Tunes, Ideas, Tasks

Sound Production and Recording for Musicians
Alex Rodgers
0604849
Task 5

Intro
I chose to remix elements from the track I recorded for task 4, ‘Devolution’. I tried the idea of slowing the whole piece down and trying to create a dub mix but found it simply didn’t work at the lower tempo. Instead I went for a drum and bass esque piece with hints of Faithless and The Prodigy from spoken audio and synth sounds.

Method + Arrangement

I started by chopping up loops from the original project folder of ‘Devolution’ including various bass loops, guitars and some other small sections which could be added in. All of these loops were then converted to apple loops.
I laid out the some of the bass loops to create a skeleton of a track with which to work off. The next stage was adding drums, I found a drum loop from an Aphrodite song which features hats, snare and kick sounds. It is a 8 bar loop which I then converted to an apple loop and matched the tempo to the bass tracks from the original song. The basic loop can be heard in the intro to the piece, despite it being effected. I then chopped up the loop to create alternate beats and add in snare rushes, which are a prominent feature of drum and bass.
The kick drum from the loop I used was very feint and did not punch through as I wanted it so I created an Ultrabeat drum machine with some kick samples in. I settled with a deep ringing kick sound and it is a constant feature through the track giving it its drive. For some variation I added a sample of kick/cymbal stab I found as an extra kick drum hit at the beginning of bars. This really beefed up the low end and gave the track some life.
I also added the sample of a snare from the original Devolution track and added it on a separate track to add some variation to the drum line. This track has a reverb on it to add to the contrasting snare sound. Most of the instances of this snare are as snare rushes.
The lead synth was added to supplement the riff on the bass guitar, it adds to the drum and bass feel. I programmed in the midi notes that are exactly the same as the riff played on the guitars and bass. I also added a phaser to this synth to give it some movement and create some space and add to the eeriness of the track.
The second synth is more of a pad sound and is used as chords to fill up the prechorus/chorus sections and create more of a progression, again the chords are from the original track and programmed in.
The guitar tracks I added are double tracked bounces directly from the original track; I did add an EQ to them to thin them out and get them to sit in the track a little better. This goes for both instances of the guitar; both the main riff and chorus lead part.
Lastly I added the voice over which is from a radio show and features Richard Dawkins discussing Evolution and speculating on the vastness of the universe. I thought that this was suitable especially as a remix of the original track, which is based on atheistic and Darwin driven lyrics.
Processing

On the main snare track I added a delay unit, which was automated to come in during the breaks to add a bit more colour to the breaks. I automated the wet/dry signals and the Feedback enable button to create a loop of delay.  I also placed a Fuzz/wah unit on the track, which only comes in during the introduction and the outro snare rush. Again I automated the pedal position and the unit bypass on the channel in order to get it to come in and out where I wanted.
There is a reverse reverb that can be heard in a break in the song. I created it by taking a snare sample and bouncing it with a long reverb. I then reversed this and ended up with a smooth reverse reverb rush, which leads into drops nicely.
I also use a dry reverse snare during the last part of the track which is simply a snare hit bounced and then reversed to add to the drum tracks variation. This technique is common in drum and bass and is very effective at breaking up drumbeats.
During the second ‘verse’ part I chopped up the guitars to only hit on stabs leaving the synth behind to continue the riff. I found this has a very nice effect and acts as a nice build up. I also used this technique during the introduction on the spoken ‘devolution’ combining this technique with the snare rush tactic of looping syllables to create a sampler effect(de-de-de-devolution). I also automated in the panning for this section.
For the voiceover I wanted to bring down the overall tone as it was too bright for the feel of the track so I added a pitch shifter and brought the voice down two semitones to give it a darker feel. I also EQ’ed the voice to bring out only the formant sounds of the voice (boosting mids) and give it some definition.
I added quite a lot of automation on the main Stereo Out track, mainly being a bit crusher and an EQ that acts as a filter, keeping only the phone line frequencies (between 1kHz and 4KHz. Both of these can be heard on the intro and are automated off as soon as the track drops. I found it quite effective, as the contrast from the first part to the drop is very pleasing.

Conclusion

I feel that as a remix it works well as it still retains the feel and mood of the original piece but can also stand alone as an individual piece. I wanted a listener to feel slightly uneasy while listening to it and the odd breaks and drops and varied amounts of frequencies during these drops definitely works to achieve this. I would have liked to include more elements from the original track such as the vocals but when I tried adding them it just did not fit with what I wanted to hear.