samuelhughesproductionblog

[samuelhughesproductionblog]

5th of May

Following the release of the EP our class convened to share and feedback on each other's work. There were many good things said, especially about the artwork, and some questions as to why I used the distribution services I did. All of these questions will be explored in the evaluation. Thank you.

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18th & 19th of April (Final mixing & Mastering)

The last couple days, leading up to the release date were spent tweaking the final mix and mastering the EP using Ozone 8. Ideally, I would have liked to send the EP out to be mastered externally. Unfortunately, after purchasing some VST modules for this project and purchasing the pictures for the artwork I did not have enough to master all three tracks. To keep them cohesive I used Ozone to pretty simply bring for some light EQ, stereo imaging, post-EQ, and limiting, all of these bringing out the elements of the track and up to a standard listen level -13 LUFS. As these tracks had quite different dynamics I mastered them individually, giving me more control over each track. From here I named the track and uploaded them to Bandcamp, ready for their release on the 21st.

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15th, 16th & 17th of April (Revisiting electric guitars)

As I was unhappy with the electric guitar, I spent many hours trying different amps and set-ups, but for some reason, the electric guitar just would not mesh with the rest of the track. After a couple of days, unable to succeed with the electric guitars I have replaced them with clean ones. While this does change the feel of the piece I added a brass section which brings back the intensity which was lost by changing the guitar tone.

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8th, 9th & 10th of April (General mix of all tracks)

Mixing these tracks was a pretty straightforward process in most instances, as I already had a very strong idea of the creative direction I wanted the track to take. Over the course of a couple of days, I proceeded to mix together the separate elements of the tracks. Using surgical EQ techniques to correct major issues, compression, affecting the dynamics, etc. This process was pretty fast as most of the work had already been planned out. One key thing to point out about the mixing process was the decision to primarily mix with the other elements audible to get a better idea of how the instruments were interacting. 

The electric guitar segment of the second track on the EP was the main obstacle faced during the mixing process, with after a couple of days not having achieved an acceptable result.

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6th of April (Mixing, Gain matching all elements)

After setting up the Bandcamp profile I really wanted to get the album finished. I started the mixing process by importing the raw audio of all three tracks into one file and adding the send effects. I decided to do things this way as I could listen to each track without traveling between files and use the same sends to achieve a constant sound throughout the EP. Gain matching all the stems took a little while but was critical for creating the best possible start point from which to build the sonic profile of the track.

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5th of April

Following on from the previous days’ research I set up a Bandcamp page using the artwork and assets created at the end of last month. A link to the Bandcamp page can be found below.

https://morgan-2104.bandcamp.com/releases 

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4th of April (Bandcamp set up)

After working on some other projects for a couple of days I came back and assessed the time scale of releasing the album. Originally I intended to release on Spotify via DistroKid, however, two reasons dissuaded me from choosing this route. Firstly, releasing to Spotify in this way requires a processing time of up to two weeks. Secondly, while a more convenient streaming platform for the majority of my demographic, there is no way to buy the album to show off the accompanying artwork. At this point in time, I still need to mix and master the EP, meaning releasing it now would result in an unfinished product. The reason for the early release date is a personal one, it being the birthday of my late mother and this album being an homage to her.

After doing some research I decided to use Bandcamp, as you can listen to tracks for free and purchase them as desired. Additionally, you are capable of customising your page quite significantly, which would enable me to show off the album artwork.

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1st of April (Track 02)

From here on I started work on bringing all the elements of the track together to start to form the finished product. I realised there was a creative element missing, that being flutes in some of the sections, and after adding that I moved on to finishing any other creative tweaks and readying the samples to be exported, ready for mixing. I stripped back all the effects from all the channels leaving the raw audio in most cases.

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29th & 30th of March (Track 02) (Tacks 01 & 03)

At this point, the majority of the creative compositional work had been completed so I shifted my focus to using automation to increase the realism using Spitfire’s Expression and Dynamic Controls. This, while being a time-consuming process, added so much to the piece, creating a much more realistic sound orchestral. I went on to spend this day and the next on automating these parameters on the other tracks as well. This was not possible with some of the instruments being from different developers, namely the piano. To achieve a similar result I used the velocity MIDI control in Ableton to automate the instrument in a similar way.

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28th of March (Track 02)

After taking a couple of days away and listening back to the second track I decided that it was not different enough. To this end I created a faster paced, more dramatic section, using toms to drive the section. Taking inspiration from composers like Hans Zimmer and Tom Holkenborg and tracks like ‘Tornado’ and ‘Flight’ from Man of Steel, (Movieclips, 2016b) and (Filmic Box, 2019). This totally changed the feel of the track and had the effect I desired, differing it from the other tracks, while staying true to the sonic style of the EP. I felt that there was still something missing so I composed and performed an electric guitar segment to amplify the intensity of the segment.

Movieclips. (2016b). Man of Steel - Jonathan’s Sacrifice Scene (5/10) | Movieclips [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yodVQ5QAc88

Filmic Box. (2019). Superman’s First Flight Scene | Man of Steel (2013) Movie Clip 4K [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Yl5SEh04M

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25th & 26th of March (Track 02)

Starting with the same instruments and the first track, in order to keep them in a similar style, I created the initial composition, working at 111bpm in order to create a more dramatic piece. Following a similar pattern to the other track, I created the various elements of the track ready for the second movement. The percussive elements ended up being what really kept a running theme throughout the track, making them feel like one piece of work.

Using the instruments added previously, I added a second movement to the piece with half-time notes to slow the pace of the track. I continued to flesh out the musical elements including the strings and the choir where I recorded myself singing and layered that to create a more realistic sounding choir.

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24th of March (Artwork finished)

With the material acquired the previous day I began to construct the artwork using Illustrator and Photoshop. After conferring with my creative consultant we agreed on the layout and selected a font. From here I made the final adjustments in terms of colour correction and then created multiple variants for the album cover. These included promotional material such as a mock-up of my album as a vinyl record and various posters of different sizes. These materials can be found in the following post. From here I had a very professional album cover, inspiring me to continue work on the music.

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23rd of March (Album Artwork)

After focusing on other work, I wanted to re-energise the project and motivate myself to compose the final track. To do this I shifted focus and started working with a small digital company to formulate ideas for the album cover. We started with the idea of vision and settled on the iris symbol which became the ‘o’ in Morgan. We also began blocking out visual layouts, coming up with initial ideas that might work with the logo. We settled with the idea of travel and taking three snapshots through a journey, using the iris logo as a connecting theme. We started testing out colour pallets and layouts until deciding that landscapes at different scales would be both interesting yet fit together well. At this point, we selected three images from AdobeStock to begin work with the next following day. 

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24th of February  (Track 01)

At this point, I had begun thinking about the direction of the second track and how to lead on to that from the first. I knew that I wanted the tempo to be faster to incorporate the drums that I plan on including. So I automated the tempo and composed an outro section to transition into the next track using the typewriter instrument. From here I was ready to start composing the second track to complete the album. However due to the nature of University having multiple modules, I had to shift focus at this point to catch up with other work, hence the long hiatus to the next section.

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20th of February (Track 03)

Building upon the work done the previous day, I continued by further fleshing out the sonic elements of the track and adding a second section. This section was faster paced than the first and thinking that this section would better try tracks two and three together I swapped them around. This creative change totally changed the feel of the piece and felt much like a final track or the end to a story. 

From here, much like the first track, I added FX elements and layered the musical elements to give the track a much fuller sound. In order to create more variation from the first track, I used flutes in a more prominent way. This helped give the track a unique identity as the final track of the EP.

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18th of February (Track 03)

After creating the first track I decided to work on what would be the last track in the EP. I did this because I wanted the album to transition well between tracks, and I wanted to know the direction of the second track in the EP. It was at this time that I started moving away from my original idea in terms of structure and sound design. I felt that having an EP of three very different tracks, while enabling me to show off more skills, would create a less focused and viable finished product. With this in mind, I still wanted to create a cinematic EP but I wanted to explore creatively and try to find my own style within a single genre while incorporating elements from the professional practitioners researched previously. 

Time became a large inspiration for this work as I lost my mother at the end of last year. The idea of time wasted and the passage of time inspired the heavy use of clocks throughout this track and the rest of the EP, with the addition of typewriters to convey an exchange of words. This final track represented the final moments with loved ones we might have. A mixture of hope, sadness, and release with the ticking of the clocks finally coming to a close. A softer piano was an obvious sonic choice for this piece, conveying the sense of fragility and sadness I wanted to achieve. The piano for what would become the second movement was inspired by some of the music from Final Space. I then composed a slow, purposeful piano, similar to ‘When the Night Is Long’, see (WaterTowerMusic, 2020), to give the track an initial structure.

WaterTowerMusic. (2020). Final Space Official Soundtrack | When the Night is Long (feat. Shelby Merry) | WaterTower. Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwauF7_kWA4