To begin with, i decided to make 2 tracks. These were conceived over the course of 2 days. split evenly 6 hours each. The day after i listened to the two sketched out audio tracks on repeat.
On the fourth day was consumed by making an amalgamation of the two tracks, having stripped them both down to the essential grooves and patterns. This was the basis for my track.
Regimented and parts for construction in place to be constructed, i built this audio out of suggestive Sounds and rhythms.
Firstly, the heart of the audio, the kick track. This was Comprised of 3 x 606 kicks playing simultaneously out of a midi drum rack, and then resampled to an audio track as it is easier to deal with when its isolated. This also meant that hours couldn't be wasted tweaking things for next to no gain. One filtered with a high pass, and one with a low, and one just tweaked to give a bit more suck and pull. This really warmed up the tone of the kick, the essential part to any good minimal techno sound. This was left un modulated apart from a gate and compression, again to add vibrancy.
The kick track for the smoothed out section towards the end is again simple in its construction and straight forward. A classic kick/snare scenario. For me the clever bit with constructing this sort of a low end sound was to have toned sub hits on each of the kicks. Clearly illustrated above. This really allowed the drums to develop their own toned texture, away from the actual 'bass track,' which in essence is a fairly mid-low octave melody part.
The snare i wanted to be promenant and to have a more natural sound. I went for a woodblock. This has a 'beatrepeat' effect on every second hit. Using a bit of compression i was able to make the snare hit really stand out. I wanted it to be extremely dry and slightly abrasive. This was also achieved by reducing the length of the sample to next to nothing. The length of the wave form directly effects the longevity of the sound. So notice on the first hit of the snare, its a slightly higher pitch, this is due to the length of the sample being played. I also added 'swing'. (16th) taking it in and out of time giving a slightly more humanist feel. This i feel really sends the track on its way sounding like thunder rolling down hills. This is the section of the track that i am most happy with over all. Its exactly the sort of sound i was hoping to create.
The only effects and automation that were put over this track are a compressor and a gate. Tweaking the attack, hold and release on the gate and adjusting the threshold of the compressor allowing me the 'headroom' to push the levels a bit higher.
The hi hat pattern is a relatively straight forward one, simple hits on the off beat, creating a 2-step pattern, that interacts with the bass which resolves its rotation after 16. 2/4 drum beat with a 4/4 bass line (simple and highly effective). The sound that i used was an ableton instrument, 'backbeat room.' This already had some quite nice automation features that i used sparingly as you can never be to sure of the quality of samples direct from Ableton. They seem to lack any of the crispness and mastering levels of many of the free sample packs available online.
So to aid the cause of the flanged sound that was over the hats, i added chorus, which seemed to grab hold of the trailing patterns and give it further enunciation, and some reverb to help the hats sit correctly in amongst the other sounds. Final adjustments were made to the dry and wet parameters of the reverb and chorus.
Examples of the bass patterns........
There are 6 different rhythmical patterns to the bass - line. Offering variations over 4, 8 and 16 bars..
The bass required the most automation out of all the sounds as it yet again was an Ableton standard.
It just sounded really flat and lifeless. There were some automation functions that came with the sound that were heavily altered to begin with. 'Tube', 'phaser', 'velocity' and 'cut off' really seemed to drastically alter the sound, more often than not in a distractive way.
the added effects really came from added distortion and this effect called 'spectrum'. 'Spectrum' really pushed the midrange of the bass frequencies. This in turn really helped characterize the bass tone. Still really dry, a filter was applied to take the bite out of the higher frequencies of the bass anad i added some compression and a gate over it to accentuate more of the suck and pull dynamic that i have been trying to capture from the beginning. This seems to be a continuing theme over a lot of minimal techno tracks.
The shuffle and noise patterns were created out of static and glitch samples obtained through the 'Tim Exile Sample pack' curtsey of Native Instruments. This is one example of the pattern. The noises are all samples that were put together in a drum rack and played through midi, then re sampled into audio, as before, due to the samples being easier to manage as a single clip of audio. The patterns also swings slightly in and out of time, again creating the illusion of more humanism influence.
Arranging the track really just happens as a follow on to creating the parts. The track was almost made as the final arrangement sugests, as a natural progression. I created a beat, then the bass, then the rythmes then Dynamic.... In a similar sort of work flow to that the arrangement just appears out of no where with a few hours playing. (Obviously without dynamic)
The latest tweaks will surely not be the last as i will soon be picking fault with my own creations as i should do, i want to resist the temptation to do anything other than add complementary dynamic and possibly remaster, sorting the levels and mix as i go.
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