Waveform Project 1

The Track:

 

Although there isn’t a particular “style” or “genre” of music with which I identify, there are definitely similarities between all of my compositions. To that extent, whether consciously or unconsciously, I had a general idea of what I wanted the track to involve: some kind of fusion of acoustic and digital sounds, swung drum beats, murky atmospheres, heavy bass, and distortion. From there, I began the crate-digging process:

The Samples:

At the outset of this project, I spent an hour or so scrolling through different sound libraries. I really enjoy foley and atmospheric samples, so I downloaded a bunch from the SSLIB. I took a variety of samples from the “Household,” pack, the Adobe “foley” and “ambiance” packs, as well as from the “Liquid” pack. For this project, I wrote all the melodic samples in midi —  one melody, one chord progression, and one sub-bass line — and rendered them to audio. I wrote these three samples together at 110 bpm, so I could use them together with ease, though I ended up chopping the individual samples anyway. On top of various percussion samples that I imported, I threw in some snaps, which I recorded in my dorm room. I tried semi-treating my room by hanging my blankets on the walls; the recordings turned out better than I thought they would! For the snaps, I used a lossless recording app on my phone and sent it to my computer. Since it was a wav. file, I could just drag it into my project without any issues.

The Composition:

I started working on this track by programming the two drum grooves. I knew I wanted the first to be swung and have a “pulling” effect, while the second would be a more basic drum pattern. To produce the actual loops, I took the individual kick, clap, snap, and hi-hat samples and placed them in their respective tracks. The claps were fairly easy to do (2 and 4), but getting the kicks right was a bit more laborious. The process involved me looping eight bars, first adding in the claps, and then adjusting each kick as needed.

The first groove (seen below) didn’t have too much processing. I compressed all the drum samples gently to make the beat a bit tighter and slapped widener on the snaps/claps (just because I like the way it sounds.)  I found a jazz drum break sample in one of my sample libraries and put on an apple high-pass filter to get rid of the lower kick frequencies, which were conflicting with the kicks that I already programmed. I left some of the higher kick frequencies in because they added to the rhythm without conflicting with other frequencies (they sound similar to a tom). 

 

The second groove is much simpler (seen below). Again, I put a clap on 2 and 4 and programmed in kicks to complement the sub-bass. (Usually, I put a kick on each sub-bass hit, except for passing sub-bass notes.) In the second groove, I added hi-hats, which I didn’t include previously. I have a love-hate relationship with hi-hats, which originates from the fact that it’s very hard for me to make them sound convincing. In this part of the track, I also reversed some open hats, hard-panned them, and added reverb to play off of the synth lead.

In terms of the melodic elements, I didn’t alter my sub-bass, piano, or bell samples too much, other than chopping them here and there. I learned this trick by listening to other artists –there’s something about actually chopping up the rendered audio, rather than just repeating the notes in midi, which I like. (See Below)

For the bass in the first half and outro of the track, I took a sample of a bass guitar playing a low C and arranged and pitched shifted the sample to make an artificial bass line. Although I used a lot of audio effects on the melodic aspects of the project, 90% of them were EQ, and compressors (I tried side-chaining). That being said, I did end up experimenting with some really cool waveform plug-ins, such as “Melt”, a modulation effect that seems to have made my piano riff a lot muddier (in a good way), as well as “Bit Glitter,” which I discuss later on. 

I also did A LOT of automation. Most of the automation was volume control (fading clips in and out), panning, or reverb wetness levels. During the post-drop section, however, I created an artificial tremolo by automating the volume on the piano. In addition, I automated a bit-crusher in the outro (which I discuss later). 

Mixing Atmospheric Samples with Rhythmic Elements

I spent a lot of time messing around with atmospheric samples in this track — from what I can tell, when used tastefully, they can make any track a lot more interesting. In the first groove, for example, I added a random SSLIB recording of someone starting and driving a car to provide some background noise. I found that the percussive elements of the atmospheric sample complemented the rhythm of the track by adding unordinary ghost hits and mid-frequency warmth. I was actually quite happy with my background noise samples being a bit rhythmically out of sync with the beat at times, as they made my track sound more “real,” and less like a DAW project. I didn’t just use atmospheric samples for background noise. For the first time, I experimented with using foley/atmospheric samples in the build-up and drop, instead of using classic risers and impacts. For example, instead of using a crash cymbal on the drop, I used a combination of a scream sample, which I previously owned, and water droplet and door-shutting samples from the SSLIB. I really like the way it turned out, and I think I’m going to continue doing this going forward. 

Messy In A Good Way

In pursuit of developing a new sound, I tried to experiment with “imperfection” in various ways throughout the track. For me, the drum groove is the focal point of the first half of the project, but when I initially programmed in my drum rhythm, the gridded perfection of the beat felt a bit boring and didn’t capture the “loose” groove, which I was attempting to accomplish. One way I remedied this was by moving the claps forward, off-grid. It was interesting to see how I could artificially mimic the slight imperfections of a drummer, as well as to see how purposefully moving bits of the drum beats a bit off-grid animated the track.

Grimy Tones:

It turns out that I LOVE bit-crushing. If you love distortion and haven’t checked out the waveform plug-in “Bit Glitter,” I strongly encourage you to do so. I used the plug-in a couple of times — notably, on my melody during the drop, and once on my piano riff during the outro. In the first case, I wanted to add something to the melody to make it a bit more interesting and messy (for lack of a better term). Although I don’t fully understand what the “glitter” parameter of the plug-in specifically does, applying the effect made my lead fuzzy and obnoxious. The second case was similar in that I wanted to make the outro more interesting. This time, however, I tried something new. I discovered that upon adding Bitcrusher to the piano sample, a new tone or harmonic element was introduced. I experimented with automating the Bitcrusher to create a sub-melody out of the resulting tone. 

It was really fun learning to navigate Waveform, and I look forward to the next project!