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My track will be fusing funk and metal where it will be mainly presented through the bass but drums will also take part in the track, the funk parts will involve catchy riff which will develop to other ideas that will be fused and joined together with bass metal-like riff and it will be like that throughout the whole song. Artist that influenced my work is the bassist from Vulfpeck, Joe dart, which is a bassist I look up to, in the other hand, for the metal part the band that influenced me the most is System of a down band which for me, they have a very heavy and melodic bass which is what I am aiming for. I used a focusrite interface to be able to record the bass on logic but I still have not thought about how i will record drums for my track, it may done by MIDI or record an actual drum.

After having bass, i added drums in order to make the genres more distinguishable,  i also used a logic tool in order to make the song be on time which is called Flex time.

Flex time allows you modify the timing of an audio sample without having to record everything again, flex time works by allowing you to select every sound peak produced by a instrument, for example, if you play a C note on the bass, when you are recording, the sound of the C note produces a change in the recording by showing a higher peak (also known as transient) which allows it to detect every time something is being played.

How to start using flex time?

You first go to the track and click the button: Show/Hide flex which is right below the time and tempo of the song. (insert image)

This will allow for the audio track to expand and pop the pitch menu up and select ''Flex time - Monophonic'' (insert image)

after this step, you can press the ''Enable flex'' button right above the pitch menu which is also besides the volume control on the track 

This will make a new window to open where you will be able to see the sound waves, these will also come with vertical dotted lined which are the transients and you can move them lefts to right depending how off-beat the transient is. 

After you have done all these steps, you have successfully used Flex time.

I have also recorded the bass in order to have bass audio in the track.

I have done this by having a bass guitar, audio interface and a bass cable.

What is recording bass? 

This means being able to play the bass and having the music software recognise the sound it produces, having sound waves is proof that the recording is working.

How to record bass?

The things needed has been mentioned but you first make sure the bass is plugged to the computer, you plug the bass to the audio interface (In this case is Focusrite 4i4) and the audio interface should be plugged to the computer.

To be able to have bass in audio in the music software you would need to check your preference and select your audio interface.

After you have done this you will need to be able to hear what you play and you should press the auto button 

After you have done this you should select the channel where the bass sound is coming from, in this case is channel 2

I also used MIDI to add drums to the track

MIDI mean musical instrument digital interface which allows other devices and musical hardware to be able to communicate.

How to use MIDI?

First select a drum audio and place in your MIDI track

After you have done this you should arm the track so its ready to receive notes from the MIDI device

You should also look at the recording quantisation and the metronome (talk about how did i used quantisation)

Now everything is ready to record the drum patter, double click the MIDI slot to be able to record drums.

I also used EQ on the bass recording in order to make it clearer, I used EQ by to the area where the volume is controlled and pressed the option where it said EQ.

talk why i used it

automation

Mixing

I also realised that I was getting red on the volume levels of my bass recording which is why I adjusted the bass volume -2.2 dB lower.

How did you create your funk/metal elements?

I first started with the funk bass and added a funky drum track with the snare and bass drum to make the genre more distinctive, I also added a keyboard to add more texture, when it came to metal, I drastically changed the bass line, drums and also added an electric guitar in attempt to make a guitar riff, in difference to the funk drum track, the metal drum track features a lot of the cymbal playing in crotchet and the kick drum and snare playing in the classic 2 and 4 beat.

To have a metal-like guitar I added a pedal board with pedals like Hi-drive, blue echo, vintage drive and fuzz machine to give its distorted sound.

 

The structure of the song is pretty simple, it first starts with the bass with a funk bass line and after that the drums join in to make the part more funky, after the funk part it comes the metal part which has a fast bass line but overall the parts repeats 

What went well.

What I liked about this work that the bass is main instrument and it is what it gives the song the main structure, I also liked that the drums were locked in with bass, what i mean by this is that, apart from being on time, the drums also do try and mix with the notes the bass does.

I also liked that the transitions between the genres was pretty evident so it is able to be recognisable and i feel is was good because the bass evidently changes tone and playability when its a different genre.

I also liked the guitar riff in the metal part and that also the bass had a bass solo to finish the song.

EBI

I feel my work lacked the instruments so the genre is more evident, for example, i feel i could've add guitar to the funk parts so it is more funky instead of just having the bass, acoustic guitar, piano and drums.