Mix Challenge

Started out by experimenting with the Chord Trigger and Scripter stock MIDI plugins in Logic. Fooled around with the stock “Guitar Open Chords” preset for Chord Trigger and then got curious what would happen if I combined each resulting chord with its own mirror image in terms of MIDI note numbers (hence the name for the track), so I wrote a two-liner MIDI processing script for Scripter to do the mirroring, then put unmirrored chords on an Acoustic Guitar patch and mirrored chords on an Electric Piano patch. Turned out if I choose the mirror point strategically, then most generated chords when accompanied by their own mirror image tend to sound quite jazzy and interesting.

Equipped with my “instant jazz generator”, I started jamming on my MIDI keyboard against a 12/8 shuffle-feel drum machine sequence that I had created out of boredom a few days earlier, in order to find some interesting chord progressions by trial and error essentially.

As for that drum sequence - some readers have probably already noticed that on my screenshots, the time signature and tempo of my Logic project are both “wrong” because I had initially started making a drum beat in a 4/4 step sequencer, but then my brain suddenly pivoted and I decided to make a shuffle beat instead so I just increased the number of steps in the sequencer and clicked away. Only after my shuffle beat was already done did I discover that my project was still stuck at 4/4 time signature. I never figured out how to change the time signature and tempo of the project after the fact in a manner that didn’t mangle up my beat in some way. Since I’m such a noob to Logic, I just left the project time signature at 4/4, and left the tempo as I had originally tapped it in for 4/4. Figured it’s fine since the 8th note grid still matches up with my shuffle beat even though some 4th notes and bar lines do not, and I wasn’t planning to use the metronome at all since I already had a beat going to guide me in tracking the rest of the instruments. Also, I wasn’t planning to enter too many MIDI notes manually either, since I’m using a MIDI keyboard for real-time recording.

After having found a few intriguing chord progressions by chance, I recorded those as MIDI loops. Felt that a trumpet would fit well on top as the main solo instrument, so improvised a main theme using Logic’s stock “Studio Trumpet” patch on top of one of the progressions.

This is a good place to admit that the chord generator took me places that would have otherwise never occurred to me had I not been using a chord generator, and that some of the chord progressions weren’t exactly “Autumn Leaves” either. I had absolutely no idea what specific notes my chords were made of. I still don’t, since I don’t possess the gift of perfect pitch and I also ran out of time to render out the generated MIDI stream as a normal MIDI clip in order to inspect the actual chord notes. All I can see are just trigger notes. Even if I hadn’t run out of time and had inspected the actual chord notes, it would have still been an enormous effort to reverse-engineer chord symbols out of them.

Was still missing bass, so decided to go with synth bass. When it came to recording the bass - there was, again, lots of trial and error involved before I finally started getting some bass lines down that actually made some sense with those “incognito” chord progressions. Made good use of Mod Wheel and Aftertouch on synth bass during the psychedelic middle section.

I did my mixing moves (EQ, Compression, Aux Bus FX) as soon as I had the main theme section recorded, this way I was able to record the remaining sections at maximum inspiration due to a better sounding and therefore more immersive foldback, so to speak. Once I got all the sections recorded and arranged, as well as some unnecessary bits cut out from a few places, I called the track done. Well, I had to, because time was running thin by then and I still had to write this documentation.

PS: I would be happy to also share my Logic project file for this track in case anyone's interested, just let me know if so!

PPS: Isn’t this the longest documentation rant you’ve ever read?

I have a hard time getting chords going for my tunes. I'm not that much into music theory but I have a good ear so I usually end up building the bass notes and drawing notes to create chords from there (or straight up choose a loop from my collection and go from there), so what I needed was a chord progression to use as a base for my work. ChatGPT provided it to me in American notation, and then I could use the Stamp tool in FL Studio to draw each one in the MIDI pattern. After that it was a matter of moving notes around to get to the inversions I wanted, and changing them up a bit to fix the last chord (wasn't of my liking after all the discussion with GPT) and to create variations to make it loop after 16 bars.




The genre of the track is Liquid Drum & Bass, and at this point I'm very familiar with it so I didn't get crazy with the arrangement. An Addictive Keys piano for the main chords, another Addictive Keys for the stuttering pad (that's the preset name), some samples for a few pads (I think given away for free in 2020) and some Korg Wavestation instances for others. The bass is made in Vital, simple rolling bass with a macro for automation that makes the sound slightly bigger. I made the drums combining some DnB samples (kick and snare) with a few loops and two acoustic drum breaks.

The structure and arrangement of the track is made with DJing in mind (so, very musically simplistic in nature, long sections, including intro and outro to mix), and it might also receive vocal parts in the near future so I wanted to leave as much space as possible. Still, it's unfinished and it would need some more variation in drums (breaks/fills), a few more FX samples to keep in interesting and aid the section changes, another bass sound to do the call-response thing, and some more melodic hooks.




The track is in F# minor, 174 BPM, 5:20.

As for effects, I don't do anything crazy with them either. I got all tracks organised in buses so I can glue sounds together into cohesive elements:

• In the Drums bus, I've got a TDR Limiter 6 for light compression (-1dB of GR), a VintageVerb in a very small ambience preset, and a slight saturation with Distructor from FL.
• For the Melodic elements I put a Twangstrom spring reverb (medium room I guess) and a FL Parametric EQ 2 with a high pass filter around 100Hz to prevent-cut any extreme lows. Apart from that, a Fruity Limiter acting as a sidechain compressor (from the Kick).
• In FXs I have another Distructor to saturate/distort lightly, and another Twangstrom reverb (with more wet signal) for more spring reverb goodness (very UK DnB feel).
• For the Bass I have another Distructor to distort and bit crush the bass, an FL Parametric EQ 2 to emphasise the mid frequencies (so it can be heard more easily) and another Fruity Limiter for side chain compression with the kick, again.

The rest of the tracks might have a few EQs for frequency removal or for filtering automation (the main piano and some chord stabs) and a Valhalla Delay or VV for space/long tail, but nothing interesting. Apart from that there's a send with a huge reverb (another VintageVerb), getting input from the FXs bus, Hive lead (the sonar-like sound in the drops), chord stabs and some intro drums (the clicks that play the main drum beat in the intro and outro), although it's so low in volume that it might not be needed.

In the master I only have a u-he Satin instance (for glue, and for some unknown reason it actually does something! even if my monitoring setup is less than ideal) and a TDR Limiter 6 with the compressor and limiter modules to get it to around -1 dB TP and -14 LUFS integrated. The measurements in Reaper (used only for the "mastering" process, the track was made in FL Studio entirely) and TDR Limiter 6's meter unit are -1.1 dB TP and -14.2 LUFS integrated.