Upcoming Projects: Funk bands, game audio and new originals

Happy Tuesday! So I thought I'd do an overall update on what I'm up to at the moment, as well as some exciting projects coming over the horizon.

Major Project: Annie J & Fusion - Funk/Fusion band recording

So at the end of last week, Stefan Volejnik and I pitched our major project for the next 10 weeks to our final Studio class at SAE. Our plan is to record a 5-8 track EP for the band Annie J & Fusion, who are a funk/fusion band from the Sunshine Coast. They are experienced live performers and play regular gigs across the coast, we are excited to give them an opportunity to record professionally for the first time.

As far as the pitch went, the overall consensus from the facilitators and peers were that the band sounded good (on showing their BalconyTV performance video) and that it will be a great project to work on. The main concern however was raised by Guy Gray who highlighted the recording schedules with some band members being away at different times. Our schedule will have the vocals, sax, keys and guitar recorded at an earlier session to the drums and bass. With a band that are so used to playing in a live environment together, this presents some obvious complications - but we have a plan.

In a way, we will be reverse-engineering the tracks and I believe that's an exciting challenge. Our milestones schedule listed in the project plan (which I'll put a link to below) has us finalising recording earlier in order to give us a buffer during the mixing/mastering stage; the buffer will allow us to utilise more of that time to edit, re-dub or re-record if need be. The earlier sessions also allow us to quickly create demo tracks to get a feel for the direction as we record.

Between Stefan and myself, we will be doing plenty of research and planning so that these recording sessions achieve exactly what we set out to do, minimising complications and ensuring that we capture a clean, tight sound.

Here is a link to our current project plan, more updates on this very soon!

Capstone Project: Game Audio Project - 'Sol Ensis'

So having experienced a little bit of the game development process through the 'Horizon' project and 'In Clover', I wanted to work on something better, and where the final product is something I would really want to play and hopefully makes some money!

Amongst a team of 6 (2 designers, 2 programmers, 1 animator and myself), I am the lead and sole Sound Designer for 'Sol Ensis', which is the working title of an Adventure/Platforming game with light RPG elements, recapturing the nostalgia of classics like Banjo Kazooie and Ocarina of Time and reworking that into a modern format.

Here's a little synopsis concept as a teaser:

"The player character inherits a sword (possibly a family heirloom), although broken, the blacksmith that forged the blade can be found in ___ village. Upon arriving at said village, the player notices the village is now abandoned and derelict, it is up to the player to restore the village with the main intention of finding the blacksmith and repairing the sword."

Having played these classics, amongst a wide variety of RPGs - I'm super excited to get my hands dirty with this project. Whilst this is pushing me out of my comfort zone of sound production, these types of games are what I grew up with - the entire audio experience of some of these titles are super memorable and meaningful to me, that's a big part of what makes them so great; and I believe I have the potential to nail that feeling!

Actually, I already have a demo track here to show you! Here's my concept of what soundtrack you might hear when your character dies:

I'll be doing lots of updates with this one over the next 6 months, stay tuned! You'll be seeing this one from start to finish.

And finally,

Jbox: New originals, music video and live stuff

Admittedly, it's been a bit difficult at times to keep a lot of momentum going with my Jbox project - just with the sheer pace of these projects I'm undertaking during my time at SAE.

I haven't put it fully on hold though!

A part of why I've been a little quiet with Jbox in terms of social media and releases as well, is that I've put a big focus on skilling-up, networking and really trying to develop my artistic direction and style of live performance. I'm currently attending the QMusic Industry Connect masterclasses, recently a stagecraft workshop with Jordin Steele of Outcast Arts (which was an amazing experience) and I will also be going to Little BIGSOUND in a few weeks time - hit me up if you are too!

One of the main things I aim to achieve in the next 10 weeks is to have one polished track, with a strong aesthetic in mind based off the research through my 'aesthetic productions' case study blogs (which you can read the first of here if you haven't already checked it out!) and a focus on shaping it through my live set. A part of this project will also be the creation of an Ableton Drum Rack through drum recording at SAE, so that I can incorporate into my set with the use of something like an Alesis Samplepad or SPD-SX.

Here's a taste of what's to come!

Finally, I am currently working on a music video for one of my newer unreleased works with a Brisbane-based production company! I'm not going to give away too much just yet, but I'm super excited to be doing this and I believe it's going to be a very special product by the end of it.

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So that's it for me! There's lots of stuff happening and I can't wait to show you more!

More updates soon :)

- Lachy