Music Production, Technology, and Innovation

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  Sound the Alarm

  Joshua Hill
  2022

  Joshua Hill’s Culminating Experience (CE) project features a 4-track electronic EP, being used to explore and challenge his identity as a producer. The higher aim of this project was to push the creative limits as to what has and is currently being done with the Dolby Atmos technology. The EP was produced fully in Ableton, using Atmos from day one as a creative tool. Hill has also built a special Ableton template that allows the Dolby Atmos Renderer software to be used seamlessly in Ableton.

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  The Astronaut: An Immersive EP designed Exclusively for Dolby Atmos

  Spencer Hughes
  2022

  The Astronaut is a project designed to completely immerse the listener through Dolby Atmos. While bending the boundaries of genre morphing within hip-hop, Hughes takes inspiration from the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator, Kanye West, and FKJ to create a work that redefines the walls of hip-hop.

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  Ugolino: Jazz, Hip-Hop and Ireland

  Oran Hurley
  2022

  This project follows the creation of a five-track EP titled Aisling, by Irish artist, Ugolino. The EP fuses hip-hop and jazz, merging these two genres in the context of Irish music. This project distinguishes itself from other jazz / hip-hop fusions, which often use prominent elements of hip- hop instrumentals, and vocals consistent with modern rap. Aisling uses a more live sound, drawing on styles of 20th century jazz, and vocals in the style of spoken-word poetry. Ireland is a country known for its output of literature and poetry in the 20th Century, but not for its contributions to jazz. This EP imagines how Irish jazz could have sounded, thus offering an artistic commentary on Ireland’s culture, history, and place in the world. This project hopes to have enough reach and commercial appeal to increase the popularity of contemporary jazz and inspire more jazz fusions.

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  Figures

  Adam Kaleta
  2022

  With the rise of the Metaverse, Dolby Atmos, and virtual reality, audiences are seeking out immersive media experiences now more than ever. Figures an audio-visual experience by Postmodern Talk Show that takes place in a virtual gallery, and gives users the power to explore an immersive surrealist museum with sonic accompaniment. Applying modern video game technology to musical experience, this project blurs the line between game, art exhibition, and concert.

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  Commune with the Cosmos

  Robert Koeck
  2022

  The objective of this project was to produce a melodic techno album that combined an organic and emotive approach to songwriting, while maintaining the darker and harder themes of techno music. The purpose was to bridge the gap between synthesized electronic music and the use of acoustic instruments in order to produce a cohesive body of music. It was the culmination of the many musical influences the artist ‘Amalle’ has absorbed over the years. From the heavy bass synths found from the sounds of dubstep, the ethereal feeling of hearing a well-recorded guitar, to the atmospheric soundscapes heard within the realm of film, this EP became everything ‘Amalle’.

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  Sitting on the Shoulders of Giants: Moon Jelly. A VR Orchestral Experience

  Giovanni Lando
  2022

  Almost 160 years have passed since the first recorded sound and, man is no longer satisfied with just passive listening but wants to be able to modify and interact with sound through other forms of art. Music, by its very nature, lends itself very easily to change, develop and evolve according to the needs and technologies of its time. With the improvement of technology over the years, artists are more able to explore outside of the boundaries that were never able to be explored by artists in the past. By using virtual reality as a medium, immersive virtual reality art is probably the most deeply interactive form of art1. This paper wants to describe with a practical example all the process that are behind an immersive audio/video installation that puts the listener at the center of the scene.

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  Producer & sound engineer portfolio

  Marine Lavergne Higueras
  2022

  This project aims to develop a diversified portfolio as a music producer and engineer. This included research on multiple music styles and genres to understand the history and be able to effectively create music in the choses styles. This utilized different DAWs, MIDI, studio recording, recording techniques, analog synthesis, the student delivered four songs in four different styles. The student worked with different artists and faced many challenges regarding communication, management, and honing music production skills. This project helped the student to gain confidence and built a solid portfolio to become a freelance producer and sound engineer.

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  Surrealism as a Method of Music Production

  Andrea Mariatti
  2022

  This thesis examines the surrealistic art movement approach trough music as a way of creating and producing new sonic pieces.The academic research aims to define an in-deep study of surrealism as a creative conceptual and practical tool for music production in order to create a three songs E.P. that represents the times we are living in. It all starts with the historic analysis of music production and how it was affected by the technological development. Moreover after defining the different production eras it was possible to notice the characteristic of surrealistic compositions.The surrealistic movement analysis gives the inspirational paradigm to dig deep into the techniques used as tools to generate the final piece. All the musical influences involved in this research were studied from the music production perspective in order to highlight the creative and compositional cores implemented to generate the musical pieces identified as references. Once the fundamental aspects were outlined, it was crucial to design the final workflow scheme in order to proceed with the creation of the songs. After this phase, the document unfolds the entire process by providing the creative limitation list of instruments, allowed techniques that the team could use to produce the E.P., Studio Session list and the entire sonic technique transposition method.The artistic direction was defined by a central concept: remove conscious decisions from art. Indeed dreaming experiences seemed to be the perfect tool to drive the storytelling of the songs.

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  BEST Album

  Jack McClenahan
  2022

  BEST Album, giga's debut work, experiments with familiar pop and electronic music conventions, while providing a fresh and unique take on what a pop album can contain. Each track filled with emotional depth underscored by melodies and beats that will make you want to dance, he explores the expression of personal vulnerability and inner truth as he struggles to implement these very themes into his day to day life. Topics such as love, balance, the meaning of life, and fun are all blended into the songs' layers with a light-hearted silliness to create an album that you've never heard anything like, but you can relate to all the same.

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  Ouch That Hurt! A Visual EP and Documentary

  Rory McFadden
  2022

  This culminating experience project consisted of a visual and collaborative Extended Play (referred to as “EP” henceforth) and a documentary of the process of creating a visual EP in its entirety. The most important part of the author’s culminating experience was a finished EP of three original songs. The author created visuals for each song, using a variety of different sources learned during her time at Berklee. The EP featured all original music written by the author and was a collaboration between instrumentalists, recording engineers, mixing and mastering engineers from Berklee. Additionally, each song featured a different analog or digital emulation synthesizer in order to expand the author's knowledge of music technology and of music history in the synth pop genre. The author chose to do an EP for her culminating experience project in order to expand her personal artistry, continue working on her songwriting, production and engineering, learn about new synthesizers, and to capture the entire process in an educational documentary in order to show how an EP is created from start to finish.

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  A Different Sound and Vision: How Women and Gender Diverse Individuals Experience the Recording Process

  Grace Morton
  2022

  This project explores recording studio experiences and how they differ between men, women and gender diverse individuals. Data gathered includes 55 survey responses to an array of 18 questions, 15 multiple choice and 3 short answers. The underlying question to be answered is what barriers do women and non-binary people face in the studio in any role? These roles include producer, artist, session musician, engineer and/or assistant. This project also attempts to gather data points to quantify what a “good” session and a “bad” session look like depending on the respondents gender.

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  Cultural appropriation. Limiting creativity

  Mateo Munevar Nino
  2022

  Cultural appropriation is a real issue in the music industry where artists take certain cultural attributes from different countries with the simple intention of making money. However, other artists use different characteristics of foreign musical cultures to enhance the meaning and story of their music. Even though their intentions were pure, these celebrities have unfairly received negative backlash from social media. Therefore, this dissertation will analyze, evaluate, define and push the vague definition of cultural appropriation. The origin, adverse effects, current definition, and areas of improvement will be discussed by creating a combination of musical compositions that use varying cultural attributes. After, opinions from different social spaced will be gathered and analyzed to create a new definition of cultural appropriation that can condemn the right celebrities.

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  The Christening

  Nicolas Newton
  2022

  This culminating experience project (The Christening) is intended to be a 4-song extended play exploring the fusion of modern lo-fi boombap with Neo-Soul influences, Peruvian and Spanish hip hop grooves while honing on the new tools and knowledge to improve the final result. It is meant to be produced mainly by Nicolas Newton in collaboration with other music producers and artists from the Berklee Valencia Campus. It is also meant to be produced in the box by taking advantage of Ableton Live 11's tools to have the project be both songs and ready to perform live sets. The extended play will be performed live aided by automated effects done with Ableton Live 11 to make the transitions seamless while keeping the listeners attention throughout every piece. The songs will be played using automated effects on the vocals which will be prepared in advance inside Ableton so that they will be performed live over the instrumental tracks.

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  Rainbow for Tomorrow

  Dayn Ng
  2022

  Rainbow for Tomorrow is a community and participatory art in the form of interactive audio and visual installation. This installation uses a MIDI controller built using an Arduino micro-controller, enabling the participant to create visuals and sound by moving the controller. The controller sends out data from the accelerometer, which is built into the micro-controller, which will then send data to Max MSP. Max MSP will then send out data through Open Sound Control (OSC), a network protocol, to Processing, a software that uses coding to create visuals that will be projected on a wall. Max MSP will also use the accelerometer data from the controller to send out MIDI data to Ableton, a Digital Audio Workstation, and output to multiple speakers in the installation. During the process, one of the biggest challenges was building the controller, coding in numerous software, and ensuring communication between the controller and software. This installation is an artistic concept. The mission is to let the various community participate in creating visual art and interact with the installation uniquely wherever the installation is held.

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  Jinx by JNKY

  John Nicholl
  2022

  In this project, the artist wrote and recorded an EP of original music using Ableton live. In addition, the artist gave a live performance that showcased the hybrid nature of the music, utilizing both live instruments and digitally sequenced elements. There were four tracks to which the artist performed along, spanning an array of styles like rock, funk and pop.

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  One Take Series: An Insight Into the Technology Used to Create a Live Performance Video Series

  Niamh O'Sullivan
  2022

  In the last 15 years with the exponential growth of the internet and social media, watching videos of live performances online is a common occurrence. However, often the audio and video quality are poor, or the performance is pre-recorded. The aim of this culminating experience project (CE) is to live record multiple intimate video performances in different locations and spaces, which will be edited and mixed to a professional, commercially viable standard, to be shared and promoted across various social media platforms. This CE will achieve a similar experience to the NPR Tiny Desk Home Concerts.

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  Refugio: New songs to find shelter

  Irma Paulina Parga Fuentes
  2022

  The project Refugio (shelter, in Spanish) has this title because the songs contained within have served as an emotional shelter for the songwriter and artist Paulina Parga. Once written, the project continued and was produced by Paulina Parga. These songs represent the vulnerability, intimacy, strength, and freedom of the moment that were written and they intend to portray this in the final produced tracks. With this project, the producer puts together some elements of latinamerican rhythms and alternative pop. The narrative of the songs of the EP can be perceived by the audience either as individual stories or as different chapters of one.

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  Dancing Shapes: Audio-Reactive Visual Generator

  Ruben Prados Hernandez
  2022

  This Culminating Experience is based on a live-video software which generates different shapes with many possibilities to create intricate visuals that react and change depending on the input of sound. This could be seen as a kaleidoscope in which elements will vary depending on the signal. This software has been developed with Max/MSP and applied to Ableton Live, presented as a patch in Max and as a plugin in Live. After the study and research on Max/MSP and different patches, many problems were overcome and made this plugin very customisable by the user.

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  Producing a Digital Concert Series: One Take

  Randall Reynolds
  2022

  The need for Digital platforms and alternative performance venues has become increasingly apparent. Live events have become a rarity while digital platforms like NPRs Tiny Desk, and KEXPs Live have remained able to share live performances in an effective way. This project focuses on launching a digital series of live music performances. The process examined the skills and techniques needed to produce at a professional level and the different aspects that contribute to its success. The series required pre- and post- production teams for both the creation of content and the promotion and marketing of it. It worked as a collaboration with specialists in A&R, Engineering, Event Production, Promotion, and Video working together on the production. A variety of different events brought challenges which will required a complete understanding of the tools and skills utilized in the MPTI program as well as skills required across each of the programs Berklee Valencia’s Campus. In the end we were able to create a powerful network and generate quality content.

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  Futurus

  Alexander Ricci
  2022

  Futurus combined performative music technology and transhumanist philosophy to create an impactful audiovisual performance. As humanity hurtles towards a technological future, it is vital that the arts provide a conduit through which to critique our blind acceptance of new global technology trends, and imagine the consequences of their use beyond the scope of the next market quarter. Futurus provided a memorable experience that spurred heightened audience awareness towards social action on the topic of human interaction with technology. In avoiding the common pitfall of prescriptive worldview, the lyrical and topical content of Futurus was open-ended to diminish the presence of the artist’s ego and encourage the audience’s own reflection. Electronic and technologically-reliant performances often lack the impactfulness of live instrumentation and band interaction. In Futurus the impact of the set was enhanced with careful attention paid to performative instrumentation choices. Through a collaboration with another student, Rubén Prados, and his Culminating Experience project, sounds were visualized as vivid, abstract projections to highlight the disparities and connections between human and machine.

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  Peak & Pit

  Brandon Rosiar
  2022

  The basis of this project was to write, produce, record & mix an long play (LP) of original indie-rock music that will explore different techniques, especially in home recording and emulating a studio-level analogue quality inside of a digital domain, creating a new but nostalgic sound. This is a project for attempting to unlock secrets of the best bedroom producers, especially in the indie rock scene.

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  Ficciones: The Audiovisual Imaginarium of et Lūmen

  Juan Santiago Cifuentes
  2022

  Technology is one of the most relevant creative forces behind music creation. Apart from being a social and cultural phenomena, music is a response to the technological possibilities of a specific period of time. This project, for instance, is determined to explore the new possibilities encountered in audio and visual softwares to create a Conceptual Audiovisual Extended Play Album that consists of five songs that will be accompanied by a series of animated video clips for the artistic musical project: et Lūmen. The main objective is to explore the different ways music can be presented in the digital realm that can enrich the musical experience presented by the artist: et Lūmen. This project is meant to push boundaries of music creation by designing an immersive experience that is thought to be centered on the relationship between music and visuals. This will be done by taking advantage of new technologies to confront the boundaries of music technology resulting in a new perspective and approach to human expression and artistic endeavors.

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  Mental Health Diary

  Juan Sebastian Izaciga
  2022

  Mental health disorders are becoming more prevalent and the research to fully understand it is becoming more discussed recently. Due to this, a lot of mediums have been used to work around in researching mental health and spreading awareness. In this study, an artistic approach to study mental health was done through an elaborate creation of an audiovisual representation of a major depressive disorder (MDD) crisis, along with the experimental approach of the stages a patient experiences during this process. It intends to explore sonically and visually the mysteries of the human mind, based on the author’s personal experiences with mental health disorders and scientific research. For this specific study, the author portrayed the phase of declining into a depressive crisis through presenting ten instrumental tracks accompanied by self-generated video content. The products produced were executed with the use of Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Max MSP, Logic Pro X, Protools and an iPhone 11 for the creation of the musical and video content.

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  Experiments in Indian-Pop Production

  Shankara Srikantan
  2022

  This culminating experience (CE) project is a four song collection composed, produced, and partially engineered by the author, Shankara Srikantan. The songs draw from the theory and influence of South Asian semiclassical and American Pop/R&B music, alluding to the two cultures that inform the author's musical intuitions. The production process revolved around the recording and processing of analog (and analog-sounding virtual) instruments and vocals. The song lyrics are in both Hindi and Tamil, but belong together sonically.

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  Moving Forward by Looking Back

  Noah Tabernal
  2022

  Nowadays in electronic pop music, people spend hours to make something feel “real”. Because of the lack of any real instruments or analog gear in most bedroom studios, analog instruments and effects are emulated. A large part of the old school of engineers argues this omits the analog feel of sounds and nothing can beat the real analog deal. This CE will aim to bring back the liveness and analog sound by producing the Italian singer Isabel Helene Mohr an as modern sounding eight track album as possible, while applying several recording techniques out of the 70s & 80s. A comparison will be made between emulators and the actual physical versions of analog gear. By looking backwards in time and experiencing the restrictions that music recording had at the time, the project will move forward to a newer and more creative sound. The process of this record will be fully documented on film, to serve as press material for the release of the album.