Specialist Project – Evaluation

At the beginning of this project all I knew is that I wanted to create some music, more specifically Drum and Bass. Music is always something that’s influenced me, and apart from focusing my spare time on it, it’s now something I feel I need to focus all my energy on. I have a passion for it, an interest in it and a willingness to succeed. But for the purposes of this unit I needed a better goal than just to make music, and reasoning behind that goal to back my ideas up.

So I decided to look at another aspect of my life that has a large influence on me, rave culture. I have always had a firm belief that raving, for the millions worldwide who do it, is a modern day religious experience, and is in fact becoming a NRM (New Religious Movement). And what makes a rave so special? The music. The community. So why not mix influences of religion and spirituality with Drum and Bass?

For research I had a rather broad range of things to look at, possibly to broad. So I decided to look at things I felt were specific to what I was looking at, like religion in England, and more specifically the decline of it. Black culture played a huge part in the formation of the Jungle scene and consequently rave culture as a whole, whilst there are also uncanny similarities between traditional tribal behaviour and raves, albeit at its primitive forms the influences are still noticeable today. Social Identity and the basic human need for a sense of belonging play a huge part in making rave culture the phenomenon it is today, as they give ravers overwhelming senses of both, as well as filling their need for ‘spirituality’.

Another aspect that needed a large part of my attention was music itself, but more specifically religious music and Drum and Bass. I needed to look at different forms of religious music to gain an understanding of it and find out what kind of influences I wanted to take into my Drum and Bass. So I looked at traditional praise music as well as choir and choral, tribal music, and older, orchestral pieces of music. To be honest, they all have their good and bad points, but certainly the uplifting, euphoric synths and strings and the occasional vocal were certainly the elements I wanted to transfer into the music from the off. And from listening to every form of Drum and Bass, which I do for fun anyway, liquid was the one that fit the bill perfectly, as it already uses harmonic synths and uplifting basslines as a basis for the sub-genre.

To start my creation process I needed to source a few samples that felt comfortable working with. After a while I decided on ‘Oh Happy Day’ as I liked the happy, uplifting vocals, a random one called ‘Si Ya Hamba’ that had African, tribal style singing that I immediately imagined fitting over a drum riff and ‘This Little Light of Mine’, which in the end proved to be too difficult to work with. To get the best quality downloads I made sure I bought them all legally, an essential ingredient in music production. I also knew I wanted to make a tribal sample, but that would involve me playing around with drum samples and patterns as opposed to remixing vocals or samples.

As I was a complete beginner to music production I watched as many tutorial videos as I could whilst generally playing around with the features in Ableton Live 8. It quickly became evident the main instruments I would be using were the drum rack, the sampler and the simpler, a smaller version of the sampler. I started with the drums, and soon became acquainted with the drum rack. Basically drum samples are dropped into a large grid, which if you have a midi keyboard will assign to the octaves and keys on that accordingly. You then draw where you want each sound on your new ‘live clip’ according to the beat pattern you want. This is the way all sounds are essentially produced, by drawing them onto a timeline that stretches over a set number of beats.

The samples and loops are then recorded into the arrangement view (Live has 2 views, session and arrangement), where effects and EQ’ing can be performed. Ableton comes with a selection of effects and filters to manipulate sounds, and many more can be downloaded. Effects don’t generally go with drums, EQ’ing is essential though, and brings out the high and/or low frequencies you want from your kit. When dealing with basslines and melodies both techniques come into play. To create these elements you need a good waveform to start with, and although this will be manipulated beyond recognition, a good starting sound is essential. There is a danger in having an endless choice of effects, before long sounds can become over effected and loose whatever it was that made them good in the first place, and can then be hard to get back to the original state.

I tended to find I used the filter, oscillator, L.F.O., EQ eight, Vocoder, Overdrive and Reverb more than any, and although I’ve still not fully explored every possibility of the program, these certainly sound the best from what I’ve explored. The process of controlling the effects is very like using animation software with the use of keyframing, and before long you can get immensely intricate with your attention to detail and timing.

The entire project was a learning curve for me, as I had never had a go at music production before, and although I played in an orchestra, in a band and am now a DJ, it certainly hasn’t come a moment to soon. Because it was my first time, I had a few issues when I got started, like finding my way around a large, new, daunting bit of software. But I have to admit my main problem by far was actually creating the sounds I had in my head! And even now they’re not quite there, but from what I’ve been told by professionals in the industry, it takes a while before your creating what’s actually in your head. But the progression is there certainly, and that is evident over the body of samples. The more I got used to the techniques, the better the sounds I was creating, and by the last sample, ‘Oh Happy Day’, I really felt I was beginning to crack the sound I wanted.

I definitely felt my drum riffs were showing a lot of promise from the start, and I seemed to get a lot of variation from my loops. It’s quite evident I like hard, punchy, clean sounding drums, as I feel these create the most ambiance within the mix whilst creating a full, solid sounding base for the rest of the tune to build on. As for the vocal’s, I like ‘Si Ya Hamba’, and feel it would sound quite good in a breakdown, but for what I want to do now probably beyond my capabilities, it really would need some serious work to become a Drum and Bass tune. ‘Oh Happy Day’ is certainly one I feel could be more realistic for now, as I think the sample I have at the moment works well, it just needs less use of the vocals. I could always add a tribal influence to the breakdown if I decide to go that route, but for now I definitely feel the ‘Oh Happy Day’ sample is the best and the one that sounds most professional. It needs more angelic synths and a slightly less intrusive bass sound but is certainly promising.

Even though I’m extremely happy with my progress so far, there is still so much more to explore. More instruments and effects, better use of the effects and more EQ’ing for perfect drums are but a sample of the things I’m still learning, but I feel I’m certainly on the right track. Not only have I achieved what I set out to do, I have done more. Originally I was going to produce 3/4, 20 to 40 second long samples, and I have ended up 7 main sample tests, most of which are over a minute. And even though one or two are pretty basic, they were development and helped me advance my knowledge hugely each time. My research helped me realise the connection between rave culture and religion, which has impacted on my samples, and I have taught myself the basics of music production with the view to expanding my knowledge much further in the near future.

In conclusion, I am not only eager to get going with the next part of the course now but have a good platform to build on for the duration. I really feel I’ve learnt a lot about the structure of music and the way sounds work with each other, as well as the importance of layering and EQ’ing to the finest details. I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute I have been learning and look forward to experimenting with more sounds and samples. Ableton is a great product. As for the sample I will use for my extended final major project, it has to be ‘Oh Happy Day’, although I’m sure it will sound very different to how it does now as I explore and uncover new, exciting techniques to use and manipulate my ideas with. All in all a success I feel.

Mike Dovey

BA Hons Digital Media Production

Evaluation word count – 1593

Ableton Samples – Oh Happy Day

happy day

happy day 2

OK so after some hard grafting throughout the festive season in my makeshift ‘studio’, I have finally managed to crack the Oh Happy Day sample. Admittedly it still needs work to sound perfect, but it’s on it’s way for sure, and I quite like the catchy, happy feel from the vocals, although at the moment they are used a bit too much. Cutting them down to every now and again instead of continuous would space them out and make them not so annoying by the end of the sample, but they definitely work, and in my opinion, work well over drum and bass, both in terms of sound and speed. It just goes to show religious music and fast tempo work together, most likely because of the way they conjure up imagery and create spiritual experiences. From reading ‘Tance Formation’ by Robin Sylvan, it highlights a study proving the way music plays a big part in inducing religious and spiritual experiences within the brain. Higher tempo just makes these experiences more intense.

But back to the tune. I wanted to make the listener feel like they were walking in on a choir practice so to speak, so to set the scene I created some distant sounding, ringing church bells using the ‘Simpler’ instrument and a waveform from the Live library. Then as the vocals come in and get louder, the drum and bass becomes evident. I certainly feel my production techniques have come on leaps and bounds since I started using Ableton, which I believe is evident in my work so far. The bassline in this one sounds just like something you’d hear in a professional tune, and although could possibly do with some work to fit with the vocals a little more, it’s certainly starting to sound like some real drum and bass. A bit to much ‘Jump Up’ possibly, could do with a smoother sound for nicer, liquidy feel, but certainly sounding sweet. Again the drums could do with some tweaking, a little cheesy at the moment, but some strong, full drums just sitting in and filling out the background would be perfect. More EQ’ing certainly needs to be done, but overall the sample is sounding much more like it. Certainly one that will be considered for working on in the final major project.

DC Breaks – Byrds of Prey

What can I say other than such a tune of epic biblical proportions from DC Breaks. Seriously watch out for these guys in the future. Absolutely love the vocals, and although they are made by ‘Bertie Blackman’ originally, the synths and melody just sound awesome and the transformation to drum and bass, in both speed and sound, just make the tune drip with energy and euphoria. If I can make something half as good I’ll be more than happy…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlzU2w_tsxc

Ableton Samples – Synth and Bass tests

synth and bass

This sample was originally supposed to be ‘Oh Happy Day’, and although I placed it into the timeline I never actually got round to trying to incorporate it in somewhere as I had spent so long trying to perfect the bass, and even then it’s not exactly what I had in mind, but it’s close. I had a higher pitched more whooshing sound in my head that I’ve almost replicated with the filter effect but not quite got. I had experimented with many effects on many copies of the original waveform and although most just got over effected some were cool and I incorporated into the sample, switching every 16 beats once the drums have kicked in. I’ve also added a lovely synth that sounds ‘choiresk’, as well as a sub bass that goes underneath the whole tune. These elements help create the euphoric element of the tune. I wanted to make a sound that makes you feel like your flying through a beautiful, sunny sky, as that to me is what I imagine when having visions while listening to music, and they are the ‘religious experience’ I feel and would like to replicate. All these layers really help build up a full sounding clip, and you can really tell the difference between a sample with and a sample without layered sounds. I also added in one of my own recorded sounds here, the ‘mouth water drop’, at the end of every 32 when the drums kick in. It sounds pretty cool, although this is where I discovered my samples had only recorded in the right channel, which was kind of annoying. This must have been because the mic only had one jack output going into one channel input on the Fostex recorded I was using. So in future when I record sounds I need to make sure they are recorded over left and right so they can be used properly, and although I tried panning the sound in Ableton it just didn’t have the desired effect. This unfortunately put most of my samples out of use for the moment, but not to worry, as these are only working samples at the moment.

So overall I am extemely happy with my development in Ableton at the moment and am enjoying the experience greatly, eagerly awaiting my next chance to break out the midi key board and trying out a few new ideas and experiments. There is still so much to learn and discover, most of which I probably still wont have found by the time this year is up, but I shall keep exploring and endeavouring to make new sounds and driving drum patterns, and shall hopefully produce some really inspired, culturaly influenced drum and bass to work with.

Ableton Samples – Synth and Bass tests

bass test 2

bass test 1

bass test 3

For this sample I wanted to get some kind of organ sounding element involved, some long, drawn out notes reminiscent of those heard when entering a church before a service, in the background to fill the silence of the large, open church. OK, so not your typical organ sound I know, needs lots of work before I get a proper organ sound, but it replicates it well enough for me now to have a play around with some more effects and experiment with some more sounds. The original sample was taken from a trumpet sound, which I cat a small section of making a droning noise on the notes I knew I wanted to work with, as demonstrated in sample number 2. This would form the basis of the bass riff. Duplicating this original riff I added and keyframed filters to make the ‘wobbing’ sound, which can be seen in the image below by the pink lines in the main window.

Again its all down to trial and error, and for every few hours you spend searching through sound effects and experimenting with parameters you only really ever find a few decent outcomes, and even then most aren’t followed up as they only contain an element of what you have in your mind. It’s like someone said to me, having the ideas and actually being able to make them properly on screen are completely different things entirely. And I have to admit it’s true, I have ideas for amazing tunes all the time, but actually getting the right sound at the moment is near on impossible, there’s just so much to experiment with and so many ways of doing things, but I’m learning, and enjoying it, which is the main thing. The main thing I learned from this sample is layering sound is essential, especially the bass or melody, and helps the audio sound more powerful, giving it more body and strength.

Ableton Samples – Synth and Bass tests

hospitality

This was made predominantly from the Danny Byrd sample pack, using a selection of his drum sounds and synths etc. Great buy from hospital records shop, £25 and there’s others from Cyantific, Nu-Tone and Syncopix. Looking forward to buying more and having an experiment! The drum pattern is really simple on this one, and really works wonders. Exactly as I said before, simple is sometimes better. It’s full enough to carry the tune and steppy enough to keep it funky while not being too strong in the balance and overpowering other elements of the audio. The off beat pattern creates a kind off ‘swaying’ motion, and this is the great diversity of drum and bass as opposed to other forms of rave music such as hardcore and techno, to drum and bass you can move in any direction where as other forms of electronic music are very static in their ‘up down’ movement.

The synth was made from a sample on the pack that I cut a section from (as shown above), and added effects to to manipulate into a different sound to work with. After tweaking the sound into something I liked using mostly reverb, a little overdrive and some filter, I proceeded in making a melody from the sound. Although it’s not exactly ‘heavenly’ sounding, it has a certain feel to it that makes it almost euphoric. Its hard to put my finger on it, it could be the notes, or the frequency, theres just something I like about this kind of sound that does it for me. A few producers have used this kind of sound in tunes, and every ones a smasher (Fresh – Gold Dust, Shock One – Polygon, Shock One and Phetsta – The Sun).

The melody is made in a similar way to the drums, except you use a sampler for the sound. You can get different types of sampler available as plug ins, creating even more strength and depth. You can manipulate the sound into almost anything from here. A midi keyboard is a great help when working on a melody, as you can sit a test what sounds good and works well with each other over your drums before drawing anything on the actual time line. After a play around with my M-Audio Oxygen8 midi keyboard I came up with a riff I liked and proceeded to draw it onto the grid. The slightly off beat feel to the rhythm works well with the drums, complimenting and flowing with the patterns, although getting onto the computer what you just played is certainly harder than it originally seems. But then when you get it right it all seems worth it.

Ableton Samples – Si Ya Hamba

test 1 si ya hamba

test 2 si ya hamba

test 3 si ya hamba

test 4 si ya hamba

test 5 si ya hamba

I’d sourced this vocal off i-Tunes from a Christian ’50 Greatest Acapellas’ album. I really like it, and think it could be epic if done right. Think it’s catchy and can imagine a drum beat under it just from listening to the acapella. But actually fitting a beat to it is another thing, as I quickly found out. Obviously as part of a choir they probably weren’t singing to a constant beat, and so I needed to tweak the bpm in different areas of the sample to fit over the drums (shown below). You can tweak any area in between to set markers, and after a few hours fiddling with at times the minutest area, I’d managed to make it fit over perfectly.

Now I had to place the drums at the right moment to start, as they needed to start on the ‘Hamba’ not with the beginning of the vocals. Zooming right into the timeline meant I could see the exact moment to start so the beat would carry perfect throughout. At first I used a loop from one of the sample packs I’d downloaded just to get the vocals fitting smoothly, but I promptly set about making some of my own beats together as well as mixing my own and made loops with each other to create new ones. There really are endless possibilities when it comes down to it, but I feel the vocals work best with the beats in samples 3 and 4, probably because I produced them and they are by themselves. The samples with two beats playing together have too much going on, and although chopping and changing beats can be done blending them doesn’t always sound particularly good.

Ableton Samples – Tribal Beats

tribal beats

Through listening to tribal drum performances it’s quite blatant to see how they can be used in pretty much any form of music, even if it is just a minor influence. Big pounding bass drums and catchy bongo patterns, either way cool sounds if done correctly. And I think that’s the main thing with tribal beats, they have to sound right. It was only when doing this sample did I really start to understand the importance of EQ’ing drums, as the original sounds can sometimes be limiting, and adding or taking away elements of the EQ’s can give you a much fuller sound. Again, it’s all trial and error, as sometimes EQ’ing didn’t have a good effect, like on the bongos, which sounded perfect as they were.

To start with I wanted a big, pounding drum sound to act as the basis for all the other drums. My idea was to layer the sounds up, adding a new one every 32 beats, as you can see from the start of the compilation (above) as opposed to the end (below). Same drum rack, just new layers adding a new element each time. If I were making a real tune here I’d probably decide to start with more than one sound, adding a couple each time so its not dragged out too long, but for now I want to see how each one sounds coming in. It takes a minute to get into it, but by the time the second underlying kick drums come in it starts to sound pretty tribal. I’d probably add those to the start if it were a real tune, as they definitely give the sample so much more body. But I do like the idea of layering up the sounds, and by the time all the elements are in it has a catchy rhythm that’s tribal crossed modern. The bongos are the best part, a cheeky, catchy little pattern that flick in and out of beat but make you move. There are still many more sounds you could add to the mix, and I sourced loads more, but it’s fitting them in well and not over crowding the beat you have to remember. Simple is sometimes better, because it can depend on the melody and bass to structure the drums and times, and visa verse. At the end of the day you can always go back and add or subtract more if its needed.

Ableton Samples – Drum Experiments

So one of the first things I knew I would need to look at were Drum loops and patterns, as there are literally endless numbers of combination’s of drums and drum samples to add together and mess around with. This is immediately the first great thing I notice about music production software, you have access to almost every and any sound imaginable from the ease of your most comfortable chair at home. With traditional forms of music you have to source each sound from it’s original environment and this can be tricky. You can still manipulate the sound in the same ways, in fact in many more, but creating music on a computer does lose the energy gained from a live performance. So the many more positives outweigh the negatives in my opinion, as people into the music still gain the same experience either way. At the end of the day, if you produce good music people will enjoy it.

drum experiments

To make this I made a simple bass line to keep it going, although this sample really isn’t about the bass it’s about the beat underneath and experimenting with different drum patterns. I wanted to see the effect of these patterns as they played out underneath a rhythm. Drums have different purposes depending on where and how they are used. For example, at the start I use a few kick drums to prepare the listener for the beat, and before they fully kick I build up the tension by building these drums, speeding them up to create an air of excitement. Don’t get me wrong, still very basic but you get the idea.

To make the drums you need a ‘drum rack’ found in the instruments folder. Finding the right drums to use can take a while as there are so many samples to look through, especially if you have downloaded external sample packs as these contain even more drum samples and loops. It’s really down to the producer as to what drum sounds to use, as each individual will like different sounds for different reasons. Personally I like clean, sharp, distinct sounds, which is probably one reason I like drum and bass so much. Digital does seem to be the best way to replicate these sounds, as there is so much you can do to the EQ’s etc to make the perfect sound. Again here, its up to the producer to decide whether or not to use loops or samples for drum beats. I wanted to use samples so I could make my own loops and experiment myself with patterns and how they work with each other.

I’ve used a few different styles of beats in this piece, blending some ‘drum and bass step’ with some original ’4 to the floor’ patterns (you can see these in the ‘drum rack’ section of the main window in the image above, each rectangle block is a new beat). They both have their uses in different scenarios, and both types of pattern can be used in my final audio sample. I have to admit, making drums in incredibly addictive, I sat for days just sourcing nice sounds to use and rearranging them little by little  to see how they sounded in relation to each other, on the off beat and on beat creating minimal yet inspired changes to beats. Again, its all down to trial and error, sometimes patterns worked sometimes they didn’t.

Final acappella samples

Si Ya Hamba:

Si Ya Hamba-verse

I really like this African, tribal style of singing and think it could definitely be used in a breakdown. Some tribal style drums and a nice liquidy bass line and it could be epic. Sample would have to not be overused though.

Oh Happy Day:

Oh Happy Day 01

Oh Happy Day 02

Oh Happy Day 03

Oh Happy Day 04

Oh Happy Day 05

I think the ‘Oh Happy Day’ sample could fit in perfectly with a drum and bass track. A nice, catchy, uplifting vocal with a rolling drum beat and smooth bass line. As I sated before, I didn’t want anything to god orientated so I chose to cut out the rest of the vocals just leaving the ‘Oh Happy Day’. This is enough of a similarity and still conjures up imagery without being to full on or cheesy.

This Little Light of Mine:

23 This Little Light of Mine

Although I find the lyrics rather catchy and bouncy, I’m not actually sure this would work without using the entire sample. And then it’s quite a long, repetative sample. Maybe cutting a section and adding effects would work, but the other two I can imagine straight away where as this one I can but just not as well. I think it’s the vocals crossing over each other, makes it hard to define start and end cuts. Annoying, and as I cant find another decent acappella then maybe not one to pursue.