Final Project Post-Mortem

This major project has been a constructive evolution for me, both in my skills as a music producer and for myself emotionally. The EP that Shaquille and I have written and produced over this trimester has been a learning curve for me, as we delved into what I had previously considered as unmarked territory: Electronic Dance Music. The link for the Pleasure Island EP can be found by following the link below.

THE - Pleasure Island

https://soundcloud.com/user-7110769/sets/pleasure-island

Regarding the instrumentation and sonic characteristics of our creation, we wanted the theme to stretch across all songs. We set out to use presets from different vintage digital synthesizers, recording them as audio and sampling the stems to create a more EMP feel. This added to the feel very sample based instruments in machines such as the Korg Trident, which was responsible for many of the sounds on this record. Most of the recordings were treated very similarly, using FET based vst compression such as Soft Tubes, and an array of phasers, choruses and eq’s in order to bring our tones to the slightly more psychedelic side of EMP. The idea of natural sounding things through forms of digital distortion was also a conscious choice for this EP’s sonic character. Another deliverable we achieved was the creation of a found sound sample pack. For a unique tonal aspect, we decided to record everyday life using our iphones. For some reason, the iphone microphones offer a unique type of lofi compression that we really wanted on the album. We trimmed up the samples and used slight eqing in order for the sample pack to be completely dry. When it came to production, we edited these samples to hear solely the wet reverb signal, thus providing a hugely ambient and atmospheric wash underneath the main melodies. These samples are in all of the songs, providing fluidity to the theme and also allowing the album to loop seamlessly. These tonal choice also affected the processes of recording electric guitar. We used cheap, digital multi effects guitar pedals for all of the guitar tones.

Although time management was a plus for me, especially considering the lack of such during last trimester, it was also something that I need to improve on. During working on this EP, we missed two of our three bookings for the Tascam studio. Even though we managed our time correctly prior to these bookings, we missed the majority of them, thus creating stress that didn't need to manifest. In the future, I plan to work vigorously on my time management, by creating online schedules and using apps to remind me of bookings and allocated study time. Time management has been something that I have struggled with for most of my education, and while an improvement has been made from last trimester, I am looking forward to increasing my productivity through correct time management. In regards to my production and composition, this trimester has provided an inspiring space to grow. Most of the class is artistically driven by electronic music production, which provided me with insight and processes that I had not used before. This project has made me far more electronically inclined when considering production processes. I think it’s incredibly important to use production styles from all over, creating eclectic compositions without regard to genre boundaries.

Overall, this major project and more importantly, this whole trimester, has been an incredible learning curve for my music composition, production processes, time management and emotional growth. I’m looking forward to growing more in these areas and learning even more eclectic styles of music recording and production.