In this series Ben Kama takes us on the journey of a drum and bass track from start to finish. Throughout the process he will explain everything he does, the instruments and VSTs he uses, and share with us the various highs and lows of putting a piece of music together.

Follow the entire series here:

• Part 1: The pain of creation
• Part 2: The beat generation
• Part 3: Makeover
• Part 4: I am not a machine
• Part 5: Hook and line
• Part 6: Organized chaos

In the last entry Ben started experimenting with vocals, but was unsure of the final result. This time around we take a different direction as the track evolves into a more soulful piece.

Entry #5: Hook and line

I’ve been neglecting the production journal in the past week. I could make a million excuses but the reality is that I didn’t really like the vocal I created in the last entry and returning to the track didn’t feel good. I also took a few days off this track to create my entry to the Octane & DLR sample pack comp. It’s been good to look the other way from this track for a while to get some new insight into it. Last time I tried doing some spoken robotic-style vocals to the track, but listening back on the whole thing I feel they are not suited to this particular tune. I will definately save them for later use, perhaps some more minimalistic back-to-the-basics kind of track could benefit from them a little more.

I had opened the project a few times during this ‘pause’ and tried on some random clips from acapellas but they didn’t get me overly excited. One that did catch my ear (but didn’t lead to anything more at the time) was Syleena Johnson’s “Another Relationship”.

I simply cut 2 longer phrases from the vocal. It didn’t need much timestretching to fit the tempo, but some trial and error was involved in making it flow with the rhythm.


       
So that was the original idea that didn’t get me that excited but I still saved it and now when I returned to the track I started working the vocal to a more suitable feel. First I cut the phrases into 4 much smaller bits and added a few more from the acapella.


       
Throwing those cuts into the track made much more sense and got my inspiration flowing again. I immediately felt the tune taking a turn towards a much more smooth and soulful sound, but I still wanted to retain the sharpness it had. I changed a few notes on the main synth and bass to turn it into something more melancholic instead of powerful – and to better suit the key of the vocal of course. Funny thing is that while the original Syleena Johnson tune is in a major key, it fits my track without having to do any painful pitch-shifting. This is because it’s likely in G major which is the relative key to E minor. This is something I discovered only a few years ago, despite having dabbled with computer music for a decade. Goes to show that music theory still counts.


       
At this point I really wanted to give the track just a touch more soul and I got the idea of dropping the tempo a few beats. I turned down from 174 to 172. For most people this might not seem like much but for drum and bass junkies like me the difference is big. DJs are naturally another group who pay a lot of attention to the slightest changes in tempo, so here’s the new clip (with the delay) just in case you want to test if you can hear the difference!


       
The vocal was alright but that’s usually not enough so I started experimenting with it. Here’s a short video (testing the video capabilites here a little as well, perhaps later I will do a longer video episode) about how the vocal was processed.


I’m not usually so indecisive with my tunes. They do evolve with time, but not this much really. Perhaps it’s because I only spend one or two sessions per week on it, as opposed to churning out a ready track in 3 or so days. But the tune is again taking another direction, into a smaller, soulful kind of thing. My gut reaction was to scrap what I had and start over with the vocal, beats and bass, but I managed to hold it back and try to incorporate the vocal with what I already had.  I stripped down the beats – again – into a more relaxed form with less percussion and hits. I also sidechained the maraca shaker to the kick and snare so they had more room to hit and it made the beat significantly less hasty. I also played with the kick to make it flow better. I also had to bump the tempo back to 174 because some of the long audio tracks (on the bass) wouldn’t automatically stretch to fit the tempo and I couldn’t be arsed to manually change them. Mental note to fix that later.


       
As you might notice, it’s the same hits as before but much more relaxed compared to this. After listening to the changes made a few times, the vocal and synth didn’t sit too well together and after trying some different melodies with the synth I simply switched it off the hear the vocal better. I still wanted to use the synth so I went for a structural choice not to play the synth and vocals at the same time but still keep both in the tune, and so end up with clear A and B parts to the track.


       
The transition still needs work but I think I could make the parts work together. Listening to what I had done while smoking a cigarette and relaxing, I still wanted to try and stuff the synth and vocal together as the synth sound is what made this track sound good in the last few sessions. I put a bandpass filter with an input drive knob in front of everything on the vocal channel to achieve that “radio” effect that’s been used in pop music all over. It worked alright – I suppose it gave the synth that critical bit of more breathing space in the mix. I went for a structural choice here too, first using the filter for a while, then dropping it off and letting the full vocal into play and pushing the synth to the background at that point. I also added the vocal to the intro, but I had to cut out the weird vocal loop because they sounded like a mess together.


       
Looking back at this session I find it intriguing comparing this result to the original Syleena Johnson track with it’s major scale, breakup theme and otherwise full of that juicy modern r’n'b. Somehow the same vocal turned into a soulful male-sounding individual singing about some unfulfilled love – “what does she have on me?” – “does she know my name?” – “how will I live without her?“. If you know someone who is strongly against sampling and claiming that it’s stealing, show them this blog post.

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