The Evaluation

EP creation

How well did you contribute to the overall creation of the EP in terms of working in the studio in a variety of roles?

On terms of creating the EP my contribution varied. I had a voice in the matters when it came down to what we were doing artistically however when it came to working on others peoples tracks it was different. I had an active part in my track of course as well as Rhys and Joes tracks however in Liam and Nicolas tracks I did nothing, I'm not sure wether this was because I did not ask to take an active role or wether they did not require me.





How did your group as part of a team?

As part of a team we worked rather well. We had similar ideas when it came to the EP and any differences in ideas were resolved quickly. Within the studio we also worked well as a team, however as mentioned in the text above I did feel rather like our group was split on preference of who we wanted to work in the studio with after having no part in Liam and Nicolas tracks.


Did you meet your planned deadlines?

We met all of our deadlines having all the tracks recorded in time as well as the mixing and mastering process also being done in time. We all met deadlines in terms of recording as we all produced our tracks plenty of time before the recording process, the exception of this of course was Harry who did not plan and prepare and so got kicked out of our group because he was holding us back. We also met deadlines for the artwork of the EP.


Did you stick to your planned recording costs?

I did not stick entirely to my financial planner in terms of how much I spent on what as I had to rearrange sessions and change what I planned to record. However my original budget that I planned out I was aiming to spend £1080 overall on the recording process, and it turned out that I spent £920, this was due to my losing my first sessions recording of percussion so I had to re-record it so I made the decision not to record vocals this saved me an hours session that would have cost me £160.


 Were they over/under?

It was under however after now listening to my track countless times I think I really could have done with recording some vocals for it. 


What were your main strengths/weaknesses?

I'd say my main strength was producing the first version of the track as I was used to this part of the process, I wouldnt not say I had any particular weakness's as my recording went well as well but I suppose I could probably improve my organisational skills for example being well prepared for all my sessions in the studio as well as making sure I get a copy of the file as this caused a problem within the whole recording process when I lost my first sessions recordings resulting in the lack of vocals within my track.


Overall what was your opinion on the EP?

I think that the quality of the recording is great, and it all sounds very proffesional. I think the music is bit too varied without a common theme that is consitent throughout, however variety can be a good thing but I feel it is a bit too much of a random mash up for it to be released commercially. Like I do not think the EP will appeal to any certain audience due to the variety of the music contained meaning that it would possibly have trouble selling. In terms of how the EP looked I think the cover and the disc all looked very proffesional, and I was very happy with it.


EP launch

How did the launch go?  

The launch went allright, we did not have an amazing turnout but it was what could be expected on a Wednesday night in Stoke. We had minimal problems throughout the night as we got everything set up with plenty of time and pretty much everything ran smoothly. A few problems that are worth mentioning include The Victoria's soundsystem breaking just a few days before which they did not tell us, so we only had two PA speakers for our launch which meant we had a low volume and the sound quality of these speakers was also not great. Another problem was in my set, about three quarters of the way into my set, my laptop died, this would not have been too much of a problem as it died at a very good time, just before the drop of a song, so my set sounded complete however none of the other performers were around at the time so nobody was there to take over and we had some dead air. 

What was successful?  

The performances were succesful and everybody that was there enjoyed it, we also planned out the set times rather well and most things ran smoothly.

What was least effective?


We did not sell as many EPs and as much merchandise as we would have liked, also the keyrings and stickers that we ordered did not come in time for the night so we could not sell them.We also did not get a great turnout to our launch, this could have been for multiple reasonds; first of all we could have chosen a better night to do it on than a Wednesday, secondly we could have chosen a venue that would be closer to Newcastle and the college for accesibility for our audience, we also could have done a lot more promotion such as getting more flyers and posters printed off that has a more appealing design as well as getting our promotional materials out there more for example we created a promo video but then did not distribute it really, only uploading it to youtube where we got very little views.

How did your group work as a team to plan and put on the launch? 



We worked well to plan the launch, originally there was problem with a venue but we got it sorted in the end. Other than booking the night and preparing our performances for the night little else was needed to be done prior to the night. On the actual night we met up early and got to the vic with plenty of time and set everything up whilst working effectively as a team.

How did you contribute to this?

I was the one who organised with the venue to actually have the launch. Also on the night I acted sorted of as the sound engineer as I knew the equipment better than the other due to being familiar with it. 

Was the event a commercial success?Commercially the event was not as much of a succes we would have hoped, we did not do as well financially as expected, selling a lot less merchandise than expected. We also did not achieve the turn out that we hoped for however we are going to plan more events in the hope of selling more of the EPs and more merchandise. I think on the night we could have sold more EPs by simply giving constant reminders to all people there that we EPs for sale, as well as possibly making the table at the back more visible from which we were selling EPs and merchandise. In terms of merchandise sales we did not have all we wanted to sell on the night so we could have ordered the merchandise earlier and I also think we could have done better designs that are more appropriate for the EP.

Was the event a success artistically?

Artistically the event was a success, but again was not as great as we planned. Rhys's laptop broke prior to the gig meaning he did not get to do his entire set but just the song from the EP, my laptop also died part way into my set meaning i was cut short by 10 minutes or so. But other than these slight problems everything else went very well.

Was the product appropriate to the audience?

I think the product was appropriate for the audience as there were many people within the crowd who has a love for electronic music, and because the music on the EP is quite varied there was people with music tastes from different areas of electronic music who got to experience music they wouldnt usually listen to. I would personally have preferred a more lively crowd as for me it felt uncomfortable doing a house set whilst people were sitting down and not dancing but people seemed to enjoy it.

Fallen behind on the blog so here's a pre-gig update.

After the problem mentioned in the last post, I got in touch with the lady now running The Vic in order to assure we had the venue, and fortunately we can still have the event on the night we planned.

We have also finished the mixing and master part of the EP, and I think we now have a very nice sounding EP that fits in well together.

For the actual launch event we have decided on how we will be performing the tracks from the EP, me and Joe will be doing DJ sets starting with our tracks from the EP whereas Nicola, Rhys and Liam will all be performing there tracks.

Because I am doing a DJ set we have not planned any proper rehearsal time as I can prepare my set easily by myself in my own time, we just need to carefully plan out set times and also the order on the night.

We have also changed the CD cover to one of my designs but we've kept the name Messages From Andromeda, you can see the new design as well as the back cover and CD design below. 

We have now ordered all the merchandise as well as the CDs, and hopefully they should all come in time for the gig.





So now it's just time for our Gig, Wednesday 6th June at The Victoria Stoke, hope to see you there!

We got a problem...

So we've got a big potential problem with our EP launch, when I went to the night I run there on Friday I discovered that basically the guy who runs the Vic, who I organised the EP launch with has now left the pub, without telling the rest of the employees there about the event. I have briefly spoken to the woman who now runs it (however we don't really get along) and I think I should be able to persuade her to still let us have it but we will see.

A lot of stuff to talk about

      It's been a while since I've done a post and since my last one a lot has happened. I've had another couple of sessions recording in the studio, in which I have recorded the piano and synth parts of my track. I've just got one more session to go in there recording vocals and then the recording process is over.

     So now it's time to talk more in depth about our launch event. Originally we wanted to host the event at The Rigger pub in Newcastle, Liam attempted to contact them however we got no reply, I run a night at The Victoria Pub in Stoke so I know the owner quite well because I of this I was able to sort out a night of our choice, the date we chose was Wednesday the 6th of June with the hours still undecided, we had to do it midweek as they always have a night on weekend nights but fortuntely this date is in the half term. We will be selling tickets for this event for £4 as well as selling merchandise (mentioned further below).

    During our launch event we plan to do live performances of each of our tracks, as well as DJ sets from me, Harry and Joe. We are still uncertain on how we will do the performances though so I will do an update on this further into the future.

      For our EP we have decided to use 'Messages From Andromeda' as the name, this was thought up by Rhys as he also designed an image for it, I had come up with the name 'Astronomusic' and also created a couple of quick EP cover designs. These images can be seen below.

    Now onto merchandising, we are ordering a small amount of mechandise which will have the name of our EP as well as some creative designs on. Obviously as well as this we will be selling our EP (after all that's what it's all about) the prices we will be selling merchandise is specified below

Keyrings: £1
Wristbands: £1
Stickers: 50p
EPs: £4

     All of our profits made from the event, merchandising and EP sales will be going to the charities British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK.

     Finally onto promotions,  first of all Rhys has designed a flyer (image below), to start off with we will be printing 20 of these onto A4, and then putting these up as posters in areas such as Newcastle College and local Music Shops to gain interest for our launch event. Other methods we have decided upon creating a tongue in cheek promotional video for our event including a clip from Shawshank Redemption and a Morgan Freeman voice over impersonation performed by our very own Liam Munday. We have also created a facebook event to advertise our event on social media sites (http://www.facebook.com/events/388828344494862/) I believe this will be our best chance at getting people to come to our event and it's free which is a plus.

    So I think I've covered everything I can remember although I'm sure I've missed something out. I will try and do more frequent updates to keep you all informed.

2nd Week of Recording

So onto my second week of recording, which somehow managed to be an even less productive session than the first week haha. Again the cowbell had been forgotten and as well as this it was first thing Monday morning and I had just had a long weekend. I decided that it was not worth just going in to record a handclap so I rebooked this session to be a few weeks later. It's the Easter holidays for the next two weeks so my track won't get any work done to it now for a few weeks. But it's not just the recording process which is requiring work, there is planning and preparation needed for the launch event which I will post about when the details have been finalised.

1st Week of Recording

So my track has now been created, I posted a rough sample of what my track will sound like to my Soundcloud (http://soundcloud.com/mentokdnb/as-ever). Im using the theme of Space to inspire my music by relating my music to the calm void of space, however I still think my track needs more of a connection to space through some form of lyrics or sounds. But anyway onto my first week of recording where I decided that I will tackle the percussion of my track; recording the kick drum, cowbell and handclaps withinn my track which all seemed simple enough. Not a great start as the cowbell has been forgotten to be brought in but despite this I decided to crack on with the recording. It took us about an hour and a half to get a half decent sounding kick drum coming through after using a range of different microphones and microphone positioning, we then used the rest of the time to actually get the kick drum rhythms recorded. So my first session in the studio did not go to plan well at all, I decided because of this I will push my other recording sessions back a week and finish of the percussion in my second week within the studio.

Introduction to FMP

Hey my name's Loz Bradley and the purpose of this blog is to follow what's going on with my final major project (FMP) at Newcastle College.
So first of all I'll explain what the FMP is, our task was to create an EP with 5 other students in our class, each track on the EP has to be produced by a different individual within our group whilst the others take an active role in the studio for each others songs. We then have to release this EP whilst hosting a launch event for it in which we showcase our tracks.
Our group came together orginially because of electronic music, the two other groups within our class were focusing on metal music and also rock music. Considering the majority of members of our group regularily produce some form of electronic music it seemed like a simple decision and also a theme for our group, we were all going to produce a different form of electronic dance music, however when we discussed this as a group with our tutors at college they told us this theme was too vague, so after some discusssion we finally decided that our theme would be on space.
Straight away I knew what genre of music I wanted to be doing and that was house, well more specifically deep house. The reason for this is because recently I have been listening to more and more house and prior to this assignment I had already worked on a couple of house tracks recently. I then had to decide how I was going to construct my track, again these was an easy decision as for all of my tracks I had done in the past I had used Reason.
The more difficult part of the planning was deciding what parts of my track I was going to record live as there had to be a mix of instruments recorded using microphone and DI. I decided even before starting work on my track what I was going to record as I needed to book the sessions in, I decided I was going to record percussion, piano, vocals and either the Gaia synth or sampler. I had booked my sessions a few weeks later so to give me enough time to actually create my track before the recording process even begins.
I will be posting more about this FMP in the future to keep you update on the recording process, details on the launch event and how everything is going.