Crit Meeting

It has been suggested by Laurie that I should create an EP rather than a single track, as this will give me more variables to test, resulting in more statistics I can analyse within my dissertations. It was also give me a larger hand in for my honours project, which is essential.

As stated in my previous post I am intending to arrange a meeting with one of my lecturers in order to ensure that what I intend to do will amount to a viable honours project, or to amend it where necessary.

I am also going to contact a couple of studios in the area to enquire about using their recording spaces to carry out the practical part of my honours project to determine of this is possible.

For example:

• How much this will cost me 
• What is the capacity of the desk
• What recording equipment is available i.e. mics, desk, amps, drumkits etc.
• Will they allow me to run the session

Also to find out:

• What mics can be taken off of University property
• Capacity of University desk

Also in the Crit session, it was suggested that I look at a number of other producers, namely Tom Waits, Bob Katz and the producer of the white stripes (not so namely).

It was also discussed that i would definitely have to do a survey of some kind in order to test my project, however it was suggested that this been done in an online capacity in order to produce the maximum number of results.

It was also suggested that I test the process on active and passive listeners in order to determine if this has an effect on peoples perception of the recordings, however I feel this would be difficult to carry out, as by definition a passive listener isn't truly paying attention to the sound so would find it difficult to give a truly critical opinion, and may end up guessing which would give me false results. Further to this is was discussed that listeners from a musical or sound background may be more likely to notice faults in the live performance or even be able to determine what was done in the making of the recordings. To compensate for this, I intend to include the questions "are you a musician?" and "Do you/have you ever studied sound or music" within my questionnaire. This may provide me with more statistics and give me more material to discuss in my dissertation.

It was also suggested that I will need to learn how to use Survey Money and Excel as these will be essential to the survey element of my project.

The exhibition element of my project was also discussed, I am intending to display some of my statistics as well as displaying the EP artwork for my recordings, as well as the abstract and rationale from the project proposal, so people fully understand the purpose of my project.