LewisNolanMusic

Lewis James Nolan. Leeds Met University. Music Production.

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Placement Year: Presentation Evening.

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Placement Year: Presentation Evening.

This is a video showing the transformation of the sports hall into a venue for an awards ceremony. It took a day to set up and another day for a tech run to make sure everything worked as it should. There was a stage for the award winners to collect their prizes and the guest speaker to give a speech with a separate stage for performances. There was also a lectern to the side of the centre stage where the winners names would be read from.

I learnt a lot from this set up as I had previously only ever been involved in the set up of audio equipment, whereas here I was setting up everything from lighting to visuals from both live camera streams and computer presentations.

[lewisnolanmusic]

Placement Year.

Today I started a yearlong placement as a Performing Arts Technician in Maghull High School, Liverpool as part of my university course. I intend to document my progress and experience throughout this year, providing examples of projects I have worked on and how these relate back to my course; BA (Hons) Music Production.

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This is a cover of Chvrches’ song Recover. It was written as part of a university assignment for which I was attempting to create a more laid back, acoustic cover of the original. It was inspired somewhat by the Radio One Live Lounge sessions, but mainly by the artist Birdy who’s first album consisted almost entirely of covers. The drum sound and arrangement of the piece in particular were influenced by the track ‘1901’ from this album.

This is an unmastered track which was recorded mostly in the Leeds Met Studios with the exception of the vocals and guitars which were recorded from home. The drums were recorded in the studios, however due to issues with timing and a strict deadline, samples were taken and imported into Kontakt then played back using a controller.

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Here are a few pictures from a venue called Heebie Jeebies during Liverpool Soundcity Festival for which I was given the role of Live Sound Engineer.

This was a three day festival, running from 01/05/2014 to 03/05/2014, welcoming over 360 artists, in over 25 venues with over 40,000 music fans and over 3000 industry professionals. The roles and responsibilities for this placement covered everything from setting up the backline and PA system to sound checking and engineering all of the bands that played over the weekend.

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This is a cover of The Kinks' song 'All Day and All of the Night'. It was recorded and mixed as part of a university module. The aim was to record a cover of the original track but with modern production techniques, influenced by bands such as Arctic Monkeys and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

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Drum, Bass and Electric Guitar Set Ups for All Day and All of the Night recording, The Bass guitar was originally DI'ed and then re-amped later.

These set-ups were based on research collected about Jim Abbiss' set up for Arctic Monkeys' 'Whatever People say I am, That's what I'm not' album and Jim Scott's set up for Red Hot Chilli Peppers' track 'Californication'.

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This is a recreation of the Daft Punk song 'Get Lucky'. It was done over a three month period as part of a university assignment, for which the brief was to recreate the track using only audio.

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This is an original composition extending from one of the four short pieces posted earlier. It was composed using a random number generator online, and these numbers corresponded to various stimuli such as pitch, rhythm and amount of notes. The picture above shows the score for this composition which is a graphic score in the style of Morton Feldman's score for 'Atlantis'.

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This is a playlist containing four original compositions using classical compositional techniques that I have done as part of a university module.

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Hadn't done a mix in a while so I decided to look for some free online multi-tracks to practice with. I came across the site www.cambridge-mt.com where bands share their raw multi-tracks for others to use as practice material. This is a mix of the song 'Back to the Start' by a band called Fergessen.

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A mix I have done of a song that was recorded as a whole band rather than individual instruments. This introduced new issues to me such as bleed from other instruments on a track, making it harder to isolate a single instrument to process. I managed to overcome these issues and particularly like the reverb I have applied onto the vocals. I am unsure as to where the original files are from as they were supplied to me as part of a university assignment.

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This is a section of a mix I have done of The Doppler Shift's "Atrophy".

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This is a piece of music written, recorded, mixed and mastered as a group for a module in university. The brief was to create a soundtrack for a game in the style of Call of Duty. We decided to make one for the zombie mode on the newer Call of Duty games. I also played the bass part for the recording. A video was also put together afterwards, using footage from the Call of Duty: Zombies trailers, to show the potential of the track. This can be found here.

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This is a track that was written, recorded, mixed and mastered for a module in university. It was written and recorded with two fellow students then I have taken it away and mixed/mastered it. I also played the bass part for the recording. This was part of a project called 'What's Next', aiming to create a music video for the track, that was entirely written by the fans/audience. We achieved this by setting up a Facebook page which started by posting the beginning to a storyline and then the fans/audience commented with what they think should happen next. The best ideas were then gathered and we created a music video from this which you can find here.

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Some screenshots of my Instrument Sample Map in Kontakt. Top - all samples are organised into groups of instruments. Middle - samples mapped out across 8 octaves and various velocities. Bottom - bass group has been edited using the ‘skream’ effect.

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This is a video I was given on my course with which I had to create the music/sound for using found sound and recordings I had collected. All of the instruments heard in the video were recorded in the Leeds Met Studios and then processed and put into Kontakt as a sample map. I created the first sound from an organ sample using granular synthesis and then used a high pass filter which I automated. I have added sound effects using field recordings I have collected such as a car engine revving, a small object being dropped into a bowl of water and various percussive hits and bangs. The ‘swooshing’ sound that runs throughout the whole video was created using an ambient recording of a room which was put through a granular synthesiser, then had a filter added which was automated to come in and out at various points. There is also a reverse snare added underneath this at certain points to add emphasis to the original sound.