Final Project

Final Project - Sean

EDIT: Imeem has recently changed how they host songs, and you can only listen to 30 second in the player. You can click "Play full song here" on the player to hear the full song.


Our final project was to be a 4 minutes piece in any electronics style using at least different programs.

I couldn't really decide on just one style, so I decided to mix a few. After having listened to Aphex Twin in class, I really got into his music. I love the dark ambient melodies with hectic break beats over the top. I wanted to try something similar trying to mix ambient and a more drum and bass style.

I started off my piece pretty slow at around 120 BPM with really soft synth with some phase. I then through in some textural pieces over the top. There is still no strong melody at this point. At about 50 seconds, I bring a drum beat in and a little after a minute I drop it out. This was to prepare the listener for an increase in tempo. After a short rest and a volume swell I bring the beat back in at 170 BPM with strong chords done with choir voices. This is the more "drum and bass" section part of the song. I then have my first melody and although the timbre may not be appropriate for the genre, the melody seems to itself to trance. I then layer the melody with a a synth which gives it a more trance feel.

I then drop everything out except some drums beats for 4 measures. I use another volume swell to move into the next section. The drums stay at a high tempo but the chords are more ambient. I use a lot of texture and avoid any strong melody except for a slow pitch bent line. The drums then drop out again and the chords and texture continue on. For the second repetition here, I used recycle to manipulate a sample with someone speaking. I broke the piece up and moved it into Redrum. I then used a few clips that were not decipherable but still sounded like a human voice. It is far back in the mix but I was going more for texture than anything.

Most of the layering drop out except for the really soft synth that I used at the beginning. I then put half measures of drums beats with silence for the second half together to built back up into a full beat. After four measures of a full beat I use a few effects with drops in pitch which make the music appear to slow down, which it does. With the use of the effect I bring the tempo back down to 120 just as it was in the beginning. I am still using just the soft synth right after the tempo change. After one repetition I bring in some more textural sounds. These are very effects due to volume and panning movement.

In terms of instrumentation, I used logic for all the sequencing and for most of the instruments and effects. I used Ultra Beat for most of the drums as well. I used Reason through Rewire for a few sounds along with Redrum. I tried using Sphere to manipulate a few sample, but I was not able to do anything interesting. I then decided to use Recycle with a voice recording and then put it into Redrum.

Overall I am pretty happy with my project. I did exactly what I wanted to do. I was getting a little frustrated with the earlier project but after spending some time with the software, I become a lot more confident in what I could do.