Extended Project: EP Tracks Analysed And Explained

I produce music under the production name Trakscene
Here Is a Link To the finished EP
But I wrote My name as the title so its
clear that its actually me

http://soundcloud.com/trakscene/sets/trakscene

I had to change from my original plan of sitting down
and producing four tracks in two weeks , it was
an unrealistic target as I have loads of other work to be doing.

This meant I had to change and develop my plan to fit in with
all my other work. This involved moving dates when I
planned on being in recording session and using different software
than I had planned to because its more user friendly and saved
time.

Im happy with the finished product and I hope others are too.

Below are the explanations on how I produced each individual track
and where you can find links for each individual one, although the link
at the top will take you to a set I have made where they can all be viewed at once.
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I decided to make a a Dubstep/Grime Instrumental , hopefully later on in the project I will be able to find an artist who can provide vocals for my track which would be a win win situation for both of us.

I started my track my producing a simple SFX loop with a sort of electronic sound. I made sure that the loop was made to match the 140BPM mark so that it would be syncronised with the drums, bassline etc.

Here is a photo of the SFX Loop

Once I got further into the production of the track I decided to remove the SFX loop from the intro and bring in on the 2nd drop half way through the track , I liked the idea of having a change up as apposed to keeping the same SFX sound going on in the background throughout as it might bore the listener.

I then went on to produce two different drum loops each four beats in length and containing a kick drum , two different high hats , a snare drum and finally a clap.

I wanted to produce two different loops so that I place them into the track at apporiate moments for example at the end of every 16th bar I used the 2nd drum loop.

Here are photos of both of the different drum loops the 1st drum loop is on the top , and the 2nd on the bottom.

After producing the drum loops I wanted to produce a piano melody and a bassline. I began with the piano melody.

I had previously produced various different piano loops using Reason 5 and had saved them as mp3 files so whenever Im making a track I can just take those loops and throw them straight on without having to plan out the notes and chords , it helps me maintain my momentum when creating music.

I imported the loops I had made into FL studio and placed them straight into the "Playlist" with the drums I had placed in the intro.

Here is a photo of the drums and the piano loop on the playlist

When Finally mixing down the track and adding final samples and edits I felt should be made I decided to remove the piano loop as it didn't work with the bassline I created very well and the track sounded better without the piano.

I imported a bass loop that I had made in Reason 5 using the Malstron VST instrument and sliced it up to create a new intro. Once the track drops on the 16th bar I changed it back to the original loop I produced as to give the track a change up to give it some variation.

The first photo is the sliced loop that I cut up to create a different sounding intro and the second loop is simply a loop that I had produced earlier and had placed on this track without editing.

As you can see their is a massive difference beetween the two , despite the fact their all the sames sounds just rearranged in a different order.

I placed the bassline loops and the drum patterns in a structure I was happy with and then began to add SFX samples to the playlist for example I added a reverse cymbal before the 16th bar to build tension and make it clear that the drop was coming. I also used a sample of a sweep sound to fill the gap beetween the 7th and 8th bars where the drums stop and all you can hear is the bassline.

Here is a photo of both SFX I imported into my track , I bought a sample pack of the internet and these were both included in that pack.

This is a photo of the playlist once I had produced all the different parts that I would need for a song and then imported these other clips to add to the the track.

This photo also includes all the automation clips that I added to control volume on the track e.g. automating the master volume so the breakdowns and intro are not as loud as the rest of the track.

Once the basic structure was in place I decided that it would be a good idea to add effects to different parts of the song and I also used various different plugins such as parametric equalisers to get my end sound exactly as I wanted it to be.

Here is a photo of all the effects I put on the master Output

I also used several different effects on my bassline. Here is a photo of all the effects.

I borrowed a USB microphone from college so that I could record vocals over the track.

I found a grime artist who wanted to use the track because he liked it so much.

Here is a link to the track with the vocals on.

http://soundcloud.com/gms

Im not happy with the vocals I got from this artist I thought they were better at grime than they turned out to be. Im still pleased that I managed to use a microphone to put vocals over a track though.

We recorded all the vocals in silence directly to the zoom and then placed the files in the playlist on FL studio.

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This is the next track on the EP

Its a Dubstep Track with samples from

the movie "The Matrix" added

This is the artwork I used for this track online

I produced this track at home using FL Studio 9 so I more or less went through the same process as I did with the first track but using different sounds and layouts of patterns that Iv'e created , unfortunately I don't have any printscreens for this track but its been uploaded my soundcloud account where it is available for free download.