Experimentation –
while giving these grooves a go, I’ve found out what kind of tempo I’d like the track to be. 90 bpm seemed to be a comfortable speed for the funky drummer beat, on the other hand, I found it was maybe a little too slow for the amen break. This at least gives me the option to play around with tempo, or maybe even have 2 distinct parts of the track, with different feels.
I worked with harry to come up with some ideas for the bass, we came up with a few little things but here’s an example of what kind of thing I want played. For the first part of the video, the descending pattern, we made it so it matches the 3rd bar of the amen break by holding a note to match the off beat pause of the drums, as well as that we came up with a riff to accompany the funky drummer break. I like the ideas so far, listening to them together with the drums is sounding quite good, but I’m not sure if I’ll actually use it yet , due to I’m thinking of maybe creating a bass with a midi instrument instead, I might also try create some midi parts on keyboard to get some ideas of what I want to do, the good thing about this is that ill have a lot more control, but the downside will be that if I do do the bass as midi it will perhaps have less authenticity, whereas recording will probably have a better feels to it , but we’ll see.
Here’s just a little fill that I liked, one that I may or may not use, but at least I’ve tried different fills. My idea so far is to maybe use the separated drum parts to create fills in Ableton, instead of recording them, this way it might just make the whole process easier.
I even bought a keyboard to learn a bit of piano, through this, I’m able to attempt at coming up with bass ideas by myself, I came up with a few ideas, but here’s one that I liked. I’ve tried to come up with a few on a keyboard, and have been successful, I do think that making the bass on midi will be the better option opposed to recording.
Recording –
This was me setting up the mics on the drums to match the recording technique I researched, (the Glyn Johns microphone technique), while it is different to where we’d usually position them, so far listening to it back I haven’t heard a drastic difference. I do understand that this method is traditionally for rock music ,but I wanted to try something new. I suppose there is no real down side to this, so there’s no harm in doing some things different.
These are the drum parts I’ve recorded so far. recording it did take a little while , and It took around 2 hours just to get a good loop that worked well, and that I was happy with, I wanted to be happy with it because having created something for it just to be a problem later on is going to cause issues, so its better to spend more time now to make it easier in the future. As for the single hits, that went perfectly. I’ve got plenty of sounds to play around with, and what I did for the single hits was I did a continuous recording off all the hits, and just cut out the unwanted parts, doing this allowed me to have the symbols ring out for as long as I wanted. Evaluating how it went, I would say very good, the whole setting up the drums and the recording desk just becomes easier the more you do it. I did mention in my proposal how I want to better myself in all aspects including recording, and this little session did help quite a lot with that. I feel a lot more comfortable setting up by myself, and I have a bit better understanding how who whole recording process works. Now the next step is going be turning those recordings into a sample pack to be used on a drum pad.
Ableton Progress–
Here are the audio files that I recorded and bounced into Ableton
On the left is the 2 drum loops – funky drummer, and the amen break
And on the right, is each individual sound placed onto a drum rack, this allows me to play them individually on a drum pad. I’d like to use a drum pad, because as I’m drummer, it would make more sense to do this so I can apply my ideas physically.
While doing this on Ableton, I thought to have a play around with the bass part I was coming up with, and this is what I did.
Making this has made me definitely decide that I’m going to do more midi instruments, including bass. I think this might end up being the best for me , as I find it easier to apply my ideas myself that asking for someone to try play it for me. For the guitar, I still want to record it so far , Although I’d like to record the bass as well, I feel its going to be a lot of work getting the instrument to sound good, recorded and looped well, that its probably not going to be worth the hassle in the end. At least with midi, I have full control over anything I produce, and can change it as much as I want, and a good example for this so far is that I tried a quick mess around with reverb.
This quick little experimentation has got me thinking though. I like it, but in the lower end the reverb gets way too much and a lot worse in person, so next session I’m thinking of putting reverb on specific notes such as the higher notes to emphasise them a lot more.
2 weeks in and so far the project as a whole, however small at the moment, it’s coming along I think. I’m for once as well liking what I’ve done, maybe because of the planning and research I’ve done, but it’s hitting the targets I’ve set for myself so far. I’ve got a lot of ideas to put into this, but the next task I’m setting for myself is coming up with some sort of chords, and a proper structure for the track, so that’s some more research for me to do.
These chords here, are the first iteration of my chord progression, it’s quite simple so far because I’m trying to come up with an array of chords but its a decent start. To be honest I don’t think I’ll be using this or making anymore, since I’m not sure if it even sounds right yet, so I’ll have to see.
These are 2 guitar parts I recorded with Harry, it’s a start to the guitar , and it’s in the style I wanted. The only thing is, is that I’ve pitched it up in Ableton, so I’m not entirely sure what key I put the guitar in now, but I’ll find out. As well as that, when I put both guitar parts in, I found out the second one really didn’t fit, this at least shows me I need to listen to what I already have , then come up with guitar parts before recording them, because its just ended up being a waste of time.
So far the track has become a lot more electronic than I wanted. Beginning planning the structure I’ve found myself making more of a dance track build up which is obviously not what I wanted to do, so I’m planning on stripping it back and reworking what I’ve done. I’m gonna keep all the rhythmic parts, and just take away the effects, and maybe change the instrumentation a slight bit.
I been trying out some organ solo type parts , which I think do suit what its accompanying, but at this point trying to make it properly fit right, and not go over the top. This part I have left out for now, but I Will be coming back to it after Easter to try and make it useable.
Since I asked Jon to record some trumpet , Here’s how we miced up and recorded it, we didn’t really use any special technique, we simply just set up a mic on a stand. Thankfully it was only a 10 minute job, and came out very well, there was nothing wrong with it really, Jon himself said the playing was a little shaky, but to me it’ll do just fine.
This here is every part so far. Listening to it back, I’ve got few things I’m wanting to change. The main thing being the drums. I started this project wanting the drums to be a big part, yet I’ve seemed to drown them out. I know I haven’t done too much mixing or anything yet, so I’ve got some headroom to make them come through as much as I want, also I haven’t used the single hits yet I recorded , so I’m planning to come up with some ideas to try fit them in. As well as the drums, I found I’ve really shied away from “funk”, its a lot more sort of electronic than originally planned, on the other hand it’s showed some development changes in planning throughout the weeks, but I’m not entirely sure yet if I’m going to really dial it down and bring it more towards what I wanted, or keep what I have, but that’s something for when I get back in college. Overall though , I’m happy so far with the project, it needs lots of tweaking yet to be better, but its coming along.
since listening to it back over the break I’ve decided to completely change the track and move more away from funk, I thought I should stick to what I’m more comfortable with, and that’s anything electronic, however I will be keeping the instrumentation but change direction more towards a kind of ambient electronic track. I’ve done this because I felt as the previous track I created was really flat, and boring, granted it was no where near done, but I felt I had to stop it where it was, rather than continue, and it end as a mess I didn’t like, but here’s what I’ve got so far. I’ve still included the drums guitar and trumpet, so not much change there. what I need to add now is a prominent bass part.
this is what I’ve come up with for my bass. what I’ve done is changed my previous approach and rather than create a very rhythmic bass part, this is more of a deeper underlying part to give more ambience whereas before I wanted the bass to be in the forefront and be the main focus. I’ve done this because I didn’t want the bass to contain all the rhythm anymore, I wanted anything rhythmic now to come out of the drums, and the synthesizers, as I feel it would maybe sound better for what I’m now going for.
As well as my bass I created these 2 electronic melodies using synthesizers which accompany each other throughout. What these started off as were quite boring, because I pretty much just had them in a loop, so you can see in the photo I’ve tried to have quite a bit of variation to at least keep it somewhat fresh through the track. listening to them back while creating them made me think to not have something that’s so repetitive, this is the problem I had during the the first track I created, so this is why I’m trying hard to vary the rhythms as much I can.
I’ve also added this part, this somewhat adds a melodic ambience throughout, its an accompanying overtone to much of the track, and I think it fits very well, particularly in the second section where it kicks in a little more. I’ve done this because I wanted some higher tones to push through in certain sections, and fill the space a lot more, this is the kind of this I’ve been trying to improve on, to fill the space, as I want my track to sound more full and lively.
Before what I wanted was the guitar to just play the chords, although I still have that guitar included, that guitar now is more of a background ambient noise to fill the air, but I choose to create some other chords as well, they’re simple chords but sound quite weird, because what I’ve been playing around with, is a lot of different devices using automation.
This automation is what gives it it’s weird sound, I’ve automated such things like sample rates, frequencies and LFO sync. I’ve also included a lot of automation within the rest of the track too, as shown here, I’ve done this because I really wanted to emphasise the electronic part of the piece now, and what I’ve found with a lot of the music that I’ve listened to , is that its always changing, there’s only ever a few times where somethings quite repetitive, but that only sounds good if done well in my opinion, so I’ve tried my best to automate a lot of the track , this is what has given me the sounds I wanted such as one of the synths in the second section which sounds as if its dropping ever bar.
For one of the melodies in particular, it sounds quite boring without the automation, with it, it gives it much more flow, apposed to it being simple static notes. The drums also have a lot of automation, this is what I’ve used to make them to sound muffled and appear to fade in within the first section, yet again to give the track ass a whole more movement to make it sound less flat as my first one was.
However with all this change I still have a lot of melodic features like these three tracks, these three are an electric organ, guitar and the most prominent one is the flute. I did find this to be a weird instrument to put in but I think it fits quite well. What I was looking for was something to stand out from the rest of the instrumentation, due to it being a higher frequency, it punches through, and is able to be heard clearly through the rest.
Nearing the end of the project with only a few weeks left this is where I’m at, I’d say It’s very near completion, just has a few tweaks like automation and maybe even remove some parts such as the extra guitar, I like the melody but not entirely sure it fits as well as the rest do. I’m liking this track a lot more than the first one, it sounds much more fuller and fits a lot better, its has changed a lot from what I originally set out to do which was a funk track, but I think now this is very far from funk, not that that’s a bad thing, but looking back and I’m thinking now what I maybe meant from a “funk track” , is that I wanted the instrumentation of funk , and to include a lot of rhythmic sections, this includes the trumpet, guitar and drums, which I still have included in the end, but in a very different way.
This definitely needs more tweaking and mixing but its getting there, I’m also gonna make the ending longer and switch it up a little maybe using tempo. In addition to the mixing I found a lot of the individual tracks were clipping, so I’ve lowered everything volume wise ,and mixed from there. As well, I’ve added some more minor parts to fill up some areas I thought needed it.
And this is where I’m currently at. I’ve spent time mixing and splitting each section up so I can balance them and make it so each individual part can be heard. during the mixing process I’ve found the track to be much more clearer and feel fuller, some part such as the flute have now become a subtle high frequency in the background, but it all still fits well in my opinion. Some minor panning and equalising has filled the space just a little more, and I’ve also now included a sub bass to fill some more room in the lower end, this is also what I’m going to look into while mastering the track.
To begin mastering , I’ve exported the entire track into another Ableton project
once I exported my track, I thought of what I wanted enhanced. Firstly I was messing around with pitching it up, I ended up liking how it sounded, as it sped it up, so I decided to keep it. Beginning with EQ, I boosted the lower frequencies making the lower end more prominent through out. as well as that, I added a compressor to average out the volume between the lows, mids and highs. In the mastering process, dealing with the volume was quite tricky, I understand now why you need to lower the volume as much as possible in the mixing stage to avoid problems during mastering. There was multiple times I had to go back to mixing and change things, especially the added kick drum at the end, that really threw the volumes off because it was just too loud, and therefore caused clipping. Furthermore I included a multiband dynamics device to increase the output of the mids, due to there being a lot of lows and highs, I felt like I needed to fill that space a little more by increasing them and pushing instruments out such as the trumpet .
In the end, Lewis helped me with the mastering to clear it up even more by using his own software, this is what it ended up looking like.
