This piece of music is a microcosm of a tech house beat that could be elaborated in the future to make a full composition. I was heavily influenced by a deep house feel when it came to the bass line and I tried to keep the melody subtle but still noticeable in the upper register. I could see this piece being used in a car commercial or some type of tech advertisement or just a sample inside of your favorite dance club.

 

This piece is in 4/4 time and the drums are made with a backbeat rhythm in mind. The drums give the piece a pulse and the bass track provides the foundation for the groove. The drum kit is not a typical techno kit which allowed snaps to be used in the place of noisy snares with too much bite for the type of arrangement I had in mind. I chose a bass synth that fit well with the drum kit and then I tweaked the settings within the bass synth until I was satisfied with the overall feel of the bass within the composition.

 

My piece is in the key of B Minor using the chords, Bm, Em, D, G, and C#°. I used the Bm and the Em as my foundation for the harmony and the D and G chords as a contrast to that foundation. The C#° served as a lower section to give two sections of the harmony an eerie sound to it and bring the composition out of the monotony of the other chord sets. The melody is an arched melody and somewhat mirrors the harmony in order to stay consonant through the piece.

 

Recording my voice for the piece was a great adventure but fairly straight forward due to the nature of techno and house beats. I chopped and multiplied the same two recordings of myself saying “this is the way” and used this phrase as my hook for the beat. By taking away “the way” from the phrase and pasting it in the beginning of the piece I was able to build up to the drop of the full phrase and create some tension in anticipation of the full phrase being said along with the build up of the drums etc.

 

I used an enveloper effect and a reverb effect on the audio vox track #80. As well as several eq’s on the vox track (#80) and the bass(#76 and #77) and melody(#79) tracks to sharpen their dynamics and keep them from mixing into other tracks registers. This allowed for each instrument to be heard with clarity and without obstruction from other tracks.