I’ve been reflecting on the process of creating these tracks over the past few weeks, and one of the main things that I’ve realised is the importance of sound/instrument selection.
It has also been one of the hardest things to get right. For instance, Listen to the following (the main instrument for the melody at the start):
[LINK TO Track3.wav]
Now, listen to the same segment with different instrument selection:
[LINK TO Track3-v11.wav]
The original lead sound doesn’t have as much presence in the mix. So, why does the second one sound better?
I could have introduced EQ, compression, or saturation, to get the sound to sit better in the mix, and I will say, I tried that first. The results were fine. But I really wanted the lead sound to cut through. So, I decided to look for similar sounds that would sit better in the mix. It takes ages to do this, but it was a good way to keep myself overworking a sound.
It’s sometimes better to change the sound rather than trying to make incremental changes to get it to sound right. So, for that lead sound I changed the sound from (Figure 1):
To (Figure 2):
The original sound is a “purer” synth sound. And I loved the pitch shift at the start of the notes, but it didn’t cut through the mix enough. The second sound has more distortion but also a more organic feel.
Other techniques used for sounds
Layering
I’ve also used a few techniques to get the best from a few sounds where using the stock plugins could achieve a sound that I was going for by itself. For these types of sounds I would sometimes layer them together (Figure 3).
Using layering, I was able to create and treat the attack of an instrument that I liked with the sustain of a different instrument that I liked too. While in Figure 3 the instruments are on separate tracks, I could have used an instrument rack. I have done this for a few of the tracks as it made automation easier, but for the example above it wasn’t necessary to achieve the sound I was after. And in this instance, I was using different octaves for the different layers, so keeping them separated made turning them into one instrument easier.
Modulation
I can’t say enough about how modulation can help with creating aural interest to sounds over time. While it’s possible to do this with automation of parameters using an automation lane, it’s usually a lot faster than easier to use an LFO.
I can say though, there are a few drawbacks with using the LFO in Ableton. First, if it’s not synced to the grid (using frequency rather than note values), you can end up playing a version that is amazing but when you render it out, the start value of the frequency is in a different place every time you render it out. Meaning it never sounds the same twice. This doesn’t happen when the LFO is set to the grid.
But an easy way around this is to freeze the track, see if it’s good, if not unfreeze and refreeze, listen and repeat until you are happy. Not ideal, but better than it sounding different every time.