Looking back at this project, I ended up changing quite a few things, I would about 3 or 4 different times from the original product of my Track 2 composition. Whether it was the drum track, or changing the instruments in the Harmony, Melody, or bass line. Compared to my attempt at this project back in August, I think I was able to put a lot more focus and attention on what I was doing. I think the hardest part of all this was finding the right feeling and sound I was trying to create. Honestly, it doesn’t have much significance regarding this track's meaning. I think I was going more for a basic concept and feeling, rather than meaning. 

Of course, starting with my drum track at 4/4 time 160 BPM. Creating a very basic Kick Snare and hi-hat beat, there wasn’t much to it. I know nothing about drums or drumming except for the fact that it is created to help keep the tempo and beat of the song or composition.

All three hi-hat, snare and kick I started out using a regular drum kit plugin. Then separated the 3 instruments and changed them each into Electric Drum Synths. Giving it a smooth, and subtle beat line that doesn’t overwhelm the song. Gave the Kicks an Electronic Heavy kick, and for the hi-hats, I used a Gritty Hi Hat instrument. As for the snare, I originally used an electric snare with some stereo delay and chroma verb bused in. But for the final project, I decided to change that into HUMAN CLAP with chroma verb and stereo delay. For the Bass line, I used the ESP and for the base layer, I used an ESM plugin to create my bass instrument, taken from the original harmony track bass note and matched to the tempo of my kick drum.

I used and kept the Key of Cm for the Harmony, and melody and changed the Chord listing from the original chords that I used for track 2 to; Cm  Ab   Bb   G  Cm Ab F and G, as for the 2nd 16 bars, I switched up the progression a little bit and used the Relative Em D Cm and Bb and then ending it with Cm Ab F and G chords. I inverted a few of the chords to give it a smoother sound and transition from chord to chord. I took the top note of each chord and used that as my guideline for my melody giving it a little “spunk” and somewhat of a rhythmic melody. I used Studio Horns for the melody track and layered it with an ESP synthesizer

I used my voice for the original audio and kept the original lyrics I used in track 2, which surprisingly, I did not expect to match harmonically with the changed chords and melody, but I felt that it sounded quite pleasant and not so dissonant, so, therefore, I kept it and didn’t have to change it at all, as for my vocal Sample, I recorded a few vocal clips to add to my library of sounds to use for sampling, utilizing a recording of me singing some “oohs and Aaah”

However, I think I could use a little work on my vocal skills, but I didn’t think it came out too horrible, especially for my first-time sampling.

Mixing was probably the trickiest for me as everything was initially modulating and I had to figure out how to compress each instrument track to where it was nice and even. I put compression on all the drum tracks (kick, snare, Hi Hat) the melody, melody layer, and vocals. Stereo delay on Snares, bass, bass layer, and vocals, Chroma verb on Snares and Vocals, and of course a little pitch correction on Vocals because I can’t sing to save my life. I bused in a little pitch shift and Noise gate on my vocals. Leveled everything out as much as I could, lowering my instrument layers significantly so that I had very minimal clipping

And Viola! I present to you my final track for this month's project and portfolio assignment!

I hope I didn’t do too horribly and I hope you enjoy it!