To enable this project to be made, research had to be made into certain areas involved in the project. One main area was to find out what type of listeners this EP would be focused on as Reggae is not one of the most popular music genres in the UK. However, the aim for this EP is to fuse both Reggae and Pop and to create a more commercial sound for O’Brien Hesson, this will then hopefully help to appeal to a wider audience.

Target Audience

The market that this EP is focused on are people such as those that attend O’Brien’s gigs as he will sell this EP to those who want to buy a copy. There is no specific age band or genre that the EP is targeted at, it is for those who enjoy ‘feel-good’ music that has a good vibe to it and people of all ages enjoy reggae music and with this EP having a more commercial sound to it, it will help it appeal to a wider audience of listeners. O’Brien Hesson stated at the beginning of this project that a lot of people at his gigs are always asking where they can find copies of his music and this EP will hopefully fulfill this demand.

Listening Research

The listening aspect of this project involved me researching not only famous reggae artists such as Bob Marley and the Wailers but to go into more depth about more recent reggae artists with a more commercial sound to their music. This research led me to find bands such as Sublime who were active from 1988 to 1996 and their music was based around elements of reggae and ska but was produced with a pop element to it. Sublime had a sound in their tracks which I wanted to bring to the EP and as one of the tracks on the EP is based around a ska rhythm (Monday Morning Love), the way we produced that certain track was based around ideas from Sublime and their sound.

One area of my research that was key in my listening was the impression of how all the performers on the records that I was listening to were so in sync with one another and that the vibe of their playing worked so well. I have learned since that this is due to most of the performers (especially the drummer and bassist), record their parts together. Tape Op was a great source of information about reggae and one article I found was one where engineer Tony Platt once asked Bunny Wailer how they record stuff in Jamaica to which Bunny replied, ‘We put the drums in the middle of the room and point everybody at it’. This is a perfect example of how a good vibe and feel can be captured when recording and if it had been possible for this project it would have been good to do, but unfortunately we were unable to get the drummer and bassist in on the same day due to transport issues. The full Tony Platt article can be found at http://tapeop.com/interviews/92/tony-platt/ and holds other useful information about ways to record reggae music that I found very helpful during the project.

Mixing Research

How the tracks for the EP were mixed were going to be very important to the overall result and so my research into how reggae and ska tracks were mixed involved me reading about techniques from a variety of sources. One of these sources include an article from Sound on Sound and explain the concept behind ‘dub mixing’, it was here that the idea came to me about using a fair amount of reverb on the drum tracks for the EP – http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug07/articles/madprofessor.htm

Other areas in which my research looked at was books such as ‘Behind the Glass’ by Howard Massey where a few producers talked of how the bass guitar and drums are the driving rhythm behind reggae music and I also learned of a good trick to pan the keyboard and guitar at opposite ends of the stereo field but not to the full extreme. This gives a sense of space in the mix which is what reggae and ska music is all about.

Mastering Research

After all five tracks for the EP had been recorded we began to master the tracks in pro tools. Researching various techniques for mastering involved looking back at notes from my second year at university when we had a guest lecture from mastering engineer, Ian Shepherd. Ian Shepherd told us to leave a bit of headroom when we bounce the original mix and so we left 3dB of headroom before mastering. During the mastering process  I took tips from Ian again and from this video he made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gff9hW8xk8 This information helped me a lot when it came to knowing when to boost the EQ and at what type of frequencies. A successful mastering session will have been done if all the songs on the EP flow seamlessly together from track to track.