𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦

Rich Kids

Rich Kids (feat. thea wang)

Stereo width is achieved by adding panning automation to track elements such as synth leads and claps. Using Ableton's input plugins I was also able to expand the stereo width of my pads. 
The depth of the mix is separated by putting the kick drum and synth lead in the foreground, percussion, and bass-line in the middle ground, and ambient pads in the background. 
I attempted to have a balanced frequency spectrum by putting multiple instances of fabfilter on the instrument tracks as well as one on the master. The bass sound that I was using has a distinct spike around 14k Hz, such high harmonics are certainly useless for a bass sound and is taking up a lot of the song's perceived loudness, therefore I got rid of it with a notch filter. The lead song used in the song seems to have a good deal of bass, but since I want it to mainly occupy the mid and high end of the mix, the bass frequencies are pretty much useless. I put a low cut the sound.
Volume is balanced by following Loudon's method of looping the loudest section of the song, bringing down all volumes and establishing the loudest volumes for the most prominent elements and the lowest volume with the least important instruments. In this way, I could have a well-balanced relative loudness and a safe absolute loudness. Finally, I brought the volume up to 0 db by using a limiter on the master channel.

Sigma

Experimental house music. The melodic element was created by reversing an orchestral string sample.

Gilded Age

"Hollow" is a fusion of rap and deep house, with an emphasis on vocal production and sound design. My inspiration for this track came from an improvised live performance on my MIDI keyboard. The song’s production process explores the Ableton session view’s loop-based production capabilities. 

Production:
Improvised melodies and chords for 10 minutes, then laid out the song structure using loop performance. Sidechain, reverb, and other audio manipulation techniques are utilized to make the vocal fit the groove of the 4-on-the-floor kick drum.

Hollow

Listen as intense cinematic soundscapes transform into glitching electronic bombardment. Composed at the onset of the Russo-Ukrainian War, this Midtempo Bass music expressed my growing concern for military escalation. 

Production:
The first cinematic section consists of layers of synthesized drones, reverberated sirens, and distorted reese bass. The introduction of 2 synth lead arpeggios, combined with white noise risers and accelerating drum beats, created an effective buildup. After the apex of the buildup, all previous music elements are suddenly removed, allowing the heavy bassline and tom drum roll to punch through the mix. Then enter a barrage of distorted glitches, gated electric hum, and thumping kick drums.

Dystopia

What happens when kankyo ongaku meets musique concrete? "Inorganic Nature" explores the juxtaposition and harmony between environmental recordings, sonic artifacts, sustained soundscapes, and spontaneous microsounds.

Production:
Field recordings were gathered during one spring outing to the local botanic park. Microsound collage created in the Max/MSP software, where I utilized frequency modulation, bit-crush, comb filter, and allpass filter to transform simple sine waves into complex microsounds. Ambient soundscapes synthesized using MassiveX. Postprocessing (panning, EQ, compression) added in Ableton Live.

Inorganic Nature

Prisoner's Cinema

DATA

Tainy, Bad Bunny - MOJABI GHOST

The Forgetting Curve

my beat from Andrew Huang's 4 Producers 1 Sample Challenge

video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvKY_DnM1PA

Sigma

Shu Xu

Related tracks