For my final track, I wanted to create a track using actual instruments I play such as bass and guitar. I have chosen to do this so that I learn how to record actual physical instruments and I feel like this would make more of a benefit to me incase I ever want to record any song/song ideas that I create. I would like to aim to create a indie track by the end of this project.
I feel like i have made a solid song, especially for the first time using Ableton for this project. I am quite happy with the end result because it tuned out how i wanted it to sound. Creating this song has also taught me things such as that there is never a point where a song is finished when it’s being created, and that their is always room for improvement.
The main strengths of my song were the guitar and the bass, this is because i created a catchy bass line with even some slap parts. I think my guitar parts were a strength because i managed to create nice sounding chord progression as well as ambient chords and a nice fitting melody over the top.
My primary weakness is that my song doesn’t contain any vocals like most indie songs do, This is because i do not sing and i couldn’t find any samples that sounded good or fitting to the track. my other weakness is the bridge of the song, this is because i didn’t know what to put in the bridge so i just made it simple but sometimes, less is more.
If i had vocals and a more interesting bridge section, I think that i could create a single and promote the song on social media. for the single cover i could create this by using my logo that i made and creating some artwork through photoshop. I could also create social media accounts to promote my work.
As you can see, i have created this song from only using 5 tracks. These tracks are the order that i created the song in (Drums, Acoustic, Bass, Melody and chords.) I will break all of the individual tracks up and talk about how i got tat sound and what equipment i used later on in my evaluation.
When creating the song, i worked on one section at a time to be efficient and organised. Here is the final order of the song:
- Intro
- Verse 1
- Verse 2
- Pre chorus
- Chorus
- Verse 2
- Pre chorus
- Chorus
- Bridge
- Pre chorus
- Chorus
I have chosen this specific order because i have researched into indie song structure. This order seems to be the best to listen to because it is hard to get bored and if you do, the bridge section will intrigue you again. This song structure is also a perfect formula that you can’t fault.
Drums
To create the drums for this track I downloaded a drum pack and handpicked a sound that I thought was good, I aimed to get a dry drum sound just like todays indie tracks. With this drum sound being dry it usually makes it sound easier to listen to and less complex.
When creating this drumbeat I first put the sound into a drum rack so that I could use a keyboard to play a drumbeat as I don’t play drums myself. when I created this beat I made sure to make it interesting by adding tom fills to the last beat of every bar. I made this sound dry by Adding some slight reverb and Turing the wetness of the beat down. he main thing about the drums is that they must not sound too complex and that they are easy to listen to.
Acoustic
When recording the acoustic guitar for this song I went straight into an audio interface. In logic are used some EQ with a scooped high end and mid-range and an acoustic guitar compressor along with some medium hall reverb. I end to create a quiet ambient wet sound that is pleasing to listen to. I would say that the acoustic guitar is the main foundation of this song as it plays all the way through.
Bass
When recording my bass guitar, I also recorded this through an audio interface. I then went on to use logic bass amp plugin along with a basic peak compressor. On the base amp I had quite a wet sound with minimal gain and treble. For the compressor I had quite a low threshold because in the chorus that is a slap bassline, and this could get really loud and distorted if it wasn’t for this compressor.
melody
When recording in the melodic lead guitar line, I ran this through a warm tube guitar amp along with a 1 by 12 cabinet and a soft tube boost for some gain. Overall, this gave me a really wet sound which was nice and warm as well as quite present and gainy. I quite like this melodic lead guitar line because it was fun to play as it was all over the fret board and it sounds quite pleasant to the ear.
Ambient chords
When recording my ambient chord guitar part, I run this through a clean soft tube amp along with a 4 by 12 cabinet for a thicker fuller sound. also, I used an SG guitar with 3 humbuckers in for a nice warm tone which was also quite wet. Finally I completed this sound by adding some basic reverb.
Overall, I think that all of the parts of the song were really thought out and I enjoyed learning how to use Ableton and how to record physical instruments in and even use things such as drum racks and the sampler, I think that I have really enjoyed this!