Farz's assignment

Upgrading Crazy Tazy 

When it came to improving Crazy Tazy, I decided I would start from the very scratch and changed the chords, I made the chords using a chord trigger and an ES2 synth, my favourite types of synth are quite sweet sounding and soothing to the ears, however I also like when flanger plays a bit so I added a flanger effect and turned the rate of the flanger quite low.  I also added a space designer reverb to the synth. 

For the melody, I used a synth I created called Breathe, I called it breathe because it has an ambient sound that reminds me of breathing smoothly, I made it using sculpture. Sculpture was very confusing but after messing around for a while I found the sound I was looking for. Furthermore I also added a flute and placed it slightly behind the melody synth, this acts an echo but it's a different sound. I put space designer reverb and flanger on both of these instruments.

I created the rhythm using ultra beat, I used three channels for ultra beat; one for hi-hats, one for the kick drum and the last one for the click and tom, the rhythm was fairly simple to make, I put a flanger, overdrive and reverb on the hi-hats. The kick drum was fairly easy to find but it was difficult to make it prominent in the mix, to make it prominent I added overdrive which helped a lot.

Improving What Do You Want

Improving What Do You Want wasn't as long a process as Crazy Tazy as I didn't strip the track apart. However it still took time as I added ultra beat whilst the rest of the song was already in effect which was like creating the rhythm of a song even though the song was already based off a different rhythm. I added a flute and piano to play the melody. I used flanger on the Hi-hats to give it a more metallic, sharp sound, furthermore I used flanger and echo on the flute to give the track a more like dream/fantasy feel. The drums lead the song into the next part with the snare hits then would stop whilst the bass took over.

Communication In Industry

Communication In Industry
Twitter is a great place for advertising music if you have a high follow count, your followers will pass on the advertisement, and it will spread through the social media and possibly make it onto different social medias. Comparing to twitter to handouts and leaflets is a unfair comparison as twitter spreads wide with minimum effort and costs virtually nothing where a with handouts and leaflets require printing and people to physically hand leaflets out. Furthermore posters are also a good way of promoting gigs and music, whist people are travelling or in waiting rooms, reading advertisement is a good way to pass the time and also might be relevant to their lives, however compared to social medias like Twitter, I would have to say twitter comes out on top.

Ucas Application

For my Ucas application, I wasn't required to goto any interviews, but I went to an open day and Nottingham Trent University and Derby University. At Nottingham Trent University I went to look at their Nutrition, Health and Exercise course, It was interesting because I got to see all the different types of equipment they use and how it works. At Derby University I went to look at the Music Production course, this was also interesting but I felt like it wasn't too different from the current course I'm on so that didn't interest me as much.

Industry

Personal Statement

I'm Miles Edwards-Francis, I'm a producer who mainly focuses on the Jazz genre of music, this is interesting because I research all the different aspects of Jazz to ensure that my style has some relation to a piece. 

Fanbase

My fanbase are Jazz enthusiasts, who like to hear different styles of jazz, they are also producers who like to listen to my pieces of work so they can compare as a community.

Live Performance

I plan to get artists to perform my music at the Harrison. I'm am currently working on more gigs, I have performed for my school before.

Marketing

For my marketing I will be using twitter to take of advantage of my followers who will support me. Furthermore I have friends who will also be doing the same to help promote my music. The advertisement includes a cover of my mixtape and a picture of me.

Releases
I will release a 4 track mix tape, with merchandise of my clothes for my fans.

EXP Proposal

Introduction

I will be starting my EXP on March the 6th. The aim of my EXP is to look back into the two main types of R&B, which are Alternate and Contemporary. I will look into the roots of the two branches of the genre, to see what made them divide and what were the early signs within R&B which made this inevitable. Furthermore I plan to do a 4 track EP, 2 for each genre. I will research what makes them different and include that in my tracks.  

Context

I have chosen to search into R&B because the majority of my work has some sort of relation to R&B, some of my work includes Jazz which stems off from blues and some types of R&B have grown from soul music. Since my dissertation was based on Jazz i thought it would be quite interesting to look into the two main genres that stem from soul. I have acquired good skills in researching and coming to a fairly rounded conclusion myself, this is helpful as it will help me form my own opinions on matters and put information together. In addition, using what I research in my music is a good example to show that there may or may not be a difference and what that difference is. I could possibly look into two factual genres e,g Blues and soul, as a back up plan if there is no outcome from alternate and contemporary. Other examples of what

Areas Of Research

The areas I will be researching will be the transition of soul to R&B, what artists were at the forefront of this transition, What makes an artist alternate or contemporary, which artists are contemporary and why if there's a way to depict the difference. Moreover I will also be researching what musical sounds make the genre more alternate or contemporary. Following up what I stated earlier, if I come to a point where i will need to be researching soul and blues, I will be researching the years of which they had been around for a while and their transition into R&B and other genres they helped form. Furthermore I will also be looking into the musical differences between Alternative and Contemporary R&B, this will give me influence and guide me to add the right type of musical elements to the track I will be working on.

Methodology

I will go about creating this project by beginning with the research. Beginning with the research will help me differentiate between alternate and contemporary music, this is crucial as without the knowledge of the difference between the stems of genre, I wont be able to produce music that shows what i view as the difference, the research will include listening to music, reading articles, books and artists own papers so I know where they stand on the alternate and contemporary genre. Furthermore once I have made a start on my research I'll be able to make a start on the practical side of the project. To be confident there is a difference between Alternate and Contemporary R&B, I will take ideas from artists who classify as alternate and contemporary and implement them into my own work plus what i have researched to hopefully prove the difference. 

Timeline
I plan to work on a track a week and research the process behind the track the same week, I don't think i'll be able to get a track done a week, but I plan to start a track each week, I believe this will be helpful to me because if for some reason I'm unable to finish one track, there will be a beginning to it and hopefully it will portray what research is behind it to some degree.
The week starting Monday the 6th of March - Start researching Alternate and Contemporary R&B, this will be fairly straight forward assuming I find the information i'm looking for fairly swiftly. Completing my research sooner than later will allow me to start the practical side quicker. With Research started and a rough knowledge of alternate and contemporary sorted, I will be able to start my first track in the same week, I'll decide whether it will be alternate or contemporary once I have decided which artists footsteps I will be following in.

Week 1 - I will continue researching the two split genres and working on the track I had started, I will be researching artists and incorporating some of their musical aspects into my tracks as well, the artists I take influence from will be included in my research.

Week 2 - I will continue researching the Alternative and Contemporary R&B and continue progressing on my tracks, The progress of my tracks will most likely be going slower than I planned as I will be focusing on my research as that is what will be the inspiration behind the tracks.

Week 3 - I will hopefully be making a start on my second track by now and possibly my literature review, I would have hoped to do many case studies and still looking into the musical elements that differ between Alternative and Contemporary R&B.

Week 4, 5&6 - I will be concentrating on my tracks, I would have hoped to have enough research to be able to work purely on my tracks for a little while. This will allow me to get my practical out of the way and focus on research towards the end of the project.

Week 7, 8&9 - I will be mixing and mastering my tracks, picking up research again and hopefully having enough to finish my literature review, I would have been adding my practical research as I get along with my tracks so I'm sure my practical research will be up to date by then.

Week 10, 11&12 - I plan to have everything finished by then and just be getting feedback from my teachers to make sure everything is in order. I would like to be prepared to finish a week in advance incase any problems occur.

Week 13 - Hand everything in and begin working on my evaluation and my video deconstruction.

Harrison Gig Evaluation

Harrison Gig Evaluation

To live engineer at the Harrison gig me and Taylor volunteered, upon arrival we were given a brief talk through of what instruments to expect and how many vocalists to expect. For Ria's group; Tega was the on the electric piano, for the electric piano we connected a jack-male xlr lead into the Loom setup which connected to the stage box, which then ran into the mixer. Furthermore there were three vocalists, Ria, Porcha and Khadesha. To cater for the three vocalists, we set up two mic stands closer together which would be for the back up singers and one separate mic stand for the lead singer. We connected all the microphones using an XLR lead into the Loom, which led into the stage box and then into the mixer. Ria wanted reverb on all of her songs except her last one, this made it quite easy to control the mixer for her performance because we just had to change one slider as she announced her last song. Whilst we were doing the soundcheck Taylor was on the mixer and I was ensuring the sound was sounding how it should. During the soundcheck we noticed that the right speaker wasn't working. We waited till the performers had finished playing, flattened the desk and investigated the issue. The speaker hadn't been switched on by the plug. We restarted the soundcheck and everything was fine. Here is a photo of the mixing desk for Ria's group.

For Grace's group, we needed one mic stand and an XLR lead for the lead vocalist Grace and a chair and jack to male XLR lead for Leonie as she was playing the guitar. There are no complications with Grace's performance, she wanted reverb on the vocals and reverb on the guitar, me and Taylor decided that the reverb we had set for Ria's lead vocals was fine for Grace, and we had the slightest bit of reverb on the guitar. The mixer was set the same for Grace's group so there was no need for a photo.

For Gloria and Carol
The set up was similar to Ria's group minus the three backup singers, they wanted less reverb on the vocals, and the piano to be louder in the mix than the previous groups. They were quite easy to cater for as they knew precisely what they wanted for their sound.