Video Killed The Radio Star

Video Killed The Radio Star

 Over the years tech has evolved in the music industry. The earliest known device for recording sound was the Phonautograph, it was invented by Edouard Martinville. It worked by talking into a barrel made of plaster of paris; the barrel blew sound onto a bristle of horse hair, causing it to vibrate and draw sound waves.
 Later editions (gramophone) used a wooden barrel blowing sound onto a quill that wrote down sound waves on blackened paper. This started the evolution of selling music and producing it but when it came to bigger productions it wasn't very efficent. Magnetic recording was then followed after this, its basically made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long narrow strip of plastic film. After this the cassette tape was made, this consisted of two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated plastic tape is passed and wound. Next came the Digital Audio Recording, it was used on tapes for a long period before CD's were made. Now-a-days music is found/used on softwares such as itunes and downloading youtube files.

We can see from this that this will affect music makers and consumers. Music makers that make techno or any sort of electronic music wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for evolution of technology. Devices such as Theremin and sound synthesizers did not even exist at the start of technology. Personally i think that the evolution of music was a crucial development and contributed a substantial amount to music in general. If it weren't for the evolution of music technology, genres wouldn't exist, music production wouldn't be as good due to in advanced software and sound quality. Also devices such as MP3's also affected music makers as when these were created this is when it was more recognisable to illegally download music for free as you didn't need to buy music.

Now-a-days the business industry has hugely affected music as it has got more involved to the way music is controlled. The truth is that big business controls the types of music and artists that get exposure and become popular. The record industry is a 14 billion dollar business. The three major record labels; Sony, Universal(incorporates EMI) and Warner Music group dominate 85% of the market when it comes to sales of Compact Discs. Leaving only 15% for the hundreds of independent record labels and thousands of artists out there.  When Indies get too big or an artist starts making noise these major companies usually pick up the artist or label. This way they control artist/label, get a percentage of the sales and keep competition to a minimum. This is why artists would rather work independently rather than sign with major record and also its due to the lack of a market for the music being created. By working independently they are most likely to make more money as they wont be in debt with anyone and also they don't have to be a 'manufactured musician', they can be themselves.

Many popular artists in our time will have sponsors. This means the artist/s will get free supplies of the product however they must promote it in almost everything they do, down to gig's, videos and interviews etc. Being involved in the sponsor, they are not allowed to have any relations to other companies especially if they are competitive example if you was sponsored by Adidas you can not be seen wearing Nike. When an big artist is sponsored by a certain product it draws the fans closer to product as they'll feel quite connected to them. Recently 'Pepsi' offered Beyonce a $50 million deal, the deal involved standard advertising like commercials and print ads etc. I think Pepsi's idea was to not take over her creative control like advertise themselves in her videos as she is know to be a very smart business woman who takes control of her own visuals. However they made her do deliberate advertising.

At big festivals example Glastonbury, you will see a lot of promotion being held with banners and logos for various types of companies. Companies try and put there logo everywhere so it can be visible to the audience. This type of marketing is meant to familarise people with the product subconsciously.

An example of product placement is seen in Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' video of the advertisement of ninetendo wii which can be seen at 2:44

This has made the audience familiar with the product and you can see here that the music industry has become less about music sales, as they are having to find different ways of gaining the profit.

Events account assignment


The bar stock was already purchased. The beer from the previous stock was ONLY 33p but sold at £1.50 at the show and the wine that was brought cost £15.99 which is equivalent of 3 bottles when it usually cost £6.99 just for ONE bottle. This was definetely a smart way to profit.

First Show 21/05/13

10 full price tickets sold at £6= £60
17 adv tickets sold at £5= £85
33 beers sold at £.150= £49.50
13 Guestlist= Free

=£194.50

Minus £100 for band fees

=£94.50

Minus £7 for Ice & fruits

=£87.50 (PROFIT)

Second show 22/05/13

This was a free show so no expenses. However the beer and wine was sold at £1 because it was mainly students.

14 beers sold at £1= £14 (PROFIT)

Third show 23/05/13

36 full price tickets at £6= £216
7 adv price tickets at £5=£35
36 beer/wine at £1.50=£54
9 juices at £1=£9
8 guestlist=Free
2 students= Free

=£314

Minus £160 for band fees

=£154

Minus £64.49 for extra bar stock

=£89.51(PROFIT)

On the first night which was Tuesday the 21st of may we found that the cheaper advanced ticket worked really well as well as selling tickets at the door. It was found to be a great idea as we got an understanding of who would be attending the event which would have helped to know how many drinks to buy etc so we knew how we'd profit. On the second show which was the 21st of may it was free and there were no tickets sold it definitely would have been a great idea to maybe of sold advanced tickets so we would have known how much beverages to buy however we did sell 14 beers to students which was better than nothing. On the first night we sold many advanced tickets but on the last show which was the 23rd of May we didn't sell as much we think it is mainly due to the audience the gig attracted or it wasn't promoted enough. The fact that we had a bar at the gig really helped us to profit even though the college never had a license to sell alcohol we used tokens which had to be brought at the box office . It was a great idea as we could keep a count of how many drinks were sold. The bar was very busy before the show and during the interval.
You could tell by the amount of tickets sold that it was mainly people outside/older that came to support these bands. The kind of music of music played for the three days were mainly experimental rock and alternative rock etc and this usually isn’t the type of music Westminster Kingsway college students would listen to at it isn’t your commercial charty type of music. Many students did not attend this gig.
The ticket prices were quite fair I’d say compared to most gigs you'd go to especially for these bands as they are quite established bands for their genre of music. Especially being in London tickets for showcases can be quite expensive and to buy drinks as well which we sold very cheap.
Next time in order to do better for planning events like this would probably be promotion. We should get the bands next time to promote it more on their twitters, facebook etc. I think maybe leaflets would have helped these events even more or even giving those out in places such as Camden which mainly you can find these types of people who enjoy this music go. Posters should also be involved and next time the gap between the advanced tickets and on the door should be quite bigger example advanced being £5 then on the door being £12 so this would definitely get people to purchase the £5 tickets earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Major Music project

Major Music Project

 

When putting on a live event the roles that need to be involved in order for it to be successful are roles such as;

Sound engineer

Artists/Musicians

Stage managers

Visuals/Lighting engineers

Box office workers

Bartenders

All of these roles help to contribute a better show for the artist such as a sound engineer needs to make sure the sounds levels for the bands are on point and make sure there is no feedback from microphones. Stage managers have to make sure everything is going fine backstage and on stage they have to make sure the artists know there queue to go on stage they also have to make sure artists don’t exceed the time limit for a set. Lighting engineers have to make sure everything the visuals visualised have been done, they have to make sure the right lighting is on the right que as well as colouring. Furthermore, the box office workers have to make sure tickets are sold are the right price and things such as the guest list are sorted and done properly and the bartenders have to make sure they serve customers the right drinks and do not exceed the limit. Finally, the artists and musicians have to obviously be there to make the show happen.

In our end of summer event ‘signed’ we gave classmates different roles in order to make our show successful. We had all the roles required to make a live event work. When preparing for our gig we had to make sure things such as promotion and designs were on point in order to attract people and make them attend. Roy made sure he made the event page a few weeks before the show so it gives the audience an early notice, he also made sure he kept updating the page so the people who clicked attend wouldn’t forget which was a very good idea. John was in charge of the poster design which was great as it reflected what our gig was about by having our signatures on it. Christina and Sinai was in charge of the visuals there idea was to have a lot of colours as it portrays the idea of summer but when it came to the darker and slow songs they had different visuals.

As well as performing in the summer gig I also worked at the box office and bar. When I worked at the box office I many responsibilities such as making sure I knew how the guest list worked and the price for concessions and adults. Also I had to make sure people paid at the box office for alcoholic/non-alcoholic drinks, when they paid I had to give them a token which they had to take to the bar. When doing the bar work I had to make sure customers did not pay me with money but tokens as the college doesn’t have a licence. I made sure I gave customers a limited (but money worth) of alcohol as I didn’t want anyone to be out of proportion for a college show.

I was very pleased to say that our turned out really well. I also appreciated year 2 music production with their sound engineering, there levels and the reverb they used on the microphones was successful. However, there were times that I wasn’t happy the way my bass sounded at times but they did a good job in the end as I was satisfied after. I really liked the setting of the stages this year with the whole acoustic stage being separated from the main stage as I felt like I was like in a big gig with everyone standing around. We started our set with a cover which was by Bruno mars ‘Locked out of heaven’ this was a great way to start the set as it is an up-tempo chart song which the audience knew and loved. In between we had the classes original songs which brought out everyone’s individually. We ended with Beyonce ‘Work it out’ which was very groovy and up-tempo which would get the audience to leave with a positive vibe and remember the set. To make sure we made this set work out we had to rehearse multiple times on Wednesday and Friday and even though one of our band mates didn’t make the show we managed to figure to fill it out.

 

 

 

Future assignment Mix

Future assignment mix (blog entry)

As the channels on the logic track were cleaned up and re-named. Firstly, I turned down all the levels so i could focus on the most important parts such as the lead vocal and guitar in this piece. I started with the lead vocal where i added 'platinum reverb' on it, i did this so it created more room and space for the vocals. For the backing vocals i put a little bit of 'gold verb' on it to support the lead vocals, i made sure the backing vocals wasn't louder than the lead vocal. I didn't put any effects on the guitar as i still wanted it to have a natural element even though its supposed to be a future space-like sound. However, i added the echo effect to synth 1 and 3 to give it that weird type 'Future- Alien' effect.

Furthermore, I put the bass amp effect on the bass so it sounds more bassy and brings you more down to Earth. I did experiment with panning but because there is a lot going on in the tracks it sounded like everything was clashing in to one ear. So i decided to use more reverb in everything as it still creates that space and that panning feeling.

I put all the drum tracks into one bus (Bus 9) which made it easier to control all the levels at the same time.  Reason for this is that there a lot of channels for just the same instrument;  Its easier and quicker doing this way as i can control the volumes together. To create a bus i changed the stereo output to a bus channel. I then put compression and EQ on the bus 9 so it wouldn't peak.

I did take a break whilst halfway creating the mix so i could listen back to what i really done and to see if it still had the same impact as when i started it. Finally i gave the track a listen a few times just to make sure nothing was peaking and it did sound well and the levels looked good and made sense for track.