Portfolio 1

Reflection

     This song was first created as a 16 bar project in my Projects and Portfolio I class. I partly drew inspiration from the song, “Mama” by Genesis. I wanted to incorporate an evil laugh, which was similar to how Phil Collins did in the song. It is more of a dark and spooky type of song. 

 

Meter, Tempo, Structure, Rhythm, and Bass

     The song is in 4/4 meter and the tempo is 85 bpm. I personally think this is a simple drum rhythm and it is like that on purpose because I wanted listeners to focus more on the bass, harmony, and melody. I also come from a hip-hop production background and in my mind, the drums are mainly used to keep the vocalist on beat. The most interesting part is the snare turnaround at the end of the 4 bars. This was our electronic drum kit session so the kick is "Dark Arts" and the snare and hi-hats are "Atlanta". I honestly just picked ones I thought went well together.I do not think they evolve much throughout the song. This song is only 32 bars long. There is an intro, chorus, verse, and an outro. The baseline follows the harmony. The baseline follows the notes of A, F, E, and then C. In the second section, however, it follows the notes of A, F, G, and then D. This is because the harmony changes. 

 

Key, Harmony Melody Shapes/motifs

     The key is in A Minor. In the first 16 bars, the harmony’s chord progression is Am, F, Em, and C. In the last 16 bars, the harmony’s chord progression is Am7, F, G7, and Dm. Since C Major is the relative scale for A Minor, I integrated chords from both scales. The melody in the first 16 bars is a falling melody. In the last 16 bars, the melody is a motif, with the last two notes at the end changing from high to low so the melody does not become stall and repetitive. 

 

Audio or Original Sounds, Recording Process, Parameters, and Obstacles

     I used two original sounds in this composition. The one heard is the evil laugh. I recorded myself laughing for this sound. The second is a ceramic mug being hit with a metal utensil. When the melody is not being heard, the ceramic mug hit is used as the melody. I recorded both sounds in my recording/studio room. The biggest obstacle was to figure out what sound I wanted to use for the ceramic mug hit. I am still learning and figuring out how to record sounds, use them in compositions, and creating my own sound library, so this was particularly challenging. 

 

Mixing, Processors, Balance, Insights, Panning

     I used many processors during the mixing of this composition. If there was a preset processor for a certain sound, it remained. For example, the snare and harmony were bussed out to its own aux channel with Space Distortion and Channel EQ. Every track has an EQ and compression on its track. Additionally, other channels were bussed to an aux channel, appropriately named, “Instrument/Sound Aux”. Synth Melodic was bussed to ChromaVerb and Phase Distortion. Synth Melodic also has an arpeggiator effect. Synth Pad was bussed to ChromaVerb, Ceramic Mug has a Stereo Delay and was bussed to ChromaVerb and Chorus, and the evil laugh was bussed to Phase Distortion and ChromaVerb. Once these were completed and appropriate levels were found, I began the mixing process. I try to keep my master output to around -3db and to do this I fine-tune the sounds so they are still able to be heard but so they do not clip.