During the development of the EP, I ran into many struggles and problems that I had to overcome. The first difficulty I was presented with, was simply finding a name and image for the project. I went with the idea of “555”, the angelic number for forgiveness and moving on, to become a better person. The main story the EP tells is going through a heartbreak from a toxic person, and learning to move on and become a better person from it. This entire project was created solely on FL Studio, a DAW I am very experienced in using.
Track 1: Backstabber.
I actually gained inspiration for this track from a popular song that is currently trending on tiktok, called “Backstabber” by ke$ha. The main image this song paints as the intro to the project, is being backstabbed by somebody you loved, hence the name Backstabber. This song features a good friend of mine called Cloverscars. The production behind this track started by finding a good guitar loop and placing some pop-punk/emo-trap elements over the guitar pattern. Once this was finished, I moved onto recording vocals. For this song I did multiple layers of vocals, all in different tones and pitches in order to create more fullness to the song as a whole and give different sounds from it. Here is how the Project file for this song looks like;
Track 2: Closure
The main purpose of this song being created, was for me to improved my vocal range, while singing I tend to emphasise a lot of notes and bend the pitches frequently, going from low to high in short bursts. The whole sound of this song is very low pitched. The main inspiration behind this track is the artist “drippin so pretty” who is very prominent in the underground emo-trap genre. The main trouble I found with the creation of this song was staying on key for the song, as all I use it a tiny amount of pitch correct on my vocals, along with phasers and chorus.
Track 3: Go Home
This song was created by me and my friend and frequent collaborator, Mavah. We made the instrumental to this song together in a studio session and made the song the same day. The premise behind this song is being in a place you don’t want to be, both physically and mentally, but that it up to the listeners interpretation and the way they want to take it. I feel allowing more listener interaction relatability to the song creates more connection and bond to your fanbase and that keeps them hooked onto your music.
Track 4: Care
This song was created using mainly computer generated sounds, with a heavy hint of hyper-pop production on the track, with the synth bells and hard 808’s on the song. The only acoustic instrument used on this song would be the acoustic guitar that was recorded for the bridges in the song. This song has 2 sets of layers over the main vocals to add more fullness to the track, along with added adlibs to add more of a spacy vibe over the song. I used an extra effect for this song that i haven’t tested before, called “Fruity Convolver”. I used this effect to add more of a reverse reverb delay to the vocals.
Track 5: Misery Avenue (555)
This song is drastically different to the other songs on the project, going for more of a soul/rap sound to it. Over the chorus to this song i actually layered an down pitched the set of vocals by an octave to add a more deep and evil sounding vibe to the song, while still bringing forward the emotional meaning of it within my vocals.
Track 6: In My Head
This song is another one of my regular sound, so there wasn’t much difficulty within making this song. The reason I chose to include this song on the tracklist is because this is the genre of music (emo-trap) that I am most known for, having songs of this style reach upwards of 20,000 streams across all platforms. I personally believe catering towards and appeasing your fanbases tastes is an important part of being a musician, and can really make or break somebody’s career.
Track 7: Love and Drugs
This song is a Collab between me and a close friend of mine who goes by “hxchi”. This song was created as a sequel to one of our first songs together, titled “love and drugs”, this song was very impactful for me in my career as it was when I truly started to find inspiration for music and realising it is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. The process of this song being created consisted of many hours of song writing and production, trying to get the perfect combination of something we enjoyed. The main thing that sets this song apart is the production elements of it, using an acoustic and bass guitar in the build-ups and breakdowns of the song, and then using a hard punk sounding electric in the chorus’, layered with hard 808’s and kicks.
Track 8: 05.01
The main influence and inspiration for this song is a hyperpop artist named “aldn”, and also the soundtrack for the game “five nights at freddy’s”. The instrumental for this song consistent of synth punk sounds over a pop pattern kick and snare, with the kick being on every bar, and the snare being on every second and third bar. The bpm for this song is also 100bpm, which is the standard rate of chest compressions, we wanted to make this as the theme of the song is heartbreak (which most people relate to the sensation of feeling like your heart is being ripped out). During the entirety of this song, there are layered and format bent vocals playing in the background, this helps to emulate that creepy sound from the soundtrack of five nights at freddy’s, being a horror game. This was done by exporting the vocals out of FL studio, and then bringing them back into the project and changing the format of vocals down, adding more reverb to them and finally pitching them down an octave. This song is probably the most experimental on the whole project, and the FLP below will show why.
