Artefact 1 - Professional Development Project
Overview
The PDP project was important in becoming a better Producer/Remixer. This project involved me completing thorough market research, writing a song, mixing/mastering said song and releasing it out into the world for my audience that I garnered to hear.
It helped to mould my understanding of how to efficiently sell myself and apply effort to getting my name out there as a self-sustaining professional. From researching market trends for the genre of music I planned to release, to running my social media accounts, I learned many skills and got the experience of trying to gain an audience throughout the process. I studied what age demographic I should be trying to cater to (18–24-year-old students) and made sure that I was making music that was relaxing to study to. I even went as far to make efforts to post late at night because through research I found that would be when most students are on social media or listening to music while trying to relax/study.
I also attempted to contact some other students to collaborate with them in making artwork for my release – I thought this would give me some experience in making up some contractual agreements on the use of the art, but it didn’t exactly go to plan so I ended up making it myself (see below W.B. 21st October). Making sure I stuck to the timeline I planned for the process was crucial as I wanted things to go as scheduled and I really wanted the project to be as professionally done as possible.
I did plenty of research of mastering music through watching tutorial videos to make my song as professionally as possible with the limited hardware & software that I have. I felt this would be important in making a name for myself on my own as it will stand out and have my own personal flare to it.
The PDP project overall allowed me to gain essential abilities such as managing the process using planning & sticking to a set timeframe, and delivering a professional, market-facing release of a product - these are necessary skills when becoming a Producer/remixer: ESPECIALLY a self-employed one.
Timeline/Logbook
(W.B. = Week Beginning)
W.B. 9th September
Began composing my track to fit the theme/genre that I had planned for my project. Had a few different iterations throughout the month of September that I did like but they just didn’t work for me - whether that be the use of samples and instruments I used or the length of the track. But eventually I landed on the final version that I ended up releasing for this project. I used a mix of real and programmed instruments to make the song work like real bass, resampled guitars and samples from Splice. I titled the track: ‘LostItsColour//MemoryGallery’.
W.B. 16th September
This week I began mixing the final version of the song. The process was fairly simple overall and although I’m confident in my own mixing capabilities, I did a lot of researching through blogs & YouTube videos on how to mix ambient music well. The main plan of attack was to make sure all elements can be heard and have their own, stand-out place in the mixes stereo image. Theres a lot of reverb on most of the stems so making sure no parts became muddy was important – Using EQ and directional mixer effects helped to keep everything cohesive. Using light compression and EQ on the master bus was what really glued everything together and after many listens myself & with peers, I was happy with the way I mixed it.
W.B. 7th October
I had initially gotten in touch with an Edinburgh-based Producer I had worked with years ago called Mark Morrow. I had asked him what his mixing and mastering rates are, and they were more than I was willing to cough up for this project – especially since I’m trying to do this off my own back.
I decided that since this is my first release, I really felt it was important to prove to everyone I can confidently do this on my own. I hadn’t ever mastered anything before, so this was all new to me. I did a lot of research of how to master specifically using stock plugins for Logic Pro X (since this is my DAW of choice at home) and came across this helpful YouTube channel called ‘The Band Guide’. There was a playlist of videos on mixing and mastering and after seeing them It gave me the boost to give it a go myself – there's no better way to learn for me. I used a multimeter plugin to make sure I was staying within loudness levels for commercial music while also being loud enough where it can stand out and be heard.
Using a compressor, adaptive limiters, a Tube EQ and Linear EQ, I worked on this track until I was happy with it and truly felt it would be commercially viable.
W.B. 21st October
I contacted the head of Art and Design for our campus to put out the message to the students to see if anyone was interested in working with me to create a logo for BEEM Productions.
The following day (23rd October) I received a message from a student on my campus that was interested in working together.
We spoke further about ideas this week, and I sent her over the track so that she could have some inspiration for the logo and possible single artwork but then on the 30th of October she had messaged me back to say she wouldn’t be able to do it.
On the 24th of October I had my partner Rachael Lennon to do a photoshoot for me to post on my social media accounts – she has a degree in photography so I was confident the photos would be great quality and great for trying to create some hype for my release. We played around with different lighting, coloured lights and slow-shutter effects to add to the lofi vibe that I wanted my brand to give off. Here’s a few of the photos:
The following day on the 25th of October, I created my Instagram and YouTube accounts so that I could start posting to create an audience and have people interested in my release. I posted on my story a lot with updates as to when the song was coming out and used a lot of the photos from the photoshoot to seem more professional.
I began using apps like Canva and YouCut to edit videos/pictures for posting and began working on the Single Artwork on my own rather than relying on others and possibly being let down by anyone – this seemed like a better option because at this point I had also gotten in touch with one of the Music Business students and that fell through as well.
I posted a few photos and any new update about the release to my YouTube channel, too. Over the next few weeks from here I was just posting teasers and photos from the photoshoot on both platforms to try to gain an audience.
W.B. 11th November
I finalised the Artwork for my releasing using Canva and other free online picture editing software. I had a specific look and feel I knew had to be included in the artwork and had sent these ideas to both students I was previously in contact with to do the art for me.
Down to the left was the collage of ideas and designs I liked for my artwork:
The gradient look and the minimalistic design were unique and eye-catching to me, so I felt that these had to be included. I had no intention of including my face in any means in the art, but I really liked one of the images from the photoshoot me and Rachael did, so I chose my favourite one and used both the gradient & minimalist ideas and came up with this design:
W.B. 18th November
Now that I had everything in place except for my logo, I decided it was time to make the details of my track, the name, artwork and date of release public on my social media accounts. The first official post of this was on the 19th of November – It was a post of the artwork with an edited snippet of an excerpt of the track that was EQ’d in a way where you could barely make it out and this was an effective teaser post.
To have some extra traction and get the post to reach more people who didn’t already know me I paid for a 10-day ad-boost run on Instagram that was £30 all in all. This greatly affected my account as it was reaching people who it might not have otherwise and more than tripled the amount of likes and shares I was getting prior to this.
I had a lot of friends and family share this post and it had a lot of interaction.
On the 19th of November I also created my Distrokid account and subscribed for the Musician Plus plan that cost £31.99 for the year. This allowed me to upload my art, the song itself, the release date and the streaming platforms I want my song to come out on – I chose all that were available, but the most popular ones are typically Spotify, Apple music, YouTube music and Amazon music.
Since everything was in place but the logo for the time being, I was just reaching out to Instagram accounts trying to spread the word and posting on my social media pages about the song. I was happy with the BEEM branding and how everything looked with the red, black and green aesthetic.
W.B. 2nd December
This was release week so I was doing everything I could to prepare for the release and making sure things were finalised & ready to be shared when the song dropped.
I had pushed back the release date that I originally planned by a day (to the 3rd of December) and looking back I’m glad that I did. It gave me an extra day to finish my logo and make a linktree with all relevant links to my social media accounts so that when the song goes live all the avenues to find my music were easily available to anyone who was listening.
I know that Spotify would be the most popular place for people to stream my track, so I had visuals set up and made sure I had a bio sorted, links to my Instagram, and a profile picture & header set up.
On the 3rd of December I released my track and posted on all my social media accounts about it which was met with a lot of support from friends and random followers I gained, too. Been posting and getting people to share links to the song since the release and it has been steadily growing since.
In the first week I had amassed over 650 streams on Spotify and a fair few on other streaming platforms like Apple Music, YouTube Music etc.
Project Excerpt - LostItsColour//MemoryGallery
Click this button for a link to the full, finished project!