This week I have been working on my fourth track, which is a future bass song inspired by artists like Illenium. I have used YouTube to watch some tutorials and listen to some future bass to get an idea of what to make.
I started off making a chord progression, it sounded much like a future bass song and I really liked it, I have never made a future bass song before, so I listened to lots of future bass to get an idea of what to do. I created a melody to go over the top of it if it used a filter and automated the cut-off to fade it in.
This is a recording of the chords, with the melody on top.
I then created a build-up, by using automation on the filter cutoff and creating a snare build-up with a trap drum at the end. saving it as a WAV file importing it back into the project, and automating the pitch of the snare so it. rises an octave.
I then used a vocal from a vocal pack I have, chopped it up, pitched it up an octave, made a clone of this sample, and pitched it down an octave so it harmonises and cut it up, and arranged it in a way that sounded good, I then automated the filter cutoff of the vocal so it faded out then in.
This is how this sounds
this is the harmonising vocals
Here is the whole vocal before I chopped it up
I also created a drum that sounded similar to a trap drum kit. with the 808 samples.
i also added reverb to the vocals which gives it a really nice sound similar to what is used often in electronic music and played around a lot trying to find the right sound.
I used the stereo shaper tool to make everything stand out in the mix, I have learnt this is better than panning, because instead of just left and right, you have the front left and right back left and right and middle left and right so you have more options to enhance the width of the track and make sure there's space for each instrument.
I then created the drop, I used a future bass-sounding saw and made several different versions of the melody on different presets on vital, I also used the melody and used several different instruments for this. I then laid them all out on the playlist and chopped them up so different instruments played a mixture between the melody and the chords this sounds really good and is something I picked up from listening to future bass tracks.
I also used the same vocal as before. and chopped it up for the drop, this sounds like a professional song so I am really happy with this.
I then added a sort of chilled breakdown part, that slowly builds up and becomes. a heavy sort of second drop, it sounds really nice and is similar to an artist called Eckle who is one of my biggest inspirations.
This is what it sounds like
it has the vocal chops in and generally sounds good.
then when it's built up, I used several instruments and used the same effect as the drop where I have about 4 different instruments playing the chords, then cut between each one, I have also used a breakbeat loop to create some crazy-sounding drums, where it's like a hip hop beat, but then goes into a drum & bass break, then back to the hip hop sound. I have also used several different effects on these instruments.
This is one of the effects called pan flow I went for this plugin as I wanted some really trippy effects that sound really good with stereo earphones and spatial audio, so I wanted it to keep panning between left and right, you can do this by automating the pan knob, but this is much better as you can really perfect the settings and how fast or often you want it to pan as well as creating the envelope path yourself. this has come out sounding really nice.
This is what the heavy breakdown/second drop sounds like.
I then made sure to mix all the channel levels so the mix sounds good.
This is what the track sounds like at the moment, it still needs more work, but it is almost finished and ready to be mixed and mastered.
Conclusion.
In conclusion. have learnt how to create a different genre of music, and I have a better understanding of vocal processing, vocal chops and harmonising pitched up and down vocals. I have also experimented beyond my usual comfort zone and created breakdowns similar to eckle who is one of the artists I aspire to be like. I have learnt how to tempo switch and cut the drums from a hip hop beat to a breakbeat beat, and have investigated different software such as pan flow to create trippy panning effects. This has been very useful to learn. Overall I have learnt lots of skills that will help me in my future career as a music producer, or sound engineer. over the next week, I aim to have completed all tracks, including mixing and mastering, and the music video and start finalising my project.
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