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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Electronic Turntablism
Elliott Sabbagh
2017This CE project will combine my engineering and Dj’ing/ Live performance skills into one cohesive final product displaying my ability’s in both subjects. With creating each stem compiling my entire piece, I would like to perform my track using each stem on separate turntables and mix them during a live performance. My Culminating Experience project will consist of an original track produced by myself while featuring artists and instrumentalists from Berklee Valencia, Berklee Boston, and my contacts within the states. I would like to include a male vocalist as well as a female vocalist to feature on either my track’s hook, or harmonies thought-out the song. The track will be tracked, mixed, and mastered by myself in Studio A and AKSS scoring stage. The track would release on Spotify, iTunes, and Tidal as the first track under my own name on any of the 3 streaming services.
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ASTERISM
Satyam Sangwan
2017The basic concept of the project is to record a 4 track EP which mainly focuses on the collaboration between classical and electronic music in particular. In addition, this project will include am audio visual interactive performance for one of the tracks, which will involve projection mapping on a 3D sculpture synchronised with the music.
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Journey Through A Tempest
Guy Schneider
2017Journey through a Tempest is an audiovisual live performance for solo drummer inspired by Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. The sonic material is composed of recorded and processed material from natural environments, the city and acoustic instruments. Visuals are derived from footage of water as well as drums. The performance involves a drum set prepared to trigger audio and visual material in real time. The composition lasts for 11 minutes and takes the audience from pleasure to distress, from quiet calmness towards an ear-piercing and chaotic climax.
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ONAI: An Ethereal Journey
Naseem Silver-Hajo
2017ONAI is an audio/visual duo that makes Electronic Bass music, combining complex soundscapes with captivating visual narratives. ONAI guides the listener through a journey that is carefully curated by both members of the group who specialize in audio and visual live performance. ONAI is pushing the envelope by experimenting with crowd reactive technologies, and harnessing the energy of the audience to enhance the A/V experience.
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Artificial Irrelevance
John Snelgrove
2017Artificial Irrelevance tackles the difficult task of writing song lyrics. The project explores the relationship between an author and his tools, and ultimately culminates in a long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network algorithm for generating song lyrics, and an EP of folk songs co-written with the algorithm.
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Travel Far: A Collection of Sonic Narratives
Greg Somerville
2017“Travel Far” is a 6 song EP immersing the listener into a fantastical realm of songwriting and sound-writing, with themes and emotions influenced by experiences in the real world.
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Choreosphere
Brenton Stokes
2017Choreosphere is a portable microcosm in which dancers come to terms with their art by designing spaces to ft their needs. Dancers will be able to transform their personal spaces into places in which they imagine themselves dancing whether it be for body strength training, inner confdence building, or as a choreographic aid. It will be constructed as a simulation foor plan of holograms encapsulated by a projector and semi-orthogonally arranged, transparent lenses.
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Abroad - A Short Film
Samuel Zhang
2017Abroad is a short film that serves as a music video for two original compositions that I have produced. The story consists of a fictionalized version of myself, who reflects on his life one day during his stay in Valencia. The music discusses adulthood, relationships, and partying, as well as some other themes. The project also serves as my debut production in both film and music, and the film is intended to launch my professional career.
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Acoustic Chair
Jorge Alamar Oliver
2016My project consists of building a chair that solves all the problems related to inconsistencies within acoustic spaces. With this product you will be able to listen to your monitor speakers with the best possible response in any space. This project will be based on acoustic and architectural research, making sure that your ears are placed in a correct acoustic environment. To achieve this, I will be following some principles of physics such as “the head should not be situated in a space with parallel walls, to avoid frequency cancelations issues”, “the correct placement of acoustic absorption materials” and “The Lyon method of measured acoustic reflections”.
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Project W/A\V
Kyle Andrew Tesalona
2016Project W/A\V began like any innovation, as a solution to a problem. As a violinist, I wondered how I could implement electronics into my own performances. I toyed around with guitar pedals and ran into a couple of major problems. My largest concern was that the effects that I wanted to use were static. What if I wanted to make a filter sweep? What if I wanted to change the size of my reverb? What If I wanted to change the rate of my tremolo? What if I wanted to mix the signals of each effect? I would have to stop playing, reach down at my pedalboard and change those settings, and even then, the effects would stay unwavering. With this in mind I began to research more into what was already available at the time within modern electronic music. I was enamored of the flexibility that some of my favorite DJ’s had with their sound. They were able to manipulate the sound in every which way possible. I was envious, and I decided that that type of flexibility would be something the I would like to implement to the instrument that I know, the violin. My goal with project W/A\V is to be a developer in the world of electro-acoustic music by shedding new light on a fresh way to manipulate an acoustic instrument live. With a growing audience for progressive modern music. With our growing knowledge of music and technology and a expanding taste for electronic music in the mainstream, this only seems to be an appropriate and strong step forward in the world of electro-acoustic music and new music as a whole.
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Polychrome Love
Oldair Arau
201612 song album and live show multimedia experience that goes with it.
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Stutter
Daniel Babai
2016For my culminating experience, I would like to create an album of electronic music that builds on music I am already making but focuses on the concept of what it is like to have a speech impediment. I plan on making this album mostly instrumental, with a few guest artists mostly in the form of vocalists. I would like this album to be composed of eight songs total, and progress in chronological order of my experience as a stutterer. As is true with any struggle humans have to overcome, I have had a lot of ups and downs, thus there will be a lot of tension and release throughout the album. With the release of this album, I would like to have physical releases with my label, MelodySoul, as well as have a music video that I direct and edit for the “single” of the record. As an artist, I am a hip-hop and Neo-Soul producer, focusing on vibey grooves with hard hitting drums and vintage-sounding keyboard and synthesizer sounds. I would like to further expand my repertoire by adding new-age bass sounds, focusing heavily on intricate sound design to this record. Combining easy-going grooves with hard-cutting bass will also help illustrate the drastic changes in the my ups and downs of my speech impediment.
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Utilizing The Future of Electronic Music
David Bakker
2016This Culminating Experience proposal therefore seeks to promote an analysis of changes in popular EDM in the last five years and to highlight successful trends and developments. By analysing these developments, estimations into future developments of EDM might be revealed. These estimations will then be incorporated into the creation of an EP of five songs that draw influence from different genres in each song. This EP will be ready for distribution by the end of June 2016. This process aims to create a unique product that is appropriate for commercial distribution and promotion. The uniqueness of this product is hoped to generate a great deal of interest promoting the artist’s potential success.
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Cosmic Clown: Forging a solo-tech show in a mobile sound system
Elias Bendix
2016My Culminating Experience consists of the creation, producing and performance of material for an EP. I expect the final EP to contain at least 3 tracks that I feel satisfied with, and confident releasing. To reach this, I intend to compose at least 10 songs that I can select from, having in mind that the EP tracks are stepping stones toward building a repertoire for a full album that can be performed on stage. My aim is dual, as I first of all, wish to challenge and develop my own musical identity, and at the same time improve my musical productions skills and ability to write music for the use of other artist. Behind this dual aim is a wish to manifest what my own musical vision is, and how these express itself in every song a write and produce.
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The Underpinnings of Electronic Music: A Study and Application of Electronic Music Theory
Ryan Binhammer
2016For my culminating experience I plan to compose an original seven-track electronic album and produce four associated studio videos. The album will showcase my personal style along with my findings on the underpinnings of electronic music. To learn about these substructures in electronic music I will employ research, active listening, and personal musical experimentation. The four studio videos I create will each correspond to a track on my album and essentially function as online tutorials of my techniques and theories on electronic music. However, they will also document my journey making my album, further my online presence, showcase my teaching abilities, and market my music. I will release both my album and the studio videos on YouTube (individually spread over time, as well as Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, Soundcloud). My individual tracks will feature visual audio spectrums made within After Effects (similar to many record label YouTube channels such as Monstercat).
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Evolving the Flamenco Cajón
Giannino Clemente
2016A standalone acoustic-digital instrument, evolved from the flamenco cajón, that expands the percussionists’ toolbox and fusion the organic nature of the cajón with the endless possibilities of the digital universe. Using pressure and sound sensors to capture playing information, this instrument will be able to communicate with existing and most used applications through hardware and software bridges like Arduino and MAX. This instrument will be an evolution of the flamenco cajón, and will start from a regular cajón that expand its capabilities using sensors, and a micro-computer to make a complete sound and effects generation system controlled by the cajon player that could be plugged directly into a speaker or amp. It will also serve as a MIDI controller that you can plug into a computer or a MIDI device. The micro-computer could be a single board (like Arduino) or a board arrangement (Arduino + Raspberry Pi, Arduino + Extensions...).
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Becoming a Digital Humanist: An Autobiographical Nonlinear Digital Story
Jeffrey Cobbold
2016My CE Becoming a Digital Humanist: An Autobiographical Nonlinear Digital Story (BDH) is a six episode nonlinear digital story demonstrating the power and importance of autobiography. It tells the story of my educational journey from Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) to Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain (BV). Within the story I explore the themes of race, tradition, individuality and my desired place in the academic area of the digital humanities. Through experimental music, conceptual art and basic documentation viewers are invited to decipher my personal sense of becoming and discover their own sense of self-actualization through observation of my story. This digital story has been created through the process of artistic research as related to the practice of music and music technology within the MPTI program. The six episodes are to be watched in any order viewers choose, as long as all episodes are viewed in their entirety.
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Master’s Engineering Portfolio
Austin Corely
2016For my CE, I’d like to craft a Master’s Engineering Portfolio of 30-45 minutes of music that I will track, mix, and master myself. I will mostly be operating out of my established comfort zone - focusing on styles that I don’t typically produce, such as jazz, electronic, world, r&b, hip-hop, and acoustic singer-songwriter music. By exposing myself to new musical and technological frontiers, readjusting the way I listen, and finding new ways to translate emotions effectively from the mind of the artist, to the ear of the listener, I hope to build a portfolio that will show more than enough professional and artistic prowess to open doors to new opportunities all over the world, whether that may lead to working in top-tier studios, pursuing my education even further at another academic institution, or becoming a pedagogue myself.
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ESTUDIO CENTRAL
Sergio del Castillo Dueñas
2016There is little to none-Spanish speaking content about Audio Engineering and Music production on the internet, even though Spanish is the one of the most widely spoken languages in the world with 414,000,000 native speakers. English speaking population in Latin America goes between 4% - 12% depending on the country, because of this English Audio Engineering and Music Production content hardly achieves popularity on such countries. Globalization is becoming a reality, people all over the world are uniting in one common thinking entity but there is still a lot to develop in terms of non-English electronic knowledge sharing. Estudio Central is going to be the first platform of audio engineering video content sharing for Spanish speakers in the world. Through educational and informative videos, I pretend to share the basis of audio engineering and music production to all those who wish to acquire the necessary skills to record, edit, mix and master their own productions or 3rd party projects. My main exposure platform will be the free video- sharing website YouTube. Since the creation of the Internet, multimedia-sharing experiences have become the main medium for knowledge exchange in the world, I want to embrace this tendency and deliver all my content through audiovisual productions. The reason I chose YouTube is mainly because it is the biggest video-sharing platform in the world having over 1 billion users, and all their content is free of charge. I believe knowledge should be free of charge and available to everyone that wishes to learn a specific trait or subject.
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DeSmet EP
Tate DeSmet
2016Using new technology, my Culminating Experience project is producing an E.P replicating the sonic characteristics of music that was recorded before digital technology. Creating this vintage style of house music, I hope to break the barrier between modern electronic dance music by using resampled vinyl sounds and live percussions to fabricate the dust and authenticity of where this genre originated from.
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AISEO
Aislinn Dicks
2016For my Culminating Experience, I would like to invent myself as an artist. At the moment I have absolutely no online presence related to my musical identity. This places me in a unique position to control my first impression to the world as AISEO. I will make and release my first album of original music. I intend to record, produce, mix, and master the entire album myself. I will create at least three professional music videos to show that I am skilled in a variety of technological areas. This will serve me well for potential employment opportunities. I will start my own website where I will post any information relevant to my artist persona, as well as a Soundcloud page, YouTube Account, Facebook page, Twitter account, and Instagram account as AISEO. My long-term goal is to become an electronic music producer, and be able to make music and perform for a living. This project would benefit me moving forward because of the importance of making my music available to the world and having a strong online persona.
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Becoming a DJ: Turn the Wheels of Evolution
Allycia S. Floyd
2016My culminating experience has been a collaborative effort between myself and three other peers, where each half of our group represented the MPTI class and the other half from the Global Entertainment & Music Business (GEMB) class. The MPTI students consisted of Aly Haddad and I as the creative participants. The GEMB students consisted of Brielle Blount and Alicia Callier as the marketing and event coordinators. Máquinas Y Máscaras was a multimedia immersive event that bridged the world of fashion with the music industry. We developed an interactive space with the local store Santo Spirito Vintage (SSV) that displayed 90s vintage street wear accompanied by music and art installations. The overall concept of the event was to have two representations of “classes” that spectators could identify with in a world dominated by Machines & Masks. The machines represent the musical component that is operated by the mechanical turntable and the masks represent the clothing and fashion component merging into a cohesive atmosphere.
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Run For Your Life
Maria Guevara
20161. Produce an EP called “5”, the number five has a lot of significance in my life and also is the number associated with communication, and I would like to communicate through music. 2. Create a Mobile App/ Running campaign “Run for your life”. This goal is related to the song “Run Chata Run” a very special song to me because I created it while running next to my friend Chata, whose story is related in the lyrics.
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Máquinas y Máscaras
Aly Haddad
2016My culminating experience is creating a multimedia body of work to be featured and presented as part of a particular immersive event titled Máquinas y Máscaras (“Machines and Masks”). Our primary goal when curating this event was to bridge the world of fashion with the music industry using media that already exist in each field. To fully realize the concept, we partnered with Santo Spirito Vintage, a Valencian boutique located in Barrio El Carmen. One of our main focuses was to bring groups of people with some shared interest to an event hosted at a local store. The theme and framework of the event was built around three “classes” to appeal to a wide range of potential audience members. The first class is Machine, targeted to individuals who are attracted to and fascinated by technology. The second is Masked, targeted to individuals who express themselves through music. The final is SSV (Santo Spirito Vintage), targeted at individuals interested in 80s and 90s streetwear.
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Branding Project
Andrew Hlynsky
2016Developing ways to present myself has always been a difficult task. Although my skillset is broad and tool kit is sharp, I’m often told that it’s difficult to pin down exactly what I do. It was the goal of my CE to figure out how to talk about who I am as an artist. I spent the first half of the year researching “personal branding” and experiment by writing different biographies about myself. I noticed that there were two very distinct styles, one extremely dry and professional, the other more experimental and abstract. I developed these two identities into the AH! brand to represent the mad scientist, and Odd Object Studios to represent my more professional work. In addition I decided to release music under a new musical moniker “Oddman.” For each of these projects I developed a visual style that will be used in my websites, business cards, and letterhead.