Music Production, Technology, and Innovation

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  White Leaf Music Co.

  Xavery Scott
  2019

  White Leaf Music is creating a website to demonstrate multiple aspects of professionalism and talent. Along with displaying a sonically unique professional that will compete in the music market. This website project will double as an incentive for potential investors and contractors.

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  From the Ashes: The Beginning of Morsifire

  John Andrew Seely
  2019

  This project concerns the development of the Indie/Hip-Hop musical brand Morsifire through recorded material, live performance, and artistic branding. The project will see through the writing, recording, and mixing of an EP, live set creation using Ableton Live and full band, as well as visual branding. The goal is to fuse the genres of indie rock and hip-hop in with both recordings and live performance, as well as establish a strong digital footprint to propel Morsifire to the next stage of his career.

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  Essence - EP

  Atman Sheth
  2019

  For his Cumulative Experience project as a part of the Music Production, Technology and Innovation Master’s program at Berklee College of Music, Atman Sheth produced an EP with 6 original songs incorporating different genres and music styles from around the world including influences of Indian Carnatic, Brazilian, West African, American Pop, Mediterranean, and Arabic styles fused with Electronic, Future bass, Trap and Ambient Chill music.

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  Rosy Mercury - 5 Tracks EP About “Space Romance”

  Zhang Siyuan
  2019

  “Rosy Mercury” is a 5 track EP produced and vocal performed by Zhang Siyuan, featuring instrumentalists at Berklee Valencia. This EP is inspired by artists like Moses Sumney, Daniel Caesar and JMSN. During the process of production, Zhang Siyuan used his new skills such as analog synthesis, sound design and different recording techniques. He also conquered challenges of vocal recording and working in two DAWs for the same session. Finally, this EP is completed and he plans to release it in August 2019.

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  Culminating Portfolio Website

  Madly A. P. Stock
  2019

  A personal professional website is essential for an audio engineer who wants to showcase their work and be accessible to potential clients. This is why Madly has chosen to build her own. Not only did she want to go through the process of designing her own website, she also wanted to work on the content that she was going to showcase onto it. Music that she has engineered, produced, mixed or mastered. In the timeline of this year, Madly had challenged herself to have at least 15 pieces of music that she would put on it, and ended up with more. This website will remain her official professional website as she enters the industry.

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  Stroobz Electronic LoFi Hip-Hop: An EP and Producer Career Preparation Project

  Matthew Struble
  2019

  Matthew Struble’s Career Preparation CE project, is a hip-hop and bass music infused EP, in addition to the branding of Struble’s digital footprint under the producer name Stroobz. The EP consists of five electronic lo-fi hip-hop tracks utilizing newly learned techniques in sound design and vocalists from Berklee Valencia, Germany, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. This EP will be showcasing Struble’s production in electronic lo-fi hip-hop, and will be highlighted on Stroobz.com, a website created by Struble to present work and skills to potential artists and employers in the New York City market. The goal of this project is to showcase the new-wave of Struble’s hip-hop sound, and establish a digital footprint and identity to his unique production style. With the need for a stable career upcoming on the horizon, Struble’s CE project will aim to provide proof of concept and a foundation for professional connections upon his graduation in 2019.

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  Cultivating the Caymanian Music Industry: Recording and Mixing Engineer Portfolio

  Jared Tibbetts
  2019

  The motivation for this culminating experience project was the desire to develop and further the music industry in the Cayman Islands in conjunction with the author’s personal aspirations to further expand on their personal knowledge as a musician, producer and audio engineer. This culminating experience project consists of a recording and mixing portfolio, and the launch of a website and personal professional brand. The project required recording and mixing with different producers, artists, musicians and bands from different backgrounds and in different recording and acoustic environments, building connections and relationships with those people and creating new ideas for future projects. This project ultimately lays down the foundation for the authors long term business plan of opening a destination studio in the Cayman Islands. The project acts as a tribute to Charles Gregory, an iconic Caymanian musician, producer and audio engineer, and the author’s personal mentor who sadly passed away in September 2018.

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  Please Rewind: An Instrumental EP

  Nicol Wheeler
  2019

  This project is an instrumental EP, consisting of five tracks which the author wrote, produced and mixed. The goal for the project was to create a complete project that would serve to showcase the author’s abilities as a musician, sound designer and engineer, in order to assist in the search for career opportunities after graduation. The project combined modern Hip Hop influences, with the author’s love for 1980’s era film soundtracks and their synth heavy scores, into a blend that highlights the music the author is passionate about, and how he can contribute to its creation.

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  Singularity: A Visual EP Combining Live Studio Performance, Electronic Music Production, and Visual Projection

  Issaya Whitesides
  2019

  The Singularity project is a three part visual EP that displays electronic music production, live performance using drums, keyboards, MIDI controllers and visual projection to showcase a one- person band experience. Each video is a multi camera video that shows the performer from different angles performing live in the studio. The second and third videos include the elements of animation and visual projection, respectively.

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  Iberoamérica Media Records Presents: Dios Perro, a Statement of Cultural Preservation

  Marcelo Wilson
  2019

  The present project consists of a full twelve songs album, with a specific common concept and aesthetic goal: to respond to unanswered questions regarding how Chilean popular music would have developed if the 1973 coup d’état, which resulted in seventeen years of military dictatorship and an ensuing cultural disaster, had never occurred. Because of this political intervention, the previously vibrant music scene in Chile was suddenly and deliberately persecuted. However, since the turn of the century, after decades of cultural obscurity, a new movement has come along and Chilean music is finally recovering its identity. The recorded songs attempt to not only imagine what the current cultural energy would be had its development not been cut off, but also to channel this into a new and exciting movement.

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  Veo Valencia: An Experimental Approach to Capturing Sights and Sounds for Music Videos

  Juan G. Zamora
  2019

  This culminating experience project is an experimental approach to producing two music videos, each of a different style, that contain elements of field recordings, sound design, and original music with scenes from the city of Valencia, Spain that create interesting and compelling results. Both are titled Veo Valencia, and have Part I or Part II added to their title, respectively. Part I is a colorful and abstract look of Valencia that contains an original musical track produced in Ableton Live, titled, Mister Synther. With a visible difference in color, effects, and music, Part II is a more natural and clear way of viewing the city. It contains an original piano and strings music piece titled Endless Journey. The music videos do not contain professional actors or dancers, dialogue, or narration. Upon viewing them, the viewer will be brought into an artistic and creative world of hearing and seeing Valencia in an exciting and innovative way.

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  BrianZani.com: Online Production Portfolio & Services

  Brian M. Zani
  2019

  This project has been pursued with efforts to develop a production portfolio and online presence unlike any other. By integrating audiovisual elements with eye-catching aesthetic into a website format, visitors will be introduced to an interactive medium that welcomes professional collaboration alongside an easy to understand business model. Completed song masters and video productions that can be readily streamed directly from the website will showcase qualitative service suited for specific artistic needs. BrianZani.com will serve as the foundational business model for current and future productions, collaborations, visions and services for the local and global scale alike.

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  The Dent in The Crystal

  Serena Abou Daher
  2018

  This project is made up of a concept album which consists of 4 songs that are influenced by experimental music, electronics, jazz, Arabic and hiphop along with visuals that are influenced by surrealism, minimalism, abstract , dada-ism and neo-realism. Just like many artists who have produced a concept album, she uses technology as one of her main tools of production. A great tool to be taken advantage of, but she questions , are we only using technology as a tool? Or are we dependent on it? For our mental and physical health, it is important to be able to reconnect with ourselves and each other and to be aware on the usage of technology. However, when it comes to music/art making, she questions; who is the creator of your work? Is it pure love and passion? Or is it the program? Who or what is the reflection of your work? Is it both? If so, can you differentiate between the two? What happens to us as artists if we eliminate the program? Consideration of internal and external issues happening in ourselves and in society; this project reflects her process of thoughts and emotions towards these issues. These questions inspired Serena to find answers through a new approach in music/art making. A reflection of her process of creating art and music out of the program and through an experience which was delivered and presented in a showcase through an audio-visual installation. Most importantly, throughout this journey, her main goal was to find her artistic/musical voice and ground it. In the end of this project, a new aspect of her artistic character emerged within her; which a part of her appreciates.

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  Developing a Production Portfolio and Establishing a Brand

  Armando Baeza
  2018

  This project aims to set the foundation from which to build a career in music production. Through creating a portfolio of music and designing a website, the intention for this project was to discover, develop and build a brand around the producer’s musical work. This goal entailed collaboration with various singers, songwriters, and musicians, a production calendar of deadlines and studio sessions for both recording and mixing, and the design and implementation of a website, through which the portfolio can be showcased along with visual and descriptive content about the producer. The result of this project consists of ten songs, featuring six different artists and several talented musicians, picture and video documentation of the production process, a self-designed website and brand, but most importantly, a deeper understanding of the producer’s strengths and weaknesses, and the challenges that come with producing records.

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  A Nocturnal Audio-Visual Journey

  Rohan Bhatia-Newman
  2018

  This project entailed the creation of electronic music and visual material. These were later combined in an audio-visual live performance. The end objective of this project is to add a different style of spectacle to the Nocturnal Status project. The latter is a combination project founded by Rohan Bhatia-Newman and Ben Ricketts, based primarily in Miami. The process of this project included creating the music first, followed by the custom visual content. Ableton was used to create the music while Photoshop, After Effects, and Synesthesia were used for visual content creation. Finally, the audio-visual set was built in Ableton and Resolume Arena, allowing the performer to control different parameters of the visuals. The short fifteen minute performance focuses on the demonstrating a high level of synced parameters in the audio and visual components, truly showing that they are interacting and complementing each other in a meaningful and creative way.

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  D’ANTONIO: Integrating Audioreactivity with Visuals

  Harry D’Antonio Dry
  2018

  This project aims to convey the power and efficacy of a combined audiovisual performance by a solo musician to the average audience or concertgoer, embodied through D’ANTONIO. Using simple, effective, self-designed audioreactive visuals organized and implemented through Ableton Live, Resoume, and guitar loops, the hope is that artists with no prior experience in electronic production or graphic design can express themselves and bring new life to their work in an all-encompassing way.

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  Gravity Duo: An Audiovisual Experience

  Diego Demarco
  2018

  The current project focuses on the creation of “Gravity Duo”, an ensemble comprised of Phui Kuan Kok and Diego Demarco. One of the main features of this culminating experience is live performance combined with electronics and visuals. The musical setup consists of live vocals, vocoder, piano and guitar, and is supported by a custom-made library of visuals that interacts with the audio in real time. This report will provide an in-depth analysis of how the music, visuals and live show were developed from the ground up. This culminating experience has ended up being a success, and with high expectations for being performed in a variety of different venues in the coming years.

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  KARAKTER LIVE: AN AUDIOVISUAL PERFORMANCE

  Kerem Demirayak
  2018

  This CE is an Audivisual Live performance appealing to the audience’s sensory experience and introduce them to different characters from Karakter’s musical world. The performance is a study of abstraction that is influenced by sound design and colour inspiring thoughts and dreams; composed using a sequence of instruments, tones and tempo. The visual images showcased derives from themes of daydreaming and imagination with regard to animations mapped, performed and manipulated on stage. Reactive MIDI and motion controllers achieve innovation in live performance, also keeping in mind the limitations of having only essential devices during touring and sticking to a budget so that it is profitable. A short documentary is shot about Karakter’s journey exploring state of the art developments, discovering his vision and learning the necessary techniques for building his project throughout the year in collaboration with artists and capitalising on professional opportunities.

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  VDiVaio Presents: Form Constants

  Vittoriano Di Vaio
  2018

  Form Constants is Vittoriano Di Vaio’s first project as VDiVaio. It is a solo performance of music and video art narrated by the artist himself, a story that recalls feelings of nostalgia in the aftermath of heartbreak and his coming to terms with uncertainty on the road that lies ahead. To tell this story the way he wanted, this artist needed to explore tools that were previously unfamiliar to him. In the process, he developed a custom audiovisual performance system, a skill set in projection mapping, and most importantly, a workflow for developing music and video content in parallel. Aside from the steep learning curve associated with these tasks, this artist encountered another challenge: finding his ‘sound’ within the music, and producing something that feels both original and authentic to himself. Going forward, this artist hopes to continue performing and adapting Form Constants for different live settings, while he works on publishing and promoting his flagship singles as VDiVaio.

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  AVolution: An evolution in the solution to audiovisual execution

  Daniel Adam Dresner
  2018

  The goal of my culminating experience is to create an audio/visual synthesizer in Max for Live. My creating this tool, I will be able to create unique content as an artist that I can then use as a platform to establish my identity in the world of electronic dance music.

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  Ti’a Joyo [Spiritual Search]: A Virtual Reality Immersive Environment

  Carlos Egas
  2018

  This project is focused on a long live tradition of the Siona culture (an ethnical group of the Ecuadorian and Colombian tropical forest): The Yage ritual. Which consists of a soul searching and cleansing personal activity, that temporarily connects you with Mai Ja’que (the creator god) and the spiritual world. This is achieved by creating a virtual reality environment with an Oculus Rift (Virtual Reality headset) and B-format audio to place the user inside of a magical Ecuadorian tropical forest. The exploration inside it triggers different sounds, musical samples and imagery inspired in the different stages of the ceremony.

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  Numbers: A Visual EP Within the Lily Byrd Brand

  Liliana Gagnon
  2018

  This purpose of this project was to create a visual EP in the indie-folk electronic style that builds upon and enhances my artist persona and brand ‘Lily Byrd’. The project consists of five songs and five accompanying videos as well as a live performance with VJ content. Through the songs themes of loneliness and growth are explored through the lyrics while the music combines American traditional folk, electronic, singer-songwriter and alternative. Inspiration was also taken from genres such as drone and experimental music as well as unconventional songwriting form. The videos provide a simple backdrop enhancing the mood and world when listening to the album and have been adapted into clips one can VJ. The project was successful and made better through collaboration with other artists and mixing ears. I enhanced my music production, sound design, engineering, songwriting and video production skills during this project and I am very pleased with the result. I plan to release and promote this album and use it as a starting point for my career.

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  Sunrise: A Reflection on ZOLA’s Debut EP, Take Off

  Daniel Gazzola
  2018

  For his culminating experience, Daniel Gazzola, whose producer name is ZOLA, intends to release an Electronic Dance Music (EDM) EP on Soundcloud, and Spotify/ other streaming services through the use of Artists Without A Label (AWAL). This project is about ZOLA developing his artistic voice and style through the production of EDM. The EP will include 4 original tracks, three of which will contain collaborations with vocalists and lyricists. While the end product is a fully produced 4-track EP being released by ZOLA, some other goals include developing a powerful artist presence on social media, and posting photos to keep followers updated with his journey. This is intended to be achieved through the implementation of powerful visuals, using a common theme to tie all social media accounts together and to the released EP. Through the development and growth of his artistic voice and social media presence, ZOLA hopes to establish a strong brand. While these goals are a little more quantitative, a final qualitative goal that ZOLA intends to achieve is to produce music that he himself is proud of and enjoys listening to. He intends to do this through improving his sound design, composition and recording skills.

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  Music Production Portfolio: Showcasing a Diverse Set of Music Production Skills

  Ido Goldberg
  2018

  In this new era of technology and globalization, the competition in the international and local music scene is increasing and it is necessary to have an online presence which gives an encompassing view of one’s work and personality. In order to have a unique position in the current market, it is an advantage to have a diverse set of musical skills. This objective of this project is to create a personal music production brand by portraying and combining diverse music production and artistic skills into an online platform. The deliverable will be a website containing a portfolio of works supported by audio, video and pictures that represent music production skills and strengths in a variety of fields. The portfolio will include music produced for artists, examples of original songs, collaboration with artists, guitar work, engineering and mixing, composition for media and sound design. The challenge is to connecting the different trades into one concise website and brand that will serve as a modern day, multimedia business card.

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  Not For You: A Visual Album by Gracie Hays

  Rosemary Hays
  2018

  This visual, spoken word, three-track EP was born out of an experience that Gracie Hays had in her own personal life. She went through a manipulative and emotionally abusive relationship, and in the time after it when she came to Berklee Valencia, she decided to make an EP about it. Since many women go through the same thing, Gracie’s main goal with this project was to help and unite these people, and tell people who haven’t gone through something similar, what it’s like. Writing and composing these three songs, and three spoken word pieces was truly a challenge for her. In order to write the songs, Gracie had to relive her own past, and it proved harder than she originally thought. However, she was able to overcome her writer’s block and continue on to recording, mixing, mastering, storyboarding, filming, and editing the entire project. Gracie did 100% of the work for this entire album, from start to finish. This is what truly makes this project innovative. Gracie was able to fill every single role in the process, and create this album within a period of 9 months. She plans to release her EP second track, “Gone,” as a single on June 22, 2018, and the entire album, Not for You, with accompanying video on July 27, 2018. Gracie is extremely proud of the final product, and can’t wait to share it with the world.