On this page, you can find the Culminating Experience (CE) Projects for all graduate students from the Berklee College of Music master’s program Music Production, Technology, and Innovation (MPTI) from 2015 – present. Click on any title for more information and access to the full paper and other deliverables (if available).
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The Art of Dub: Rediscovering the techniques of 1970s reggae production
Nathaniel Bridges
2015Reggae and dub are really two separate genres. Take a song like Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” for example. By itself it is obviously a Bob Marley song, with him as the main creative engine and focus behind the song. But if a dub producer like Lee Perry were to take the master tracks of that recording, strip away the vocals and instruments periodically, add an enormous amount of delay and reverb, and possibly talk or sing over it himself; you now have not only a new song by a new artist, but an entirely new genre of music that exists almost completely in the electronic realm. This in a sense is what I’ve been trying to accomplish this year for my Culminating Experience.
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The Emergence of an Electronic Music Artist
Ian M. Cahill Serrano
2015My career in music began in Puerto Rico in 2003 at the age of 16 as the bass player and founder of the reggae band Natural Soul. From the first sound I was able to make on my instrument, I knew that music was what I wanted to dedicate my life to. Since then I’ve played in many bands, toured, graduated “cum laude” from Berklee College of Music with a dual major in Performance and Electronic Production & Design, but most importantly I have discovered my passion for DJing and producing electronic dance music; Techno and House, to be more specific.
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Ecuadorian Grooves: Innovating music heritage
Juan Fernando Cifuentes Moreta
2015Ecuadorian Grooves was born in the Spring of 2014. Its main goal was redefining and innovating Ecuadorian music by rescuing traditional rhythms and music styles and fusing them with contemporary music genres, thereby creating new sounds that will attract a young audience as well as future generations. The main objective of this culminating experience was to produce an EP called ALMA (that means, soul), comprised of two original songs, written using traditional Ecuadorian rhythms, and two modern arrangements of folk songs, with redefined contemporary music elements, including hybrid composition and innovative technology. The second objective was to produce a live performance focusing on the interaction between Ableton Live and a live ensemble, creating unique compositions that combined the organic sound of the musicians on stage with the new electronic sound design.
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The Oak App
Kareem Clarke
2015As I embarked on my second year here at Berklee Valencia, I made a choice from the beginning to do things different. I didn’t want to take the easy way out. I wanted to challenge myself by dong something I never thought I would or could. After some careful thinking, I decided to combine my two years at Berklee into a project that would have real world applications (no pun intended).
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When Worlds Collab
William Cumella
2015My culminating experience, entitled “When Worlds Collab”, is a portfolio of collaborative studio recordings where I filled roles such as songwriter, guitarist, producer, engineer, mixer, and mastering engineer. The project highlights several different musical genres and production styles; spanning jazz, pop, R&B, metal, and EDM; also representing nationalities such as American, Spanish, Ecuadorian, Puerto Rican, Chilean, and Chinese. This worldly project highlights my overall skills as a Swiss army knife in the studio displaying versed musicianship, modern and competitive engineering/mixing skills, and hopefully, some hits! The main component of the physical work consists of four original studio recordings, along with a promotional video and original album art all available for free on YouTube and SoundCloud. Each song was a completely different and innovative production process, in which I had to wear many hats, in order to achieve high quality studio track. This project is embedded with state- of-the-art recording, editing, mixing and mastering, techniques.
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AR for Leap-Rift
Theodore Daly
2015I am extremely interested in Augmented reality, and its application toward sound – specifically spatial audio. Thus, for my Culminating Experience I made an augmented reality panner in Unity. I did this by mounting a Leap Motion on an Oculus Rift (Leap-Rift), and downloading the Leap Motion assets package for Unity. This allowed me to get my hands in the scene with near zero latency hand tracking.
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IMAGINING COLOMBIA
Lili del Sol Atehortúa Alvarado
2015Imagining Colombia is an interactive performance in the form of a story tale that recreates the Pacific Region in Colombia with the help of sound design, music and technology. Putting together the perfect elements Children will be able to imagine smells, sensations and the entire environment while learning specific facts of that part of the Colombian culture.
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MTI CE
Cinnamon Denise
2015My culminating experience project is the creation of four specific things; the creation of an EP with the George Lacson Project (GLP), a promo video for said video, two recorded tracks or original work, and an artist portfolio. The GLP EP is the direct result of collaboration within a group of people that I have been working and performing with since September 2014. We have created songs and done over a dozen performances in Valencia and its surrounding areas. We are a group whose music is influenced by funk and R&B. In addition, to this I have created a promotional video for the EP that is approximately 2 minutes in length. Moreover, I have created two original solo tracks using the TC Helicon Voicelive Touch2 and an artist portfolio video that will feature myself as an artist and these two pieces.
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The Sing- Song Table
Luke Dennis
2015An array of sensors to be mounted on a standard Ping-Pong table to feed a computer application that will interpret the timing and score of every match into an original piece of music representing the contours and dynamics of the match.
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The Experience
Aaron Gatlin
2015In fulfillment for my Culminating Experience, Yogi Jen Kaiser and myself produced a unique movement medicine and guided meditation experience. It included a live Dj set, projected visuals, a live percussionist, and lighting designs, centered around the theme of love. My goal was to create a musical presentation that people would respond to with sentiment and emotion. In addition to this response, when one experiences remarkable distinctive sets, it takes longer for positive memories to fade away. Thus leading to my primary objective and questioning; how the aforementioned had the ability to internally change us in the way it does and to the extent that it does. Consequently, this was experimented and provided prospective on where and how I would continue this journey.
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Where We Go
Miles Gordon
2015Where We Go is a soundscape built in Virtual Reality. Using over 300 unique sound sources, a virtual space roughly equivalent in size to a commercial airliner factory, and several simple AIs, the piece aims to create a surreal space that is both musically generative, as well as reactive to the user as they move through it. As Virtual Reality is a nascent technology, I've had to teach myself a lot about working with it as a new medium for the creation of audio-visual art. From initial conception to final execution, the work has gone through several major revisions, and throughout the process, I've been able to holistically incorporate in to it the new understandings and techniques that I've learned along the way.
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interim: A
Connor Hoffman and John Broaddus
2015interim is an immersive sound installation that blends generative musical structures with live improvisation to create a meditative auditory experience. It explores the efficacy of ambient music in a controlled environment to induce a state of relaxation and introspection in the audience. The installation was first held in Sala C, where we provided four hammocks in which the audience could relax. The lighting in the room was kept dim, lit primarily by projected video of soothing abstract imagery while we performed an extended set of ambient electronic music. We joined forces in order to create a venue in which to present our music and further define a structure around which it is oriented. In the process, we solidified our direction and philosophy: music as nap therapy. With this goal in place the project rapidly took shape, with the room chosen and organized in order to provide minimal sensory input, and furniture selected to provide a relaxing and open way to experience the music. The original plans for an interactive audio/visual installation evolved into a minimalistic, generative electronic performance, a sort of anti-concert, in which the performers are out of sight, the visuals are designed to be utilitarian and the goal of the music is to put the audience to sleep.
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The Birth of a Man
Rayan Khoury
2015My focus at the beginning of the year was on creating music that was pleasant enough to be played at the beach during a sunset. I thought that this was my CE. But as time passes, I decide to push my limits by creating music outside my comfort zone. The fall semester is over, and I realize that I have acquired the right skills to produce, compose, and mix any genre of music I can imagine. Then suddenly it hits me! It’s not about a specific theme (sunset music) and it’s not about the music either. In this world, we have to define ourselves. By doing so, it is easier to see the bigger picture. All of a sudden, everything is clearer. I have to choose a symbol to represent my music, my work. It is the same as a superhero trying to protect his identity, by day he is Bruce Wayne and by night he is Batman. In other words, I work on my music and whenever I perform, I choose to become the symbol that represents my work.
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The Music and Technology that Keeps Us Alive
George A. Lacson
2015My culminating experience will be a live performance demonstrating new skills I have acquired during my time at Berklee Valencia form Fall 2014 to Summer 2015. The work is as follows: • Live Performance – Original songs from newly released EP on Berklee’s Disrupcion Records. • Writing, producing, recording, mixing, and mastering five (5) original songs, in conjunction with band members, released on Berklee’s Disrupcion Records. • Custom 3D Projection Mapping Structure designed using Sketchup CAD modeling software. • Creation of visual performance interface using Adobe Premier, Adobe After Effects, and Resolume • Live controller and MIDI Interface (Orbit)
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Alma En Clave
Juan Laverde
2015For my Culminating Experience I decided to create a professional multimedia portfolio that would capture my identity as an artist, engineer, and producer.
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Liquid Dreams EP & The iPod Guitar: a new concept of live performance
Joan Martorell Pastor
2015The technology industry that specializes in music is highly established, resulting in a period of transition and introduction of a majority of new products in the process of production and live performance. The aim of this work is to integrate an iPod touch in the body of an electric guitar, giving the artist the ability to control speci=ic parameters of his own music from different applications in order to enrich the performance. Together with this innovative project, I will write and produce an EP of electronic rock music.
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Russafa EP
Stephen Masterson
2015For my culminating experience as part of the Music Technology Innovation masters degree, I have produced an extended play (EP) album under my artist name “Tsunami Tsteve”. The album is entitled “The Russafa EP”. Russafa is the neighborhood in Valencia, Spain where I lived during my academic year at Berklee Valencia, and as such is the place where I officially got my start as an electronic music producer. Also, Russafa is an Arabic word that means “garden”. A garden is a place where one plants seeds, cultivates things, and watches them grow. For me, this album represents me cultivating my production skills and growing as a professional.
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Dawn of the Wylde
Eugenio Moleiro
2015Dawn of the Wylde is a compilation of electronic music tracks. These tracks use elements from traditional styles of music such as classical, jazz, tango, and latin rock. These are fused with the darker, dance-oriented genres of trap and dubstep. Some experimental sounds are thrown into the mix when appropriate in order to complement the blend as well.
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Holy Heart Punctured Lung EP
Emily Newton
2015For the music portion of ‘Holy Heart Punctured Lung’, I wrote, arranged, recorded, and produced nine original songs, and I arranged, recorded and produced one cover, ‘Video Games’ written by Lana Del Rey. My goals for this LP also titled, ‘Holy Heart Punctured Lung’, were to improve upon my recording, arranging, and producing to better communicate my musical ideas in a cohesive and innovative way by reimagining any sound as an instrument.
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In My Defense
Will Pailen
2015My culminating experience is a live performance incorporating theater and music. I have weaved a short story based on the life and death of my brother. The performance is three original fully developed a cappella compositions and three short stories celebrating his life. The ideas for a lot of my sounds are influenced by experiences I have had in Egypt in 2010.
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Rebecca Pek Ga Chan
Rebecca Pek Ga Chan
2015The Culminating Experience Project is three out of the five movements. Apart from playing music with body movement, it is also a hybrid of everything I have learned in the Music Technology Innovation Program, including Composition, Programming, Sound Design, Controller building, Live Performance, Real time Arts and Logo Design. I use Max/ MSP/ Jitter to generate real time visuals and control information from motion sensor and send information to Ableton and Arduino. Ableton Live is mainly used to build back up tracks, triggering clips, loops and sound samples, manipulate sound in real time and send transport information to Max using Rewire mode. I also designed sound using Massive, Z3ta+2 and Stutter Edit, built LED Table by Arduino, and used Leap Motion, Hot hand and Orbit as performance tools.
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CE Project
Francisco Rafart
2015My Culminating experience project is a band live performance that features custom made technology and visuals. The musical style is electronic rock and the band features drums, electric guitar, Stick and electronic backing tracks. My purpose with this multi dimensional project was to think of the creation of technology and its use at the same time. This was for a simple reason: Applicability. Whenever we think of innovation we must start from the problem, not the solution. Starting with the need or problem we try to solve is a must for building something useful others can relate to. If we start from the product or a beautiful idea, and then try to find its use, it is much more likely we end up building a gadget or technology that is useless for others.
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Artist Tech Development in the Latin American Music Market
Jonathan Ruiz
2015The work contains three major concepts in research: Recording, Promoting and Live Performance. The application of this work is applied to the Music Project FERRER, a Latin American Rock & Pop project where my tasks are: Singer – Songwriter, Lead Performer and Creative Director.
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Blocks: The Journey to Becoming An Artist
Andrew Sweet
2015During this past year at Berklee College of Music Valencia, I have been working on my thesis project, also known as my Culminating Experience. As a producer and DJ, I wanted to tie both of these elements together within the project. Therefore, I chose to do a live performance, as well as compose, produce, and engineer an EP. The third component of my C.E. is a documentary, which highlights the creation process that went on throughout the year as I developed both of these projects.
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Culture, An E.P.
Mykal Wolfe
2015Culture, a debut EP, consists of 5 tracks and is approximately 20 minutes in total. Each track represents a different era or influence that has shaped my musical influence.