Unit 8: Progress - Before It Even Started

Progress - Before it Even Started

This song (as you can tell) is done in Ableton, a DAW in which I have far more experience - so hopefully the finished arrangement reflects that.

I started out with a basic piano part that I randomly thought of and jotted down. It’s based around C# harmonic minor. You can see in the piano roll that I’ve randomised some of the velocities to make the piano sound more human.

Added EQ to the piano since I plan on boosting vocals in the mid-range.

Made the beat. Started with a basic kick pattern following the piano part, then added hi hats on these beats. I intentionally left out the first hi hat of each half-bar so the kick could come through more. I then added a rim sound on all the ‘and’ beats and put a click just before the first rim hit. I then added some snares on off-beats to make the beat sound much more complex and varying. Penultimately, I added some 808s pitch-shifted differently to fit the key. They primarily follow the kick pattern but also play some more while following the piano. I then tweaked the volumes of all the drums and grouped them.

To make sure the kick was coming through, I sidechained the audio from the kick to the 808 and hi hat (the 808 just slightly, to make it so the bass doesn’t absolutely blow out my eardrums).

(Sidechain on hi-hat)

(Sidechain on the 808)

I also decided to add sidechain to the piano for the same reasons as stated above.

(Sidechain on the piano)

I absolutely loved how all this sounded so I started working on the vocal melody. You can see below how I roughly plotted the start on the piano roll.

Here’s the first vocal track. You can see the pan is automated but I will discuss that shortly.

I appropriately EQ’d the vocal track. I cut out most of the low frequencies as is common in many songs of this style, and boosted some of the mids as I previously mentioned I would. Then, I added quite harsh compression so the vocals cannot go above a certain db threshold.

This video by Ethan Davis (absolute GOAT of all Ableton tutorials) helped me mix vocals - I didn't follow it exactly but it gave me some ideas.

I then added this synth to play on the second half of each bar. It’s just the first 2 chords with some delay. It adds more variation and depth.

For the synth above, I used a vital preset I found online and tweaked the delay settings.

Next, I re-recorded the same vocal onto a different track and messed around with the EQ until I felt it strengthened the main vocal. I then added compression, saturation (to strengthen the mids again) and reverb (to make the vocal sound like it’s in the background.

(Effects rack for the doubled vocal)

By this point, I had a solid chorus and had to find a way to lead back to the verse.

(Row 1 - Synth)

(Row 2 - Vocal lines on piano)

(Row 3 - Piano)

(Row 4 - Main Vocals)

(Row 5 - Doubled Vocals)

To lead back to the verse, I decided to pan out the vocals, add loads of reverb at the end, change the piano part and add a gap in the drums.

(Panning automation for vocal tracks)

(Reverb automation for main vocal track)

(Piano part, repeats the last chord 4 times)

(Image showing the normal drums and how they drop out and come in again for the verse)

Next, I had to introduce the chorus somehow from the instrumental, so I added this drum pattern. There’s also a sub drop in there where the vocals come in.

I then just copied the main pattern over and started on the verse vocals. There is one vocal panned middle, another panned left and another panned right. I used the middle channel for normal vocals, left channel for ad-libs and then did a stereo double-track for one fast line.The effects rack is very similar for these tracks compared to the other vocal tracks.

I added another drum fill where everything drops out and then the hi-hats take you back into the verse. 

I then added a little drum fill to transition to the second half of the verse.

Then, I went back and changed the pattern of the drums for this one part of the verse. Basically, I just put the kick drum and 808 on every grid tile. I’ve heard this sort of thing done in many similar songs so I decided to add it and I think it’s nice. It also accentuates the vocal.

For the above drum change, I also stopped the synth part from playing at that time and added a frequency sweep to the piano with auto filter for the aforementioned drum fill to the second half of the verse.

I essentially copy-pasted everything over with differing vocals and slight changes in the second verse to make it more interesting, and added a guitar solo at the end. I intentionally left the guitar softer so it’s more atmospheric and less attention-seeking.

You’ll notice that the vocals look a lot different because I re-recorded them and re-mixed them so they’d be more energetic. I did this after listening to some Mac Miller songs and realising my song sounded completely dead and devoid of energy compared to his.

This also gave me the idea to add trumpets, which admittedly don’t sound great because they’re a part of a free VST, but add much more energy and intrigue to the song. The trumpets and synths are frozen at this point so I can transfer my work between computers without having to download a few gigabytes worth of software.

The guitar solo mainly revolves around the C# harmonic minor and phrygian dominant scales, with a second harmony guitar.

One more thing I almost forgot to mention is you can see there are 2 more return tracks in the bottom right - these are where I sent my vocal signal for delay and reverb. They are both 100% wet and the delay is 100 (left) - 150 (right) seconds.

At this point, the song is fundamentally done and I’ll probably come back to it in the future to improve on it when I’ve learned more about techniques like vocal mixing.