Unit 2 Managing a music product

Meeting 1 
Me, Matt and Aaron are producing an album and so far we have decided to call the album "The Variation" and to have other people feature on our album.
Target audience : 12 - 18
Content of CD : Variety of artists e.g bands and solo artists
Selection of material : Harry's band, Aaron, other groups - to be decided for next meeting
How we are gonna record it : Live and then mix with software in the recording studio
Performers availability : when they can - Aaron to find out availability
Time constraints : Must be done 3 weeks before the project deadline, so by the 1st April to allow for mixing and evaluations. Limited time at lunches to rehearse and also department is not always available.
Rehearsal Time : Artists to rehearse at lunch time and after school, to be organised with Miss Rotchell
Any copyright issues : No - charity donation only, no cost on CD.
When are the deadlines : Two months recorded and edited - 1st April
Tasks for each member of the group : Arash - Market research
                                                             Aaron - Organising performers and recording.
                                                             Matt - Editing/Mixing


Research for album covers: 

I have the job of creating the album cover and looked at some examples online for ideas:

These album covers are very eye catching because they have very little text - just the name of the album on one and the name of the band and album on the other. I like the shape design on the second one as it looks modern and interesting so that someone would pick it up. I will try to create a design similar to this without much writing. The back of the CD can have more detail about the band etc. I will make a couple of designs and show the target audience in my market research so that I can choose the one that they would like the most.


Meeting 2
During this meeting we talked about the market research questionnaire I carried out last week and how many people preferred which music genres and which album cover they preferred out of the two I designed:

I surveyed 20 12-18 year olds and 13 picked the first one. I asked why and they said the picture was confusing on the second one and they did't know how it fitted with the album. This told us that people preferred the abstract design of the first cover. So we chose the first album cover:



I survey the styles of music that the audience preferred and it was 60% grime and 40% pop.

Also during the meeting we split advertising roles between us - I'm doing a magazine cover feature. Aaron is doing a press release. Matt is doing a radio advert and interview which will be played through the school canteen speaker at lunchtime.


My advert
Continuing on from the advertisement I have started to research music magazine covers. I plan to use these covers as posters to advertise the band and the radio interview so that people will know their name when Matt releases the radio advert through the speakers in the school canteen. Aaron has finished the press release, Matt has also done the radio advert. Below is different inspirations for our magazine cover showing what is out their in the industry at the moment.

This magazine is a good for inspiration because it has big text and a close up shot of the artist. It has text to fill all the white spaces and uses only a few bold colours.

Meeting 3
In the meeting we talked about if we need to change anything about the original idea for the album and who will play in it. The main thing on the agenda was the problem that multiple groups wanted to record Harry's group. We decided that we need to talk with the other groups and agree to record the group at the same time so that the band don't have to keep coming back. I talked about how we should advertise the product and what we need to create to do to appeal to the audience. The talks that we had were beneficial because we all knew what we needed to do.

Meeting 4
We have decided to change who we will record for the album. It will now be Matt and Aaron who are recorded on the CD as the band did not have enough availability. We have decided as a group that we quite like the idea of putting Matt and Aaron on the CD as their musical styles are very varied which fits with the CD title. We think that 'The Variation" can be the name of the group (Matt and Aaron) too as artists sometimes use their own name as their first album name to make it more memorable.


I have designed the magazine cover/ poster now:

This is our final magazine cover for advertisement. This went well with the inspiration from the other magazine covers. I have included the name of the band and reference to the radio interview so that people will tune in to listen to it.  

PRODUCT TRACKS:

TRACK 1
TRACK 2
TRACK 3

Evaluation

      I think the strengths of the process are that we all knew what to do. We all knew how to do the advertisements and researched our types of adverts properly. We communicated well with each other in meetings and made decisions together.
T     The weaknesses of the process was getting the recordings and the advertisements done due to problems with performer availability. We got delayed and has to rush our advertising a bit because of these delays.

     The planning was effective because we created the product in time and it fits with the name of the CD. It matches our market research and would appeal to our audience. 

Matt's recording was very good, the performance was accurate, he went well with the beat, and stayed with it. Aaron's performance was good it was in tune.

I think the strengths of the final product are that the tracks sound professional and the CD cover looks modern and eye catching. We all knew how to do the advertisements and we communicated well with each other.

T    The weaknesses of the product is that it has more tracks by one artist than another so could be more varied.

In future projects it would be better to find out artists availabilty before deciding to use them in the product. Advertising needs to be created earlier so that people are aware about the product for longer.