Song Info
Name of the track: Adaptation
BPM: 120
Key: D Phrygian (goes to F Phrygian at the end)
WAV:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uTLsO ... vB-cUNXzeX
MP3:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MsVbv ... r1jHKV_BwA
Since this month´s challenge has a focus on sound desing rather than songwriting I´ll be more specific on the first topic.
DRUMS
For the kick I blended two different samples: one kick from Marks´s "Chill out drums" and Mister Fox´s "Stomp", I rolled off the high frequencies on the first one and cut the lows on the second one, also reduced about 10dB on 1Khz area and boosted 8dB on 3Khz.
For the snare I used mutiple layers, the first one being my own sample "metal hit" which gave most of the high end, I slowed down the initial attack by changing the envelope on my sampler to around 31ms, added compression and hpf at 300hz.
The second layer was a "clap" that I made by sampling a click noise at the end of evk´s "bass" sample, added distortion, filtered both high and low end and used chorus to widen up the stereo width, printed all fx and then loaded into a sampler.
The third layer is the "punch" of the snare since it was lacking in low end information, I used Olly Audio´s "mix samples 36", trimmed the end, added compression and transient shapers to get a hard hitting sound, scooped the mids while boosting the fundamental freq at 192hz and the attack frequencies at 4Khz.
For the second and third chorus I added a reverse snare to lead into each snare hit, this sample was the snare from "chill out drums" with a long reverb at almost 100% wet, I printed the fx and then reversed it.
Hihats: for this I also blended two samples, one of which was made using the white noise sample from the general WAV files folder, simply by adding a dynamic envelope to it thus making a short and long version, the second sample It´s so processed that I can´t honestly tell from which sample it derived exactly but it´s got to be of evk´s samples, possibly the guitar one,I used distortion and eq to bring out the high frequency harmonics this sound was similar to the stick sound of a real hihat.
FX:
The snare has a modest send to a simple long decay and bright reberb and also a send to a delay set to 1/8T and with a chorus to increase the stereo width.
Bass: I simply used olly audio´s bass sample and filtered out the high frequencies starting at 2Khz, added some parallel compression
Keys/background chords:
To make this sound I started with my own flute sample, tuned it in melodyne and rendered it, after importing into a sampler I added a detuner to make it stereo, compressed it and filtered the high frequencies since the harmonics were really harsh, after that I pitch shifted the whole thing one octave down. At the start of the fisrt chorus I automated the pitch shifter to add another two copies of the track one octave higher respectively at lower levels which gave it an electric organ type of sound imo, theres also a parallel copy of the track with the low frequencies filtered out and with added saturation.
Chorus melody synth:
Again I made this sound by blending two different samples, the first one was a fragment of donkey´s guitar loop 01, I extracted one of the first string noises since I noticed a clear pitch in it, I filtered the low frequencies and tuned the sample, after that I added extra compression and eq, after that I created a reverb send which was compressed through sidechain so that the tail of the reverb would come up after the dry signal was quiet.
The other layer was based on Mister Fox´s "water heater (pick up tea mug)", again the mug hit had a very clear pitch to it so I filtered and isolated the fundamental frequency and compressed the crap out of it until I got a very "spiky" sound.
Both sounds play simultaneously at the same octave except when the chorus repeats, at that point the second layers goes up an octave higher to increase the energy level.
Verse melody synth:
The sample I used for this sound was Mister Fox´s "Fan Fast", I tuned it, brought it into a sampler, then boosted 8db around 2.6Khz, added a copy of itself an octave below and at a lower level and added a detuner to make it stereo. This sound is also the main layer on the extra chords on the second and third chorus.
Chorus extra chords:
I took a small fragment from evk´s guitar sample after adding a virtual amp and speaker sim, it was a very quiet accidental note at the end of one take that I amplified and stretched using paulxstretch, then filtered the high end at 4.5Khz and compressed, added a send to a medium decay reverb.
Bridge "Violin":
It´s essentialy the same same sound as the chorus extra chords except I gave it a slower attack (480ms) and release (340ms) with the sampler and added some modulation through a slow rate chorus.
Fake cymbals and transitions:
I made two versions of crashes/rides one by using the white noise sample and the electric toothbrush sample, tweaking the envelope, adding chorus, eq and a lot of reverb, the transitions were made in a similar way adding extra modulation and delays.
When it comes to the songwriting element I´ll say that the main challenge I put myself through was to keep the track interesting while keeping the same harmonic background (main chord progression is only 2 chords repeated), also I managed to add a key modulation that I think flows naturally so I´m pretty happy about that
All feedback welcome, I´d like to hear different opinions.
