Digital Music Production III
N-DMP301
Section 1:
Create your own music business plan. Gain a deeper understanding of scheduling strategies and manage a music project with project management principles. Understand budgeting and what is required for the launch of a music album. You will get insights into social media management as well as learn the habits of successful producers.
Section 2:
This section will focus on songwriting, song analysis as well as the craft of lyrics. An important aspect of creating songs with depth, on every level of the production, is to analyze how others have done so. This section introduces song analysis as a way to explore songcraft, from which you as the songwriter can cherry-pick the techniques best suited to music that you want to create.
Section 3:
Learn more advanced melodic and harmonic concepts, which will be further explored within the next two subsequent sections when these concepts will be applied to instrumental writing. As important as production techniques are, little can match the power of melodic and harmonic devices at work, which lays the bedrock for other elements within a track.
Section 4:
This section focuses on sequencing strings, in various circumstances. As this is an introductory section to string writing, the basic anatomy and range of instruments within the violin family are covered. A wide range of articulations are covered, both in isolation as well as in the context of writing with different chord progressions.
Section 5:
This section focuses on sequencing for instruments from the brass family. Producers and arrangers commonly use these instruments to add variety in tone colour or support for other instrumentation. In addition, more advanced harmonic concepts will also be covered here from extended chords to what is known as drop voicings.
Section 6:
Continuing with synthesis, we will illustrate the workings and applications of four different synthesizers, three bundled with FL Studio. As Massive from Native Instruments are covered in the previous section on this subject, this section introduces the student to the flagship, namely Massive X, which has several additional features and functions, which will be explored in this section.
Section 7:
Get an introduction to sound design concepts for musical applications. Important techniques for modern productions such as risers, sweeps, impacts, and drops will be shown here. In addition, a section is devoted to spatialization, with the focus on creating different spatial textures and densities, which is an important aspect of modern production to create a unique tone for any given project.
Section 8:
This section focuses on taking vocal recordings and samples and manipulating them to fit a given track. As it has become commonplace to alter the tonal characteristics of a vocal, here the student will be shown different angles of vocal production to create a hyper-stylized track.
Section 9:
This first section on remixing focuses on different layering and processing techniques that one can use when doing a remix. Here FL Studio’s powerful Patcher is introduced, allowing the user to create complex chains with ease. DJ style effects are also introduced, which has become popular not only within remixes but also within other genres.
Section 10:
Continuing with remixing techniques, while focussing on building a new track from scratch using only a select number of samples. New parts are programmed to supplement the track. The addition of more advanced processing techniques is shown here to enhance this track. Keep in mind that you can use this and any other techniques in your own productions.
Section 11:
It is time to delve deeply into mastering audio. Not only will different processes be examined, but also one of the most easily overlooked aspects of mastering, listening to the source material, and then having a strategy to create the best possible final version of the artwork. As streaming and social sites have proliferated, so have the standards for loudness, thus a table is presented at the end of the section which shows the target values for the mainstreaming services and social sites.