Portfolio
Welcome to my portfolio. Here you’ll find a selection of my work. Explore my projects to learn more about what I do.
Production
Project and Portfolio 1
For my portfolio piece, I wanted to make a House styled beat with a little Soul mixed in there. Similar to the styling of Kaytranada. This genre of music is something I’ve started to appreciate more recently, so I wanted to play around with the genre for my project. I made this piece to be something to groove to. Something that’ll have you rocking side to side wherever you hear it. I would play this piece at a house party or on some kind of DJ set.
This piece is in common time at 115 bpm. I used the Logic drum kit 808 Flex for the drums. I like this kit because it has good reliable electronic drum sounds. This is my go to, the other kits I find can be inconsistent at times. I’ll like a few drums but not all the necessary drums I need to lay the foundation of my groove. For the bass I went to Alchemy for the 80s FM Bass Attack preset. This bass is a synth bass that I feel still has some of a natural tone making it work similarly to an electric bass. It has a little thump at the start that I feel helps add a sense of Funk to the piece.
I was working in the key of D# minor for this project. For the chords I used variations D#m, F#, C#, and B. I used a brighter pad for the intro, this was initially supposed to be a layer on top of the pad but it clashed when played in ensemble. I still liked it for the intro so I kept it and relied on a pad to get through the rest of the project. For the pad I went back to Alchemy and picked Trickling Ice Crystals. For pads I like to pick more ambient ones that you can feel more than you can hear. This pad fit that criteria and just adds a nice lush layer. The melody is split in two parts. The first half has a melody and a counter melody, both sounds sourced from Alchemy. The first melody has two arched patterns with a similar motif played for both parts. I used a synth lead for this sound and this was my original idea. Under that is the counter melody that follows a similar pattern to the main melody, but is used more to accent certain notes. The second part of the melody is made with synth sounds I created. This part has a main steel rum inspired lead and a more synth styled lead layered. The second melody has a more falling pattern and is used more to support the vocal chop used in the Sampler.
Next, I recorded my voice for the introduction. I put many effects on it like distortion, reverb, and even doubled the recording with similar effects. I feel as though it took more work to get the sound I wanted with the voice recordings than it did with the VSTs. Like mentioned earlier, the second melodic pattern and its layer, track 10 and 11, were both synthesized. I used the ESP for both, I find this synth very easy to understand and manipulate. When using it, I can clearly see what I’m affecting and the effect it has on the sound. Finding a good sound for the sample chop was hard. I found a lot of ideas I liked, but in practice they didn’t perform how I’d prefer. But I eventually decided on an Apple Loop called House Music Female Vox 02. I used this in the second 16 of the 32 bar project to provide more variety. The first 16 was what I’d treat as the chorus, the second 16, I wanted to feel like a verse or a breakdown. Wanted it to feel like the song entered a new, calmer section only to pick back up and get grooving again.
I definitely went overboard when it came to effects. I used more than two dynamic and two time-based effects. But I’ll provide examples as to how I used two of each, starting with the dynamic effects. I used Phat FX on the vocal sample to get this wobbly sound and cut certain frequencies with EQ to make it sound like it was underwater. Overdrive was also used to add a little presence to the sample as well. For time-based effects, I slapped plenty on the recording. Delay was added to fill up extra space. I felt like there wasn’t enough going on with the vocal recording, so I used the delay to add a little extra vibe. The reverb also adds in this, but the flanger, aided by the Bitcrusher, gave the recording a more crunchy filtered sound. I wanted to emulate a voice memo or a voicemail with the effects put on the recording. But a little distorted to add a bit of a retro styling to it.