Midi To Maxi

Recording Session Plan

Week One

For recording piano on my track influenced by Persian Rugs, I'm thinking of using a D.I box which will be connected to a synth/electric piano thats available in the recording studio. Ill create a score for a session player (most likely Tega) as I'm confident in her ability to play chords and melodies. Ill set up a headset for her so she can hear the rest of the track and the midi version of the chords, just for reassurance. I'm choosing to use  a D.I box so the sounds feeds straight into logic with no background noise or ambient sounds. The score I'll give her will be fairly short as the chords repeat it's self throughout the track. For the recording all I will need is a D.I box, (not specifying whether its stereo or not) a Male XLR to Jack lead, an Electric piano and a score. We will record in 141.

Week Two
For recording Bass on my track influenced by Persian Rugs, my idea at the moment is to give Jack a Liverpool bass then get him to play the bass that plays the melody. The set up will be a SM57 by the amp for the bass, which will be fed into the audio interface by using a jack to female XLR lead, I'm doing this because for this type of bass I would like their to be some type of ambience. I won't be giving Jack a score as he's practiced this piece before and is competent to play it. I'll set the track up on logic so he's able to listen to the midi version of the bass.


I have already recorded bass on my remix of Tupac do for love, but I would like to record another type of bass as the the first bass i recorded was a fretless bass, which I'm unsure if it suits the track, so my plan is to record it with a Liverpool bass, or another sub type bass, and feed it directly through a D.I box. As Jack has already played this bass-line I won't be supplying him with a score, but will let him listen to the midi version and the previously recorded audio version so he can listen back.

Week 4
I also plan to record the trumpet for my saxophone section on Tupac Do For Love. To record this I will set up Alex with a  E606 microphone and connect using a female XLR to male XLR lead, I'm choosing a E606 as its a dynamic microphone meaning it can pick up sound in a specific direction which would be best for recording one instrument.

Week 5
For my remix of tupac do for love, I had Alex play the trumpet to cover the saxophone the end result is as follows below and the recording went as I planned. Although we didn't use a score, we were able to read the notes to Alex and he was able to play them to the metronome.


Week 6
For my Persian rugs remix I recorded the chords on the juno synth connecting it to a D.I box and straight into the DAW. I had Josh play the chords and told him the individual notes to play, we placed him right next to the floor box and set him up with some headphones so he would easily be able to hear himself.

Funding Application

Open Music Funding

We wish to apply to the open music funding by PRS For Music Foundation to further our journey with our Sound 'Bashment's Backbone' over the years of performing in small venues, we've accumulated quite a loyal following base and the four of us (Jax, Tempo, Mod and myself) think it's about time we toured around the UK. Our fans are often mailing and emailing us that they would love to see us perform but since so far we've only been limited to London due to not having the funds to transport all our equipment with us to the other side of the country or even to Northern Ireland. We use drum pads, looping, vocals, synths, a range of instrumentd and pre-recorded tracks in our performances, which i believe makes us unique and has allowed us to grow as big as we have. All of us know how to use the equipment but we tend to have our separate favourites which encourages to work in sync better. Jax mainly acts as the producer for the pre-recorded tracks and for the sounds we use from the production softwares. Tempo is usually on the drum pads but surprise surprise can also play the drums, hence his name Tempo. Mod is usually in charge of looping and playing melodies whether thats on guitar, piano or a synth and i'll be on vocals and have my own synth. As i mentioned earlier my aim is to tour the UK, for this we would need roadies, vans to transport the equipment in, promotion (through social media and flyers etc..) and to have venues at the ready. We have our own pages on social media so promotion via social media shouldn't be an issue, the main issue is transporting our equipment, and having the venue prepared for us. This is what the funding would go towards we have already got quotes from roadies to achieve this and spoke to many venues across the country who would be willing to cater for us. We're also thinking of adding merchandise to our personal website and putting up a stand at the venues we'll perform at.

We're hoping for a funding of £10,000 we have planned budgets for each step of the way and think this plan will succeed.

4 Track Review

Persian Pugs

"Persian Pugs" was inspired from the chords from Persian Rugs by Party Next Door. I played the chords in and decided it was a unique sound that I liked. I wanted to remake the sound of the chords into my own sound, I used the EX 24 synth to conjure a sound that I liked. This version of Persian Pugs is missing some content as its an older version, I used this bounce so the development can be heard and my ideas for this track are clear. Throughout the development I plan to use panning techniques on only one bar of the synths, which will be when the synth is split into thirds. I plan to have Erykah sing on this track to finish it off.

https://soundcloud.com/milesedwardsfrancis/miles-persian-pugs

Tupac Do For Love Remix

Using the bass line from Tupac Do for love, I wanted to make a remix mainly formed of audio, we recorded. In the studio we recorded a fretless bass guitar and drums, I plan to add trumpets and synths to the track from recording, I already have midi versions of them both. But using the D.I box will make the track more interesting and completely recorded by me and peers. I added the synth to keep interest there rather than just the drum and bass line. The same with the trumpet.
https://soundcloud.com/milesedwardsfrancis/tupac-do-for-love-remix

What Do You Want

Starting off this track I wanted to start it with a kind of dark ambient feeling, with the drums changing after each bar, my plans for this track are to have a almost RnB/ drum & bass, bass line, to keep the ambient feeling, and add more interest to the song. With this track I was thinking of mainly keeping it midi and using most of my midi skills. The synth was made using alchemy, but the drums was just one of logics instruments.
https://soundcloud.com/milesedwardsfrancis/what-do-you-want

Crazy Tazy

Using the track from last year, I added a subby synth intro that fades and in and increases tempo as it goes along, and kept the vocals, with this song I planned to have Erykah sing on it to add to the vocals. Furthermore I would like to possibly replace the drum beats with a beat from ultra beat and improve the synth using an ESP or EX 24. I could possibly add chords to help develop the song.
https://soundcloud.com/milesedwardsfrancis/crazy-tazy

Classmate reviews

Ethnography

Ethnography - Contemporary R&B

Introduction

Throughout this Ethnography we will be exploring Contemporary R&B throughout the 1980's and its origins. We will be uncovering the several aspects that can help us understand the genre of music, the visual representation associated with that genre, what sounds to specifically listen for, where and how we interpret the music, (e,g, whether at a concert with friends dancing, or in your own company in your room, listening to the meaning of the song) And a few more factors. 

Sonic

In the 1980's there were multiple genres that were fused together to form R&B these genres included; Hip-Hop, Soul, Funk and Pop. Many popular artists in this genre at the time were The Jackson 5, Michael Jackson as a solo artist, Prince, Stevie wonder, Marvin Gaye and many other artists whom we may go over during the course of this Ethnography.
 One of the more interesting features in Contemporary R&B is that the drum beat can range from a fairly upbeat, fast tempo, to a slower relaxing speed and its mainly dependent on the artist on which of these the drums will follow. However one thing most Contemporary R&B tracks have in common, is that a lot of the time the drums will open the song followed by the bass or the other way round, then the vocals will kick in and hook the audience. Furthermore in the background there will more often than not be a synth that sounds like an alarm or phone ringing. From the prince song When Doves Cry at 25 seconds the synth kicks in and plays on and off throughout the song. Also in this song you hear the bass kick in first, followed by the vocals.

We can cross reference this with The Jackson 5's Can You Feel It. Where the drum and bass kick in at the same time starting off the song at 50 seconds. But there is a synth but not one simulating a ringing sound.
  
However as I said earlier, the 1980's was an early stage for Contemporary R&B so there are many different styles, which means ultimately the style you hear will depend on the artist, for example Can You Feel It and When Doves Cry sounded more towards the pop genre whereas if you listen to Did I Hear You Say You Love Me by Stevie Wonder the feel of blues is more than noticeable right from the start of the song. But the upbeat drums which is shared between all three tracks I have embedded so far is still in the mix.
 
Visual
The 1980's played a crucial part in the visual aspect of music as the first music video to be released on tv by MTV was released in 1981 and it was The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star. Even though This is not an R&B track yet alone a contemporary track, this paved the path for artists like Michael Jackson to start releasing his own music videos, because only a year after the first music video released, Michael Jackson released the world renown 'Thriller' music video. I believe both these two music videos to be a turning point in the music industry no matter what the genre is. Adding visuals to music means we can see what the artist wants us to see or possibly broadens our imagination to stimulate thoughts on current issues in the world or what the artist is addressing.  
Also an interesting aspect to consider when discussing the effect visuals hold within in music is clothing and hair, for example the Jackson 5 all had afros during their time in the group, and often wore similar coloured or styled clothing if not both. This is shown in the picture below.

Technological
The technological side of Contemporary R&B is interesting since the 1980's was known as a turning point for most genres. The use of synthesizers in most songs during this time is noticeable and as i touched on earlier the groove (the drum sounds and bass sounds) which may have been taken from neo soul, play a very interesting part as its almost a must for a song to be classed as R&B. The early 80's were known for the introduction of midi and recording digitally to music, which is a huge addition to the creation of music as it helps in plenty of ways. This is not to say that there were not ways to sequence without midi because there were but with midi the prices for midi sequencers dropped allowing it to be much more accessible to people with lower budgets and it made sequencing possibly easier. A lot of instruments were then replaced with synthesizers. Furthermore Cd's were released in early 1980's/late 1970's which makes listening to music a lot more accessible.

Mediatic
Since this was the 1980's most people would goto gigs or festivals to listen to music, however there were people who could afford record players, which weren't too expensive at the time but most families would tend to only have one and mainly in their family room. With the release of the Cd it meant that cd players would be more frequent in family homes as it was cheaper although the quality wasn't as good as record players or even live, it still was the most modern thing at the time, so families would listen to either cd players or record players together in the sitting room as a form of entertainment. However as i said earlier i think that the most popular way for listening to music would be by going to the concerts and tours and gigs as that way you're getting a live experience. I think the majority of R&B is meant to be danced to, with the exception that quite a few types of R&B encourage to deeply think about the song and the meaning behind it to possibly help deal with any hardships you could possibly be going to the the artist relates to.

Temporal
Generally the contemporary R&B songs last around of a maximum of 5 minutes and a minimum of just under 3, however when it comes to the music videos this can increase by double all more as their might be another message the artist is trying to get across which would make it all the more interesting and possibly even make you feel more intwined with the song. However with albums there may be extra tracks which can only be listened to our bought along with the album as a special edition and an incentive to buy the whole album rather than individual tracks you're interested in.

Corporeal
The majority of R&B does tend to have voice in it, however if we look into prince's original purple reign, that track had no vocals to begin with and that track was still popular, furthermore tracks which could have been influenced of Miles Davis who rarely had vocals if any on most of his tracks, wouldn't surprise me if the artist decided to follow the same route and leave the vocals out.

Discursive
Contemporary R&B was the after math of blues, neo soul and jazz, there will be underlying issues from these three which generally relate to black people being oppressed, however the majority of contemporary R&B barely mentions such subjects so for me personally I almost feel as if contemporary R&B is a celebration of freedom to be able to experiment with music as freely as the artist chooses to and to express themselves without the racial oppression motivating them.

Portfolio Assignment

Recording Drums

In todays recording studio, I recorded Josh playing drums for the track I am remixing, in employability called 'Do For Love' by 2pac. To start off we decided on a list of microphones we would need during the process, this included; 4 Sm57's and 2 NT5's. We chose these microphones so the Sm57's would be able to pick up individual sound whilst the two NT5's would act as overhead microphones to capture the drum sounds all together and give us the stereo image we desired, whilst one of the Sm57's were placed on the snare, another on the high toms, another on the floor tom, another on the hi hat and the last one on the kick drum. This was a successful idea as we were able to get a very clear, smooth sounding drum kit which gives me many options to chose from when editing. Below is the finished recording of the drums, with each track labelled of the positioning of the microphones.

Recording Bass Guitar

Recording the bass guitar was fairly simple, we set up 2 NT5's and placed them by the bass amp using a stereo axis positioning called ORTF to ensure the sound wouldn't clash, whilst brining out the best quality of the sound. We chose to use the amp rather than feed the bass directly into the D.I so we still had the ambience in the background rather than just purely the bass playing. We took multiple takes to deicide what bass track I would use on my track, furthermore we also added a titan as a room mic to add ambience to the sound. Below is a screenshot of the bass recording.

Recording Studio

Recording Drums

In todays recording studio, I recorded Josh playing drums for the track I am remixing, in employability called 'Do For Love' by 2pac. To start off we decided on a list of microphones we would need during the process, this included; 4 Sm57's and 2 NT5's. We chose these microphones so the Sm57's would be able to pick up individual sound whilst the two NT5's would act as overhead microphones to capture the drum sounds all together and give us the stereo image we desired, whilst one of the Sm57's were placed on the snare, another on the high toms, another on the floor tom, another on the hi hat and the last one on the kick drum. This was a successful idea as we were able to get a very clear, smooth sounding drum kit which gives me many options to chose from when editing. Below is the finished recording of the drums, with each track labelled of the positioning of the microphones.

Recording Bass Guitar

Recording the bass guitar was fairly simple, we set up 2 NT5's and placed them by the bass amp using bidirectional positioning to ensure the sound wouldn't clash. We took multiple takes to deicide what bass track I would use on my track, furthermore we also added a titan as a room mic to add ambience to the sound. Below is a screenshot of the bass recording.

Employability Task, Remixing

Tupac Do For Love

What makes this track stand out so much for me, would have to be the bassline and vocals. To start off I got stems for the bass and the drums, however whether I used the drums or not was yet to be decided. Using ultra beat I came up with a 90's sounding drum kit which i added mid way through the track, I used this to further develop the song into my own image. After listening to the original multiple times i decided that adding a synth under the drum beat was the way to go. Later on in one of our classes with Farz, I asked Josh to play the drums in audio, which was interesting because it gave the drums a realistic sound and can be improved further through the use of effects and equalising