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Second Meeting with The Band – Influences and Inspirations

We recently met with the band for the second time (this time with the entire band) and sat down to discuss their musical influences and expand on our discussion we had the last time we met.

They immediately said that they had two big influences that were The Hives and Kings of Leon, these were influences that affected the whole band’s sound so it is likely that I will be researching these two bands’ producers to try and better understand how their albums were created.

They also said some individual bands that they liked the sound of the instruments; when it came to the guitars it was mainly hard-rock/Rock/Blues bands such as Guns ‘N Roses, The Black Keys, and The Rolling Stones, they said that they liked the overdrive/distorted sound of the guitars that these bands displayed in their music.

In terms of vocal inspiration, we got a mixed group of bands, such as Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana, and The Hives. I mainly hear Kurt Cobain and Alex Turner coming through in his vocal performances due to its rough, grungy sound. I shall focus more on these two vocalists but shall also research further into all his influences.

Finally, the drummer had only a few influences and ideas on how he wanted the drums to sound in the EP. He said that he wanted the drums to stand out in the EP, he pointed me toward one band in particular, Royal Blood, whose drums are very clear in their album and sound very clear.

We told the band that we are now going to be taking their words into consideration and will research the producers of these artists and then get back to them on setting a date for recording the EP.

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First Meeting With Lee – Tutorial

Today at 9AM we had our first meeting with our tutor Lee Gretton, this was incredibly useful for both me and Oliver as it focussed our project and helped us figure out how to continue on.

Our main topic of discussion was on what we want to gain from this project and which direction we wanted to take the project. During our discussion, we came to the conclusion that it would benefit me and Oliver to make this project more research based and learn what other producers and artists are doing with their music to try and better our final product. As I do not currently wish to pursue a career in the music industry, we found it odd to use this as a first step in building my portfolio and instead I am going to use it as a learning experience to further my knowledge of the production process and also my researching capabilities.

Before the meeting we had already booked around 20 hours in the recording studio over the next two weeks and we were advised that perhaps that was not a great idea as it would not allow us to do enough research prior to the recording. As suggested by Lee we have deleted the bookings and are going to instead meet up with the band and discuss possible influences and then from that find out more about the production of those artists.

Our next meeting will be a week from today on the 11th of October

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First Meeting with The Band

Today we met with the band, however, the drummer was unavailable to meet at this specific time so we will have to meet him at a later date. The main objective of this meeting was to get a feel of how the band behave as well as getting to know more about them and their aspirations as a band.

The main things that I learnt in this meeting were that the band seem very competent as a collective group, they all enjoy what they do and they seem to look forward to working with us. We also learnt a bit about the influences of the band, which ranged from bands such as The Hives and Guns ‘N Roses, which seemed to show in the previously recorded music (especially in the vocal style).

We have decided to create a group chat on Facebook so that we can all keep in contact as well as organise other meetings and studio time with them later down the line.

 

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First Meeting With The Band

Today I and Oliver went to a local pub to meet the band ‘Dead Rooster’ for the first time after being approached by them online around two weeks prior. We had listened to their music prior to meeting them and were interested in working with them so I replied to them and set up a date to meet.

This was a rather informal meeting as we just wanted to get to know the band a little and discuss with them what it is we would be doing for them. Unfortunately, the drummer was not there during this meeting due to illness but we managed to talk to the other 3 members of the band and find out a bit about them.

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Aims & Objectives

The objectives that Oliver and I have created between us are as follows:

  • By the end of this project, we will have created a 5 song EP for the band Dead Rooster.
  • We will have looked into the production techniques of the producers that have worked with the bands that influence them.
  • We will look into the commercial aspects of distributing a CD whether it be online or physical
  • We will look into how Dead Rooster can grow their audience.
  • We will look into the mix techniques of engineers in the rock scene

In terms of personal learning outcomes for this project I have come up with these four:

  • I will have learnt about how smaller bands can utilise social media to grow their audience. (LO1)
  • I will have learnt about how bands can distribute their music, whether that be physical CDs or via online stores, and what are the most effective strategies in today’s music industry. (LO2)
  • I will have learnt about how modern rock music is mixed and the techniques that are used to make a great final product and apply this to our project. (LO3)
  • I will have learnt about how a band can go about getting their music played on a radio station, and the things that must be done to make it radio ready. (LO4)

I have assigned a number to each of my aims so that when I create a blog post, the number in the title will correspond to a specific aim.