Making a Hip-Hop track - developing an idea and initial demo track to build off.
If you're planning to produce a track, it's a super idea to check out and listen to plenty of material that is similar in genre and that inspires you. For my current project, I listened to artists like Erykah Badu and D'angelo.
Feelin' the vibe, one afternoon I headed into the studio with Joao Paulo and Mitchell Stan to get a base for our upcoming Hip-Hop track.
We chose Ableton Live 10 as our DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) of choice, because of it's ability to create loops and deal with MIDI. JP and I came into this session with a lot of ProTools experience, however only a couple of hours with Ableton, so Mitch acted as our guide as we began production and discovered the nuances of Ableton. - Check out this link for more on why Ableton Live 10 is great for electronic music production.
- Side note: Learning a second DAW has been a huge learning experience and I highly suggest it for those wishing to pursue a career in the music industry. It has expanded my knowledge of both DAWs by way of comparison, and has prompted me to ask questions of each. Not only that, it has also increased my confidence in dealing with potential clients who use a different DAW to my personal favourite.
Laying down the bed:
Drums - Mitch provided a heap of samples that we sorted through to find what we wanted. We placed our selections into a software sampler in Live 10 to lay down our initial drum track. We went for drum samples that were similar to Erykah Badu's On & On to help us produce a relatable feel. Using a MIDI keyboard, we punched out the basic bed with a kick, claps, hats, tambourine and snaps. Following that with a quick quantise of the kit to maintain correct timing. We chose to put down the drums first to give the track a solid tempo and beat that the rest of the instruments can play along with. Semi-happy with the drums, we split our one drum track into several (one for each instrument that was part of the sampler) so we could adjust each ones volume and mix them separately. From there, we moved on to the bass guitar to provide the general groove we wanted.
Bass - We chose to record using a passive DI only here as today is all about a simple scratch. Initially we tried to use the desks' line in, however the ample noise floor prompted us to use a DI and utilise the 'ground in' feature which removed alot of the noise we were hearing. Looping the drums to provide backing, Mitch kindly used his skills to lay down a slow groovy bass line for us, which we refined after some discussion. After giving it a gentle EQ to boost the fundamentals and also a filter to remove unwanted low and high frequencies, we moved on the guitar.
Guitar - Using the same DI input to record our scratch guitar, though adjusting the pre-amp accordingly to provide a nice signal level to Ableton, JP came out with a chill guitar backing and some sexy licks to add to the already mellow tune. The only thing to add now was keys.
Keys - Loading an instrument into ableton we utilised a USB MIDI keyboard to place a chord here and there to support the bass track and give it that lil' somthin' extra.
Check out the basic scratch we had after this session - here and listen to 'Original idea scratch track - Slow the Pace'
A quick basic mix:
When we reached a point where we were all happy with the instrumentation, we sat down to talk over and implement a basic mix. Even for the scratch it was important for us to have it sounding good for the vocal recording, because during that session our vocalist and ourselves will be listening to it a lot!
Here is some brief notes on what we did to give it a quick but professional mix:
Drums - We hit the kick with an EQ to boost it's fundamental and roll off any high end after 1kHz.
With the claps, we duplicated the track and delayed one by a few milliseconds in order to make them sound bigger. We also put them through a compressor and an EQ, again boosting the fundamental and rolling off unwanted lows and highs. We panned one slightly left and one slightly right to add some width. The snaps were processed similarly.
The tambourine and the hats have some EQ on them, removing unwanted sounds and boosting the brightness we wanted, as the drums are samples and therefore very consistent there is little need for compression.
Bass - check out the screenshot below for our bass chain, we used the compressor side-chanied with the kick drum, ducking the bass line a bit when the kick drum hits, allowing the kick to pop through.
Guitar & Keys - Here we utilised one of Mitch's tricks, for both the guitar chords and the keys we duplicated each track and added a band pass filter to the copy, that copy was panned slightly and blended in with the original track, creating a sense of depth, width and with the 'around the head' panning on the keys we introduced movement. Both instruments are also side-chaned to the claps, like the bass - so that the claps can somewhat cut through the keys and guitar chords.
Communication and teamwork:
Having great communication between your team is absolutely one of the most important parts of the production. So far I've found that our team for this production has blended well together. We have communicated clearly with each other about studio times, production techniques and the logistics of working together throughout the entire production. A key point that I think we excelled at was sharing time in DAW operation, even though Mitch had a greater handle on Ableton - he exercised patience while JP and I was in the control seat trying to navigate and learn. We also swapped during the session to give everyone the chance to learn and control the software. It really helps having a flexible team that is not only hard working, but accepting and laid back enough to put an idea aside in favour of someone else's.
Here is a link to a good article about communication in the music industry!
Finishing the session:
While the scratch may not be perfect, our intent was only to produce something that has the basic vibe we want and can act as a bed to lay down the vocals in the following week. I think we have achieved a really great scratch, with plenty of options for changes in the coming days after the vocal recording.
- Finally I came home and listened to the mix in my headphones (as we were using studio monitors for the session. I noticed an irritating click in the snaps which was confirmed by JP and Mitch. Unable to 'EQ' it out without losing the nice snap sound, we opted to record some snaps for the final track after recording the vocals.
Bibliography:
1. McDonald, H. (2018). Learn How to Communicate Like a Professional in the Music Industry. [online] The Balance Careers. Available at: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/music-industry-quick-tip-communicate-like-a-professional-2460778 [Accessed 13 Jun. 2018].
2. Rothwell, N. (2018). Ableton Live 10 |. [online] Soundonsound.com. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ableton-live-10 [Accessed 13 Jun. 2018].
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