Personal project
The concept
This Extended Play, released on multiple streaming platforms, is a collection of four instrumental songs developed throughout two years. The release aims to serve as the foundation of my music production repertoire, upon which more works will be created, possibly collaborating with other artists to broaden the scope and toolset. The title “Speechless” reiterates the exclusively instrumental nature of this record, which nonetheless spans multiple genres and style, from funk-rock to electronic ambience to acoustic indie. The songs featured have originated from multiple instances, some were previously used as the score of a short film and subsequently reworked, while others were written specifically for this record.
Production
The entire production process took place in a home studio environment, therefore all steps in the process were handled with the limited resources at my disposal. The production process was undertaken in both Reaper and Ableton Live 11, making use of plug-ins from Waves and Native Instruments While some live recording was made, specifically to capture acoustic guitars, most of the instruments were recorded through a Direct Input and later processed, adding amplifier emulation, dynamics and modulation effects digitally. Other instruments were on the other hand digital samples and virtual synthesisers, mainly from the Komplete 11 library. Whereas some pieces and some subsection of them were written in detail, regarding the harmonic structure and melodies, other were a result of continuous development and refinement directly in the production suite. The arrangements were also largely developed as the process of recording and producing was progressing.
Once the arrangements of the tracks were completed, the mixing and mastering process begun. The individual songs were mixed individually at first, building from the rhythm sections onwards to achieve a balanced and clear mix. Once a baseline mix was reached, the different tracks were compared to one another in order to grand some level of consistency throughout the EP. Finally, to ensure an equilibrium in the levels, the songs were mastered following an SPL meter plug-in to optimise the dynamic range and increase the perceived loudness of the mix, while simultaneously avoid excessive compression. Finally, the relative loudnesses of the songs were adjusted, as some tracks were to be quieter by design.
Design
The process of designing the album art was initiated once the music was completed in its entirety. The inspiration for the art was to create a simple, geometric, abstract look with muted block colours. Early in the process, the canvassed look, emulating the overlapping of different threads was envisioned. To realise this with the objective of maintaining a perfect symmetry, the design was constructed by creating diagonal rectangular block, spaced at distances equal to the opposite sides, then duplicated, mirrored and adjusted so that the gaps between the first set would be filled exactly by the second. Using slightly different colours and gradient shades within to emulate the crests and bouts of the threads, the canvassed look was achieved.
Finally the text was added, featuring an elegant, italic, serif font to match the design aesthetics. The size, albeit slightly small for ideal legibility, matches the muted, modest nature of the design, intended to be discovered through accurate analysis, while the uniformity of the colours carries the initial