JLYFSH is my music side project that has really been dormant since 2017-2018. However, not any more. I produced, recorded, mixed and mastered this track and its honestly the first time that it has all come together to form something that I’m happy to say “I made this” – which was extremely rewarding.
TRACK OVERVIEW
SYNTHS / KEYS
This track’s first demo consisted of nothing more than the main chords played on a piano. From there I moved onto adding the bass guitar which I think is my favourite part of this track. I taught myself how to (kind of) play slap bass and managed to overcome my bass tone issues. The actual bass sound took a lot of inspiration from ‘deadmau5 – Cat Thruster’ from ‘W:/2016ALBUM/’. In Cat Thruster I think Joel used a Rickenbacker and it had this cool ‘phase-ery’ effect which I liked enough to copy.
As I wanted to the bass to be almost a melodic layer I then added a sub below the bass to fill out the rest of the frequency spectrum (which I think it does very well).
Finally, to round off the core of the track there is just a simple kick and clap. Add on some tasteful side chain to the rest of the instrumentation and you have the basic first demo of the track.
The keys throughout the song pretty much play the same chord progression the whole time, just adding or removing sounds depending on the amount of energy needed for that section of the track.
So for example the track comes in with a serum2 patch ‘wubbing’ over the same first chord then changing into the main chord progression before switching sound completely to the LABS soft piano.
Other than these two sounds there is a small lead sound and plucked arp at the end of the first section. Finally a version of the plucked synth without the arp makes up the body of the main “electric bass section”.
This is the patch for the intro synth, it’s a fairly standard wubby serum patch with an LFO modulating the cutoff. What the patch lacks in complexity is made up with the automation….
I know what you’re thinking. What is Macro 1, and why are you modulating it on and off like the worlds about to end.
My friends, this is the detune macro. 😂
So here I’m changing the synth from a ‘supersaw’ (even though I’m not using saw waves) into more of a single oscillator sound. It has the effect of sounding like you’re going from this big synth sound that’s a bit out of tune to this smaller but very in tune synth.
The other thing with this patch is that the sub is actually being used as more of a third normal oscillator. Now I know that Serum2 has a perfectly good third OSC but I’m still used to working in Serum 1 – so leave me alone 😂😭
Synth Automation Example
The pluck synth only has a small amount of processing on it but enough to make it interesting.
I know Serum2 now has a built in arp but I LIKE ABLETONS ONE. I will admit though it’s not my patch, I went present hunting.😂.
Then just a little low cut to stop it from competing with the bass and kick.
A bit of compression from an LA-2A just to smooth it out a bit and finally the tremolo
BASS
There two parts that make up the bass for this track. The Serum 2 sub and my Ibanez Bass.
As I said above I didn’t want the electric bass be the low end for this song (counter intuitive I know) but instead wanted it to be more of a melodic element.
The sub patch isn’t anything particularly special – it is literally just a sin wave from the sub oscillator.
The processing for the electric basses to shown below. LA-2A -> Cab Sim -> EQ -> Phaser. The end result of this is a high passed phasey bass sound.
LOW BASS EXAMPLE
The only variation In processing on the octave up bass is that it removes the cab and phase and adds a distortion pedal to give an audible difference leading into the next section of the track.
Tracking The Low Bass
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HIGH BASS EXAMPLE
Finally the last element in the Bass group is the pitch drop riser thingy connecting the B section back to the end of the song.
This is again another Serum 2 patch. My initial aim with it was to have the pitch drop for the first 2 bars then keep it the same before the rest of the track came back in. What actually ended up happening was the pitch drop worked fine (MPE is very cool) but the second half ending up sounding extremely distorted. I left it in as frankly I think it sounds quite cool.
DRUMS
The main core of this track is the drum rack. This contains my kick, clap and hi hat (that’s only used very sparingly).
Processing wise, nothing especially interesting happens till you get to track 19.
The parts here with the most notable effect are the Amp and the Delay. The Amp is being used to make the sound sharper. Its doing quite a noticeable high end boost and a bit of a low end cut and I found this make the hats cut over the basses better. Then, the Delay is being used to perform the Hass effect. Not mono-compatible I know but just spreading the sound out a bit gives the rest of the instrumentation a bit more space to breathe.
Next up are another set of hats.
When I was composing this track I was searching splice to try and find samples of specifically, Dry / Dark Cymbals and couldn’t find what I was looking for. Then in a moment of unparalleled genius I remembered:
1- I am a drummer, I own Dry / Dark Cymbals
2 – I have microphones now and can record them
So I recorded a loop of me playing the hats (the video below isn’t actually that loop but you get the idea)
The last big section of the drums is the dry dark cymbal. Its used as a riser, background percussion, a transition. It’s used a lot xD.
Again like the hats, I cracked out the SM7B and got recording.
There is pretty much no processing happening on the individual tracks for the impact as I liked how it sounded in the recording, however the interlude bit that connects the A and B sections does have some processing.
If you listen to that section of the track you will hear it switch between a dry and wet version of the same sample. Above is the wet chain.
I felt that section was a bit dull so wanted to spice it up a bit.
So first off is a bit of reverb to fill out the space around the cymbal and my studio is quite dead. Next I added a sizeable amount of compression in the form of a UAD Distressor to really squash the cymbal.
Then was just a small eq move to dull the now quite sparkly top end, and finally a little bit of distortion using Ableton’s really very cool Roar plugin
Finally just to round out the drums – there is UAD Oxide Tape Machine plugin on the drum group. This honestly seems to be my trademark thing now 😂
GUITARS
The last section to talk about is the guitars. These only feature very sparingly throughout the track as background elements.
The guitar used within the first chorus has a very light use of distortion and is almost clean where as the one that does the call and response interplay with the bass is very … very distorted – courtesy of Archetype Nolly.
Other than that the chains are the same with a reverb on the end of them to add a little big of size.
MASTERING
For whatever reason I seem to find myself back in Logic for mastering.
Anyway….
This is the basic layout of my chain.
Starting with EQ, then moving onto compression, then into ✨spice✨ then limiting.
Starting with the PULTEC – I found when comparing to a reference that the track was very dark. Since finishing it was probably too much bass but when mastering I decided to introduce a lot more top end – which honestly I like how it sounds.
What I don’t like is that I had to use 8dBs of boost to get it 🤨.
Now that the glaring balance issues had been solved I decided to back off the bass a touch and bring out the top end of the bass guitars a little more.
Both very small EQ moves.
Next is my compression stage.
Fairly standard G Series style master compression with slowest attack, fastest release @ 4:1.
Just enough threshold to get the needle bouncing with a max GR of about 3-4dBs at the loudest point in the track
Next is probably my favourite plugin in this chain. The Vertigo VSM-3. I first saw Acle Kahney using this in one of his mix walkthroughs and it’s kinda stuck ever since.
I’m using in M/S and only using the side band. I find when using this that it add really nice depth to the side and makes the mix sound just a little wider.
Its really really easy to go overboard with this plugin and add too much distortion so its a bit of a balancing act to get the gain staging and distortion balanced.