Gone Project Update 5 - Building Structures

Hey guys! Back again for the first of many blogs and updates this week! This blog will be the first of three project updates to come throughout the week so lets jump right in!

Previously to this session, my group and I had a meeting with our lecturer to discuss feedback on our current scratch track. We were surprisingly pleased to find out that we are definitely headed down the right path and that only minor changes were to be made! As I've stated in previous blogs, everybody in my group including myself is new to electronic music production. Considering this, we knew that there would be obvious bugs! Luckily, these bugs were easily fixed as we simply had to add more punch to our kick as well as a few more creative elements throughout our drop! Therefore, our instant solution was to book it to the studio and get cracking as soon as possible!

In the MIDI Studio at SAE Institute West End, Brisbane working on the track! Photo by yours truly!

Firstly, the kick

To hear that our kick wasn't punchy enough in the mix was rather surprising to me at first as I had layered three seperate kick drums on top of each other for that particular section of the track. However, I soon came to find that treating kick drums like a Jenga tower can be a risky manoeuvre as they can fall apart just as easily as you stacked them up. To fix this problem, our lecturer suggested that we splice and consolidate the kicks together to form one and then re-EQ them. This was a skill we had learned in a previous lecture which actually seemed like a very interesting idea and concept to try out. By taking the main impact from the Ekali Blessings Kick and fusing it with the body and tail from the Ekali Gemini and Threatz Kick (respectively), we were able to create a solid, stand-alone kick drum that was able to punch right through the mix and stand out.

For anybody who is interested in what kick samples we are using in this track, they are all part of the Ekali Collection by Ekali. This is a free online sample pack which I have listed under the link below for anybody who wishes to download it!

https://www.flstudiomusic.com/2015/06/ekali-releases-ekali-collection-free-sample-pack.html

Secondly, the bass line and melodies

In the original scratch track that we presented to our lecturer, the track did not yet have a top-line melody and had a rather basic bass line. After quickly resolving the kick issue, we immediately set out to create a unique melody and bass line for the track to give it a little more character. After brainstorming for about an hour and trying desperately not to recreate Shelter by Porter Robinson and Madeon, we finally stumbled across a melody we believed gave a nice tone to the chords and synth stabs in the build-up. It has not yet been decided whether or not this melody will be included in the drop of the track however as we believe the drop is currently fine as it is. You know what they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

And last but not least, structuring

After finally addressing our feedback and fixing all of our minor errors, we decided it was time to finally move on from the drop, at least for a little while. Over the course of the next two studio sessions, the entirety of the track will slowly come to life with the construction of both verse and chorus sections as well as the bridge and outro of the track. In it's current state, the track has two choruses and drops with the second drop yet to be altered. However, the track seems to already be exceeding 3 minutes in length so in order to prevent the song from being drawn out, the transitions between the sections are going to be short and concise. For example, as shown below, the transition out of the first drop into the second verse will be a 2 bar long impact kick, accompanied by a short burst of white noise. As soon as these two bars end, the beat will kick back in to maintain the 'post-drop' groove throughout the second verse. You can expect many transitions like this throughout the track because we all know that nobody wants to hear a song fade away to nothing and then suddenly drop back in as if nothing ever happened.

As always, keep checking in to see when I'll be posting next and you never know, they may another juicy blog for you to read! Until next time guys, peace!

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