I only recently discovered a huge band, you've probably heard of them - Twenty One Pilots. having just checked them out, I'm really curious what makes some of their most popular songs so huge, with over 1B views on youtube for their song Heathens. So let's dissect this giant hit and discover some of it's tricks that'll hopefully help the both of us in our musical adventures!
Artist:
Twenty One Pilots is a duo consisting of lead vocalist Tyler Joseph, and drummer Josh Dun. Their huge breakthrough was their album 'Blurryface' released in 2015 containing three of their biggest songs and indeed this track Heathens written for the soundtrack of the film 'Suicide Squad'. I'd describe their genre as a mixture of rock, pop and hip-hop with a flavour of electronica.
Track feel:
In an interview with Pop Buzz, Tyler Joseph talks about writing Heathens as a soundtrack:
"As I was writing the song I was like, I want this song to be a Twenty One Pilots song first. And I want it to resonate with our fans and make sense at our show. Even though the themes in the movie inspired the beginning of it, as the lyrics came together, and as the song came together, I realised, like, this was our song."
Here Tyler is talking about wanting to produce something that is a continuation of Twenty One Pilots, not just a track for a movie but also something that his fans can identify with his style. The result I think is a wonderful mix of darkness that you can see in the film, and the unique electronic and sardonic feel of Twenty One Pilots. The lyrics are directly related to the film, talking about a team of murderers, psychopaths, and felons working together without trust.
"All my friends are Heathens take is slow, Wait for them to ask you who you know".
Following along with the 'bad-guy' feel of the film, the lyrics reinforce the untrustworthy vibes that the suicide squad hold throughout the movie.
Production:
Heathens was produced by Tyler Joseph and Mike Elizondo in LA at Can Am studios, and recorded and mixed by Adam Hawkins in his Acacia Sound studio on his LA property.
The track consists of drums, guitar, bass, vocals, synthesisers and samples. Which I'll go into a bit more detail in the 'sonic content' section below!
Arrangement:
In ProTools I mapped out my version of the tracks arrangement and used the 'tempo tap' function to find the bpm by hitting 'T' to the beat while the 'tempo change' window is open.
I've found the tempo to at 90bpm throughout the song and my efforts here have also highlighted an interesting song structure.
You can see that the meter is the usual 4/4, however the structure consists of six choruses (including the intro chorus and the bridge chorus which has no vocals and is half length), yet only two pre-choruses and three verses. I find this very interesting, and I really love how it works in the song, really putting focus on the lyrics repeating during each chorus. Each chorus is different from the last one, the simplest one at the intro and the biggest most complex one at the end. the diversity of each chorus really allows the song to breathe and remain dynamic, at the same time the constancy of it's rhythm and lyrics keep the hook present for the listener. Have another listen of the track and notice each chorus and how it's different from all the others. The PT session really helped me out with that!
Sonic Content:
(a brief visit) - BPM: 90, Key: E Minor (Use of Blu Cat's frequency analyser in Pro Tools for this analysis)
Tyler's vocals hook the listener with ease, this is in part due to the simple lyrics and melody, and in part due to the production techniques used!
In this article I painstakingly found, Paul Tingen writes on some of the hardware and software used in the recording and mixing of the track.
The signal chain used on Tyler’s vocals consisted of a Sony C800 mic, going into an overdriven UA610 preamp, and a UA Bluestripe 1176 (compressor). This chain looks to me like it would produce some nice clean, consistent and warm sounding vocals. In the box I can hear an auto tune placed on the main vox, as well as one higher harmony that is harshly auto-tuned that is present almost all the time, and one lower harmony that comes in for some choruses.
“The vocal tracks have many sends, which go to the nine aux tracks at the bottom of the session" - Adam Hawkins
I'm also hearing several delays that change throughout each section from verse to chorus. The subtle reverb seems consistent with a small tail (less than 0.5 secs). I'll also guess that a saturator (check out this article to understand saturation) is present for many of these vocal tracks, and it's especially audible on the pitched down and doubled 'watch it' lines, where I definitely hear some distortion thats adds a granulated effect.
These vocals clearly have taken a lot of time from Hawkins, evident from the amount of effects placed on those aux's (this article is great for understanding aux tracks in PT), the amount of backing vocals to give the vocals width and the excellent volume consistency achieved using both hardware and in the box compressors.
I love the bass sound that's been achieved here and I was happy to see my suspicions that it's made up of both live and synth basses were confirmed by Tingen. The lead sound (comes in at second pre-chorus) is a synth, that sounds to me like it's waveform (this video explains various waveforms) is primarily sawtooth shaped (maybe 70%) with a square tooth wave behind it (30%). The live bass fronts this synth with a smooth attack. The synth basses and live basses are automated throughout the track, for in the first chorus the bass is around 30% synth and 70% live, while in the last chorus it's perhaps 70% synth and 30% live. With each successive chorus bringing the harsher square/sawtooth sound up a notch.
The drums are recorded live, overdubbed and mixed in with samples at points. Hawkins says that he used Waves SSL Channel on basically every drum stem, as he loves the compressor when it's set to a longer attack (to add punch to the kit). It also seems that he's used a lot of gating on the drums to keep the drums sharp and punchy, removing a fair bit of decay/release.
Here's a cool video on audio envelopes (attack, decay, sustain and release).
Looking through the 'Blu Cat frequency analyser' at the mix, I notice that the attack of the kick drum brings up at around 110Hz, while the tail end of the kick visually rolls down til 40Hz. This suggests that several samples and recordings are used to create the kick sound. HPF have also been used very well on the drums, with most of the low end being rolled off before 40Hz. The drums to me sound very distorted, which has been achieved though a few different plug ins according to Tingens' article, One of those is SoundToys' Decapitator which also helps emphasise the sharp attack present. One last important thing of note about the drums processing, is that Hawkins has hit them hard with parallel compression, with two separate compressed drum aux's being mixed in with the uncompressed signals. This will even more add to the distorted feel by adding odd harmonics.
There are two cool synths in the two pre-chorus's, they kind of pump and breathe. My guess is that they're side-chain compressed to the kick, allowing them to duck in volume when the kick comes in. The first one is lower in pitch, perhaps consisting of a triangle wave mixed with a square, while the second one sounds like it has a HPF envelope that releases allowing the low frequencies to come back in just before the next kick, where the envelope resets. There are many synth sounds in this track, from arpeggiated and panned sweeps in the verses to string sounding ones with long releases in the later choruses. One many of these and also on the piano synths, Hawkins has used tape saturators to add "slap delay and some wow and flutter", while ofcourse having HPF to keep the low end of becoming too busy.
Subjective Feel:
If I switch off my mixing and analysing brain, and look at whats going on for me when I listen to the song as a whole I really feel enthralled listening to this song and I'm swept away when the chorus comes in. The constant variety and complexity of each section really holds my interest. The huge distortion and saturation on a large percentage of its tracks brings a dark and heavy vibe that easily supports to video clip and film it was made for. The use of subtle reverb and varying delays places the track in a hard walled-closed in room, supported by the cold robotic vocal harmony above the lead.
I've loved dissecting this track and I've even enjoyed listening to it over and over focusing on it's intricacies. I've for sure learned a bunch on producing and mixing, and I can see how much work and energy went into it. Perhaps it's done something similar for you too :)
- Andy Leeder
Bibliography:
Tingen, P. (2016). MIX MASTERS: Adam Hawkins. [online] Audiotechnology.com.au. Available at: http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/wp/index.php/mix-masters-distorting-twenty-one-pilots-for-suicide-squad/ [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
Wilson Taylor, J. (2016). TØP's Tyler Joseph Reveals True Meaning Behind "Heathens". [online] PopBuzz. Available at: https://www.popbuzz.com/music/artists/twenty-one-pilots/news/twenty-one-pilots-heathens-lyrics-meaning/ [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
Acousticbrainz.org. (2018). Recording "Heathens" by twenty one pilots - AcousticBrainz. [online] Available at: https://acousticbrainz.org/3bf798f4-b3fa-4a0b-a7bb-655af72429b2 [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
Butler, A. (2012). What Is Audio Saturation?. [online] Theproducerschoice.com. Available at: https://www.theproducerschoice.com/blogs/articles/6040180-what-is-audio-saturation [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
Sweetwater. (2018). Sony C-800G Large-diaphragm Condenser Microphone. [online] Available at: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/C800G--sony-c-800g-large-diaphragm-condenser-microphone [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
Moir Entertainment. (2018). Moir Entertainment | Talent | Mike Elizondo. [online] Available at: http://www.moirentertainment.com/talent/220/mike-elizondo [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
Adam Hawkins. (2018). About - Adam Hawkins. [online] Available at: http://www.adamhawkins.com [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
Hughes, R. (2013). Understanding Pro Tools - Aux Tracks. [online] Production Expert. Available at: https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2013/12/27/understanding-pro-tools-aux-tracks.html [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
YouTube. (2015). Basic Waveforms. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRD9Uj2YTBk&t=61s [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
YouTube. (2013). What is the envelope of a sound? (ADSR explained). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ot9AaJx-Y [Accessed 14 Jul. 2018].
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