound in the broader sense.
1970s	STEVIE WONDER - VOCAL MELISMA	Melisma is a repetition of one single syllable whilst gliding between notes. such as the ‘whooaww’ in superstition It creates a funky vibe to the song. Although it maybe be that we believe it is funky because Stevie Wonder popularised it in the scene so much
1980s	KATE BUSH – 1980s DIGITAL STUDIO TECHNOLOGY	The CMI synth was the first to use a computer and store memory of sounds within it Kate Bush was one of the first artists use the Fairlight The Fairlight CMI was a synthesiser, sampler and digital audio workstation all in one and was described as the crown jewel of 80s electronic music production
1980s	KATE BUSH – THE CONCEPT ALBUM AND THE LONG-FORM SONG TRADITION	A concept album is a selection of thematically linked housed in one package with an unifying cover Frank Sinatra initially popularised the idea of a concept album with his “Wee Small Hours” Kate Bush’s second side of her album “Hounds of Love” is a concept album. The general concept is based on her lifelong attraction to water but in detail the concept is complex.
THE 1990s	SUB-BASS – THEORY AND PRACTICE; THE USE OF SAMPLING	in Public Enemy, The looped drum break has extra sub-bass frequencies applied to the kick drum. This emphasizes its immersive quality and suggests an element of threat or pressure that could be said to reflect the urban environment from which the music sprang.

Individual Progress Analysis

PRODUCTION PROGRESS

My progress in production throughout this course I believe is the area I have excelled the most in. These past two terms I have gained an extensive knowledge of the tools, features and and plug ins that are available in Logic Pro X and how to use these creatively in order to produce my own specialised music.

I have also learnt the basis of sourcing my sounds, whether that is creating them myself or using synths and other plug-ins or sampling from older records. The practicing of these techniques in sessions and at home as allowed me to advance from just using sample and melody packs and onto using and producing more unique sounds. The learning of sampling especially has enabled me to find this my main source for melodies and chords and melodies which has been helpful in finding my own personal sound .

Where I would like to improve in production is to learn how to mix and master professionally as although I already have the basics it is a skill that I believe is vital in order to produce at a professional standard and for my tracks to simply sound good.

PAST VS PRESENT

STUDIO PROGRESS

My progress in the studio this year I feel has also improved. Before this course if I was asked to go into a studio and try to record something I wouldn’t be able to produce anything but now after sessions I have gained knowledge about microphones,  recording in spaces, ect, I believe I have the skills to record a full song using the recording room.

I have also learnt massively about the physics of sound which has helped me understand the science behind recording sound and using the right equipment to do so.

Where I would like to progress is my quality of set-up I.e, the right positions of microphones, the right set-up of wires, ect. This would help me to get the right sounds I want and have them at the best quality I can get them too.

DJ PROGRESS

I have also progressed in our DJ sessions where I have grown from not knowing how to use traktor software or hardware to being able to perform a basic mix.

This is an area I would like to focus on more as I have not progressed as much as I would liked. This has been due to little practice at home due to a lack of equipment.

I aim to improve my skills massively over the next year now that I have recently acquired traktor hardware and have more time to book rooms.

DJ Diary - Week 5

DIARY ENTRY - 8th January
During the Holidays, I was kindly gifted a Traktor S2 controller. With this I was able to practice frequently at home and be able to prepare for my final set in a more focused environment. With this practice, the mixing I did in the session today was at a much higher quality than last term.

For next week I need to make sure my set is complete and ready for the assessment which is the week after. I still need to figure out how I will mix the last few songs so this I will make a priority

DIARY ENTRY 5 - 8th January
This week was the first session after the christmas holidays. For Christmas I was kindly gifted a Traktor Controller S2 to use at home, because of this I feel my skills have progressed massively. This week in the session I was able to perform my set to a high standard which made me feel more confident about my final assessment

For next week, I need to make sure I have my entire set planned and prepared for the assessment which is the week after. I haven't planned how I am going to mix the last few songs, so this I will make as my priority.