This portfolio is for me to show the progress of my independent project and how it develops. As stated in my Pre Production Professional Portfolio, I will be going ahead with my plan to record a three track EP that portrays my competence as a songwriter and my production skills.
Songwriting:
Firstly, I will begin my project by starting to come up with ideas and riffs to put into my compositions. I want to experiment with unorthodox time signatures and portray my musical ability in my tracks. As stated in my weekly plan, I am hoping to write a one full composition per month at the latest. I will be recording my compositions using Ableton Live and mainly doing so from home due to the current national lockdown that is in effect.
Ableton Live Project Preperation:
Before I can start writing anything, I will need to set up Ableton with a few appropriate plugins that will be essential to achieve the heavy metal sound I am after. Here are the plug-ins that I have found and installed:
- Ignite Amps Emissary
- Ignite Amps NadIR Impulse Response
- Ignite Amps SHB-1 Bass Amp Head
- Ignite Amps TS-999 Tube Screamer
- BOD Bass Overdrive
- Dragonfly Reverb
Composition One:
For my first composition I started playing around with my guitar detuned to drop C. I did this as it’s much heavier than standard tuning and I also want to explore using alternative tunings in my music. Eventually I ended up with a steadily paced groove based around one finger chords on the E string. Here is what I came up with:
When recording this riff I played around with the tempo for a while before settling on 150 bpm. I found this to be a good pace where the riff had a good groove and some energy behind it, but not overpoweringly fast.
Continuing on from this riff I came up with a pretty interesting section to pull the piece out of this riff. When I was writing this I didn’t really have a set idea and the riff just kind of wrote itself, and I think I works great so far. Here is a video of the part:
Next, I wanted to add one more section before bringing back my first riff. I was looking to chug on some power chords for this section to give the track a more obvious metal sound in the middle and potentially a section to put a solo over later down the line. I came up with a fairly simple riff using power chords on the A string that worked well as a contrast the the previous parts. Here’s what I came up with:
With these three sections I feel as though I have enough for the bulk of the composition when I go to arrange it properly. I decided that I wanted something a bit different for an outro section though so I spent a while after recording these ideas coming up with something that would work.
I was aiming to have a clean section of complex chords that give the ending a kind of ‘spaced out’ feel that contrast the heaviness of the rest of the piece. Additionally I wanted to try a fade out ending as I don’t believe I have ever used one in a composition as of yet and I believe this kind of ending will compliment the sound I am after once recorded in Ableton. Here is what I have so far:
With these four sections ready, I began to arrange them in Ableton until I had a good draft of the track:
With the structure worked out, I then started work on adding some midi drums to the piece. I did this as it would help me play in the extra parts much more tightly, and it also can give Abi and idea of what I want the drums to sound like when we record the live kit.
To record the midi drums, I mainly used my midi keyboard to play in a basic beat, and then quantized the part to be perfectly in time. I also edited notes here and there in the midi editor afterwards as I am not the best when it comes to playing in drums. Here is the guitar draft with the drums as well:
Next up was the bass guitar part. I mainly decided to stick around the route notes of each riff to keep the piece driving forwards, as you would expect in a heavy song, therefore riff one and riff two are played just the same as they are on the guitar. The middle chugging riff (riff 3) and the ending part (riff 4) is where the bass differs into its own unique line. Here is a video of the riff 3 section:
The final section (riff 4) was definitely the hardest to play, however I really think it compliments the sound of the chords well. Here is a video of me talking through the part, and the last section of the song with guitar and bass:
Now that I have all of the parts together, I can record them all into Ableton properly and make sure everything is played well and in time. I will hopefully then have something ready to start mixing and mastering properly.
Lastly, I had to name the track. This took me a while to come up with as I feel as though it’s had to name instrumental pieces due to them having no lyrical content. Eventually I settled on the name ‘Dazed’ as the riff for this piece was heavily inspired by the way my good friend and fellow guitarist Enzo writes riffs for his band, that I also happen to play lead guitar in, called Innadaze. I feel as though this name fits as I have never written a song for the band myself, and this could be something we use later down the line for a track.
Composition 2:
For my second composition, I tuned my guitar to D standard. This is almost the same as the drop C tuning I have been using, however the low string is tuned to D rather than down to C.
When I was playing around and trying to come up with ideas, I found that I really like the interval between a route note and it’s 7th. Playing between the two notes has a nice feel to it and sounds more interesting that playing a straight octave. Eventually I came up with a fast riff that I liked the sound of, and here is a video where I explain the process behind it:
The second riff was focused around power chords, and fast movements up and down the neck on one string. I ended up with something that sounds pretty good and suits the style well so far. This is what I came up with:
The third riff I came up with was going to become a solo section in the full composition, therefore I wanted to change up the sound of the song by bringing back the first tiff, but this time transposed down a tone to F instead of G. This made the section more impactful straight away even though it’s more or less the same as the first riff. I also split this section into two parts, the first half being this riff, and the second moving back to some power chords. I started the power chord line by moving from F to Bb, which in theoretical terms is an augmented fourth. I did this as it’s something used commonly in metal music, and was used heavily by bands such as Black Sabbath in their songs. Additionally, I also used a fast run down through the power chords at the end, and stuck in the stabs from earlier to bring the piece back to the original riff. Here is what it looks like:
This is the last of the rhythm section riffs, and I arranged them in Ableton into a good song structure:
I worked in the same order as my first composition as that seemed to work well for me, so I next added in some midi drums to the track in the same way as before. Just like the first track, these are fairly simple as I aren’t very good at writing interesting drum beats, but it does enough to lock the track together nicely:
The bass on this track was really straightforward. It plays the route notes for each riff in the same way as the guitar does, only ever missing the high note in the first riff. I didn’t record a video of this as it would just be me talking about the same points I made in the guitar videos.
I managed to come up with some lead guitar for this piece fairly easily, and soon had a good idea of how it was going to play over the full song. Here are some videos of me breaking the parts down:
Here is the song with these lead parts added:
For the main solo to this piece, I was really struggling to come up with any ideas. After several hours of messing around with sounds and effects, I realised that I have a Cry Baby Wah pedal available, and so I began experimenting with using one over an improvised solo. This worked a treat and soon I had something in place that worked well with the backing, and I particularly like that I managed to include this pedal work as I haven’t included this skill in my other compositions yet.
As the solo is improvised I haven’t recorded a video trying to mimic it. The solo is very pentatonic, and focuses heavily on the wah effect. It starts around the middle of the fretboard before working its way up to some really heavy sounding multi string bends as the rhythm section changes, giving the solo a sound similar to the style of guitarist Kirk Hammett from Metallica who is known for his use of a wah pedal in most of his solos. Here is the full composition with this solo included:
When naming this piece I really had no idea what to call it. The project file has been called 1to7 as the riff jumps between 1 and 7, but I wasn’t really planning on that being the compositions final name. After a while of trying to come up with anything I eventually ended up calling it Charge 17. I called it this as the triplet rhythms that it is based around sounds like a kind of military charge and really pushes the piece along. The 17 was simply a reference to the 1 to 7 riff as I didn’t like the sound of calling the piece Charge on its own.
Composition 3:
As I was aiming for a three track EP, this would be my last composition. Therefore I wanted to really push myself with this track in terms of technical ability and performing in more unorthodox time signatures. I took inspiration from a grunge/rock band called Dinosaur Pile-Up when coming up with the intro riff as I heard them do something similar with having a lead guitar intro rather than rhythm straight away. I spent some time making the timing of this interesting and I explain this in more depth in the video below:
The second riff I wrote for this piece is similar to the first, but this time in standard 4/4 timing with no rests. It also has a few notes thrown in at the top of the fretboard, and a 5 note turnaround at the end that last an extra bar. Here’s a video of the part:
Next, I wrote a new rhythm section with more focus on single chords to begin with. This section make full use of the fretboard and has two alternating lines at the end of each cycle that swap every time. This is then followed by a short line I like to call the ‘Blast beat section’ as I think some blast beats on the drums would sound great here. Below are some videos of each bit:
After I had these main few parts somewhat put together, I wanted to make some room for a guitar solo. I only really wrote one new line for this section, and I think the contrast it provides to the piece is excellent, and is so far my personal favourite part of this tune. I began by having the first half of the solo section over the top of the third riff before moving onto the blast beat riff and doubling it. I additionally added two bars of a held B power chord on the 11th fret. This is where the second part of the solo section comes in and I play an F# major scale, moving from F# itself, to it’s major third A#, to B, and then ending on a flat 6 (D) as this added a moment of unrest rather than resolving to the top octave of the scale. This technically makes it a F# harmonic major scale, although at the time of writing the part I wasn’t really thinking about it. Here is what the part sounds like:
Finally, I wanted to write an interesting ending to the song with various timings and a bit of an erratic feeling. To do this I decided to focus on the blast beat riff that I had, as this was the fastest and most erratic piece I already had, and would be good to work with for the ending. I added a half time section to the end, with notes from the blast beat riff being played in a new order, before switching back to full speed for a tight and sudden ending. I really like the sound of this so far, and I think is a excellent way to end the piece as I haven’t yet changed up the tempo in my other pieces. Here is how this part sounds:
With the rhythm section all coming together, I began to come up with an arrangement in Ableton. This song took a bit longer to do so with as I kept on changing my mind about the length of sections and their orders, however I did eventually settle on something I liked:
From here I added in some midi drums. Again, this was rather basic, however I did manage to squeeze in the blast beats under the riff where I wanted them, and they worked really well with the sound overall. I also accidentally got a kind of 6 hit rhythm on the hi-hats in the opening riff which I have grown to really like, so when it comes to recording a live kit I want to make sure we can capture a similar pattern here. Here is the track with some drums:
Next I added in some bass guitar. Much like in the last piece, I kept it simple and locked in with the bass notes of each riff. I did this as the guitar is the main focus of this piece and I didn’t want to over complicate the bassline and take away from the sound I had. Here is the song with bass in as well:
With the rhythm instruments starting to come together, I began to work out soe lead parts on the guitar. I wanted something that would lock in well with the tune, and not be too over the top as I wanted the solo to shine in this composition as it switches into that major key. After a while of playing around I came up with these two parts:
Both parts had a kind of back and forth pattern between two notes which I really liked, and the contrast in rhythm worked well with the chugging guitar riffs underneath. From here I also began working on some ideas for the solo as this part was exciting me the most. I began with a bluesy kind of style solo in a pentatonic shape in G minor that fit over the first part of the rhythm well. This also left me with the opportunity to double up the descending rhythm lines an octave higher in between each lick. When the second half begins, I started ascending an F# major scale in an Ionian shape at the top of the neck, with some fast hammer-ons before landing on the flat 6 (D) in time with the rhythm. I made sure to reach for the highest note in the scale before ending the solo as it makes for a really good finish and keeps the flow of the solo moving nicely.
Here is one of my many attempts at recording my rough idea of it:
After many attempts at getting some good takes I managed to arrange these lead parts into the Ableton file, and produce a draft I was happy with. Here is the full thing:
Now that this last song was beginning to come together, I could really turn my attention towards recording some more professional takes and then go on to mix and master the tunes. I also now need to get some live drums recorded on some of the tracks.
One last thing as well was I needed a name for this composition. I had been saving the Ableton file as System/Pileup as one riff reminds me of a band called Dinosaur Pile-Up (as I mentioned earlier), and another riff gives me strong System Of A Down vibes. I ended up actually liking this placeholder name, so I’ve stuck to calling this piece System Pile-Up and I think it suits the mood of the tune.
Songwriting Evaluation:
This summarises my song writing process, and covers all three of my compositions. I feel as though I have done well here as song writing isn’t one of my strongest skills, yet I am very happy with what I have produced so far and am confident that it shows a variety of my skills in regards to scales, time signatures, changes in tempo, use of effects, and overall technical ability.
I have successfully stuck to the schedule that I set in my Pre-Production blog, and have spent a good amount of time on each of my three compositions. I also believe I have been successful in producing some heavy metal sounds, while also expanding upon the boundaries of the genre by including hints of grunge and more relaxed sections.
While working through this section of my project, I regularly used the Gibb’s Reflective Cycle to evaluate what I was producing, and make sure that not only I was happy with the songs, but that they also stuck to the idea I presented in my proposal.
To improve on my song writing in future, I think the biggest benefit for me to have would be a longer time scale. While I have stuck well to the plan I made, there was still little time leftover for extra changes as I now have to move onto the live drum recording, and begin mixing and mastering the tracks. I feel as though I could’ve really improved upon the songs I have, and possible expanded this project into a full album as I had plenty of good ideas that haven’t been used in these compositions.
Ultimately I am very happy with how this has gone overall, and I feel confident that I have achieved my goal of portraying my musical ability and knowledge in my compositions, and showing a vast improvement upon the first EP I released a few years ago.