Initial track progression – Ableton Live
So now we move onto the really interesting bit. As you will have already read over, I went off and created a set of beats and sound loops in Ableton Live with the idea of testing them on peers, finding out which were most popular and proceeding to create a track from what people liked the most, and with what I could work with the best. For this track I chose to use beat 2 and sound loop 2, which at the time I found particularly catchy.
One of the most important things to consider when creating a track is to just get the ideas down on the page in the space of a few days, not worrying if it sounds amazing but just getting down all the musical ideas in place so you have a full ‘track’ to work with. This way at any stage you can work on any part of the track and if something isn’t going right you can move to another part and come back to the bit you are stuck on. Here is the ‘road map’ (the initial few days arrangement and musical ideas of the track) of this particular track:
So this was made over the space of 2 full days in the studio, and like I said, used the patterns I had created for some of my experiments. As I have already stated how I made these 2 elements I will only briefly run over it again. The drums were created in a drum rack, but separately for each sound, so the kick has it’s own drum rack and the snare has it’s own, and this is then grouped as the overall drum kit, as shown below in the session view of Ableton. Ableton has 2 views, session which is like a mixer and can hold multiple audio loops in each channel, and arrangement (all other screen shots show this) which is where the structure, build and automation of the track occurs.
To have progression on the drums over the space of the track I took out kicks from the start so that as the track builds up the drums also become more complex. This also acts to build up speed and energy when the track is in full swing, creating more sound and movement to get into. The kicks, snares and hats are layered up, the kick has 2 kicks, one EQ’d bass and the other mid (bass kick at around 110Hz frequency), the snare has just the one really hard hitting (EQ’d at around 174Hz frequency) and the hats are layered and EQ’d to take out any low end frequncies to be left with clean, crisp sounds. For the hats I have a loop taken from a sample pack and chopped into my own arrangement, a layer of my own open and closed hats for added bounce, rides to help create speed when the tune fully kicks in, a crash to highlight drops and main kicks, a couple of chopped up bongo loops sliced together to create a new rhythm and some groove to the beat and an underlying ‘Amen’ break to fill out the overall drum riff. The ‘Amen’ break is one of the most widely used breaks within the drum and bass scene, and has been chopped and changed into multiple variations over the years and is sampled in almost every drum and bass tune to create extra flow and like I said, fill out the beat. To add space to the mix I auto panned (panning is when you switch between left and right speakers) all the hats bar the ride and crash. Panning the hats between the left and right audio channels acts to space apart the beat, giving it depth as it makes the listener aware that sounds are coming at them from every direction. At this point it is probably a good idea to explain about Mono and Stereo sound, as this hugely effects the outcome of the track. Basically Mono is where all the audio signals are coming out of the speakers through one channel, and Stereo uses multiple audio channels to best replicate the sound. When using Stereo sound it is essential that the entire listening area must have an equal coverage of both the left and right channels, at equal levels, to create a ‘sweet spot’ and get the best sound available. Other effects I stuck onto the hats were multiband dynamics (for effective processing), frequency shifter (for atonal harmonics) and a flanger on the kick (which effects the kick making it sound very slightly different each time it hits). After creating the arrangement and adding where all the drum rolls and fills would go I was ready to start incorporating the sounds.
The sound itself was sampled from a sample pack, chopped up and placed in parts into Abletons ‘Impulse’ instrument, which is primarily to slice bits from drum loops to create your own pattern although essentially I was doing the same thing but with synths. This then allowed me to make my own riff from the parts I had selected, as you can see below (impulse bottom left, note structure in arrangement).
Once I had my riff in place, it was a question of how to make that sound more full and rounded, so I proceeded in trying out a few effects like reverb and delays. The delay sounded really good, and you can hear this in action over the intro, but with too many effects it started sounding distorted and grungy, and I like clean crisp sounds, so I decided to leave it at the delay. But still the sound was not quite full enough for me, so I proceeded in making 3 copies of the riff, EQ’ing one with bass, one with mid and the other high. This way the sound was immediately spreading further across the frequency range giving me a much stronger, fuller sound to work with. All 3 patterns were exactly the same otherwise, just EQ’d differently. Now I had 3 copies of the same riff it opened up new ideas in terms of structure. I could have just the bass riff, or just the mid riff playing, which meant I could then chop and change between layers allowing for much more progression and build. You can hear this clearly over points in the initial road map, where I leave say just the bass layer playing for a few bars, then add back in the other layers beefing the sound back out. Any music track needs a small amount of time to allow the listener to regain their energy, making the build up to the next drop just as energetic as the first, as the crowd can never keep going for a full track without lacking towards the end. This way I can control the audiences reactions at certain points in my track.
Now I had my basic loop and riff sorted, I proceeded in trying out a few ideas for the breakdown. Again as I already stated, this part of the process was all about getting the ideas down, even if it sounded bad. So to begin with I just cut parts of the drums so that as the build up went on I could build the drums back up. So I left some high hats in taking away everything else bar the occasional kick and snare. The build up is essential in creating energy and hype ready for the drop, which needs to be full on and hard hitting for most impact. At the end of the day, with drum and bass it is all about the impact felt when a tune hits its crescendo, if there is no impact the tune sounds shallow. At this point in time the drop was not anywhere near ready, but you get the idea from the build up in place at the moment.
After the arrangement and musical ideas are down, the idea was to leave it for a week and then come back to it to develop the sounds, the reason being if I had of carried on at this stage I would have been too immersed in the sound, not really being able to tell what actually sounded good and what sounded bad as it all would have sounded very repetitive as I would have heard each sound a million times. So after leaving for a week or so I came back to it:
After listening to the original road map, I noted down a few areas that needed attention straight away, mainly the breakdown and some variation in the track somewhere just to break it up that bit more. I started with the breakdown, looking at the extensive range of effects and instruments Ableton Live has to offer. Many of these inputs have their own presets as well, so not only can you entirely create your own effect, you can modify an existing one to your liking or just use a preset of your choice. For this I used the ‘Hot Cue’ feature on Ableton, which meant I could loop a segment of the track and switch through the presets at the click of a button which would change the sound accordingly, an incredibly useful function. After sifting through a selection, I delved deeper into the Chorus effect, as I liked the way it echoed the sound, making it slightly more acoustic and as if it were in an open hall, choosing the ‘Strings Submix’ preset then tweaking the reverb depth and compressor ratio. This made a huge difference, but didn’t sound great as a transition into the breakdown. To combat this I automated the reverb depth (which is basically key-framing in something like After Effects) to come on a little at the start of the breakdown, gradually increase and then decline as the breakdown ends which almost widens the sound, distancing it from you then coming back towards you, which worked nicely. But there was still something missing from the build up, so I varied the riff pattern to become quicker and more glitchy nearer the main drop, in the hope that quicker sounds would generate more energy. This worked to an extent, but it still sounded a little weak, so I looked at firstly dropping the melody completely, then dropping the drums completely to see if the break in sound would make the kick into the main body of tune harder. Again this worked as an idea, but didn’t really sound too good either way, so I decided to leave it for the time being and come back to it at a later stage once the tune had developed a little further.
As I was listening through the tune, I have to admit I got a bit too used to the drums, and although they are pacey, energetic drums with a lively pattern I definitely thought some variation was needed (as shown below). As you can see, the main drum pattern is to the left of the arrangement, there is a fill to help transition the drums and then the new pattern comes in to the left of the arrangement. I decided to drop it down to a half step beat to drop the tempo for a second, enabling me to build the track back up again, but also to add variation, mixing things up a little to help keep interesting. I think it sounds wicked, especially with the drop in melody as well, where I have taken away the mid range layer, stifling the sound pushing it almost underground, although the build again needed a bit of work before it would sound OK.
At this stage I was ready to copy over the second half of the tune, and after I had listened to it there was one main thing I felt needed to change, it needed to have more layers, more sounds, another sub melody and a nice sub bass to fill out the tune and just generally give it some more atmosphere. Again with before after a couple of days in the studio leave it and come back to it after a break. Here is the track at it’s third stage of progression:
If you are not listening to this on half decent speakers then you probably can’t hear the sub bass. The whole point in a sub bass is that it’s at the very end of the frequency scale, taking up those frequencies from around 20Hz to 100Hz that move the inside of your body and aren’t always picked up by low quality speakers. These deep, sub sounds are not always hugely noticeable but are an essential part of a drum and bass track, as I said before extending your sound as far across the frequency range as possible creates the fullest sound. At the end of the day it’s called drum and bass, and without a proper bass range it just sounds weak and empty, which this did at the time. So it was important to get something in that hit these frequencies. I had tried to get there with the bass EQ’d version of the melody, but there wasn’t enough bass in the note in the first place to achieve this, so I made my own with a riff pattern that used the same root note/key (B minor) and some of the same notes but in a less complicated, simpler pattern as it was a sub bass that needs to lie underneath the tune and not get too much in the foreground.
I then proceeded in loading up one of the most well known and respected VST plug ins called Massive. Massive is an extremely versatile synthesizer that many top class producers in the scene use (http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/massive/). It comes with an extensive preset bank that has sounds to fit almost any purpose, that again can again be tweaked to personal preference. I had explored this bank of over 600 presets and noted down which ones were good (which was quite a few) a while back, although for the purposes of this I needed just a deep, low bass. So I chose a preset that fit the rough description (3 octave bass) and set about changing the parameters to give me the sound I was after (as shown below). I reverted the waves into 2 sin-square and a plysaw, which are better waves for a sub bass, and set about tweaking my own pitches, intensities, filters, feedback, more EQ’s and effects. As I had quite a high top end I really wanted just a smooth underlying sub bass to fill out the bottom end, so low pass filters and low pitches were essential. To get some more variation into the track I decided to use some of the riff patterns from the main melody simplified but using the sub bass, mainly where the drums go down to half speed, which switched up the audio nicely.
At a point where I was happy with the sub bass I decided to listen back to the whole track to see if it needed anything else, which I figured it did pretty quickly, as with the addition of the sub bass it was now lacking in something else, it needed a top end for the bass. Something to give it a bit more warmth. I was also beginning to feel the main melody riff was in fact not strong enough to fully lead the tune, it needed more happening, more layers, a lead with some bounce and something to take control a little more. So after choosing areas to apply the new sound to I again set about scanning the presets till I had something to work with, and for the moment again something just to stick down to see if it even helped the track, which it did, but as you can hear for yourself, sounded well cheesy. But the idea is there, and it does add to the track. I listen back now and have to admit it sounds bad, but it was that higher end, droning type of sound I wanted. At this I decided to again leave it for a few days and come back to it after a break from the sounds.
Here is the final track after the last few days of progression:
As you can hear, it has massively changed. When I came back to it and listened again I thought the extra sound over the top was way too cheesy, and didn’t fit the track at all, but I liked the idea and liked the structure. At the end of the day it was the same note pattern as the sub bass but over a quicker time period, so I figured it could easily be engaged across the whole tune like the sub bass is. I also realised the build up was too long and needed to be shortened, in fact the tune as a whole needed to be shortened and more to the point. Drum and bass is impact music and unless you can build that impact up over a long period of time well then the quicker the better basically, so I immediately cut out half the break down leaving the main build up.
The most vital aspect that was needed to tie the tune together now was the mid bass, and it was a tough one to crack, and even now I don’t feel it’s perfect, but it’s as close as I could get to what I was imagining, it was pretty close in the end anyway. I decided this time to try and replicate one of the existing synths myself, and after choosing an example (Detune Pulse) set to work. I placed a sin-square wave in oscillators 1 and 2, modifying the wt-positions, intensities, amps and pitches. In Oscillator 3 I placed a square-saw wave, again changing the same parameters to give me a nice smooth sound overall. Using different waves gives the sound not only more body but makes the sound almost move about itself, sweeping over the notes. At times, because the note pattern is very tight, you can’t really hear this, so for a bit of extra variation I extended a selection of the notes every other 8 bars to give a longer sounding riff so you can hear the movement in the sound. Back in Massive, I added low pass and all pass filters with very low resonance, effecting only the cut offs. To give it some body and distortion, I added some effects to the sound, namely reverb and a ‘tele tube’, a form of overdrive. I effected the dry/wet and drive parameters on the tube, and the dry/wet, size, density and colour parameters on the reverb. Some effects have more functions than others, it purely depends on how complex the effect is. Massive has it’s own EQ’ing functions which I took advantage on, boosting the sounds mid range to give it that body on top of the sub bass, as it follows the same note pattern. After adding and tweaking some feedback and a hint of delay my sound was complete.
This new sound gave me a better way of transitioning into the breakdown (shown above with the introduction of the dark blue segments), the involvement of a new sound, as long as it fits with the audio, always makes for a smoother transition as it something new and interesting. This made the break down sound much better, but now the main drop needed that full sound too. So I extended the new sound across the whole tune, following the same pattern as the sub bass, which I had tried to vary at the same time but differently to the changes in variation on the original melody riff, so that each riff would build and differ every 16 bars, a standard length in drum and bass. All tunes are set to a 16 bar (64 beat) pattern, so a tune will have 2 x 16 bars as an intro, 1 16 bar as a build, 4 as a main drop and so forth, set up in a continuous pattern so the DJ always knows where to drop a tune in time with another. This pattern is relatively standard across most forms of dance music, with the occasional exception, and this makes many tunes essentially ‘DJ tools’, which you must bear in mind as a producer, as if your tune is not DJ friendly it will not get played and heard.
The new sound was sounding good, and was completing the tune in many ways, but it still needed some more effects, so to transition from variations in riffs I added one of Ableton’s effects called Saturator (which distorts the sound in various ways), automating the parameters I found most effective, namely the overdrive feature of it. The gave me a more grungy sound but raised the levels somewhat, so I also had to automate the sound levels to go down as the drive went up, keeping the levels around the same throughout. I also added some filter delay, which can all be seen below.
The tune was all but done, and just needed some details to glue the arrangement together, such as explosions and whooshes, crashes and blips, more than anything to fill out the tune, aid the transitions and keep interest. It is easy to go overkill, and also easy to under do it. There needs a certain amount, but they need to change, vary, be fresh and not too often, as well as a having a few to play with. There are extensive sound fx packs available on the internet, and with pretty much any sample pack download you get an fx folder, so I already had a fair few to sift through. Once I had chosen a good selection, I proceeded in placing them into the arrangement in the appropriate places, like the explosion as it transitions into the break and the riser as it builds before the main drop and so forth. As the fx are only short sounds, there is not much need for further processing, the main aspect is to get the sound levels themselves right. As you probably told when listening to the final version, the effects really do help glue the whole track together as a whole, and keep it going and interesting. The tune itself varies enough to achieve this anyway, but the effects certainly help. After tweaking the arrangement a little and perfecting some of the automation’s the track was done and finished, although as I listen back now there is still more I think could change, like a bit more distortion on the mid, and bit deeper and crisper bass, but as a first completed track I am more than happy with the final outcome.
Here are the individual parts of the track so you can see the way the layers work at a basic level:
drum beat – the beginning beat
just the hats – the beginning hats
high EQ main melody – the beginning high glitchy riff
mid EQ main melody – the beginning mid glitchy riff
bass EQ main melody – the beginning bass glitchy riff
all 3 EQ main melody – the beginning all glitchy riff
mid bass – the beginning mid bass
sub bass – the beginning sub bass
mid and sub bass – the beginning sub bass and mid bass
This gives you an indication of how the sounds sound individually so you can compare with the final track, which I have named ‘The Beginning’, purely as it’s the first full track I have made.
