18 August 2012 - EML Preview

Preamble:


Hi guys, I'm Ryuu/Jack, the production manager for this year's EML Exco, and I'll be starting a new series of posts on this page dedicated to previews of upcoming EML sessions to give you guys an idea of what to expect every Saturday when coming down. Also, for those readers who are not part of EML yet, this might also give you a more accurate impression of what we actually do during our training sessions. Perhaps for the next year or so... then we'll see if anyone wants to take over doing this instead. =P

To those freshmen who came for the welcome tea last Saturday, thanks for coming down, and we hope to see you for the first session proper as well.

Schedule:

  • Reporting time: 10:00 AM
  • Ending time: 12:00 NOON, followed by lunch.

Things to bring:

  1. Laptop or thumb drive. We will be passing you the EML Starter Kit including a working trial copy of Ableton Live! 8... either way, just make sure you have some way to receive it.

  2. Headphones, earphones, IEMs...

  3. Money for lunch. We don't have any more free brownies. =P

What to expect:

  1. A brief introduction to what Electronic Music is in general, followed by a genre introduction. In addition to simply describing the genres in existence (which wouldn't really be all that intuitive for most), we'll be playing clips of each genre, as produced by musicians out there. From these, we hope you will be able to find a genre which you like, and would want to write in.

    From there, people with similar genre interests will be grouped together in groups of approximately 4; thus, you won't have to write music in genres you don't like.

  2. Small group teaching by Benjamin Ang and Adrian Lo on the basics of Ableton Live! 8 and whatnot.

  3. A trial session on the Ableton Live set 'IntroFun project'. While the project was initially created by the EML tutors, some of us have done some modifications to the project, such as key transposition of clips, addition of new global effects and... some surprises. In any case, the chance of creating a train wreck is now lower than last year, and we hope you might get some laughs in the process too.

    To put it simply, the IntroFun project is a way for the new people joining us this year to try creating their own track from some samples that we've preloaded, using a few simple keys on the M-Audio controller. No musical background is needed since you won't be writing anything from scratch yet, but having a good ear might help in making a better track.

    You will be doing this in groups of 5, so you will also learn somewhat on how to coordinate together with other people in creating a track. If you want to know any more than that, you'll have to come for the session. =D

  4. To receive the EML Starter Kit. =P

    "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave..."

 How to prepare:

  1. Listen to various genres of music on YouTube in advance to get an impression of what you like and/or dislike. [This is optional, really.]
  2. Free up hard drive space if your computer is really, really full, and charge your laptop battery to full.
  3. Get a good night's rest the night before, preferably without getting too drunk.

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