Post Mortem Tri 5

This trimester I created a lot of work as well as being part of various side projects. As part of the AUS230 module, we completed our intensives which included creating a contact instrument, recreating the sound for a game trailer and attending mastering tutorials. As well as this, we had our major project in which I created an EP with Richard Shenton. As side projects, I was involved in creating a piano track for a Tri 5 animation student as well as creating a fantasy track for a Tri 3 game student. Over all, this trimester was my best yet. I think I worked my hardest and achieved the best results. There were a few challenges that I experienced this tri which made me doubt my abilities but in the end I managed to pull through.

I really value working as a team and using everyone’s knowledge to improve the final topic. Overall, our intensive team worked fairly well together. We produced work to a high standard and I feel that everyone contributed to our projects. I found that because I wasn’t strong at the coding for the kontakt instrument, I was only able to contribute to a certain extent. The game trailer was really interesting to create. We recorded a lot of foley at kings park which turned out really well in the final mix. Mixing in surround sound was a big learning curve in understanding mixing and the placement of sounds. I really enjoyed mixing the game trailer in control room G and hearing the trailer come to life. It took me awhile to wrap my head around mixing in 5.1, but the more we spoke about it, I was able to understand it more. The mastering tutorials where really informative. We learnt the basics of mastering which in turn, helped me understand the importance of a quality mix. We mastered our own mixes from previous trimesters and were able to analyse faults within the mixes. I found that when you are listening to a mix while trying to master it, you start to hear faults within the mix that you didn’t hear before. This helped the mixing process when we were mixing and mastering our major project. The final task we did for the intensive was learning the tape machine. I attended this tutorial on my own and it was really interesting to learn the tape machine without having the rest of the team. I really have a fascination with 80s music, so this tutorial was really exciting for me.

My major work for this trimester was a 4 track EP with Richard Shenton. Initially we wanted to have a 6 track acoustic EP. However, the songs that we wrote took their own form and we decided to change the genre to alternative. We felt that it was too restricting for us to keep these songs acoustic. We did however struggle to reach our initial scope. We planned to have a 6 track EP with a music video. Unfortunately 2 songs and the music video fell through, however, we did a promo photoshoot. As well as this, we got a design student to do our cover art which we were really happy with. We planned to produce the 2 songs that we dropped over the break. We struggled in the beginning to find our direction with the EP and the writing process took longer than scheduled. Once we found the right direction, the EP started to take form. We also struggled to find a male vocalist for a few weeks which added a fair bit of stress. A friend of mine agreed to sing for us and his tone shaped to the feel of the song. We used many plugins that we previously weren’t familiar with. I particularly enjoyed using RX, Melodyne, Neutron and Ozone. We spent a lot of time mixing, trying to perfect all the elements of the songs. As a result, we really felt the time pressure. I think our biggest struggle we felt was perfecting the vocals. We spent the most time working and processing the vocals. As whole, I feel that our organisation could have been a lot better. I think because we were working on this for the whole tri, we felt that we had more time than we actually had. From week 7 onwards we buckled down and gave it our all, and it really paid off. It was a major challenge and I was fairly worried it wasn’t going to get done, but all in all, the EP turned out really well and I think it’s our best work yet. We are really looking forward to distributing in through Distrokid.

I was part of 2 side projects. The first, was an animation for Yagan Square. Richard and I created a piano track which turned out really nicely. The second project was creating a fantasy inspired track for a game trailer. I previously had unfinished personal music that I was working on that I worked on and the music fit perfectly.

This tri has taught me that life can be really hard to juggle sometimes. I have never worked so hard in my life, but at the same time I really felt that I could barely keep my head above water. I think I have produced some of my best work yet, but at the same time I feel like it’s not good enough and I don’t like to showcase it. I feel like my self-confidence still gets in the way of my skill set. One of the main things that I learnt this tri was that teamwork is super important, and the results you achieve are almost unimaginable if you do them on your own. I truly believe that if you are working well with your team and put in all your effort, the result will be better than imagined.

For next trimester, I really hope to improve my time management. I always thought that I had fairly good time management and organisation, but it really lacked this trimester. I don’t think it was terrible, but it wasn’t as good as it normal is. I felt that because of this, I mentally struggled to get through the trimester. This is something I really hope to improve.

Overall, this trimester had its ups and downs and highs and lows. I did feel that I started to slack off a bit and my work logs suffered because of it. However, looking back at the trimester, I’m really happy with my work and really happy with what I have learnt.