The Making Of : mmmm hmmmm

This is the first in a series of "making of" articles I plan on writing. I'll break down a track step by step, showing my process. Hopefully this will be beneficial to some people out there learning , and also I hope that other producers will post similar articles so we can all share ideas and benefit.



Mmmm hmmm



In this track I use probably my favorite synth patch I have ever come across. It's the flutey , girl voice type sound that forms the main melody. The patch is from a sound font I have called 'HS Synth Collection I' and the sound is called 'BLOWED BOTTLE'.

You can download the bank containing my beloved "BLOWED BOTTLE" patch
download HS Synth Collection Sound Font VST

The sound that plays off of the melody is also included in that bank. It's called 'DX-SYNCLAVIR', it's sick.



SoundFonts
Sound fonts are a type of multisampled audio file format which allows them to be played via MIDI. They are free, and you can get REALLY AMAZING sounds that you're not going to find anywhere else, face it, most VSTs are totally played out, and sound lifeless and boring as hell. I use at least one patch from a soundfont in every one of my tracks.


You need some sort of VST player to load in the sound fonts. I use a really basic one called SFZ. But you should probably use a better one, SFZ doesn't let you envelop ASDR, but I've used SFZ for so many years I just would feel like I was cheating on it if I got a new player. Also if you play the same note twice in a row , it sounds immediately fake, better multisamplers get around this using the 'round robin technique' where they play the same note , just a different recording of it.

Download SFZ VST



this is the main melody that the BLOWED BOTTLE is playing. Nothing special, it's using the hackneyed 'all black keys' tactic, (i didn't know that before starting writing this, jeez I hope the chords have some non-pentatonic notes)


But as I played this on the keyboard I pitch bent the shit out of the notes making the melody much more dynamic. If you record pitch bend into Ableton, notice all of the little envelope points it creates. Probably it is a good idea to delete the ones you don't need, but I'm lazy so I left them in there.

You can also put in the pitch bend envelopes after you play something, or after you write in notes. I do this all the time, I'm much more of an 'editor' than a player.


I put a bit of reverb on this sound too. I only use 2 reverbs, one of which is PSP Spring Verb. It's just a lil' guy that PSP put out for free a while back, but I think it kicks ass. If you use PSP, it is totally overboard, seriously you should keep the time and mix settings around %25 or lower, or else you'll fuck up the rest of your track.
download PSP Spring Reverb VST



For the chords I used another SoundFont patch, an old organ sound.


phew, looking at this progression, it's got some non-pentatonicy things happening. This subtle organ does a really good job of coloring the melody, giving it a nice context. It's really low in the mix on purpose, I don't want people to actually hear it, I just use it to create dynamics and move the track along on a subconscious level.


If you listen closely to the organ , you'll hear a bit of volume pumping in and out. I achieve this through Ableton's volume envelop knob, and for convienience I 'unlink' the envelope so I only have to draw it over 2 bars, whereas the chords are looping every 4 bars. Unlinking envelopes is my favorite feature in Ableton, you can do anything you would with an LFO, you can do sidechain compression with total control, basically you can rule the world with 'unlink envelope'.


I put the organ through my favorite Chorus, "Classic Chorus". This thing is the best. It can bring life to a lifeless VST. And , it's free! ( I see a pattern developing )

kjaerhusaudio

The Drums

The drums don't really drive mmmm hmmm. It's a melody driven track. That takes a lot of heat off the percussion, so I didn't really obsess til 4 in the morning over my kick drum on this one. But I should of. I can't really listen to a lot of indy or rock these days, very little attention is given to the drums anymore, because people just follow the melody. If you're melody is hooky, you just get lazy, but fuck that. Long live Def Leppard.


Know your rythm. When I started I had about as much rythm as The Jerk. If you want to bang it out, stick to the 1 and the 2, but if you want to creep up on people sideways, you're gonna need some bongos.


Congas, Bongos, I don't care, just give me something I can dance to. This is the pattern for the bongos (congas?) I laid in. The velocity changes are important as it mimicks nuance of a real percussion player.

The Bass

As with the drums, since this is a melody driven track, the bass doesn't have to destroy as hard as usual.

I use a patch from Native Instruments Pro 53, which is okay. Kind of a bread and butter synth, but I never put my money on it for any track defining moments.

Looking back, I definitely should have compressed this more. Those spikes are great for the character of the bass, but you don't want them to happen on the 1 and 2, where your kick and snare are happening. The line shows what a limiter or compressor would do to chop off that bite. If I would have ducked this or at least compressed it my percussion would be a little clearer. But, again, on a melody driven track you get these little 'get out of jail' free cards, so fuck it.

The Juice

A third of the way into the track I play the melody through a distorted synth. It's yet another sound font. Damn, I didn't even know that. It's a stratocaster somebody recorded, and made a sound font, thanks!



I run it through Voxengo Boogex, which is fucking gnarly, and really hard to tame. If you can't get Guitar Rig 2, then this works (and it's free), but it's like Dog Whistle status, so watch out.

Big Moment

My favorite moment comes about half through the track. I drop a ridiculous 808 style bass drum, duck everything, and layer on tons of delay. Classic Delay is by far the best delay I have ever used, I love it so much, you should just download it now and delete all of your other delays.

download Classic Delay

That's It

To wrap it up, I guess this was a pretty heavy use of soundfonts. I can't say enough about them in terms of pushing your sound. I don't have much analog gear, which is a great way to go if you have the space, but in lieu of that there are definitely things you can do to push your sound beyond the computer.

Mmmm hmmm is still one of my favorite tracks I have written, and I hope you will enjoy it. thanks.