Experimenting: Bass Line Creation, Sidechain Effects and Etc...

I've taken a step back into creating music. Instead, I'm learning what the effects do, and why it's important to know what they do; the key to a great paper is even better preparation!

Here is the featured sample I made today: Tenth Song - Sound Designing & Experimenting (18 Second Sample)

One of the interesting things I learned was that you can create multiple instruments on one MIDI track. This allows me to combine two basslines (Hi Bass & Sub Bass) into one MIDI track, that way I can free up tracks:

In addition to combining instruments onto one rack, I also learned a great deal about the operator instrument and how to route A,B,C & D to create different sounds; operator instrument is pretty fun!

Another thing I learned was the importance of keeping the low frequencies from clashing, specifically the sub bass and the kick:

The compressor allows you to take a track with low frequencies (Sub Bass) and compress it when every kick of the drums happen. This is called the sidechain, and basically moves all the bass of one object so that the low frequencies don't "fight" and cause your sound to get nasty.

I also tried to build the suspense by creating white noise, and adjusting the volume and frequencies as it builds up. Easy technique to create sound as it "whooshes" in!

I also learned what "Send A" and "Send B" do. Basically, you can program an effect into the sends, and then you can have your tracks go through them to produce the effect. It's pretty neat, but I'm not sure why you can't just put the effect on the actual track like I've been doing. I suppose when I build an actual "Live" performance set, have multiple sends with effects will come in handy!

Last, I finally played around with my APC40 controller. The first couple times I don't know what happened, the controller would no longer respond (which isn't ideal for a live performance). However, I managed to keep it from crashing, later, and found some of the buttons somewhat useful. It's more of a live performance tool than a producing tool, but it's nice to just play around with it when I get burnt out on designing songs/sounds!

In addition, Tom is on his way to making 100 songs! Check out his soundcloud here.

Steve Wilson, who helped me understand the drums a little better also has a soundcloud and has made a song:

Steven Wilson III - Steve's New Song Demo.

For the first song, the production value is pretty intense! It's got everything I'm currently trying to learn, which is how to create a bassline, synth line & drums to form a well-designed song. This song makes me feel like I'm going about this whole music creation business the long way!