Loop Song

When I was tasked with making a song comprised entirely out of loops I felt at home right away. For the first several years of my composition journey I would use Garage Band for iPad, and the music I made was just using loops. My only reservation being that I would be using the web-based DAW, Soundtrap. I had never used it before, and hearing that it was a free program accessible through a browser didn't lessen my doubts. However, after using Soundtrap I can say that it's pretty good for what it is. It's no Logic or Pro Tools, but being that it's free to use with a quick Google search, it's not bad. The audio quality for the loops is very good, and the actual content in them is good too. There are plenty of midi loops as well for those who may like to change some things. The following is the song that I personally made using these loops:

I was going for the same style that I would've made back in the day in Garage Band, and I personally think I did a good job with that. It's evidently very EDM influenced which is primarily what music got me into composition in the first place. The execution is alright and the mixing could be better but I'll just chalk that up to my personal inexperience with the DAW. 

• Firstly, when crafting my chorus section I was looking for any loops that I could layer on top of each other. I personally find that an easy way to craft an atmosphere is to have a lot of similar tracks works towards filling the same space. 
• As I was looking for these loops, I found the one I would use for the first "Drop" (if you will). The deep synth bass-ish sound that is introduced by itself just after the chorus was really what gave me the structure for the piece. These types of EDM songs generally follow one set pattern: Intro/Chorus, First Drop, Chorus, Second Drop, Outro/Chorus. The second drop is usually one of two things, either a repeat of the first with some minor alterations, or completely different. I went with the latter.
• My track has a sort fusion aspect to it, borrowing elements from Trapstep and Future Bass (which you could argue is just a subgenre of Trapstep but whatever). After I finished the first drop, I started looking for a different loop which I could use to switch up the ending and came across the power chords that you hear at the ending. While it is in Cm, like the rest of the loops, it follows a different progression, so wen I was transitioning from the chorus to the second drop I tried to make it less noticeable by fading out the chorus elements and fading in the drop. The drums for the first drop of course wouldn't work because the vibe is so much different. I found some house drums to play in the Future Bass section (as well as some bass which wasn't present in the first drop because of the low-end present in the lead synth).
• Then after the second drop, rather than switch back to the chorus verbatim, the pace had already been altered with the house drums so I just kept those going through the end of the song while reintroducing the chorus on top. And of course, I went with the tried-and-true outro of having the drums and bass be the last parts in a song.

I'm proud of what I made, and Soundtrap was a fun experiment, but going forward I'm sticking with my preferred DAWs. Though this has given me some inspiration to make more music in this style since it is a lot of fun. Ultimately, I think Soundtrap is a decent alternative to professional DAWs if someone may not be able to afford one, and I imagine with enough practice some really good music can come out of it as with any DAW.

A Song I Like

The song that I've chosen to write about for the assignment is a bit of a unique one. It's マーシーキリング (Mercy Killing) by the Vocaloid producer いよわ (Iyowa). If you're not familiar with what Vocaloid is, it's a program built specifically for vocal synthesis stylized similarly to a DAW. Artists can write in vocals using voicebanks of pre-recorded words/syllables (depending on the language). Think of it like a sample pack, but with vocal samples that you can tune individually. Even if you haven't heard of the program, you've likely heard of the most popular voicebank, Hatsune Miku which, coincidentally, is one of the two libraries used for vocals in this song.

To clarify, I'm not saying this is my favorite song, or even that it stands within my top 10, but it is so interesting compositionally that I wanted to talk about it:

1. This song is incredibly dense. There is so much going on at once that trying to identify the individual melodies would be a Sisyphean task, and yet its not just a jumble of sounds. Each element works together to create a larger consistent atmosphere. All being a testament to the production on this song which is stellar. I'm an electronic musician, so things like mixing and layering is intriguing to me, and hearing stuff like this always impresses me because I know it's not an easy thing to do well, especially with the amount of individual tracks needing mastering in this song.
2. It's also very rhythmically interesting. The slightly offbeat piano melody is probably the first thing you'll notice when listening. It's very purposeful, and is done specifically to catch your attention. This type of thing is present in the rest of the song as well, albeit less apparently, with several background elements being ever so slightly off kilter. The verse has less of this garbled feel to give more focus to the lyrics of the song which, unfortunately I can't give you much insight on since I am not fluent in Japanese. But it has a much more steady rhythm to serve as foundation for the singing. When moving to the chorus however, the complexity returns and starts to seep into the vocal patterns as well. Additionally, the key changes here, I just can't tell if it's in the pre-chorus, or at the start of the chorus itself, but the natural switch just further showcases Iyowa's composing prowess.
3. None of this is exclusive to this song either, and is present to even greater extents in all of Iyowa's music, and this album especially. I think he is one of the prime examples I would use whenever talking about "more is less" musically. Not to mention that he wrote this song after only one year of publishing music, and his style has only gotten more polished since then. And if any of this is at all interesting to you I recommend you check out some of his other stuff.