To begin with, I had to decide on the genre of music that I would create for the project. This was an easy decision because of the game I was designing the song for. Beat Saber has a soundtrack that is predominantly EDM and Drum and Bass. These genres work very well together, although not my normal music taste. One song that gave me inspiration from the soundtrack was Camellia’s “crystallized”.
To begin, I downloaded some sample packs from Cymantics.com to allow me to find sounds that fit in with the general theme that I was going for. Each pack has a set of samples that have similar BPMs and keys. The fantasy pack included many loops that were similar to the effect of crystallized’s playful and spacey nature.
To begin I chose a drum beat, melody, and a simple bassline. This allowed me to create a structure for the song. Once I had a basic structure built, I decided that it was time to add some embellishments and develop the idea. The first thing I did was use a fade-in with the melody to ease the player into the song. It alludes to the song coming towards you as you await the first block.
A key factor of most electronic dance music is a ‘drop’. Also known as a beat drop, this key feature is created by “a sudden change of rhythm or bass line occurs, which is preceded by a build-up section and break.” (Young, 2010) To accomplish this I found new drum loops which built up in volume and tempo and had an abrupt ending. Having an abrupt ending allows space to create the drop and build a new musical idea. I found that the best way to go about this was to add an impact using a one-shot cymbal with some fades and using retrograde on the second one so that when played simultaneously they have a larger effect that gives a surround sound effect.
This was a part of the process that I found to be challenging. Having never created music like this before I was unaware of what could be the most effective way of transitioning between sections. Peer feedback from Harry Speight, someone who is extremely familiar with this genre, helped me understand that a good impact makes a clear divide between each section and this is something that I will take on board for future projects. To develop what I have learned I would like to try new methods by, for example, sampling a video game character to use as an impact instead of an instrument.
Once the drop had been added successfully I was able to move onto the second section. I wanted to make this part slower to allow the player to rest a little before the end. I did this by automating the tempo of the song for this section to a slower BPM (from 180-140). I felt that this could be further emphasised by a dramatic thematic change. For this to be effective, I went into the Ableton sound library to find some piano and synth that worked well together with the new melodic line that I had chosen from the Fantasy pack. Because this section is meant to relax the player I decided to keep it stripped back, so as the section evolves there are more and more instruments removed until it is just piano. I felt as though it worked well as it made the increase in speed when the first section returns feel smoother as I was able to reintroduce the main elements of the song bit by bit.
After the full song structure was completed, I wanted to add embellishments to reduce repetition and therefore boredom. My initial idea for this came from the Toy Shop pack, which includes samples of Fischer Price toys. I felt that this could feed into the playing games aspect of this project and became a large element of inspiration for the song. The first sample I used is from the Toy Piano and it is a vocal that says, “It’s music time”. I added a reverb to the sample to make it sound echoey and distorted for an eerie effect. I put this right at the beginning of the song as an introduction as I thought the words fit that role nicely. Then I began adding other sounds from this pack for example a car horn sound with multiple effects added to it. Finally, I added some vocal one-shots of counting up in Spanish to signify that the song was coming to an end.
My last finishing touch was adding an ambient synth playing held chords. I felt that it would fill out some of the emptiness in the middle of the first section and build on the spacey and eerie feeling that I wanted.
The final product sounds like this:
The artwork was designed by me using Canva. I felt that a pile of children’s blocks would summerise the theme of playing games, as well as the title of the track, “Playtime”. However, adding faded colors and the plastic wrap effect creates an illusion of something old and even looks like static or a disturbance.
Bibliography:
Camellia (2015) ‘crystallized’, crystallized. Available at: Spotify (Accessed 20 September 2023).
Drop (music) (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_(music)#cite_note-1 (Accessed: 01 January 2024).
Young, Rob (2010). La guida alla musica moderna di Wire (in Italian). Isbn Edizioni. ISBN 978-88-7638-180-5.