Cassidy – Battles with Waveform 11

Day 1: 

I began my Waveform journey on September 20th. I tried to find as much in common with Logic Pro X as I could, since I’m very familiar with that software. I tried to use Logic keyboard shortcuts many times through this

process. My first instinct was to look for software instruments and create a MIDI track, but I failed to do so – which was probably for the better. I dug up some old samples I downloaded a few years ago, and in my project I mostly used these.

Day 2:  

On September 23rd I put audio files into my project. I started with a synth lead loop that I really liked, and I added drum one-shots until I had a beat. Unfortunately (and this is something that happens a lot for me when I’m making music), I had a realization that the synth lead loop I was using sounded similar to another song (Good Thing by Zedd and Kehlani). I couldn’t get it out of my head, and I tried to shift the song in a different direction, but no matter how hard I tried I just thought of Good Thing. This sample is below. This was extremely limiting in my ability to think of other creative lines so I scrapped the synth loop and swapped it for a slightly slower (92 bpm) plucked guitar loop. I adjusted the drum beat I had slightly and made the kick hit on all four beats (I think this is called four on the floor) to keep the song sounding uptempo.

 

Day 3: 

First, I tightened the beat by putting EQ on each of the drum tracks which made it sound less messy overall. I thought that using only a clap as a snare sounded empty, so I backed it up with a snare drum as well. I put reverb on the clap to designate it as the wet part of the sound, and kept the snare drum dry so I had both wet and dry at once. 

The EQ I used on one of my drums. After learning more about filters, I am not sure that this was the best effect to use.

I added a crackle pad for my ambient sound and turned the volume way down. In the past I have gone a little crazy with ambient sounds in the background as a crutch, because the other tracks don’t sound like they fit together. Chirping birds is a personal favorite of mine, but in this song I went with the crackle to give it a lo-fi feel.

My volume automation curve on the crackle track. It fades out, then comes back in when the synth hits. This is a bit like sidechaining, which I will probably try to use next time instead.

Then began my battle with automation. I attempted to automate the volume of the crackle to cut out on the fourth beat every two measures right before the synth hit to give it emphasis. First I tried it intuitively but it wasn’t working, so I watched many videos. I was puzzled to see people doing the exact steps I was doing, but their automation was working and mine was not. In the end, it turns out I was doing everything correctly, but my automation was turned off. I must give credit to John Brockett for this idea. Eventually I found the green button, turned on automation, and breathed a sigh of relief.

The green button in the top left is what toggles automation on and off, in case anyone’s automation is mysteriously not working!

Day 4:

It was time to add vocals, which meant it was also time to decide what I wanted this song to be about. The slightly detuned synth hit was reminiscent of Glass Animals’ Dreamland album, which reminded me of a trip my friend and I went on to Vermont, when we listened to Dreamland nonstop. The acoustic guitar also brought me feelings of nature, so I wrote some lyrics about the Vermont trip and the sights we saw. The lyrics are mostly a list of the best things from the trip. We were at a woodworking school – Cassidy was a friend we made, and Swami G was a dog who lived in the school.

My vocal reverb

I recorded a few times in the bathroom since I knew I wanted the vocals to have more echo than the rest of the tracks. Unfortunately, recording far from my phone’s microphone made the recording quiet, and I had to bring down all the other tracks substantially – at least 12 dB. I decided instead to record very close to the microphone, and add reverb digitally to create the echo I wanted. I moved to the practice room in the basement of Pierson and this recording was successful. I doubled the vocal track and offset one track slightly, and pitched it up ten cents to make the sound fuller. I also designated one track as wet and the other as dry. I put chorus and reverb on the wet track and an EQ on the other track. 

In Logic, I’m used to using pitch correct on individual notes and formant shifter to get my voice to sound better. This recording was not fun to listen to at first because there are no vocal enhancements on it at all, however I am desensitized to it at this point and now I am okay with it. In retrospect, I buried the vocals in a little more reverb, and made them quieter than they should have been, so I didn’t have to listen to the raw vocals.

To enhance the trance feeling of the song, I used automation to give the plucked guitar loop a wobble, by automating the pan in small oscillations from left to right. 

Overall takeaways from the project:

  • Getting the recorded audio to sound like it fit with all the samples was difficult. I eventually got there with some effects but without them, the vocals sound much closer than the rest of the tracks. This may be because the other tracks are already echoey. I would love to use a microphone that does not require close miking to get a decently loud recording – this would allow me to hear the character of the room in the recording.
  • This project was a discovery of many different plugins. I learned that a little bit of reverb goes a long way, and like Michael, I learned that pitch shift is very helpful for combining samples originally in different keys.
  • Waveform does not have software instruments! Unless I’m not looking in the right place. This was a tool I utilized a lot when working in Logic, so this was a new experience for me.

Here’s the final track! It is called Cassidy.

2 thoughts on “Cassidy – Battles with Waveform 11

  1. I love the way you added vocals, your voice is so great! Sorry to hear about how you spent a long time figuring out why your automation wasn’t playing. I personally didn’t know that it could be turned off, so thanks for teaching me that. I feel that your lo-fi vibe definitely hit home, with a nice bassline, background, and beat. The only things that bother me are the wobble of the guitar (it makes my head feel trippy, might be a bit much), and the volume of the clap (it feels a bit too loud relatively). Overall, very catchy!

  2. So good! You genuinely have a really great voice. I’d 100% add both this—and your awesome HW4 submission—to my Spotify playlist! Such a chill groove (a great combination of, like, pop and lo-fi chill hop). Like, it could legitimately be on the radio. (And if I had heard this song on the radio, I wouldn’t have guessed at all that the track was mostly made of samples)!
    Also, as another person coming from Logic, I 100% agree: I also had no clue where the software instruments in Waveform were until we eventually covered Waveform’s MIDI functionalities in class. (Aaaargh, why wouldn’t they make the location of the instruments clearer? Come on, Waveform…) Just the perceived lack of an obvious location for Waveform’s software instruments also confused me at first until we covered it.
    But yeah, my only qualm with it is that I wish it was longer (not in a bad way, just a testament to how good it is)!

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