Reflective Journal

I was put into a group where we're making a magazine and together we started to make a group plan and decide a name for the group, each of our individual roles etc. Then for the rest of that week we had to research our individual roles and have the research done by the next week.

At first I struggled to find anything about my job role as I was confused at first with what I was looking for when doing my research. So I asked my lecturer and he made it easy to understand what I was looking for when researching my individual role. I then went off and looked at two case studies and picked a good quote from each one and wrote how they were helpful to me as well as if they were either a primary or secondary source and Harvard referenced the links and I put how I would compare them both and use each study to support each-other and what I had learned from the research and how I would put it into my own role.

 On the second week we had to have group meetings to discuss how's it going individually with our individual role research, everyone in the class also had to redraft their group plan (us included) so that the second week was the 1st week of the plan. We then had to go home and make our individual plans in correlation to the group plan. We also had to finish our research into what we were doing for the project. I'm going to review a bit of music tech so I had to research a couple of tech reviews by Tuesday the 19th of November so I could then start my own review for the magazine on that day.

I found the research pretty easy in a sense as there were lots of good places to find these reviews. One of which was Sound On Sound magazine which I used one of their reviews as a case study. I also looked at a video review on YouTube by a channel called sonicstate.

 I compared the two case studies so I could see what they both had in common so then I could have a better idea of what to talk about when doing my review and also comparing the two sources together and seeing which type of review would appeal to me more as to what kind I should make. I also followed my plan and achieved my targets for this week which makes me feel like I'm on track with this project so far.

On the third week I had to quickly research what an RD-8 rhythm designer was so I could get a better understanding of what it is before I make a review on it so I would know what I was talking about and I was then given a quick tutorial on how to use it and then I went into an empty classroom a filmed my review.

One problem that arose was that I unfortunately had to do it all over again as when I stopped recording I accidently deleted all the audio for the review. Which was a big problem but luckily I had enough time to redo it and make it a better review in the sense that the first video was like a test run so I could get the feel for what I was going to say and also how I was going to say it.

I think that the research went pretty well as I learnt about the Behringer RD-8 and what some of its features are so I could make my review more professional as I knew what I was talking about and felt more confident as I was more knowledgeable about what I was reviewing. I also think that my evaluation on that research was quite good and in-depth.

We also had a formative feedback check in front of the whole class in the first part of the day which I feel went ok as I had a better understanding on what I had done well and what I needed to add in order for my project to be better. I then adjusted my plan and set a target to complete all the points raised in the feedback as soon as possible which I achieved and I now have a better understanding of what I needed to do to correct the issues raised in that feedback.

I also know that if I was to do a review like this again maybe talk a little bit more about what I like about the exterior design of the hardware and some things that I don't like about it as well as maybe go more in depth about the different features that the RD-8 had. The main reason for for me not going in-depth was because I didn't know how to use all the waveforms so maybe I'd look more in-depth with that within my research.

Week 4 went well the only problem I really had was that when it came to editing the video the software I was using didn't have any options to add titles so I had to export the video out and import it into another video editing software to add the titles which was annoying but once it was done I exported the video out and uploaded it to a YouTube channel that I had created for this project.

 We were also given another week so I had to add another week onto my plan. I feel like the editing and audio mixing went well the only thing is that if I did this sort of thing again I will try to mix the audio of me talking a bit more as well as the RD-8's audio however they do sound quite balanced in my opinion as I mixed the drum beat of the Behringer RD-8.

But I will next time mix the video audio a bit more to make it sound even more professional. I also documented my mixing and editing process as well as a little introduction as to what the behringer RD-8 rhythm designer is. I also managed to complete all my targets and stay on plan for this week which I think is quite good.

Week 5