Music Production, Technology, and Innovation

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Worth the Wait

Julianna Banks
2022

Through this project, the author intended to solidify a unique and specific artistic voice. The aim was to create a four-song extended play in order to delve into various production and recording techniques, such as varied mic placement and choices, and the exploration of different subgenres, all to express distinct ideas. Additionally, the project included a music video with an overarching storyline to connect the ideas of each piece from one to the next.
Dreams, Death, & Love

Diego Barraza
2022

The culminating experience of the author consisted of an audio visual concept EP album inspired by both, Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of The Moon” and Tame Impala’s “Currents”. The main focus of the EP surrounded a couple of deep topics in life like dreams, death, and love. Each individual topic was carried out by one song in the EP and they were all tied together by a single idea which was simply “moments in time”. The deliverables included two music videos and 4 different songs. All songs were produced fully in the box with virtual instruments and virtual analog gear modulations, except for the vocals. Songs were written, arranged, produced, mixed, and mastered by the author. Videos were recorded and edited by the author as well. This process taught the author a lot about songwriting, production, and mixing, he also learned about the process of creating music videos. He created this EP audio visual album to release it into the musical markets in the future and to use it as a showcase for future job opportunities.
Voyager

Ozan Cicek
2022

The inspiration of this culminating experience project was derived from a lineage of long- standing and modern musical styles to create an album that syndicates the former stylistic elements to offer a pristine final product. The record was created with the use of hardware synthesizers, software synthesizers, samplers, digital audio workstations, drum machines, MIDI controllers and organic instruments. The use of these resources in a congruent manner allowed the project to be borrowing from distinct musical styles in order to construct an innovative project. The album combined an extraction of classic and modern styles of electronic music such as subgenres of house and techno; combined with touches and influences from more traditional genres such as funk and jazz. Building the basis of the album electronically, and drawing inspirations, motives and ideas from traditional genres were the essential contributing factors on developing a vigorous work of art that is true to the past and paves way for the evolution of electronic music.
Full Control Delay: an unique and innovative guitar pedal

Christian Dias
2022

This project aims to design and build a prototype for a fully interactive delay pedal (for guitars or any other instrument). Delays usually need to be controlled by hand, which means bending down to reach the knobs and also taking one hand off the instrument - unless the pedal's settings keep unchanged while playing. Another possibility is attaching a controller pedal to the delay, in order to change some settings by foot, which can be done while playing. But an external controller hardware is needed. The idea behind the Full Control Delay pedal and its main difference is that it allows any of the effect's parameters to be controlled while playing and without the need of an external controller pedal. One single piece of hardware will enable the user to handle a variety of effects and soundscapes, easily changing settings between songs or even between sections in the same song.
Tamil Independent Music and Genres : An Experimental Music Journey

Sanjeevi Easwar
2022

This Culminating Experience (CE) was a multi-genre collaborative Extended Playlist (EP) in the language Tamil. It is one of the ancient languages from Southern India with a vast grammatical structure. The author worked in the past as an Independent artist and collaborated with other artists to make singles. But in this EP the author chose to make 4 songs where all of them belong to completely different genres. This was the first time a multi-genre EP was made in this language. The only common connection between each song would be the subject that was being discussed about. The EP collectively talked about different phases of a relationship and how it progressed. It was a combination of songs that portrayed a variety of moods ranging from happy to gloomy and dark. The idea was to give the audience a journey that took them through a ride of different emotions through different styles of music.
Emotional Play

Dana Eisenhauer
2022

Many people are unable to express their emotions, which can lead to many problems down the road. This Culminating Experience project aimed to help people express and process their emotions through song. The goal of this project was to produce an extended play (EP) that dives deep into the volatile range of the following human emotions: insecurity, sadness, drive, and excitement/happiness. This paper contains research on overall characteristics of what causes these emotions, and why certain people are not able to express those feelings. The paper also explores which emotions are triggered by music, and how/if these emotions can be manipulated by audio and/or music. The EP creation process incorporated electronic composition techniques including sampling, remixing, field recording, and other types of audio manipulation, to enhance the quality of the production. The hope is that field recordings (e.g. birds chirping, cars honking) will tap into people’s connection to the natural world to make them feel present; remixing will tap into people’s nostalgic/recognition/comfort parts of the brain; and audio manipulation (e.g. panning, stuttering, echo/delay) will keep people engaged and on their toes while listening to the EP.
Hip-Hop Production As A Means Of Storytelling

Jordan Faries
2022

This project combines piano performance, electronic music production, and creative vocal editing techniques in the context of an EP. At times, the techniques involved in creating modern commercial hip-hop or electronic music can leave the overall product feeling somewhat canned or lifeless, or free of a level of humanity and personality. This production counteracts that by showcasing both the capability of electronic music production and DAWs such as Ableton to create unique and innovative sounds and textures, while also maintaining a very authentic and captivating human sound through the instrumental and vocal elements of the project.
No Borders

Benjamin Farnier
2022

This one-year long experience is a conceptual project merging electronic music, hip-hop and indie rock through six songs and one live set video. It can seem difficult to draw bridges between music genres that each have their own characteristic. However, by integrating rap songwriting skills, live instruments such as guitar, and electronic music composition experience, it has been possible to find a cohesive yet unique that fits Yambow’s musical identity. Thanks to midi controllers and automation, the one-person band live experience is another challenge that this project overcomes. The live aspect of this project was captured in a creative live video of one song featured in the EP “No Borders”.
Liminal Space

Ferdinando Fugazza Calda
2022

This work intends to be a combination of two different pieces of work, one being an EP recorded by the author, and the other one being a set of visuals controlled by the activity of the brain, streaming the data from an electroencephalusgram (EEG) into MaxMSP. The idea at the foundation of this project is that every experience we go through is essentially a mediation of some form, and that complete objectivity is arguably impossible in any aspect of the human experience. The music is also inspired by the impressionist art movement, which conceptually originates from the same core idea, and the visuals try to match the stylistic features of the movement. Ultimately, the aim of the work is to fuse together the listener and the work of art, making the viewer a part of the work.
NFT Art In The Streaming Era: A Practical Study of the Application and Ethics of NFT Art

Michael Go
2022

This project serves as a practical model for contemporary artists seeking to explore the medium of NFT art as a means of revaluing their work in response to the economic unsustainability of the streaming-based music economy, as well as a model for ways in which NFT art can be used to support international mutual aid efforts while maintaining a commitment to environmental sustainability. To this end, an NFT art collection of original audiovisual work entitled "ORDINARY PEOPLE 4 CLEAN WATER" was created on Rarible.com's NFT marketplace in collaboration with the Grand’Anse Haiti based mutual aid foundation, the Julia&Jade Foundation (FJUJA). The proceeds of this NFT collection go towards funding FJUJA’s ongoing initiatives to promote sustainable and profitable agricultural practices, in this case with a focus on installing solar powered water pumps to provide clean drinking water and irrigated farmland for the people of Grand’Anse. The intention behind this project was to demonstrate that NFT art can be integrated into the contemporary artists' portfolio in a manner that is environmentally ethical and which opens new possibilities for both fan engagement and for international community building and mutual aid work.
Renaixement: Bringing Interactivity to Live Electronic Music

Carter Guidry
2022

The author proposed for his culminating experience that he would redefine the current notion of what it means to be an electronic musician. The problem that was being challenged and resolved was that current electronic musicians were more enraptured with using DJ equipment and preparing quick sets rather than focusing on their own creative music and developing their own interactive live sets. Moreover, the majority notion that artists try to copy someone else or replicate someone else’s style was another ideology that the author attempted to redefine. Therefore, the author posited three solutions to these current issues: To redefine the live music experience of electronic music, re-innovate technology by combining hardware and DJ equipment into a new medium of interactive technology, and develop a new standard of electronic music that challenges the status quo of current modern genres.
Tug of War- EP

Armani Guy
2022

Music is emotion. In most cases, people tend to base emotions off external experiences. In these experiences, humans feel certain ways that then results into internal emotion. Humans then tend to listen to music based on how they feel emotionally. This CE project consists of an EP by Wizrd Kelly (the author’s artistic persona) and is a love story. As most individuals may know, love stories do not always end in love. It starts off with pure bliss, but could end in heartbreak, and in some cases, leading to a depressed state of mind. The Ep will consist of four songs. The story is split into four major “themes/emotions.” The first of which is love. The second is lust. The third is resentment. The last of which is depression.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.