HND – PDP – Journal

AKA the “Dear Diary” of the journey to development glory

-AP-

This page is a journal to document the creation of my Personal Development Portfolio project as part of my HND Sound Production Studies (2020) at New College Lanarkshire, Scotland

Week 6 (02/11/20-09/11/20)

  • This week I was creating content for my blog. I was colliding information about a couple of my DIY low-fi soundbox projects from MFOS. I was pulling all the photos of the build and wrote a post about these two DIY sound generators.
  • Reorganized the labelling system of the blog posts
  • Researched for a simple product idea inspiration on various DIY and music technology websites

Week 7 (09/11/20-15/11/20)

  • Scheduled blog post was created. This time I was writing a jargon buster for explaining common technical terms used during an analogue to digital conversion process
  • Linked my Instagram account to my project Facebook page, so now all posts from the Instagram account will appear on my FB page as well
  • Linked my blog to my LinkedIn account. I use my LinkedIn for raising my own professional portfolio and drive traffic to my main site. All blog posts are now published on my LinkedIn account.
  • Researched possible technical solutions for a simple microphone built
  • I have started to build a new low-fi soundbox. It is another MFOS project, called the Noise Toaster. See some of the progress on my Instagram account.

Week 8 (16/11/20-22/11/20)

  • My weekly blog post was created. I was writing about audio setting issues one might face using Pro-Tools under Windows.
  • I have upgraded my blog subscription plan from personal to premium. This will give the ability for implementing more feature into the website. (a very long discussion in itself)
  • I have researched and picked two possible design for the simple microphone project. This will be documented on the Week 9 entry.
  • I have researched three possible simple microphone designs. 1. Using an existing cheap microphone capsule and build the surrounding circuitry. 2. Using a reversed speaker cone instead of a capsule 3. Using graphite rods as pick-ups. This is a very basic, but interesting design.

Week 9 (23/11/20-29/11/20)

  • This week I have posted a couple interesting pics on my Instagram account to maintain social media presence
  • I have spent most of my time to catch up with the other projects on my course. I have dedicated this week to complete assignments for DAW class

Week 10 (30/11/20-06/12/20)

  • On that week my catching up efforts continue with DAW and ISP assignments

Week 11 (06/12/20-13/12/20)

  • Week 11 I have tied up the  loose ends of all the assignments which I was behind with.

Week 12 (14/12/20-20/12/20)

Week 13 (21/12/20-27/12/20)

Week 14 (28/12/20-03/01/21)

Week 15 (04/01/21-10/01/21)

I have looked into various ways to promote content on my website.

  • Domain name reference linking on other websites, this can include forum activity and social media posting
  • Enrolling the domain name to various analytics and tracking tools including Google, etc.
  • Paid promotion applied to successful posts, if budget allows it.
  • Paid promotion of website domain, if target audience identified and budget allows it

Week 15 (11/01/21-17/01/21)

Week 15 (18/01/21-24/01/21)

Week 16 (25/01/21-31/01/21)

  • This week, I was working on my CAD skills using Fusion360. This is needed to design the microphone prototype for future production

Week 17 (01/02/21-07/02/21)

  • Decision has been made to postpone the digital design of the microphone prototype after spending several days on the design. I have overestimated my CAD skills during planning. Most likely, I will not have the time to upskill myself and as a developer I have to make the call to abandon this digital project for the time being. It will be produce that in the future at some point.

    Instead of a digital drawing, I will produce a hand drawn plan and a working model, using woodwork (I am confident, my woodworking skill are good enough for that)

Week 20 (22/02/21-28/02/21)

This is the last entry on the PDP journal for a while as submission deadline is on the 26th of February

I have got in touch with John Krivit (former president of AES) just to show this project. He was extremely supporting by posting it in his FB group and inviting me to the annual AES student design competition.

A summary of the project, where it stands at the moment and possible future of it can be read here.