Unit 7

Music Production Techniques Tutorial Video

S.W.O.T Analysis

Strengths

Through the past academic year, my music production knowledge and skills have developed at a tremendous rate as my productions from anytime prior to 2016 are nowhere near as high in quality as my recent productions are. Prior to September 2015, all I really knew production wise was arrangement, however I am now more aware of the importance of mixing down, and have practised ‘balancing’ the sounds on my productions to the point where I can almost guess what volume each channel needs to be at before the track is done, and then make small adjustments to the volume from there. I’ve also experimented with the adjustment parameters for plugins included in Logic to ‘create my own sound’. This includes tools such as flangers or phasers. I have been made aware of other purposes for music for production other than for just music to be released as a form of entertainment. This includes foley/sound effects for films, TV and games, as well as the soundtracks for these mediums.

Weaknesses

I am not so good at using the synthesiser plugins to generate sounds that I want, and I feel that I need to practise using this tool more often to have an idea of what settings I need to have in order to achieve the sound I want. I understand the ADSR element and well as the cutoff, drive, resonance, and some of the waveforms like sine wave, square wave and white noise, but I struggle to use the other parameters avaliable on the synthesizer.

My other flaw was that I struggled with getting to grips with the physical equipment such as the MPC and live software such as Ableton. I had trouble programming the sound samples on to each different pad on the MPC as well as transferring the samples from a computer to the MPC in a way that the MPC recognised the file. My problem with Ableton is that it is difficult to understand the method of programming for it, as it is not as straight-forward and to-the-point as Logic Pro X.

Opportunities

There are strong opportunities in London for musicians as it is a metropolitan area which implies that it is a haven for creative industries. A great portion of artists and styles of music I am interested in specialising in originate in London which gives me a stronger chance of finding my target audience to play my music to. There is a host of prestigious venues based here that are recognised across the world musically which also gives me an opportunity to be recognised by international acts and venues, allowing me to build a reputation.

Threats

Some threats are that becoming an independent artist as a form of employment is quite unstable as a way of living, especially with the recent events regarding Europe’s relationship to the UK. This now means that if I were to tour in a European country, I would have to apply for a visa which has a chance of being declined or not being accepted on time. Also, record labels are likely to be less wiling to take a chance of including newer artists to tour abroad as it is now more costly for them to arrange these events.

Summary Of First Year Projects

Music Production for a specific environment

For unit 2, my aim was to create a track that was for a specific environment. For me, this environment was a record label. The record label I decided to create a track for was Metalheadz. Metalheadz is an iconic Jungle/D&B label, which specializes in both deeper and darker moods of music. They have a reputation for consistently releasing forward-thinking music that also stays true to the roots of the music. My track has strong similarities from artists that have released on Metalheadz such as Doc Scott, Ed Rush and Loxy.

DJ Mixes

Throughout the year, I have been invited to mix at a wide variety of events including South Thames’ stand at the ExCel centre to represent the creative courses, a fashion show curated by students studying fashion, as well as playing to represent the music department during the college’s open day. I have also broadcasted a mix on to the college’s radio, which can be listened to on the recording linked below.

Sample Track

For one of my projects, I was commissioned to create a track from using samples exclusively from one record. The record I was given was one half of ‘Strangebreaks & Mr Thing 2’; a compilation of funk and soul songs. This allowed me to use some tools from Logic Pro X including flex time, EQ, and the EXS24 Sampler.

Synthesis Track

For this project, I was challenged to create a Hip Hop track using exclusively the ES1 synthesizer plug-in that is supplied with Logic Pro X. This meant I had to create kicks, hi hats, snares, keys, strings and basses by adjusting the settings included on the synthesizer.