No mulligans yet, so I’m holding to a good schedule so far!

So this track wound up being something not quite as chill as I had aspired to, but once the ideas started to take shape, this was the shape they seemed to want to be. Still, it is a LITTLE slower than my previous tracks, at least, but not overly organic apart from the use of conga/bongo sounds in the groove.

Overall I’m pleased with the atmospherics of this one. In one of my previous posts I said I sucked at mastering, and I still do, but I think this one sucks less. It feels more balanced to me and I’m starting to find that sweet spot of having some mid-range/treble presence and still have some deep bass sound without it turning to complete mush.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH CONTAINS MUSIC NERDINESS. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED: I loaded this up with some extra sounds, too. There’s more “event” style instrumentation; listen for the tubular bells near the end of the breakdown and the emergence of an extra syncopated Juno synth pluck in the drop/outro. A synth bass and bass guitar sounds (simulated; the studio is still a wreck and not suitable for recording live instruments yet) create the bass figures together, but with contrast with the synth holding down the thump on the “ands” and the bass guitar sketching the harmonics around the beat. The bass guitar is a modeled bass. I started with the “Cat Gut Bass” preset that comes with Ableton Suite and played with a few of its parameters to give it a slightly more aggressive tone. It plays a super simple line of root notes, and an occasional grace note of 3rds or 5ths before the one to anticipate the chord changes on the one. The chord progression itself is a super simple 4 measure i/v/i/III progression.

I hope you enjoy this track. It was fun making it!

[DJ Wankery: 121 bpm, F minor (4A)]