EXP Evaluation

When launching my new website, my intentions were purely to promote. I had two separate websites where I had my music uploaded too, so the links made my Music easily accessed. I believe that my project would fit into the music industry confidently as it's the composition of music and then the promotion of it, which are both as important as each other. A similar website that promotes sampling would be the well known producer 808Razz's website. This page is similar to how I would like my website to build up to, in the sense that although he has his Soundcloud and Youtube promoted, he is also able to be selling samples and drum kit's. The set up was almost identical when it came to the page layout and options setup, although he had pages promoting his drum kit's.

 Looking back to my original proposal, I was questioning whether I would become more successful if my music was able to be purchased or if you were able to stream for free. This enabled me to do some research into the topic finding out individual opinions on it. An opinion that stood out to me was the response to the question "Why do people pay for Spotify when they can listen music for free?' A consumer replied "Because Spotify works better, because it has offline support, because it doesn’t have ads, because it supports playing in the background on mobile." This point was something that I agreed on as people want a software that is smooth & easy to play. That's why my conclusion was to connect my music to Soundcloud.

The main thing that I would either change or add onto my website would be somewhere to promote the samples. This would be a separate page where I would have collected every sample I have used, from Vocals to Drum Kit's.  I had debated doing so earlier on in the project, but struggled collecting all the samples. This was one of the only major problems I encountered although I would've liked to create one more track with a strings piece I had found, but I didn't have the time to.

 The key areas that I had chose to research were articles discussing sampling and finding out which sections of a track are mostly used. The best information as well as inspiration was from Captial Xtra's sampling page. They were able to show me examples of what samples that had been used and where they were found originally. This information encouraged me to find a Vox sample to play with. Originally my idea was to find a Choir group to sample, but every track had some sort of wind percussion or organ playing behind it. I then adapted to a middle eastern vocal to sample. When it came to producing and composing my Research was either found on youtube or I was helped from my tutors. The main information that I had gained was finding out how to change the Bpm of a Sample. This was the first research I had done as it was the first step of my project when producing. I am now confident after repeating the cycle with all tracks. The next practical bit of research was me discovering how to create the perfect 808 from scratch.
 The 808 Tutorial was a topic I had struggled on as the one 808 the tutorial had created was close but not perfect to the sound I had pictured. In order to improve the sound I had to actually realise what I was replicating. Phil had taught us in previous lessons how to make use of the ES2 software and had recommended techniques on doing so. I was able to grab him for a second to repeat it.

Presenting
My decision in promoting my work online rather then experimenting with a performance, was to build up a following via social media over it being live. This is so I am able to have a website up and running connecting my social medias, Youtube and Soundcloud accounts to it. I then aspire to be able to promote music of my own and sell samples that I have collected. When creating music I try to keep up with the current trends.As record sales go down and the internet becomes a bigger source of getting your music now. Discovering another website which promotes music and is another way to stream increases the appeal to the modern audience. My target audience fits perfectly to the creation of the website as streaming increases by the day. As Soundcloud, Youtube and other music websites maximise in popularity, linking them to my website would only bring a larger audience.

Controlling my whole project left me a lot of time to divide each section into time slots. This worked well as my Website was complete and my weekly progress reports were all done in time. Although they worked out well I believe i spent to much time researching into Samples. As i collected them up I worked on over ten separately but couldn't find the perfect one to work on. This took a large chunk out of my time collection. Another Idea that had changed from my original plan was to have the music of my colleagues promoted on a separate page of the website. This plan failed as I was unable to collect the music from some of the students, therefore I prioritised the promotion of the music. This had a massive influence on the project as a whole because the music was focussed on the most. I don't regret doing it as I'm more then happy of the final project of the tracks, but It would have helped having more time to work on the Website as well as review.

The main issue i had from the beginning was being able to find some samples online to work with. I tried on numerous occasions to work along side them and they just didn't collaborate well. This was before I was able to discover how to time stretch. This worked extremely well as the samples were timed perfectly, but finding the samples before that was very stressful. I then went on to start my research where i wanted to discover statistics on how much streaming has gone up in the last 10 years. I tried to find this information online so that I can back up my point on the decision to doing everything online rather then live performances. When this was typed in no straight facts were there for me to use, as articles on peoples opinions were the only information that I was able to use.
I was originally contemplating whether or not i should include the website side to my project as the sampling was taking so long. I was then helped with research on the sampling and Phil had helped me mix down one of the tracks in a fraction of the time I would usually take. This gave me enough time to edit on the structure of the website at home.

As a whole, I was impressed with the progressions made in all areas, from the technical skills to the final product. From research I had discovered techniques on how to time shift and set the tempo of a sample to Bpm I am familiar with. That was a huge part of my project as well as the discovery of creating an 808 from scratch. The website has given me a whole other path of stuff to work on. The website can be enhanced to promoting samples to sell as well as other musicians tracks can be uploaded. The music has been successful as I have been able to sell one of the instrumentals on to an artist locally.  This could be a promotion to not only my Soundcloud linked, but to my website as well. I have many features to work and expand on as well as gathering key information that will influence me positively when producing.