This page exists to hold every idea I have about what I need to research for my own part in this collaborative project. It should be a rough plan as to what I need to look into before I decide I definitely want to go ahead with having this as my final project.
Some of the prioritised topics I need to research are:
- Characteristics of funk, rock, metal and combinations of funk with each
- Individual instrument technique and tone in relation to the style that I wish to aim for and their compatibility with other instrument tones
- How bass and drums intertwine and work together to maintain a groove
- A basic understanding of how drums are written for funk rock / funk metal
Other things I wish to research are:
- Mixing in detail. I want to ensure this EP sounds as professional as possible in the time we have.
- Ways of recording each instrument and how the sound differs with each. Find which ways are more appropriate for the style we want.
I will research the characteristics of each by finding a wide variety of bands that have written songs in those genres and studying different instruments and features of each. I plan to experiment with tone by recording ideas on both bass and guitar and finding what tones are the closest and most compatible with the style I seek. To understand the importance of the coordination between bass and drums in funk and funk rock / metal, I need to work with Cody to experiment different ideas.
Developing my mixing skills would take time. I would have to spend some time on researching mixing in Logic online and with tutors, as well as applying what I learn to audio to see it in action. I can easily find tutorials online and contact my tutors regarding what areas of mixing I require help understanding.
The only way I’m going to learn which recording technique sounds better is through trial and error. Besides this, I could research microphones in more detail to understand what captures what frequencies best and why they’re suited to that.
I don’t think I’ll struggle with time management at all throughout the final project. I’m very passionate about the idea of this EP and every part of its development, so I’m likely to spend every waking moment working on it in some way.
To organise my thoughts and understand what I’ll be marked on here on DS, I wrote out what I want to cover in each so I definitely have a decent amount of work completed for this project for each section.
Later on, I’ll likely plan my work by week so I have strict deadlines and incentive to keep on top of my project. This will both include DS work and EP production.
I have a few ideas on promotion and branding. Cody’s suggested we name it the Eclipse Project which I like, so I can work based on that. I’d like to complete an EP cover, band logo, art for social media banners and printed art for the project showcase.
As for online advertisement, we could book the photography studio for Instagram advertisement to post along with short videos focused on song development in the studio and short snippets of the parts we have recorded. Closer to the release, we can tease a part of the song recorded through a phone with audio that isn’t very clear and jump into a short section of a fully mixed song with the music video slightly blurred in the background with white text stating release date and where it would be releasing.
We can do similar things on Youtube but have more videos on rehearsal than development or the recording section. I feel like this would work as everything I see on Youtube shorts are more often in that form than any other. After release, we can explain the theory behind parts we’re proud of and do comparisons to how it sounded during development.