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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“Who I Am”: A Concept EP of Exploring Unique Self and Musical Identity
Ruolin Wang
2024This project is the author's debut EP, aiming to explore the question of ‘Who I Am’ from both personal and musical perspectives. While the theme is centered on the author’s journey, it carries a broader universal meaning. It intends to inspire people to delve into and embrace their authentic emotions and inner world, fostering self-awareness and defining what makes us distinctive and unique individuals. In the realm of music, it brought the author to explore and discover her unique sonic palette and musical identity as a songwriter and producer. While making this genre-bending 7-track EP featuring experimental pop, alternative rock, electronica, and ambient soundtrack, one challenge was defining the cohesive characters in the author’s music and maintaining the integrity of the existing styles, sounds, and general aesthetics. Taking the roles of singer-songwriter, producer, and mixer, the author developed solid composition and production techniques and utilized sound design skills to further enhance the personality of her music.
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It Came From the Ether - EP
Andy Whelan Vita
2024This project aims to explore genre fusion within contemporary music production, driven by the dual goals of advancing production skills and uncovering innovative compositional techniques relevant to musical endeavors. This project is important in creating a bridge between musical styles, in the hope of connecting different cultures through musical expression. Beginning with an in-depth analysis of diverse musical traditions such as Blue Note, Cadet, modern UK jazz, R&B, House, Hip Hop, and Flamenco, the focus was on understanding the distinct production and recording techniques associated with each tradition. This involved studying the techniques employed by notable engineers and integrating these insights into the workflow. The culmination of this project resulted in the creation of a short EP comprising five original compositions, complemented by a music video for one of the tracks. Throughout the creation of this project, production and engineering abilities were developed and technical challenges were overcome while expanding creative boundaries through collaboration. This project hopes to inspire future musical innovation and aims to push stylistic boundaries further, exploring new creative possibilities. It aims to provide valuable insights for musicians and producers navigating artistic musical integration, contributing to broader discussions in music in the modern era.
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Vibe Till We Evaporate: An Innovative Fusion of R&B and Electronic Music
Kai Wu
2024This project titled Vibe Till We Evaporates which is an album in contemporary R&B, neo-soul, electronic, and alternative music, it is an album containing thirteen songs and aims at capturing the modern sound in the contemporary R&B and electronic music world. The purpose is to deliver an album that interacts with different genres and musical influences, combining them together to create a journey and immersive musical experience to express the author's inner world of self-discovery. The project will show the creative process of the author's approaches, as well as the author’s artistic production and mixing style, and it will also emphasize on the most important elements in R&B genre. Additionally, the album will be composed, written, produced, and mixed by the author, the final project will be a full length LP that has thirteen songs. This project focuses on the diversity of contemporary R&B through the base in the genre’s fundamental characteristic.
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Las Memorias de tu Jardín
Luis Sergio Zavalza
2024This culminating experience project focuses on the creation of a six-song album composed, produced, recorded and mixed by the author. The album is designed to serve as an homage to those affected by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's within his family, keeping their stories alive. The inspiration behind this project stems from the deeply personal experiences of the author's relatives who have battled these diseases, set against the backdrop of their home country, Mexico.
Each song in the album incorporates a unique blend of sonic elements carefully chosen for their relation to the environment and context of the referred people, including musical instruments and techniques from different regions of the country.
This holistic approach to music composition and production seamlessly integrates cultural and personal elements, creating a touching and multifaceted soundscape, while honoring the lives and memories of his loved ones.
By merging music, cultural heritage, and storytelling, the project aims to keep these memories and stories alive through the songs.
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Sentimental: Uruguayan Indie Pop EP
Damien Alvarez de Toledo
2023The Basis of this project is to write and record an extended play (EP) in order to express beauty mainly in the genres of England-originated Indie-Pop with influences from Uruguayan Rock. This project intends, in this way, to perform a cross-cultural bridging by combining English and Uruguayan genres of music respectively. The EP will contain 6 songs.
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All 'Round The World
Gustavo Baez
2023This project combines multiple cultural expressions, sounds, and art forms from various countries, portraying the influence of culture in music and history by creating an extended play. The basis of the project is to represent different cultural images through the combination of sounds and genres from various countries and a series of techniques that allows the listener to have a unique listening experience. Different musical ideas and expressions merged in the various records to represent the concept of crossed cultures. Creativity and innovation are key aspects. Cross-culture plays a significant role in the music industry. Responsible for incredible diversity and innovation in creating and recording a record, extended play, or album. Ethnicity, age, and many more are critical for creating any art form.
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TINTEÁN: An Interactive Installation to Encourage Exploration of the Everyday
Kevin Cleary
2023This Culminating Experience project involved the composition, construction and operation of an interactive multimedia art installation. Visitors to this installation heard a musical piece when inside the installation, and were able to physically interact with various objects placed within. These interactions triggered changes to the music heard. The purpose of this project was to encourage exploration and curiosity in everyday settings. All music used in the installation was original, and the interactions will be mapped to changes in the music using a combination of hardware sensors (light, pressure, capacitance) and software (Arduino, Ableton Live). The space used was fashioned to resemble a campsite, in particular those found at typical camping music festivals, using objects commonly found in these spaces.
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Afro House At Berklee: A Study of African American Female Representation in House Music
Chelsea Comeau
2023In the international dance music scene, women and people of color are underrepresented in positions of producers and DJs. Often women are singers and limited in their access to knowledge, skill set, and visibility while DJs are highly celebrated. The purpose of this project was to develop DJ techniques, production proficiency, and live performance skills in order to provide diverse cultural compositions and sets to create unity through sound, vibration, and visuals. In addition, a song in the style of Afro House and R&B, was written and recorded in order to create visibility for underrepresented groups and create a narrative that is unique to the artist. Certain influences such as Sade, Alicia Keys and Black Coffee will be studied and represented. The artist’s objective was to evolve from a singer into an electronic musician, producer, and DJ in order to bridge the gap in disparities in gender and race in the music industry and the international dance music scene. The completion of this project provided representation, a new perspective of women in production and a blending of culture, genres, and music. As a result of developing the skills and expertise in production and performance, the artist will be equipped to continually create representation and change in the music industry.
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Electronic Music Performance and the Drumset: Combining and Extending Approaches for Innovation
Jonty Czuchwicki
2023For this project the author researched, prepared, and performed a 30-minute audio-visual performance of original electronic music using Ableton Live, external controllers, live percussion, and Max. The purpose was to deliver a project is applicable for commercial touring while documenting the artist’s processes and performances throughout its development. The final performance featured six songs of experimental, left-field electronica and was performed and videotaped at a music venue in front of a live audience. The artist delivered their Ableton Live Session file, Max Patch file, two prototype performance videos and a pro-shot multi-camera video of the final performance. The author developed new skills in post-production, live set preparation, performance, and visual programming while navigating the physical and technical challenges of designing a multi-faceted live performance for the drum set. The author has contributed a unique and innovative approach to electronic music performance for the drum set with prospects for commercial touring, additional development, and the education of others.
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Electronic Experimentation within Pop Music
John de la Prida
2023The aim of this project is to create an Extended Play (EP) and a live performance centered in the genre of pop, with an additional goal of testing different techniques for vocal manipulation. The EP will focus especially on using electronic/experimental sounds and vocal processing and resampling while maintaining a pop song structure. The live performance will focus on creating a live performance setup with Ableton using the songs from the EP, electronic/digital instruments, and live vocals/vocal processing. It will offer viewers/listeners alternate versions of the songs from the EP, with cohesive transitions between each song for a unique, entertaining performance. The delivery of this project will include the 6 completed songs and a recorded live performance incorporating the songs from the EP.
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Convention From the Unconventional: The Intersection of Academic Music and Pop Music
Michael Delgado
2023This project explores the incorporation of unconventional techniques derived from academic music into pop music while aiming to create a conventional and accessible sound for a broad audience. While many pop artists have introduced academic or experimental music into the pop realm, the result often sounds intentionally unconventional. This five-track EP serves as the illustration of integrating rarely-used scales such as the Chromatic, Octatonic, Locrian, Augmented, and Enigmatic scales into pop music while maintaining simple and familiar song structure, arrangement, and musical phrases to sound conventional. Each track required unique approaches, such as utilizing the full range of 12 notes and overcoming limitations of the aforementioned scales. By exploring the intersection of academic music and popular music, this project expands the possibilities for pop musicians and listeners, providing a framework to enhance creativity and broaden the world of contemporary pop music for artists and audiences.
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Wasting Time EP: A Debut Release as a Solo Artist
Theodore Dumont
2023In a changing world, people are often drawn to things that feel familiar and nostalgic. Perhaps this explains the persistent trend of recycling old sounds into new music. The current popular music always reflects new advances in production technology as well as elements adapted from previous generations of music. This culminating experience project centered around the creation of an EP containing 6 songs, with the stylistic goal of pushing musical boundaries while retaining an atmosphere of nostalgia. This involved writing, producing, recording, mixing, and mastering the material. The production drew from the genres of indie pop, synth pop, and hyper-pop. Rock, hip-hop, disco, and EDM served as secondary sources of influence. The sonic palate of the music included processed vocals, electric guitar, “retro” sound design featuring analog synthesizers, and “glitchy” resampled textures. The EP will be released on streaming services and promoted to reach a larger audience. This will necessitate building a team to develop promotional materials, including social media content and music videos. As a whole, this project developed and premiered an artistic voice for a solo musical project.
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An EDM Revolution: The introduction of odd metres and rhythmic experiments in modern day electronic dance music
Rares Florea
20234/4 has been the dominant measure for EDM due to its even, intuitive cyclical nature and high danceability. However, throughout history, 4/4 was only one of the many time signatures used by composers to make danceable music. Odd metres such as 3/4, 5/4, 7/8, are also all time signatures that have been used throughout the history of music seem to have fallen out of favour as it progressed. Therefore, the goal of this project is to create a collection of tracks that explore the possibilities of tuple and odd metres in combination with modern electronic music elements while also exploring the reason these metres have disappeared from the popular scene as music evolved. The creative work will feature key limitations i.e. the resulting songs will have to present a clear sense of musicality and danceability and be aimed for the general public. Moreover, the project will also aim to solve relevant issues in terms of music distribution through DJ sets by exploring concepts such as metric modulation. Additionally, to provide better support for the academic work, interviews with musicians who have attempted composition in this direction will be conducted in order to provide more insight and different views on the matter.
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Evie: A Max for Live Device
Lars Gardner
2023This CE project investigates how an instrument can react to the live musician by adding to a performance or studio recording through technological means. The desired outcome is finding a balance between improvisation and controlled musical elements during a performance using technology. Through the programs Max MSP and Ableton, the student created a Max for Live Device that reacts to the input of a microphone. Based on the incoming information, the patch enables FX processing and algorithms that adhere to frequency, velocity, and range parameters. The device, named Evie, works in exclusively in Ableton and will be potentially available to those with Ableton Suite. Knowledge of Max to use the device will not be required to operate it, as an intuitive interface accompanies it. The device aims to push the live performer to engage with technology to explore the new ways the musician can perform.
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MultiVerb
Darryl Gay
2023Imagine a productive audio workflow where creating is simplified with just a few clicks of a button. Something minimal but yet so powerful. Essentially, the idea is to work smarter and not harder. With that being said, the basis of this project is to create an audio effect plugin that will simplify the overall production and engineering process in order to increase the productivity in anyone's workflow. In addition, this project intends to give users a complete hands-on creative experience as well as the flexibility to engineer and produce in any Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). The author caters to bedroom producers as well as home studio engineers. With this in mind, the author understands the limitations that are present when it comes to creating in a compromising environment. From untreated rooms that may not be suitable for recording to housemates or neighbors that may not be a fan of music being played after a certain time, these are common issues known within the community and this audio effect plugin will provide solutions to all of these issues with the help of groundbreaking technology in order to use more of an creative and innovative approach rather than a straightforward one.
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Creating Space: Discovering Maestra Chameleon through Classical Music Sampling
Maya Giles
2023The rapid development of technology over the last 20 years, significantly the internet, has given Gen Z exposure to all the music of the world within one click. With it, the next generation of artists have disregarded the boundaries of genres and their musical ear has become the defining factor of their artistry. Through Maestra Chameleon, one of the musical identities within AYAM, this project seeks to experiment with classical music and film score samples in the dance music scene to present a new perspective on classical music. An EP collection of 6 instrumental tracks, each sample was chosen with a loose connection to the theme of water in honor of the Nigerian goddess Yemaya. The intention of the project is twofold: innovating how classical music can be sampled in live contexts and used in modern day productions and to open up new ways of listening to classical music.
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The Expanded Electric Guitar
Pedro Herrera Delgado
2023The expanded instruments have gone through different variants but electronic-digital technology has given them sufficient expansion and sound production. An Expanded Electric Guitar is an hybrid electric-digital instrument, equipped with a joystick and foot switches. This components allow the instrument to create alternative forms of controlling 3D shapes and audio effects in real time; making a representation that go beyond the traditional use of the guitar as a musical instrument. This instrument was developed for interacting as a MIDI controller with diverse audio and video softwares to generate an audiovisual experience. This tool facilitates the modification of the parameters of the visuals as the color, the position, dimensions and modified them according to the sound effects you choose.
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The Interactive DJ: Audience Participation in a Live DJ Performance Setting
Nicholas Iacono
2023The goal of this project was to develop a live audience engagement tool for DJs. At the project’s inception in the fall of 2022, there were already a number of tools available to provide audiences with an opportunity to give musical input - namely Festify, LimeDJ, and RequestNow. After critically analyzing the aforementioned tools, the author designed and held a DJ set wherein the audience voted for styles of music and he created mashups of the two most-voted-for styles. Having a DJ act as both programmer and performer led to some significant obstacles in the performance not limited to heavy computer CPU load; nevertheless, the project became a use-case for quickly evolving AI stem generators (particularly Serato Stems1) and the author intends to recreate the project as a game for DJs to test their transition and mixing skills.
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Gisovān: Voicing a Revolution
Shabnam Jafarinasab Kermani
2023Gisovān: Voicing a Revolution was an artistic reaction, reflection, and protest in response to the women-led revolution in Iran, beginning in 2022. The aim of this project was to bring the elements of sound, structure, and visuals together in an interactive sound installation that focused on and raised awareness of the 2022 women’s rights movement in Iran. With a touch-triggered mechanism, interaction was an essential feature of this installation as it encouraged audience participation, and invited the listener to gain awareness of the background and relevant on-going information behind the global “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, and raise the voice of the Iranian people. Primarily, this project featured melodic and harmonic vocal lines - originally composed by the artist - and exclusively sung by female singers. The audience could trigger the playback of these lines, and create their unique anthems; thus, joining the movement in support of the people of Iran in their own way.
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Syncope - An Aural Experience for Sonible Emotions
Ishaan Jagyasi
2023This project aims to create an immersive audio experience through an extended play (EP), focusing on combining electronic music with sonic experience. This EP is inspired by genres like Electronica and IDM, which use sound design tools and techniques like analog synthesis, granular synthesis and foley recordings, along with intricate arrangements and micro-editing, in order to create a dense and evolving soundscape. To elevate the listening experience, the EP is mixed using different tools available in the domain of immersive audio, like ambisonics, binaural audio and Dolby Atmos.
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Proper Techno
Ishan Kharche
2023The idea behind the culminating experience by Ishan Kharche a.k.a. I5HAN revolves around creating a live electronic music act, with interactive audio-visual experience with the use of various Sound Design techniques. The project aims to push the boundaries of techno music and explore various sub genres in this style of music. This consists of three experiences, the first is the musical part where the artist plans on producing a multi sub-genre Techno album with creative use of self-recorded samples, hardware and software synthesizers, The second part is the visual segment, the visuals for the show will be reactive to the audio with the use of Max MSP and Resolume, The third part is the live performance of the album.
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Frantic-A: Creating music world that empowers, embraces people's unique identities, and cures their traumas. EP and Live Performance.
Arina Koreniushkina
2023The basis of the author’s (aka Frantic A) project was to finalize an EP of 4 songs, combining art-pop with trip-hop and alternative electronics and to present it as an audiovisual live show. The author used Ableton Live for both purposes: exploring new production techniques and live performance. She mixed rich arrangements with heartfelt vocals, disruptive sound design and drumbeats, trying to create a music world that empowers, embraces people's unique identities, and cures their traumas. During the process, one of the biggest challenges was technical limitation, associated with CPU of the old computer. The new computer should allow her to mix EP further in Dolby Atmos, make spatial audio performances using Max for Live devices in Ableton and control visuals in Resolume from Ableton. Although the project is rather unusual for the pop scene, the author hopes that it takes a step toward a bridge between avant- guard and mainstream.
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Experimental Vocal Production in Alternative Pop Music
Martyna Kubicz
2023This document outlines the proposal for the Culminating Experience by Martyna Kubicz, also known as MIN t. The project will revolve around creating an EP, involving songwriting, sound engineering, production, sound designing, and performance. The EP will consist of 6 tracks, focusing on experimental and Innovative vocal production techniques. The author will use tools like Ableton, Simpler, Sampler, Antares Studio, and Melodyne to focus on voice experimentation as an instrument and primary production element. The aim is to create a genre-expanding composition pushing the boundaries of the new electro-pop music while remaining accessible to wider audiences. The music direction of the pieces will shift around the UK- garage, R&B, leftfield, electronica, neo-soul, pop, and IDM. The project aims to release a new MIN t's EP, promote it, and perform it all over Europe.
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A Journey of Spiritual Healing
Zilan Li
2023The healing power of music on people is obvious, especially in mental health, and many studies today have proven this to be true. Many western music pieces have themes related to mental illness, and their healing effect on people cannot be ignored. But in China, mental illness is still a topic that people avoid talking about, and even fewer literary works are based on the theme of it. When it comes to mental health, musicians are a high-risk group for mental illness, but putting emotions into music for musical composition is a great way to maintain mental health. This project will feature lyrics in Chinese, describing the lives and feelings of people with bipolar disorder through their first perspective, in hopes that it will have some positive impact on the mental health environment in China, bringing more attention to the impact of mental illness on people, and informing that it will also heal those with the same illness.
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Nostalgera
Dylan Madru
2023The 1990’s gave birth to many new genres of music. This was due to the advancements of music technology at the time and the availability of said equipment. Some of the most notable are the genres “Boom Bap”, “Trip Hop”, and “Drum and Bass”.
These genres all hold a similar origin but they each have their own unique characteristics. “Boom Bap” holds its ties to Hip Hop of that era and is characterized by its use of sampling. The drums usually have a laid back feel that would allow a vocalist to rap over it fairly easily. “Trip Hop” is an evolution of this use of sampling and can be “defined as the merging of hip-hop and electronica until neither genre is recognizable.”1 “Drum and Bass” also extensively utilizes sampling, utilizing sped up breakbeats and is the offshoot of the “Jungle” movement.
This project will pay homage to the listed distinct genres by combining the three separately into a cohesive mix in an album form. The title of this project stems from the content rooted in its influence from the 1990s and combines the words nostalgia and era to denote the composition.