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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #7- Overall Reflection

Overall, I am really glad to say that this whole internship/self-directed project experience has been a very fruitful one for me. Despite me not being able to do a full internship at a company due to my reservist, I actually gained a lot of invaluable experiences from being out of my comfort zone.

These three projects of mine has opened up many more doors for me as I was lucky enough to have been able to showcase my craft on a larger level and meet people who were interested in it. I was also really lucky to have met amazing artists and individuals who have inspired me in many different ways. The chance to also inspire other people to pick up a new skill such as coding was definitely something I really enjoyed and learnt a lot from. 

My biggest take-away from this self-directed project would be that networking is actually really really important. I have learnt that opportunities will only come if you seek them and that learning how to sell yourself is important. I have always been a rather reserved person but the experiences I had at the exhibitions and shows has taught me to speak up more and learn how to market myself better. What an experience!

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #6.1- ITE ROCK CENTRAL (September 2018)

ITE Rock Central was a blast! Despite it being the same setlist, I could feel the difference between the last show and this show. ITE Rock Central has been around for a long time and I have always heard of how organised and smooth their shows ran. The moment I reached for my soundcheck, I already had stage crew assisting me with my equipment and my set up. 

The crowd this time was a lot more compared to the previous show where it was held in a space fit for about 80 people. I could feel the energy emitting out from the crowd who were actively singing and dancing along to all of the songs. 

Some snippets taken by fans at the show.

Really grateful to have had the chance to offer my services to Morning Martians and I hope that this opens the door to more paid opportunities for me to actually enjoy working!

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Soundcheck at ITE Rock Central 2018 with Morning Martians.

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #6- ITE ROCK CENTRAL (September 2018)

I played with Morning Martians again this time at the annual ITE Rock Central alongside many other great local bands. A post about how it went is next!

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Short clip of ‘Sinking in’ by Morning Martian at the Morning Martians x Fader EP Launch.

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #5.2- Morning Martians x Fader EP Launch (August 2018)

Here are some photos of the show!

Morning Martians X Fader

Combined closing item!

Thank you for all the support!

Reflection:

Despite this being a new experience for me and with a head full of worries, I had a blast performing with Morning Martians. I learnt a lot especially in the process of making the backing tracks. Getting the levels and sound textures right is surprisingly more important that I thought it would be initially. Playing with the background and foreground sounds really help to shape the performance and connect the songs together. I have also learnt to read the crowd and improvise live to help them enjoy the experience better. It was nice to see the crowd enjoying all the bass drops and reverse snares I was triggering and it was an exhilarating experience trying to play and launch the clips perfectly on time. I was also super worried that I would face any technical problems but I made sure I was prepared and thankfully, everything ran smoothly. After the gig, they decided that they wanted me to play another show with them! More details on that next.

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #5.1- Morning Martians x Fader EP Launch (August 2018)

I promoted myself as an electronic musician on my Facebook and Instagram page early this year in hopes of offering my services to bands that wanted someone to do their backing tracks and play with them live. I was approached by local band Morning Martians, who wanted me to play with them for their EP launch. I have played alongside Morning Martians in various gigs in Singapore and Malaysia with my band Anna Judge April therefore these guys were no strangers. This EP launch was the first time I performed live as a solo keyboardist and electronic musician outside of Lasalle. 

I sat down with Morning Martians and they told me they wanted to write a new intro for all of their shows. They also needed me to create backing tracks for their songs and to launch them Live. I then spent a week or two preparing the tracks in Ableton Live and rehearsing with them. I added bass drops, reverse vocals and many other effects to the tracks. 

For my Live Setup, I am running Ableton Live 10 on my macbook and I launch my clips using a Novation Launchkey 49 midi keyboard. I have a Roland SPD-SX too that I use to play claps and other percussive effects live. I make use of my Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 audio interface to send the backing track to the front of house and also the click and music to myself and the drummer’s In-ear monitors.

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #4.2- Meet The Makers (June 2018)

Some pictures of my booth at Meet the Makers!

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #4.1- Meet The Makers (June 2018)

Information about the event on their website: 

The Hive Lavender is bringing back Meet the Makers on 28th June, a night where we get to appreciate and celebrate Singapore’s very own hardware start-ups and creative makers. Our makers will be showcasing their products within our beautiful event space, and you will get to know the stories behind them; their inspiration and the lessons learnt. But that’s not all — various makers will be hosting a slew of workshops and panel discussions throughout the evening.

Here's a look at our fantastic line-up:

- MeshMinds

- Warrior9 VR

- Levit8

- 3D EduPlay

- Scribblers Collective

- Monsieur France Co

- Adidesign Studio

- TrickAVU

- GENEXIS

- Just Fly It

- Orbjek

I was invited to once again showcase my Sketch-A-Sound at the Meet the Maker’s event at The Hive Lavender. The Hive is a huge workspace where artists can work on their crafts and/or collaborate with other fellow artists. I was once again part of the Meshminds team where I talked about my Sketch-A-Sound and how I believe Coding is a good skill for artists and musicians to have in order to progress our crafts and express ourselves better.

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Here is a short video of my experiences at the Flipside Festival @ the Esplanade! I was showcasing my arduino-based musical instrument the Sketch-A-Sound! Special thanks again to Esplanade Singapore and Meshminds for this opportunity.

Footage taken by Chong Ming En Edited by: Shafeeq Hafiz Music: After Hours by Shafeeq Hafiz

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Credits to Esplanade Singapore for the feature!

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #3.4- Flipside Festival (15th May - 3rd June 2018)

My Setup at Flipside Festival! The Sketch-A-Sound is running through 4 analog guitar pedals which help to alter the original sine tone that the Sketch-A-Sound outputs. I had a distortion, delay, shimmer and modulation pedal. I created 5 different settings that allows the public to set and get different variations to play with. 

A fellow artist from UK!

Got a quick picture with Eugene! My classmates also had an exhibtion with Lasalle as part of their internship.

Audience Interaction

Observations:

I found that most people were surprisingly really interested in knowing more about the technical coding and design aspects of the Sketch-A-Sound.  I had a lot of specific questions about my choice of materials and my thought process prior to building the Sketch-A-Sound. I mentioned how I wanted to one day create a way for artists to perform their paintings live. For example, we are so used to seeing artworks in museums and exhibitions but we hardly see their process of painting it. It would be nice to have an artist paint on a canvas that can output music with each brushstroke. In that sense, an artist can actually perform his painting and an audience can watch it unfold.

Problems Faced and Experience:

Despite my efforts to ensure that the parts of the Sketch-A-Sound was sturdy, I still faced problems where there were people who would blatantly rip out my cables and mess up my connections. I was not prepared for this to happen. I even had a guy who fought with the Esplanade staff and insisted that he knew what he was doing while meddling with my guitar pedal settings and circuit. Thankfully, my classmates were there to help me rectify the situation because I wasn’t around when it happened. The esplanade staff was also really helpful in updating me if anything went wrong. I was lucky too to have other artists who actually gave me their cables and lent me their soldering machines whenever I had any issues. 

All in all, I was blessed to have had the opportunity to showcase my Sketch-A-Sound at such a big art and technology festival like Flipside. Not only did I make new connections, I also got another opportunity to showcase my Sketch-A-Sound at The Hive @ Lavender, which I will talk about next!

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #3.3- Flipside Festival (15th May - 3rd June 2018)

FLIPSIDE FESTIVAL

I had the opportunity to engage with the public about my instrument and connect with other amazing artists from Singapore and even International artists. I particularly learned so much from Israeli Yuvi Gernstein who was the highlight of Flipside where he showcased the GRIDI, a large scale midi sequencer which allows several users to create electronic music together, in an intuitive and visual way. I was really excited to talk to him as I have seen the GRIDI on Facebook where it went viral and amassed over 40 million views and set off Gerstein’s career as a music technology innovator. I was blessed to have my Sketch-A-Sound right next to the GRIDI.

Yuvi gave me an insight on how technology has evolved so much to the point where we can barely comprehend what more it can actually do for us. He mentioned about the idea of sound and physical modelling and how you can actually create a sound or an instrument that can not be physically made. For example, you could combine the sounds of a cat meow-ing through the body of a 60 cm trumpet and create a sound never been heard before! He also gave me a lot of advice on marketing and how to effectively collaborate with other artists to create new works. The last thing he said to me was to always have a playful attitude and to never be afraid to try new things, even if it meant being out of my comfort zone. 

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #3.2- Flipside Festival (15th May - 3rd June 2018)

Upgrading and Re-routing 

After buying new jumper wires and an upgraded output jack, I went about thinking about how I could simplify my code and improve on the accuracy of the graphite pencil and distance sensor sensitivity range. After a lot of trial and error, I managed to improve the sensitivity by altering the way my wire attaches to the pencil and also by limiting the range in which the arduino board calculates the distance between the pencil and the metal paper clip.

Updated Connections on Breadboard:

Arduino Pin 3 ———-> Speaker +

Arduino Pin 5 ———-> LED

Speaker - —————> GND

Potentiometer pin 1 —> VCC 5v

Potentiometer pin 2 —> Arduino A0

Potentiometer pin 3 —> GND

Pencil ——————-> VCC 5v

Paper Clip ————–> A1

Resistor —————-> A1 and GND

Code:

#define speaker 3 #define led 5 #define pot A0 #define input_pin A1 #define pitch_min 50 #define pitch_max 4978 void setup() {  Serial.begin(9600); } void loop() {  int input_pitch = analogRead(pot);  int input = analogRead(input_pin);  int pitch_adj = map(input_pitch, 0, 1023, -500, 500);  int pitch = map(input, 0, 1023, pitch_min, pitch_max);  int b = map(input, 0, 1023, 0, 255);  analogWrite(led, b);  Serial.println(pitch);  int final_pitch = pitch + pitch_adj;  if(final_pitch > pitch_max){    final_pitch = pitch_max;  }  if(final_pitch < pitch_min){    final_pitch = pitch_min;  } if(final_pitch != pitch_min){    if(pitch != pitch_min){      tone(speaker, final_pitch, 30);    }  }  delay(25); }

The first condition now states that if the value of the final pitch is more than the pitch_max, the value of pitch_max becomes the new final pitch value. The second condition sets that if the value of the final pitch is less than pitch_min, the value of pitch_min becomes the new final pitch value. Lastly, the third condition ensures that if the final pitch and pitch value is not the same as pitch_min, Arduino will take the value in final_pitch and output that value.

I also drilled a hole into the pencil and inserted the tip of the jumper wire perpendicular to the graphite lead which not only ensures that it gets maximum contact, but it also secures the jumper wire to the pencil even without tape.

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #3.1- Flipside Festival (15th May - 3rd June 2018)

Back in January, my classmates and I were involved in Meshminds 1.0 Art X Tech For Good at the Art Science Museum. We showcased our Arduino-based instruments that we built during our Principle Study module with Andreas. The company that invited us was Meshminds. 

MeshMinds is an impact investor in creative technology for good. Their mission is to connect artists with the world’s most socially responsible companies to work on immersive artwork and experiences focused on the sustainable development of people and our planet. I kept in contact with Kay Vasey, the chief connecting officer at Meshminds and she told me about Esplanade showing interest in my Sketch-A-Sound. They wanted to give me an opportunity to showcase it at their Flipside Festival. It has been awhile since I worked on Arduino coding therefore I saw this as an opportunity to practice and further my skills by having my works showcased. I also knew that this was a good opportunity to network and gain more contacts and job opportunities.

I was told that my Sketch-A-Sound was to be exhibited for two weeks and that the public would be able to play with it. I was really worried as my Sketch-A-Sound was durable but I didn’t think that it could last two weeks without proper supervision. Furthermore, this being at the Esplanade would mean that there would be children meddling around with it too. I already knew that I had to upgrade all the internal parts and improve on the Sketch-A-Sound as a whole in order for it to be ready for a big Arts and Technology festival like this. 

I started brainstorming ideas on how to make the Sketch-A-Sound more accessible and fun. I decided on the restructuring and rerouting of the wires on the breadboard and adding additional sound scape possibilities by introducing guitar effects and sound manipulation technologies available on Ableton Live.

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #2.3- EP Recording (April - 18th May 2018)

Mixing/Mastering- Main Takeaways

I generally approached both mixes the way I usually do which is by getting the levels right first and then eq-ing the individual instruments. Since the three songs were rock songs, I paid extra attention and ensured that the bass sat nicely with the drums. After ensuring that they sit well enough together, I moved on to the electric guitars and ensured that during the solos and main riffs, the guitar stood out more. It wasn’t easy trying to blend all the guitars together so I had to do a lot of panning and eq-ing. I sent a copy of the drums to another bus and compressed it heavily using CLA Drums and blended the compressed drums with the lightly compressed original to get the best of both worlds.

Main Issue

I tend to have excessive bass in my mixes as I don’t have a sub at home and my monitors are really small. I tried to be extra careful with my low-end management but after playing it in the studio, there was still too much bass. I decided to take out 40hertz and below. I also lessened the compression on my vocals as it sounded too compressed and thin. I added distortion to my vocals to bring the vocals out more. Delay also helped to create a bigger sound. I also had trouble with the Slate microphone as it doesn’t really have a good off- axis representation. I struggled with mixing the vocals because of this. I guess this is a good thing as I tried something new this time and went out of my comfort zone.

All in All

Overall, I am proud of the outcome. I’ve come to see how long and laborious recording and mixing a song is and how initial planning, such as deciding on the sound you want to get before recording, helps greatly in the recording process. Mixing is more of a musical than a technical process to me now. My experience writing and producing these 3 songs has shown me my flaws and I aim to continue practicing to get better. Though there were many late nights on my end mixing, I have gained valuable experience from this project.

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Industry & Community Engagement Assessment #2.2- EP Recording (April - 18th May 2018)

Recording 

The three songs that we wrote are called ‘Wolves’, ‘Panic’ and ’High’. 

Drums

Prior to the actual guitar and bass recording, I recorded the drum parts for the songs and sent it to my musicians for them to practice with. I recorded using a KAT 2 electronic drum set and Steven Slate drums. I tried my best to replicate Paramore’s Riot album drum sounds where the kit sounds compressed, tight and loud. The drums were defined by a “click-y” kick drum sound and even the toms had a very attack heavy emphasis, deviating from the natural more boomy tone of acoustic drums.

Guitars/Bass

For the bass and electric guitar, I recorded a clean signal and re-amped it into a Kemper profiling amp. I wanted to get a modern metal sound, which has more emphasis on having a clean digital tone. As for the bass, I applied a lot of darkglass-esque distortion to it to replicate the bass tone of Circa Survive’s bassist. I got a total of 25 guitar tracks altogether for Wolves, 36 tracks for Panic and 27 tracks for High. I wanted variations in the riffs as that is the main point of nu-metal and rock songs, which thus explains the number of tracks. The guitars on Panic went through a Matchless amplifier emulation while the ones on Resist the fall and High ran through a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier emulation.

Vocals Tracking

I recorded vocals using the Slate VMS Microphone that I borrowed from a friend. Backup vocals took some time to be recorded as I couldn’t decide on which harmonies I wanted. I also had to change the position of my singer a few times as I wasn’t getting a very suitable tone. I have learnt that The VMS microphone’s off-axis response isn’t very realistic therefore I had to be careful of my singer’s position and ensure she doesn’t deviate too far from the microphone.