Before I started to work on this project, I knew I wanted to go for something that had
futuristic sounds and make people feel the vibe I was going for. The first 16 Bars of this project
sound happier, while the other 16 Bars I wanted to give a dark feeling. I was able to achieve that
dark vibe by changing the chord progression and the instrument. I stayed in the Fm key, but it
made it sound completely different. I still wanted to make it feel futuristic with a dark vibe. I
achieved that by choosing different-sounding drums and chopping up vocals before the beat
dropped. I believe this track could be used for a futuristic movie/TV show. I also think that the
first half of the track could be used for a song by the right artist.
The tempo of this track is 124 BPM. 124 BPM felt perfect because it wasn’t too slow or
too fast, it just sits in the middle. The meter I used was 4/4. For this project I decided to wait for
8 Bars before having the drums come in the song, I did this for the first 16 bard and the last 16
bars. I feel like this structure creates more hype for the track. For the first 16 bars, I have a snare,
HH, Kick, and Cowbell. For the last 16 bars, I wanted my drums to sound more futuristic, so I
changed the snare to one that sounded more different. I kept the same Kick and HH. For the
BASS I had 4 different rhythms. Both BASS are distorted, and it sounds like it’s a BASS from
the future.
The key to this track is F minor. I stayed in key for the whole project because I did not want the
switch up to sound off. For the first 16 Bars, I used the chords Fm(i) AbM(III) EbM(VII) Fm(i).
I liked the way this sound progression sounded. I also inverted some notes so it could sound
smoother. For the last 16 Bars, I used Fm(i) Bbm(iv) AbM (III) Go (ii). I changed the chord
progression because I wanted to get something that sounded darker. For the beginning half of the
song for the harmony, I chose a simple electric piano. I then layered that chord progression with
a pad because the piano alone sounded too empty. I wanted to create more rhythm, so I added a
guitar for the Melody. The guitar sounded repetitive, so I transposed a few notes within the same
key of the chord. For the second half of the song, I chose a darker-sounding electric piano. I then
created two different pads and layered that progression to make it sound fuller. For the melody, I
did not overdo it and left space because the pads made the track already sound full. The melody
contains a lead that sounds both dark and futuristic.
I used the ESP plug-ins to synthesize my own pads on tracks 99 and 100. The ESP gave me full
control on how I want my pads to sound. I turned up the attack, delay, and release to give it that
slow build up pad sound. After synthesizing, I added automation to sidechain the pad, this adds
more rythm to the track. I chopped up a simple vocal pad on the sampler and added time based fx
to it. It is a simple chop up but the way I mixed it, it sounds good. I added the vocal chops before
the beat drop of the second half of the track. At the beginning of the track I added an apple loop
and added panning automation. I added the apple loop because I wanted to create more
ambience. I recorded some vocal chops and mixed them to create an ambient background. I used
my vocals to transition in between both of the beats.
For this project, I EQ’d every track, just removing unnecessary frequencies, and adding
some frequencies to make the mix sound better. I used compression on tracks 93-98 and 100-
102. Some of the instruments I chose had the dynamics going everywhere so with the

compressions I was able to control those dynamics to make it sound much tighter. I created a few
different aux buses with time-based plug-ins such as reverb, delay, and chorus. I added reverb to
the chords and pad to make it sound wider. I also added reverb to the vocals to make them more
ambient. I added delay to the vocals and pads, and I added the chorus on the ESP Pad, and the
guitar melody because it sounded too dry. To get the sound I was trying to achieve I needed the
mix to sound ambient and clean.