The projects mentioned in my last blog have continued to take a toll on the people in my life. My incoherent babbling of excitement has reached such a stage that people fear for my sanity when the topic of course work comes into social play. I just stare the pitcher right in the eyes, and tell him ‘hey batter, batter – this is a big hitter’ then follow through. More has been achieved in this trimester than can ever be explained by even the most fox witted Baseball metaphor. From coming up to the name of the mixtape – to choosing which synth to lay over – the project has been filled with many problems, joys and learning check points which have allowed me to demonstrate advanced and technical aesthetic techniques.
Actively participating as a coach role has always been in effect from the start and hopefully displayed on intermediate level with the track ‘Chinatown feat. Francis Jay’ where the named artist performed for the first time in a studio such as SAE, and over a more contemporary instrumental. Coming from a live jazz performance background singing cool crooner joints at venues such as the Ellington, she was a raw talent to have performing in this environment, and displayed a clear drop in confidence in her body language. The song had pre recorded reference tracks recorded by myself, which maybe in the future means maybe allowing songs to be pitched or transposed up or down to suit the singer, or to create instrumentals with the singer ideally. Her part sounded maybe a couple of semitones even too low, and so the same parts I was able to lock in on, she was less powerful in the lead and with a little bit of saturation knobbing around this point became moot.
Currently working on adding telephone vocal effects onto singing hooks and adlibs. The ‘Slump Funk’ track on the project features this in a sung verse which, with no real composition elements to refer with – could be described as a middle eight or bridge of some sort. This effect is heavily used by the Artist Mac Miller on his GO:OD AM album, and helps not only cut through the mix but give a personal, introverted feel to a vocal delivery. The same track features vocal tracks with the heavenly use of Auto-tune m-auto pitch plugin which has been liberally lathered all over the waves with special attention made to modulating the formant parameter options.
The Budo Funk brand promotion game is becoming stronger – much like the Funk on which I base half my name. Instagram has been an easy way to gain followers and consistently upload content that can be viewed by a large audience. The visual tool allows me to post lyrics, (which have statistically gained the most interactions organic and no) music video snippets and mememes.
Paja vocal malfunctions were a notable offence to my ears at one stage. What a horrendous way to mix these vocals – with complete disregard for the vocalists natural attentuation around the 250-300Hz area which didn’t show up on the nasty head cans in my mix session. You can imagine the stank on my illustrious face when I listened at my manager friend’s home – through his Panasonic audio monitors and “BLOOM BLAM BOW WAM” – suddenly we all took cover like a 1941 London bomb shelter as the first rap verse by guest feature Leeroy Jenkins comes in, perhaps a track or 5dB too loud – and the frequency which resembles a fart-style rather than a freestyle. The changes have been made, accidental layering of tracks which only amplified the signal and welcomed phase issues has been relinquished and sent back to places we shouldn’t discuss in this format.
Album cover work was done in conjunction with my manager after my pitch fell through and the designer I had in mind declined my lucrative offer. The inspiration ranged from film posters to advertisements, and eventually we planned to go with a theme based loosely on Kill Bill and the Oren Ishii character played by Lucy Liu, where on the album there is a song with the same title of the character and much of the prior influence for this project came from Kill Bill amongst other Tarantino flicks. Settling on the title Budo Funk and the Dawn of Hikari was influenced by this film and visual based motivation, and titles of classic joints such as Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars I like the appeal of long names and the amount of possibilities for abbreviating and shortening them. The Title sequence for War for the Planet of the Apes mesmorized me when I recently saw it in the cinemas, and so the choice of wording is loosely influenced by the second film in the saga reboot, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The meaning of the titles, is that I wanted it to be a ‘self-titled’ style as I feel as though it is the work closest to my own personal style, and Hikari+ produces 3 tracks on there, as well as consistent input and hook ups with other artists, from his home in Cloquet, Minnesota, U.S.A.. Hikari is a new moniker for him so I chose to introduce him with my tape, as the Samurai theme fits mutually between our sobriquets.
All that needs to be done to the cover is a fade style effect with less contrast to emulate a 70s style film poster or vinyl cover. Several alternate copies have been produced and are still currently being tweaked as promotional material – a lot of market research has gone into the placement and design, and also what to omit and accept – in order to efficiently and comfortably promote the work of Budo Funk as a staff.
The prospective is clearly left with a lot of work to be done – however this will be angled more at promotion and consistency in order to garner a fanbase. This will take patience which is a soft skill acquired through the mixing and entire production process. The satisfaction of hearing finished products must be compared to the satisfaction of any extra interaction or following via social media. Live shows will be projected by the end of 2017 in order to hone in on a young local audience and develop confidence and presence on stage. This will also require rigorous edits of the songs to be applicable for a live backing track setting which involved cutting lead vocal parts in the verses and leaving only hooks onto the instrumental, but also keeping them at a mastered level suitable for a live system – so it’s important that I keep a hold of my session folders for purposes of editing in the future.
Seeing a universe with my ears 