Jbox - 'Attitude' Project Reflection

Just a little bit over a month ago I worked on and finished a new house track called Attitude! I also created the artwork for it above, which I love - but can't really say the same for the song though. Today I want to reflect about the journey in which this project took, and also the production processes I employed to create the track; because regardless of it's outcome, I believe it was a very valuable experience.

Private Stream:

Project Journey

So initially I pitched several WIP demos to my peers at SAE where I had in mind one that I was more fixated on. Then I played this rough demo below which had only been made a couple hours prior:

People were liking it and saw a lot of potential, so I kind of completely switched paths and started working on this track which ended up become 'Attitude'. Sharing multiple demos with others I believe helped me focus on a single track rather than becoming distracted with a shelf full of half complete canvases. However, along with this I've discovered things about my workflow that has held me back from the potential of crafting a great track from a good one.

I believe it has developed slowly from not being very smart with file organisation and self prescribed naming protocols, I would slowly fill up my desktop with demo .wavs and ableton project files and then chuck them all away in a folder once it got too cluttered.

My friend George recommended a new way of naming project saves by numbering at the end of the file (i.e. Attitude 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 etc.). This has definitely helped me keep track of the progress of a certain project, however I feel like the way I utilised this technique in conjunction with poor time management backfired.

That is how many different versions of the mix I worked on before I just went, fuck it - and sent it off for mastering thinking it would be ok. In hindsight, the moment you start thinking 'that'll do' - is not a healthy way to produce music; because it absolutely won't do and it is exactly what happened when I received the mastered file. It's a pretty good track, not a great one - and not one that I am confident in or one that I believe well reflects the improvement I've made in my productions this year.

I want to make a track which stands up among other music I like to listen to, and I'm close, but just not quite there yet. What is lacking and particularly in this track is that unfortunately I feel it just doesn't sound competitive enough. It doesn't have that sparkle or shine to it, that extra bit of interest, polish and colour which great dance tracks all have.

What are my next steps forward in terms of workflow? I need to stop spending 10 days on the smallest elements to the point where I no longer know if I'm implementing positive or negative changes. I was too close to the music, the mix wasn't working and I should've paid attention the overall sound design rather than trying to fix and put my attention into corrective EQ. At that point I was no longer looking at the big picture, the track as a whole. So I believe mid-way through those project files, the song lost its essence and the fact that it is a Jbox song.

The music is the most important part of it. Basically I need to do a reassessment of my priorities as a producer in order to keep improving. I need to focus on songwriting and sound design first (A lot like recording priorities: music > performer > space > mic choice & positioning); because the mix can be helped as much as you want, but there's no point in 'polishing a turd'. In mentioning sound design, almost all mix problems come from poor sound sources. For my next track, it's going to make it a much easier and more of an organic process by really nailing my choice of sounds on top of a well-written piece of music.

Creative & Technical Processes

However, there are elements of this track in which I believe I have done well and have improved on aspects of my craft.

Percussion and forms of rhythm including rhythmic vocal cuts is one element I definitely made one of my focusses. I put a lot of attention to detail into the more mellow and summery sound of my clap, with a double perc hit (characteristic of a lot of house music) between the hi-hats and clap to really help drive that groove:

I've always been big on integrating vocal cuts and characterising them as or alongside my lead melodies, so for this one I believe I made pretty catchy line out of a few different sample phrases. Re-pitching and then cutting the top and tails of different words or ad libs to create entirely new phrases is something I find really cool and interesting, check out Pauline Pantsdown for one of the best/hilarious examples I can think of that technique being utilised.

It was definitely an awesome little experiment I tried with this track, but I think in that I lost what I really enjoy and is what I believe what one of my strongest aspects of my craft is - writing catchy synth melodies that bend and glide. Something I could have considered is integrating both like at the beginning of my track Sundays or in the chorus of I Can. The thing about Sundays is that I should have made that melody line a teaser of the hook, and integrated the vocal cuts as verses or supporting elements - because unfortunately the intro is the only time that catchy melody appears. So there's another thing I can improve on - song structure.

As explained above in what I became aware of as a result of this project's journey; songwriting and song structure is a basis of what is causing issues in my workflow and progression - but I'm glad I've noticed and picked it up. Over the next couple months whilst I have Christmas holidays from studying my bachelor, I'll be completing an online songwriting course in order to give me some really valuable tools and perspective so I can start stepping up my craft in the right ways.

I'm one of those producers who mix as they go, and it's definitely an efficient approach many others employ including Netherlands producer, WRLD:

I believe where I deviated from this being a smart technique to use, is that I never really had a complete, working track as I was mixing it. So I ended up getting stuck in a rut of fixing things, and as mentioned above - not giving attention to the right things i.e the actual song. WRLD also mentions some insight to his song structure. He introduces elements of the hook or leading element at the start of the track, to let people know what the song is about and get it stuck in their heads early; it's attention grabbing. I think I definitely have the ability to do this, I just haven't cleverly placed my melodies or structured my works to be as easy-listening or 'hooky'. So what I need to work on improving in my next songs is to exemplify the hook, and compliment it with a well-rounded and catchy structure to support it.

Another production technique I made a focus and did turn out pretty well, as I've tested the track on club systems and a variety of speakers - is the relationship between the kick and bass.

I learned more about subtractive & FM synthesis and the power of Ableton's operator, which is a very underrated synth.

It was a very simple setup for Attitude's bassline, a sin wave on A & B with the coarse set as .5 on the modulator. I also used an inverted Auto Pan tool as the sidechain compression, I've found it's a little bit smoother and you don't really get those clicks and pops you sometimes get from heavy side-chaining. I find this technique would be more useful for genres like house and it's subgenres which typically have simple kick rhythms. You will notice with artists like Flume, he will use a compressor for sidechaining as link it to the kick drum or a muted sound source to act as a pseudo kick to create that groove. Because there's so many filler drum hits present in his work, an Auto-Pan would be more difficult to work with as there is only set musical rates you can engage the sidechain with.

I've gone on to create some very authentic deep house bass patches with Operator, and also some crazy wobbling stuff with the automation of the LFO section which is a lot of fun to play with - you'll hear some of it in my upcoming track.

With EQ, I made sure the kick was controlling the sub frequencies whilst the bassline grooved above 60Hz with harmonics up to 200-250Hz. The brass chords went from 200Hz and up, as originally there was quite a lot of lower information which made it harder to distinguish the bassline. This separation of roles ensures the least amount of frequency masking, and results in more clarity in your mix overall. The other side to this is that you need to be making sure you're not sucking all the life out of the track, and I think I lost a fair bit of warmth with my overly-corrective EQ - where I should have focused on better sound design of the chords to start with. There has to be a balance, and this is why sharing your tracks with a fresh set of ears, both trained and untrained - is so important and will help you reach the sound you're after.

All in all I still believe this was a very worthwhile project, as I discovered a lot about my workflow and have isolated things to consider for my upcoming projects. For 'Attitude' as a whole, I've had to make a decision as to whether this is the direction I really want to take with my music. I wasn't really enjoying myself towards the end of it, and that's a problem in itself. I'm going to get back into creating music that I love just because I had heaps of fun making it and it feels like me; and if I'm loving it, there's a good chance someone else out there is going to vibe it just as much.

Cheers,

Lachy :))