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25th May - Project Summary

Objectives:

1) Create and mix an 8 track album that conveys the concept of hauntology.

2) Conduct 5 sonic experiments using obsolete equipment to explore the creative possibilities of technological malfunction and sonic degradation. 

3) In each track, utilise at least 3 of the sounds from at least one sonic experiment or record a piece of obsolete technology live. 

4) Develop knowledge of the processing techniques that relate to hauntological music.

5) Collaborate with a professional artist to create artwork that visually represents the concept of hauntology. 

6) Create a sample pack out of the recordings from each of the experiments and release it for free on Bandcamp as an incentive to attract people towards the Sounds From Lost Futures project.

7) Get the 8 track album mastered by a professional mastering engineer.

8) Collaborate with a cassette tape reproduction company to reproduce the 8-track album on cassette tapes.

9) Release the 8 track album digitally and on 20 cassette tapes via Bandcamp.

10) Collaborate with a technology consultant to construct a website in order to professionally communicate and display the Sounds From Lost Futures project.

11) Be mindful of social and ethical considerations throughout the project by clearly and sensitively communicating with collaborators and acknowledging them in the project credits.

This project has been successful as all of the objectives have been achieved other than releasing the cassette tapes on Bandcamp due to coronavirus impacting the postal service. This issue did not compromise the overall quality of the project as the cassettes were made available to pre-order so that everything else could be released as initially proposed. Regarding the completion of all of the objectives, evidence is provided throughout this journal. 

The concept of hauntology focused the creative direction of this project, giving the tracks and the sample pack a sense of purpose as I explored sounds from a bygone era returning to the present. The concept of hauntology is ingrained into the sonic fabric of the project as obsolete equipment from the past is used to generate the sounds, synonymous with the return of elements from the past in hauntology (Henriksen, 2016). Developing knowledge of the processing techniques associated with hauntology such as adding reverb to create eerie atmospheres (Reynolds, 2011) and using distortion to add surface texture (Fisher, 2013), made the final album sound haunting and ghostly and I believe that this will evoke a strong emotional response in the listener. 

I feel that the main strength of this project was the series of experiments that were conducted to generate the sound palette. I believe that they make this project unique as I haven’t seen many other projects adopt this approach to track creation. I feel that the sample pack will inspire creativity as the sounds within it are unconventional. However, I feel that releasing the sample pack on Bandcamp looks slightly unprofessional as all of the samples are presented in a long list which looks messy. When uploading the sample pack, I had realised that Bandcamp was not designed for releasing sample packs. In retrospect, I should have conducted some research into this prior to release. In the future I will make sure that I use a website optimised for sample packs to ensure that my work is presented as professionally as possible. After exploring technological malfunction and sonic degradation by breaking a vinyl, distorting a CD, converting a telephone into a lo-fi microphone, feedback looping and using radio testing equipment to process and synthesise sounds, I am motivated to be more open minded in the way I approach music as these processes yielded interesting results. In future, I will continue to experiment with various equipment and this will become a defining element of my artistic practice.

I feel that the monoprint artwork in this project effectively visualises the concept of hauntology as it looks eerie and degraded. Drawing reference to other artists who had explored hauntological concepts (Servadio, 2017), helped to ingrain notions of the past scarring the present into the visual element of the project. I am inspired to collaborate more often as the collaborative processes within this project significantly elevated the quality. Being polite and respectful was an imperative part of the collaborative process as it made collaborators feel comfortable and this helped to optimize the quality of the work that was produced. I feel that the website looks professional as it is minimal and maintains a consistent branding image, featuring all the necessary information to evoke interest for the Warden Project. This website is still relatively basic and will continue to be developed as part of my portfolio moving forward.

After receiving peer feedback that the videos were too long in this project, I feel that the videos grew in quality over the course of the project as they became shorter and more concise. This feedback was particularly revealing as it made me realise that I often have trouble communicating my ideas effectively. It is important that I improve on this as it makes me come across as unprofessional which will affect my opportunities when trying to find work in the future. The importance of receiving feedback from industry contacts was reinforced as the feedback Demetae gave me on Track 8 - Metaphysics of Presence significantly enhanced the quality of the track. 

Reference List:

Fisher, M. (2013). The Metaphysics of Crackle: Afrofuturism and Hauntology. Dancecult, 5(2), 42–55. doi: 10.12801/1947-5403.2013.05.02.03 

Henriksen, L. (2016). In the Company of Ghosts : Hauntology, Ethics, Digital Monsters. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/30164087/In_the_Company_of_Ghosts_-_Hauntology_Ethics_Digital_Monsters

Reynolds, S. (2011). Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past, London: Faber & Faber.

Servadio. (2017). SIZING GROUNDS. Retrieved May 25, 2020, from Servadio.com website: https://www.servadio.com/sizinggrounds.htm

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Traxshnn Instagram repost and Facebook post.

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‘the.techno.page’ following.

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Promotional post for the Warden project reposted on ‘thetechnopage’ instagram.

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24th of May - Project Release & Promotion

Project Release

This week the Sounds From Lost Futures project was released. Due to the coronavirus pandemic impacting the UK postal service, the cassette tapes have not yet been received. In retrospect, this issue should have been anticipated and the masters should have been sent sooner. Consequently, the cassette tapes have been made available for pre-order on Bandcamp so that this issue does not impede the project release schedule. As proposed, the album and the sample pack have been released digitally on Bandcamp. The sample pack has been released for free as an incentive to attract people towards the Warden project. Eneko, Pobla and Patrick’s contact details have been included in the project description on Bandcamp so that people can contact them with future collaboration proposals. 

The final album is uploaded in full on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-330187245

The sample pack and album are available on Bandcamp: https://wardenn.bandcamp.com/releases

Promotional posts for the project have been posted on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wardenn___/

The Website has been made public: http://www.warden.social/

Marketing

A promotional instagram story video was produced, featuring Track 6 - Temporal Disjunction and a photo of the cover artwork. I paid the ‘the.techno.page’, which has roughly 66,000 followers on Instagram, £15 to repost the promotional video. I asked the page director to include a swipe up to buy link to make this project easily accessible for the consumer as people can be impatient. As the album is techno based and ‘the.techno.page’ posts techno related content, this ensures that the right demographic of people will see the project which increases the chances of the release being successful (Lake, 2007). The repost is shown above. More instagram pages will be asked to repost this project over the course of the next few weeks to build momentum for this project.

Utilising existing networks, I shared the Warden project on my ‘Traxshnn’ page that has 6800 followers on Instagram. I will continue to repost the Warden project over the next few weeks. A screenshot of this is provided above. The Traxshnn page is aimed at the techno audience and so this was an appropriate place to share the Warden project. This project was also shared on the Traxshnn facebook page, using a range of social media to reach a greater number of people.

Reference List:

Lake, L. (2007). What Is Your “Target Audience” in Marketing? Retrieved May 24, 2020, from The Balance Small Business website: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-a-target-audience-2295567

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Email from the website consultant Owen Weeks at BJSS.

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15th of May - Website Creation with Owen Weeks at BJSS tech development company

Collaborative Process

This week was spent collaborating with technology consultant Owen Weeks to design a website to professionally communicate and present the Sounds From Lost Futures project. The website functions as an electronic press kit, where promoters, journalists and other industry professionals can go to find the resume for Warden. The Warden bio has been purposefully left out to maintain some mystery and evoke interest, similar to how Burial used to keep his identity a secret (Stereogum, 2014). Owen and I are sharing the workload for the website creation process as the deadline for this project is fast approaching and time needs to be allocated for marketing and promotion. Owen and I spent four sessions on zoom video chat coming up with designs and technology that we may use to build the website and the following powerpoint summarises the sessions we had: https://drive.google.com/file/d/101cuIRedsSsG5LBRLW6Bqr9D_Xt1XYGI/view?usp=sharing

Website Design

The home page on the website features the Sounds From Lost Futures Album with large cover art and a link to buy, making it easy for the consumer to purchase the album (Ripley, 2019). The Warden logo is clearly presented at the top of the website to generate a solid branding identity (Cass, 2010). Further down on the home page, the project abstract is featured which presents the purpose of the project. The website design is dark and moody to represent the inherent darkness of the Warden music. Relevant social media links are easily accessible at the top right corner of the website page. A full page is dedicated to the monoprinting collaboration Patrick and I had as this is a unique selling point for the album. There is also a page for the album where it is presented with a brief description and a full tracklist. Finally, there is a page for the sample pack featuring a brief description of the equipment used in the experiments.

A link to the website is provided here: http://www.warden.social/ 

Reference List:

Cass, J. (2010). Branding, Identity & Logo Design Explained | JUSTTM Creative. Retrieved May 25, 2020, from JUSTTM Creative website: https://justcreative.com/2010/04/06/branding-identity-logo-design-explained/‌

Ripley, C. (2019). Seven Ways to Make it Easier for Customers to Buy from You. Retrieved May 15, 2020, from Strategic Marketing Group website: https://strategic-marketing-group.com/seven-ways-to-make-it-easier-for-customers-to-buy-from-you/

‌Stereogum. (2014). Burial’s Identity Revealed. Retrieved May 15, 2020, from Stereogum website: https://www.stereogum.com/1652221/burials-identity-revealed/news/

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The order recipt for 20 cassettes from BandCD’s.

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8th of May - Cassette Tape Reproduction Collaboration with BandsCds.com

This week the final masters for the album were sent to BandCDs to be reproduced on cassette tapes. Having the album reproduced on cassette tapes functions as one final statement regarding the use of obsolete technology in this project. Further, the cassette tapes will add surface noise to the tracks within this album and so the material pre-condition of the tracks will be audible making them sound worn and aged (Fisher, 2013). As such, the cassette tapes will capture a slice of the past, erupting back into the present, synonymous with hauntological themes of nostalgia (Fisher, 2013). 

BandCD’s stated that the cassette tapes will take around 5-8 days to arrive and so sending the masters this week allows for enough time to receive the cassettes before the project deadline. A formal agreement regarding the order receipt for the cassette tapes is provided above.

Reference List:

Fisher, M. (2013). The Metaphysics of Crackle: Afrofuturism and Hauntology. Dancecult, 5(2), 42–55. doi: 10.12801/1947-5403.2013.05.02.03

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Warden Instagram announcement Post.

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Instagram influencer pages approached to promote the Sounds From Lost Futures project.

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Proof of collaboration with Pobla Mastering.

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24th of April - Mastering Collaboration with Pobla, Setting up Social Media Pages & Instagram Promotion.

Mastering Collaboration with Pobla

This week, the final 8 tracks were sent to Pobla for mastering. Pobla have previously mastered tracks from various notable techno producers (Pobla, 2020), making them appropriate collaborators to enhance the quality of the album as it is largely techno based. I was happy with the final masters and the turn-around was extremely quick. A screenshot providing proof of collaboration with Pobla is shown above.

Social Media Pages

The social media pages were set up this week ready to launch the Warden project. Links to the pages are provided here:

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/user-330187245

Instagram - https://instagram.com/wardenn___?igshid=tuyzq24i116s

Bandcamp - https://wardenn.bandcamp.com/

An announcement has been made on the Warden Instagram page to build anticipation before the project release date. It was ensured that the same images were used across all of the social media platforms to maintain a consistent brand image for Warden, making the project look more professional (Gilbert, 2016).

Instagram Promotion

As the Sounds From Lost Futures album is largely techno based, Instagram influencer pages who post techno related content were contacted and asked how much they would charge to share this project on their pages. Screenshots of the conversations are provided above. I feel that promoting this project via Instagram influencer marketing is more cost-effective in comparison to facebook marketing because these instagram pages are fairly cheap, charging around £20 for a repost, considering the large followings that they have. Further, these pages have loyal audiences that may be interested in this project.

Reference List:

Pobla. (2020). POBLA. Retrieved April 24, 2020, from POBLA website: https://pobla.es/en/artists-labels-releases

Gilbert, S. (2016). The Importance Of Creating A Consistent Brand Image. Retrieved April 24, 2020, from Business 2 Community website: https://www.business2community.com/branding/importance-creating-consistent-brand-image-01718547‌‌

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Sample Pack Layout

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17th April - Sample Pack Creation Process

This week was spent finalising the sample pack which contains sounds from the 6 sonic experiments previously documented in this journal. The ‘How to make a sample pack guide’ (Bull, 2018) on the Native Instruments website was followed, ensuring that the sample pack would adhere to professional industry standards. Instead of being arranged by instrument (Bull, 2018), the sample pack is arranged by experiment, shown in the screenshot above. The experimental process is a unique selling point for this project and so noting this in the file naming conventions helps to set this sample pack apart from other packs in the market. Bull suggests that file-naming conventions should include tempo and key information (Bull, 2018). However, the Sounds From Lost Futures sample pack simply contains the name of the sample and the experiment that it was generated from. This inspires creativity as it encourages producers to think about the texture and timbre of the sounds they are using, rather than being guided by the bpm and key. 

All of the vocals in the pack are my own voice, all of the sound design is my own and the vinyl that was broken is my own production from another project, as Bull (2018) states that all of the sounds within a sample pack should be 100% royalty-free to avoid legal complications. The sounds in the final sample pack are 44.1kHz 24-bit WAV format (Bull, 2018), ensuring that the user has access to broadcast standard sounds. The sample pack that has been submitted to dBs university is 16bit, adhering to the submission guidelines. To make the sample pack sound cohesive and professional, the samples were normalised to 0db to maintain a consistent volume (Bull, 2018). The loop points were checked to ensure that there were no undesirable clicks so that the samples were not hindered by these issues and could be widely used (Bull, 2018). The sample pack aligns with the project objectives as it features 5 experiments that extract sounds from obsolete technology. It also features the no-input feedback looping experiment as a bonus experiment, giving the user access to a wider sonic palette and bringing the total number of experiments to 6.

Reference List:

Bull, R. (2018). How to make a sample pack. Retrieved April 17, 2020, from Native Instruments Blog website: https://blog.native-instruments.com/how-to-make-a-sample-pack/

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Feedback from industry contact Robert Woodward (Demetae).

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Track 8 - Metaphysics of Presence.