LO3: Developing Track 1

Download and listen to the further developed version of Track 1 HERE.

To help further develop my Track 1 demo, I’ve been taking some elements of other music and applying them to my song. One inspiration behind Track 1 is the song ‘A Little While‘ (I’ll abbreviate as ALW) by Yellow Days. The bass in my song lacked much melody and was quite slow paced compared to that in ALW. And so, I decided to create a new melodic bass line to be used in choruses. The new line helps make my song seem more upbeat and adds a little bit of excitement.

ALW often breaks up the verses and choruses with moments of silence (and reverb). I needed something to break up my musical parts but, rather than silence, I decided to create bridges with a pitch-shifting synth and music box.

I decided I needed some sort of solo or improv section within my song – something similar to the last synth that plays the song out in ALW. I decided to put this section after the first chorus. As well as having a synth play a few melodic chords, I reintroduced a synth with a ‘wah-wah’ effect that I had used in a previous song of mine, ‘Get Low’. I thought reusing certain instruments could help develop my brand image. Makeup and Vanity Set have certain synth presets that they use throughout a number of songs (Compare ‘Black Sun on the Horizon‘ and ‘A Glowing Light, A promise‘ for example).

My song structure has been much developed when compared to the first demo (which can be heard HERE). The song structure now goes as follows: Intro – instrumental chorus – verse – bridge – chorus – melodic instrumental – bridge – chorus – developed chorus.

References

‘A Little While‘ by Yellow Days.

‘A Glowing Light, A Promise‘ and ‘Black Sun on the Horizon‘ by Makeup and Vanity Set.

LO1: Creating ‘Space’ Within My Mixes – Width

Since my music is mainly electronic, and is therefore written in MIDI format, I tend to mix my music as I write it. And so, I decided to research how to create ‘space’ within my mixes as soon as I could. One website I found certainly helped me form a greater understanding on ‘sonic space’ and how to create it (The Pro Audio Files, 2013).

During the production of my last EP, I thought that panning a track into both left and right speakers would make it sound ‘wide’. This worked for certain VST instruments that produced contrasting sounds between the left and right outputs, hence why I never noticed the error in my beliefs. However, I’ve now learned that panning the same sound into both speakers will result in the “Phantom Mono” – A phenomenon in which we perceive a sound as coming from the centerpoint between two speakers.

I created an analogy to help me understand and remember this phenomenon. In order for the circle to be perceived as its 3D counterpart (a sphere), one side of it must contrast the other with added light and shadows. Without any light and shadows, it’ll be hard to see anything other than a 2D object. Similarly, you must have contrast between your two speakers in order to percieve an additional measurement (width).

In Track 1, I used the muted strumming of a guitar to create a ticking-sound for the introduction. However, I also wanted to add ‘width’ to the ticking. Remembering that the song ‘Wonderful World’ by Take That ended with the sound of a pocket watch, I decided to dissect the song in order to find out how the ticking was ‘widened’. After splitting the song into 2 mono tracks, I found that each speaker played a different ticking sound – one with the high frequencies cut off, and the other with the lower frequencies cut off. With this information, I applied a similar technique to my song. I duplicated the ticking sound on two tracks, panned them left adn right and changed the EQ settings on each track until there was noticible variation in each speaker. I also duplicated the sound of the slowly fading backwards guitar which can be heard playing simultaneously with the ticking. I used automated pitch shifting on each track but made them shift at different rates. This created noticable contrast in each speaker.

An arpeggiator I used in Track 3, which you can listen to HERE, was ‘widened’ by having two of the same synthesiser play different parts at the same time. With the contrasting parts being played simultaneously, I created the illusion of one instrument surrounding the listener.

References

The Pro Audio Files (2013). How to Create Width, Height and Depth in a Mix. Available from: https://theproaudiofiles.com/width-height-depth-in-a-mix/

‘Wonderful World‘ by Take That

LO3: Writing My Demos (A Catchup Post)

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to create a few demo tracks with completed song structures. However, what I find most difficult in music production is the writing process. I’m confident in my mixing skills but generating musical ideas and developing them is always a slow process for me, hence why I’ve set out to look for ways to improve my skills as mentioned in LO3. As shown in a recent interview, most of Makeup and Vanity Set’s work has been produced alongside visual mediums. His album 88:88 was made as an expansion to the narrative of a film by the same name (New Retro Wave, 2016). I thought I’d try something similar and give myself an image or environment to base my work on. I chose to base my work upon my hometown of Sutton-in-Ashfield. Don’t let the nickname ‘Sunny Sutton’ fool you. During my years of living there, I’ve grown to view it as a preserved relic of a past time. The skies are often grey, many buildings look deteriorated, old train routes have become wastelands populated by overgrown plantation and the town pubs seem to think every night is 80s night, playing songs by the Human League and Gary Numan repeatedly. In summary, I want to create music that reflects this urban and 80s infused visual medium, containing elements from a mix of genres including synthwave and hip-hop.

Sutton-in-Ashfield (Gilmour, 2006).

With a theme set, I eventually created a few short demos. Said demos were presented in Tutorial 4 and can be downloaded HERE.

To help develop the demos in the future, I looked up some ways of maximising my creativity. Geoff Petty’s ICEDIP creative process seems to be something I should take into consideration. It’s broken down into six stages: Inspiration, Clarification, Evaluation, Distillation, Incubation, Perspiration. I’ve already got plenty of inspiration behind my work (that being my hometown and music by various artists I’m interested in). Writing this post and talking to my tutor has certainly helped clarify my ideas. The rest of the stages will take place when I get to them. I’m sure I’ll be evaluating my work throughout the entire project as I write, record and mix my music.

References

Geoff Petty (2017) Creativity. Available from: http://geoffpetty.com/creativity/

Gilmour (2006) Sutton-in-Ashfield. Wikipedia. Available from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sutton_sundial_4.JPG

NewRetroWave (2016) An interview with Makeup and Vanity Set. Available from: https://newretrowave.com/news/2016/5/18/an-interview-with-makeup-and-vanity-set