The Song Exploder Project
Throughout the last four weeks, I’ve been closely studying a certain music producer’s technique and the uniqueness of their work. In order to satisfy my song exploder project, it was essential that I pay close attention to the production techniques of the producer that I chose to study.
Firstly, before going into the juicy details of what I’ve been working on, what is a music producer?
What is a Music Producer?
A music producer or also known as record producer plays multiple roles during the production of a song. They oversee along with manage the sound recording and production of a band or a performer’s musical creation.
The roles of a record producer is and not limited to:
Gathering musical ideas for the project
Collaborate with the artist on the production of the record
Work with different artists in order to achieve results or to improve their songs
He/she might also be asked to assist in the song’s lyrics or arrangement
All in all, the producer helps the artist/band to polish their performances to get the desired sound/tone that a specific genre or style of music requires. They guide and supervise the recording sessions, all through the mastering stage.
The record producer that I have chosen to study would be Thomas Wesley Pentz, or better known by his stage name Diplo. Diplo founded and manages his record company Mad Decent, along with co-founding Jack Ü and Major Lazer. I’ve decided to study his techniques and producing style in his electronic dancehall project, Major Lazer.
Major Lazer’s music spans numerous genres, mixing reggae with dancehall, reggaeton, house and moombahton. I’ve always admired the records that Major Lazer has been banging out since 2010. In the last four weeks I’ve had my attention on “Come On to Me” which is from their 2014 extended play of the album “Apocalypse Soon”, produced by Major Lazer and Boaz van de Beatz, and features the vocals of Sean Paul.
Diplo has always been known to pull samples to incorporate into his work, “Come On to Me” features a sample from Willie Colón and Hector Lavoe’s La Murga. The sample appears at 1:53 in the record. Although I’ve decided not to sample any melodies or vocals throughout my project as it would be a pain to get them cleared for public release, so I didn’t heavily research his techniques about sampling.
Diplo’s Production Techniques
From multiple interviews, Diplo has revealed what type of synths he uses. Primarily using soft synths. Diplo has a rather old style when it comes to producing records, he would manipulate and resample the synths over and over until the original sound is unrecognisable but not unusable. Rather than a specific VST MIDI instrument, he would use multiple at the same time for a certain sound.
Diplo’s go to synths are (and not limited to):
Native Instrument’s Komplete
Lennar Digital’s Sylenth1
Native Instrument’s Battery
Native Instrument’s Massive
In an interview with UA Audio, when asked how he recreated Reggae and Dancehall’s tape and tape delay sound, he stated that there was lots of the Galaxy Tape Echo Plug-In, FATSO Jr./Sr. Tape sim and a Compressor plug-in analog squashing going on within his Major Lazer records.
Diplo also utilises the Roland RE-201 Space Echo in his track “Get Free”. The choppy vocals near the end was processed using the Roland RE-201 amongst numerous layers of compression and resampling.
Diplo’s producing technique is definitely different from the usual go to techniques, it’s definitely more open-ended and not prescriptive. From most web articles, both primary sources and secondary sources would always state that he would always try producing in weird and unusual ways, it’s been a rather interesting few weeks closely studying his techniques. It definitely has been an eye opener as it re-confirms to me that, a producer doesn’t necessarily need to know every part of producing perfectly when it comes to putting together a crafty and creative sounding record.
The Song Exploder Project
Throughout this project, I can safely say it is now easier if I were to satisfy a client brief that is open ended and not prescriptive. Most bands and artists that I have worked with typically have a very narrowed view to what they want their records to sound like, and are quite specific as well. I’ve always enjoyed working with an artist that is more open minded and easy going when it comes to producing a record, mainly having a handful of artists and songs in mind and drawing inspiration/techniques from them, allowing room for creativity and craftsmanship.
Within this project, I’ve crafted a record from scratch drawing inspiration and techniques from Major Lazer. Although I wasn’t lucky enough to be able to use all of the plug-ins and VST’s that Major Lazer utilises, but I’ve managed to get my hands on a few that matter.
The Sounds of The Song Exploder Project
Most of the instruments were crafted using Native Instrument’s Massive and Komplete.
The brass and trumpet sounds came from digging through the massive library of Komplete. Originally I did not plan on having any type of trumpet sounds in there, however in most Major Lazer records they would always have their signature trumpet/brass sounds. So naturally, I decided that brass and trumpets were a good idea.
The first few tries on creating a good sounding trumpet was a failure, as it sounded too thin and bright compared to the thickness in Major Lazer’s records. It only pieced together after I decided to have two layers of each, one of the layers playing the chords I originally want; and the second layer playing the exact same thing but an octave higher. Which created a solid sounding brass and trumpet.
The drums that I had in the track were both sampled and created from scratch, the few samples that I had came from Splice in the Reggaeton section. The majority of it came from a Roland TR-8 which is a rhythm machine that melds the sound and vice of the 808 and the 909, I also used the portable Korg Volca Beats to craft a few of the elements.
The drums took longer than I expecting, naturally a house track would be an easy Kick, Hat, Snare, Hat pattern. However, Major Lazer would usually spice things up with their drum beats and patterns. Implementing as much percussion and beats they can fit, tucked in nicely under the kick and snare. It took a while to get the hang of having a few tracks just for a beat, however it was smooth sailing after I got the groove of it.
For synths, as stated above I primarily used Massive for them. I didn’t go crazy with the layering for them, only having 3 layers for the lead and 5 layers for the drop. Major Lazer always had catchy melodies and minimal musical work going when it comes to a lead or melody, which plays to my disadvantage. I’m absolutely horrible with music theory and even a simple chord progression would take me longer to bang out than the average producer, however I am rather efficient at building synth sounds. Thankfully, Peter hopped in and played a rather catchy melody after I told him what I wanted it to sound like, and it just went from there. With him planning the melodies while I worked on the synths.
The “drop” of the track I produced consisted of single notes, with different layers of synth sounds to thicken and drive the melody.
5 different layers to be exact:
Secondary Lead with a higher release to add thickness and “bounciness” to the track
Square Saw wave with a few tweaks to add more mids as the main lead contributed more highs
Bass Lead which follows the Main Lead’s notes, but it was a wobble bass which adds to the groove of it
Bass Track which was the only track that utilises Komplete’s FM8 to accompany the drums
Lastly, the vocals. We didn’t record in a vocal booth but rather in the console room where I was sitting, we used the AKG C414 microphone with a pop filter. The vocals were done within 2 hours, the artist, David Sawang and I agreed on the freedom of the lyrics. There weren’t any plans or ideas when he first stepped into the studio, we just played the track on loop and randomly chanting out words that would go well in a certain section. The ideas didn’t come fast and easy, but eventually they pieced together and we got a few good takes of him.
After reading countless articles about how Diplo spends his time at the studio, and how he gets inspired. I decided it’d be a good idea to try it for myself with the vocals, and have a general idea but nothing certain when we first started working on this together. I’d say it was easier the way things went, the only idea we had was to make it catchy.
All in all, it has been a rather fun few weeks. I’ve definitely learned more about being a good producer and engineer, not just production techniques from the producer that I have chosen, but also about many different ways of making a track. Throughout the project I’ve also picked up a few learnings that I would incorporate into my own practices, synth work, microphone placement and vocal mixing techniques to name a few.
