gooserecordingstudio

[gooserecordingstudio]

Final Entry - Executive Summary

My track, while not very production-advanced, has still demonstrated and touched on some of the discussed topics that we were exposed to in the modules. The reverb/celebrating space module in week 8 was particularly eye-opening for me; it made me consider what my idols, like Tosin Abasi, do with their guitar - using instruments as secondary colours. This really inspired me to add that soundscape-esque reverb backline in the bridge/lead-up to the breakdown.

Above, you will find two tracks, a full version (how I intended it to be) and the radio edit version. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware that the time constraint was 3 minutes (with a 10% over/under). There were A LOT of things that I missed in this project, A LOT of things that I planned to do but didn't end up doing, either due to time constraints (recording real guitars) or implementing dubstep/glitch hop bass sounds. However, I still learned some really cool sound design techniques in Serum and made a bunch of fun basses that I will use in other songs. Even though I didn't use this technique in the song, I was really proud that I managed to create some sick dubstep sounds; I figured out how to round-robin the samples in the same way that one of my production idols (Slynk) did, (despite the difference in DAWs). I know this isn't relevant to my actual song but I felt like it was necessary to include it in this section because it was a breakthrough learning experience for me.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 12 - White Noise, Risers/Fallers and Final Touches

Oh man, this semester went by so fast, I would have loved to spend more time on the actual production aspects of this piece (rather than getting so lost in the composition), but thankfully, I had one final week to really add some finishing touches, I spent some time in serum making a few white noise risers which I placed around the build-ups. Some of them were automated using a compression sidechain. Basically, I got a kick drum, assigned it to a channel, disconnected that channel from the master, and then used a fruity limiter to the sidechain so that every time the kick hit, it would disrupt the white noise, adding some rhythmic pulses. These certainly aren't perfect and sound a little sloppy, but I wanted to include them just to give the listener a sense of what I was trying to achieve. I also added some minor tweaks to the arpeggio leads, playing around with the filters to enhance the thematic transitions (opposed to just having sounds appear suddenly)

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 11 - Bridge and Final Section

Week 11 was probably the most compositionally intensive one so far. I remained ahead on the other uni assignments because I really wanted to nail the thematic material that I was going for. After the guitar chord section, the bridge transitions into a gallop djenty/thump progression. I guess they call it prog for a reason because there are so many sectional changes, haha.

I faced an issue: How do I get myself out of this section and go back to the final chorus to use that as an outro? Well, I did some listening and thought that another metric modulation from 9/4 to 4/4 would change things up again and add some variety. The final chorus made use of a classical guitar/nylon string VST (also by Ample Sound). I got the DI and ran it through Neural DSP's Archetype Petrucci because that plugin has a piezo amp setting, which fit very nicely (such a shame I couldn't get this recorded on an actual nylon string guitar, though). I concluded the song by half-timing the drums and adding another tasty ascending lead arpeggiated pattern. This really helped close off the thematic material, giving it a nice finale.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 11 - First Pass Mix

Right now my mix is extremely rough, as time is currently not on my side. It looks like I’ll have to submit this project with just the midi guitars, so dialling in the tone with the Ample Metal Hellraiser VST is going to be something I need to focus on more, it sounds pretty good on headphones, but a bit lacklustre in my car stereo. Whilst the guitars are giving me some trouble the submission audio Umansky bass is proving to be well worth the money, the tone is immaculate and sounds even better after some further sidechaining with the drums. Speaking of drums, the superior drummer plugin is also holding out alright but I think the cymbals/overheads might need to be boosted as they kind of disappear inside the mix right now.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 10 - Bridge/Breakdown

I managed to get ahead on some of my other assignments, so I could really start developing the ideas for this section. The whole idea centres around two major arpeggiated chords. Remember those reverb/ambient guitar soundscape effects that I was talking about? Yeah, I thought I'd include something similar in the lead-up to the breakdown, very AAL/Tosin Abasi-inspired.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 10 - Comparison Tracks (similar to mine)

Intervals – Lock and Key

Animals As Leaders – Gestaltzerfall

Both tracks are iconic staples of the instrumental prog genre that’s seen excessive growth in popularity over the past 10 years; besides the centre stage lead guitars, there are accompanying rhythms guitars that have been quad-tracked and sit in the back of the mix to add more weight. Quad-tracked guitars usually have 2 panned hard left/right and the other 2 panned partial left (or sometimes panned hard left/right). The guitar is also a subtle ambient reverb/soundscape effect, particularly in Animals As Leader’s Gestalzferfall.  Additionally, both tracks make use of synthesizers to introduce an idea and then support the guitars that will follow the introduced idea, the synths will sit behind the guitars to also add more weight and extra timbre opposed to just having the guitars play on their own. Overall, the arrangements of both tracks are nicely balanced; each layer fits like a perfectly stacked sandwich with appropriate proportions of each ingredient (idea/sound/track) fitting on top of one another.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 9 - Verse Interlude (with metric modulation)

To prevent the song from turning into a riff-salad (which is essentially what lots of prog songs are), I decided to repeat the verse but metrically modulate to a swung time; the diminished descending chords at the end were inspired by lots of early Dillinger escape plan.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 8 + 9 Vocal Reverb and EQ

My very limited vocal recordings have always been improved when adding some basic reverb and compression presets. However, I first start by trying to get a very flat, neutral recording. I use the Izotope RX 10 to clean up any audio through its "de-reverb/de-pop/click," etc. plugins. Whenever I’ve added basic reverb/compression/delay effects from plugin presets, it always has instantly made the recording sound much more alive.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 8 - Chorus Chord Progression

Figured out a really dope chord progression that makes use of the Major 9 with diminished chords functioning as passing tones. Everything sounds better when arpeggiated, so I did that to the chords and then played around with the notes to make it a little more unique. I chucked some cutoff effects/low pass filter automation to build tension and add some timbrel variety.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 7 - Vocal Comparison

My track is looking to be instrumental only, but I thought I would include a comparison of 2 of my favourite pop artists; I'm not a big lyric guy, but Mars and Poppy restore my faith in the more "commercial" sounding realm of music.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 6 - Verse and Pre-chorus

Okay, so it looks like this track is turning into some full-blown prog, which isn't necessarily bad; however, this creates some compatibility issues with the addition of a glitch bass (yes, the one that I keep harping on about). On a more positive note, the 2 sections I have here are pretty strong, I'm very happy with how the lead guitar compliments the rhythm and bass. I have some ideas for a chorus chord progression, but again, I just need to figure out how to cohesively incorporate it without the track sounding like an idea salad.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 6 - Sound Recording Reflection + Bassline Comparison

The sound recordings I've made in the past for vocal recordings have been pretty reasonable in terms of actual audio quality; the issues I've faced mostly come with recording guitars through VST amp plugins. My audio interface, as well as the plugins themselves, have plagued the recordings with some computer interference sounds. I've figured out ways to mitigate this. One of them is to face away from my computer monitors (screens) whilst recording the DI for guitar; this is a practice I will definitely consider for my track this semester.

Bassline Comparison

Two dubstep tracks I heard a long time ago in my teens. Having gotten back into electronic music more recently, I thought it would be good to reflect on the sound design and rhythmic characteristics of these two. The bass rhythms from Funk4mation are a little more straightforward but have an interesting sound design. In contrast, Sektor bass is more neutral-sounding but plays with the triplets and is offbeat in the rhythm. Combining the best aspects of both would be a wonderful addition to my track.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 5 - Intro Melody

This week, I got started on a proper introduction to my song. I'm not recording anything at this stage because it's time-consuming, and if I want to change any notes, I can do that and get a direct audio reference. I find that midi plugins are a great way to just get ideas on the page without any commitment. In the past, I've recorded parts and then had to go back and change them; doing it this way is more efficient.

It sounds very prog-oriented at the moment. Incorporating a glitch bass later in the track may prove tricky because many glitch basses in that style use a swung rhythm, and the current song is a straight 4/4. I could perhaps experiment with some metric modulation later on to an odd time signature to accommodate the glitch bass.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 4 - Early Ideas/Chord Progression

This week I developed a chord progression

I was just fiddling around on the guitar, and then I chucked the notes into a scaler to try and play around with different voicings. Here's how it sounds

I expanded this idea to an arpeggiated by utilizing FL studios' in-built piano roll function. I'll probably use the arpeggiator as an intro to the song, but if I apply it to another synthesizer, I will also look at experimenting with different arpeggio patterns outside of the stock FL one.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 3 - Drum Inspirations

Although some of these rhythms may be too complex for my glitch-hop-styled track, some of the elements can inspire short bursts/fills alongside a glitchy bass.

Composure is one of the most iconic and genre-defining songs in the metalcore of the 2nd Wave, late 90s/early 2000s. Matt Greiner inspired thousands with his incredible double pedal technique, accompanied by a delicious 4-to-the-floor china symbol in transitionary sections of the track. Again, the everchanging sequences of this track may be a little too ambitious for an electronic dance-styled tune, BUT the nuances can be extracted and applied.

[gooserecordingstudio]

Week 2 - Genre Ideas for My Song

Electronic Music Genres

Nothing is ever set in stone but I'm already quite keen to do a glitch-hop track that incorporates some dubstep and neuro bass sounds, I suspect that a lot of my time will be spent in Serum so I will soon start looking up some YouTube tutorials on how to make sounds and give them my own personal touch. Below are some tracks that I absolutely adore. I'm a big fan of Savant and his use of chiptune/8bit sounds, especially since I grew up on a lot of Nintendo games.

[gooserecordingstudio]

How I usually record audio, this worked well at my last place since the room had carpet and was a lot more dampened, but my new house has higher ceilings, way back in the day this used to sit on top of other milk crates and was actually flipped upside down to how your seeing it now, (the foam at the top was covering the top part of the microphone) I might need to reconfigure my setup and do what I used to, could possibly build a little stand out of other milk crates and stick this in my closet as well to further de-reverb anything.