Overall, i feel this project went sort of well despite from a few issues that came about towards the during the beginning and end of the project. I started this project thinking I would be making another EP like I did in my second year where I pick a couple of produced beats that I can write too then work with a professional producer/engineer to create the EP however Lee disagreed with my idea saying it’s not academic enough and that I would have to come up with something better than just doing another EP, There had to be a learning outcome, Lee helped by suggesting ways i could approach the project and left e to think about it, however the 1st week of Uni meant Freshers flu and the fact that I work inside a nightclub it was obvious that I was going to catch it, so Week 2 was a miss Week 3 was missed due to pride, I hadn’t done any work so far yet it was week 3 so I missed in order to catch up and show up to tutorial with work to present however other medical issues got in the way and completely messed up the the project, by week 8 I was back in tutorial and thats when i got surprised because the work I had thought was good turned out to be worthless so I had to completely change the idea of the project. Instead of making music by singing on top of another producers music my EP would consistt of beats that I had made myself, I had to chose a producer to study and create a beat from what I learned about them and how they work. At first I looked at Hit-Boy then down the line I also chose 40 and then started my research on both of them, this later on Boi-1da was added and soon after Hit-Boy was changed T-minus so I would now be researching on the producers of OVO Sound. I wanted to create 4 tracks however because of another module to do with a group project plunging down the toilet that I didn’t have enough time to make the 4th beat just because we lost two members and had a lot of paperwork to do for 9 days (The extension deadline gave us an extra 9 days) so this project was put on hold until I was completely done with the group project as it was really being a thorn on my side. After the group project I applied for an extension however I was only given 3 days extension to come up with 3 beats and finish the one I had already started (Lee liked it). It was not easy a ton of hours were spent making beats, a lot of beat ideas I had ended up being so frustrated because the pressure kept piling, the 4th track had 3 different sound ideas i wanted to approach with however they all failed and I ended up running out of the small time that I had. Throughout the course of this project I have worked with Patrick Love, a Lincoln based DJ/Producer and good friend.

In terms of achieving learning outcome one, I feel I feel that I have, compared to how the music sounds from my first year it’s a lot better and better mixed and mastered, even though there are no vocals i doubt it would of made much of a difference. Using subtractive and additive mixing also Static mixing too to help balance the tracks. After making the beats, I showed other people to hear they’re views. I asked my 4 housemates 2 nightclub managers 2 friends and a local producer who also helped me with my EP in my second year, The favourite beat so far is ‘BMT’ because it’s something they can dance too and it’s very “relaxing”. With the feedback given I believe I have achieved learning outcome one.

The first track I have produced based of the production techniques used by 40 on Drakes Album Nothing Was the Same is called “All Me”. The mix of this song is very loud and ambient and spacious and I tried to recreate this in “Gone in the Wind”. From my research on 40 I have learnt how he runs his sessions. In an interview with Pensado’s Place and Native instruments he said “Drake doesn’t hear the beat, he hears the spaces between the beat” and that 40 really caters for the artist and doing the best he can to help deliver what that artist wants to deliver. However the most important thing 40 says is that when he’s working on a beat he’s trying to build character and emotion with his beats from looking at the looking at the beat and comparing it to the All Me track which is like a dark, bouncy, angry feeling beat I feel I used his techniques to replicate and make anew dark, bouncy and angry feeling while still being able to recognise the sampled work. The second beat I made called “We Know” was also another dark and bouncy beat that used Drake’s song “Summer Sixteeen. From the drums, past the sample and right down the bass-line, it incorporates the techniques and methods used by 40 and you can hear it despite “We know” being a lower tempo then “Summer Sixteen”, it still has the elements of the reversed sample, the underwater like drums and the Moog bass. Not only that, the beat is nearly mixed as it is, it’s also something 40 has done before. I believe I have met learning outcome two.

The third track I have produced based of the production techniques used by Boi-1da on Drakes Album Views the song called “Controlla”. The mix of this song is very loud and hit hard with its percussions and kicks and I tried to recreate this in “BMT”. From my research on Boi-1da I have learnt that he pays for his sounds, in an interview he once said, “I buy sounds off of different miscellaneous websites where you can pay for kits. I don’t have a go-to site. And sometimes, I’ll take little sounds out of songs, and load samples here and there. I get sounds from anywhere. The other day, I heard a sound on a YouTube video, and I ripped it from YouTube. I get sounds from wherever. I have a 1.5 terabyte hard drive I’ve been using for four years and it’s still not filled. I just keep loading it up.” With this beat I sampled the the chords from a old TLC – No Scrubs piano tutorial I saw on youtube then programmed it into pro tools and looked for the perfect sound to make it a dancehall beat, the drum kit and vocal samples were also bought. Boi-1da shares his music with the close producers he trusts because he believes creating a track is a team effort, in an interview he said, “A lot of hit songs, are a collaborative effort from a lot of people: producers, songwriters, everything. Your favorite producers—Timbaland, Dr. Luke, Max Martin, all these people—they work with a lot of co-producers. Producing is definitely a team sport because not everybody has the blessing of knowing every aspect about music. I have certain aspects that another person doesn’t have and what I have complements what he has.”  For this EP I worked closely with my friend Patrick Love who is also a producer and he helped me out with the drums which isn’t my strong suit. I believe I have met Learning outcome three.

In terms of achieving learning outcome four, I feel I partly have used production techniques in a beat, mainly the third beat. In my own opinion the melody from Drake’s song “Blem” from the More Life album sounds similar to that of “BTM”. In an interview with T-minus he says that all three of them share all their sounds, in another interview T said, “We all have our own styles. 40’s sound is very lush and somber, he has a lot of R&B influence in his music. Boi-1da’s stuff is crazy knock, it hits so hard. There’s so much percussive presence in his record. I feel like I brought a mixture of both in some sense. I’m strongly influenced by Boi-1da’s sound; we grew up together, and he’s definitely been a big influence on me as a producer. We share a lot of sounds from producing together. I brought a little bit more melody to the records I do.”, growing up together especially all being producers part of the same OVO family and the fact that T-minus and Boy-1da are only two years apart in age different with T-minus being the young one more than justifies why the two producers might sound similar, T-minus admits that, by his definition I have met learning outcome four.

I have enjoyed this audio project believe it or not and I believe I have grown immensely as a producer from where I was last year or even my first year in university and I feel I’ll continue growing if i stick to it and try and make music everyday. I have improved my technical skills in regards to mixing, thats a definite improvement from last year when my mixing left something to be desired and hopefully I’ll be create my own production style after learning from these three amazing producers. I will be able to add this to my one of many employable skills along with songwriter, artist, director and so on. If I was to do this project again I would of try to discover my own production style/sound.