This assignment is worth 100 marks. The marks contribute 70% of the overall marks for the course assessment.
This is one of two course assessment components. The other component is a question paper.
This assignment has two tasks. Each task has three stages.
Stage 1 titled ‘planning the production’ has 10 marks.
Stage 2 titled ‘implementing the production’ has 30 marks.
Stage 3 titled ‘evaluating the production’ has 10 marks.
Your instructions and sample briefs are linked to the buttons at the top of this page. You are required to choose two of these briefs in discussion with your teacher. Each sample brief is based on a different context:
a soundtrack to support a short film
live studio recording and mixing of a performance by a small instrumental group
multi-track studio recording and mixing of a performance by a small instrumental group
producing music and sound to support a computer-gaming environment
creating a short radio broadcast involving sound, speech and music
creating an audiobook
Task requirements
The brief for each task must be agreed between yourself and your teacher.
An appropriate task is meaningful and appropriately challenging, and requires you to demonstrate technical skills, apply musical understanding in a creative way, and show understanding of context.
Each task should allow you to demonstrate all of the following technical skills:
Selecting and making appropriate use of at least two microphones, with placement appropriate to the sound sources
Selecting and making appropriate use of at least one of the following:
direct line input
USB keyboard controller
MIDI controller
imported audio
Successfully and safely constructing the signal path for one or more inputs
Choosing and setting appropriate input gain and monitoring levels, with no distortion
Applying creative/corrective equalisation
Applying time domain effects and using compression or noise gate controllers
Applying mixing techniques including volume, panning and fade-in/out
Editing tracks (eg to remove spillage)
Mixing down to an audio master in appropriate file format(s
Each production should involve a minimum of five parts, at least two of which should involve the use of a microphone.
Each production should be between 1 and 3 minutes in length.