How I Did It
Just Another Dayby shockshadow
Uses samples from:
Samples are used in:
Tools I Used
Orion Pro + varous vst instruments and mda's Vocoder.
Samples I Used
Just the Bed Time sample.
Original Samples
Everything else is original.
Process
First I loaded the BedTime sample into a sampler. Then I looped the second half of the sample and while it played looped, I played around with the pitch and the bpm until it looped perfectly in sync with the metronome. Then I created a little background rhythm with more midrange than anything else. Then I layed out the synth bass line. The portamento glide really made it nice. Then I started on the vocals. I put on my headphones, and I set Orion to loop the 12 bars that I had layed out all together at the same time, and sat down with a pad and pen to work out the lyrics. After I came up with the lyrics, I set the recorder utility that came with my Creative xFi soundcard to record, turned off all noise producing objects in my room (including the air conditioner) and recorded several takes until I got it as good as it was going to get.
Then I loaded the samples into Sound Forge and took as much hiss and low rumble out as I could without messing with the vocals, and added a bit of chorus.
Then I loaded the vocals as two seperate audio tracks in Orion Pro and looped them with the stuff I had laid out before. As the vocals and the loops played, I loaded another synth and played a nice pad sound along with the lyrics in the chords that I wanted the vocoder to add to my voice. Then I panned my vocals all the way to the left, and the synth pad track all the way to the right, and recorded just those two tracks into one single track for use with the vocoder. Then I took that track, and loaded it as an audio track in Orion Pro, and added reverb, filter delay, and a vocoder effect. The vocoder basically takes a stereo track, and uses the left channel to modulate the right channel, which is why I had to create that combined track with the synth pad.
So I loaded it up, and played with the vocoder settings a bit until it sounded perfect, and continued with the song. I started laying out the tracks in the Song window and arranging everything. I added two more rhythms...a slow one for the lyrical part of the song, and a high energy rhythm for the more intense part of the song later on. Then I added several more synth pads, and a couple of arpgeggio-driven synths. I finally wrapped everything up by adjusting EQ levels and rendered it. Compressed it to 256kbps mp3 and uploaded it.
Other Notes
This song was a big step for me because I was determined to get the best sound I could out of my vocoder plugin. I knew it was possible, I just didn't understand how to do it until I read up a bit on how vocoders work, and played with the settings for a while. Hope everyone likes it!
:)
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