I’ve always had a special love for orchestral instruments and the beauty they emit, so I decided to give some orchestral instruments a bit of a pop mix. The idea came to me after listening to the latest Akon album and hearing all the strings and horns mixed in with a hip-hop beat. That’s actually what inspired the drum rhythm in the first 18 measures. The next 18 bars were an original piece I have already put together, but I tweaked quite a few aspects of it to transition from the first 18 bars into its own original piece but still complementing the first.

            I started the session off at 120 bpm, but decided I wanted to go with something a little slower and brought it down to 90 bpm. For the rhythm I used pretty basic closed hi hats as quarter notes, 4 per measure. The entire mix I used a pretty standard kick drum and closed high hat but added a clap rather than a snare. I thought the entire mix could use more power in the kick, so I used an ES2 Synth to create an 808 to add a more aggressive bass to the kick.

            Immediately as I started laying down the chord progression, I knew I wanted to be in the key of A minor. There’s just something about this key that I absolutely love. The melody and harmony I originally had start together but decided to have the melody start early with a synth guitar leading which leads into a couple layers of Tubas, mixed in with a brass ensemble leading to a Trumpet Legato. The guitar is more of a counter melody, having some variations within the melody track to really bring out the character of the mix. The harmony slowly fades in using volume automation using the chord progression C, Bb, Am, C repeated for the full 18 bars, but only 16 of those bars are played using String Ensemble Legato, the last 2 bars of the 18 I used Reflective strings to give it a nice transition into the next 18 bars along with some ambiance.

            The Second 18 bars are in the key of E minor using the chord progression Em, G, G, F#b and again using cinema strings and layering violins over the strings bringing a fuller string sound. I took the first measure of my melody, copied it, and pasted it to the front of the mix allowing it to glide in with the tail of the first 18 bars bringing in a really smooth transition. I originally started off with a grand piano and messed around with a few piano sounds for a while till I found orchestra celesta which made the transition into the second 18 bars sound even better than I first imagined. I ended up taking the piano I originally had as the melody and created a fun counter melody to compliment the melody and give the piece more character once again.

            Some really unique parts of this track include the synthesizers, a sampler, and a quick recording that I added into the mix. For the recording I recorded myself opening a soda can. I took out any background noise and isolated the sound. I trimmed it up and tightened it to give it a little more speed. I added this into the transition between the two 18 bar pieces. I actually took this recording and set it into a sampler where I was able to change the pitch and added it to the end of the first 18 measures kind of making a snap mixed in with kick and bass. Now the synthesizers are what I really had fun with.

            For the 808, I took an ES2 synth and brought up the distortion, resonance, attack, and a little decay along with using the first envelope to manipulate a sign wave into a powerful 808 adding that punchy bass you can hear in the mix. When transitioning over to the second part of the mix, I felt like there could be a synth added into the mix so I took the bass line from the 808 and copied it down into a track where I added an ES P synth and brought up the triangle, sawtooth, and rectangular waveforms, brought the frequency up about half way, the resonance up about a quarter of the way. Kept the attack down, decay about halfway, sustain almost all the way up and just a bit of release and was able to create an LFO to add in the mix. When it all finally came together, it was time to move on to mixing. I started by panning out all my instruments, starting with the percussion, then moved to the gain levels. After I had everything panned out and separated, I was able to go through and take out any unwanted frequencies that were straining on the ears. I used an eq to do this on numerous tracks throughout the mix, the only tracks that do not have an eq on them is my synthesizers and sampler.

            Next after the I went and put a compressor on the both my kick drums. (track 1 & 52) Then I went on to give the mix more room and ambiance. I took all the percussion and bussed the tracks over to bus 22, melody to bus 30 for the first 18 bar mix and the second is on bus 29, the intro has a bit of reverb on bus 18 and the 808s also on bus 32. All of the reverb helped fill in empty areas within the mix that needed a slight fill along with adding tails into the intro to lead to the first melody, the transition between the 2 distinct pieces, and a tail at the end of the entire mix. I believe it helps give the mix more character.