Burr and Burton Academy
Student Portfolio:
Jonathan Saunders
Electronic Music, Unit 8
Genre: House
"House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in Chicago, circa 1984. House music quickly spread to other American cities like Detroit, New York City, and Newark - all of which developed their own regional scenes. In the mid-to-late 1980s, house music became popular in Europe as well as major cities in South America, and Australia. Since the early to mid-1990s, house music has been infused in mainstream pop and dance music worldwide.
Early house music was generally dance-based music characterized by repetitive 4/4 beats, rhythms mainly provided by drum machines, off-beat hi-hat cymbals, and synthesized basslines. While house displayed several characteristics similar to disco music, it was more electronic and minimalistic, and the repetitive rhythm of house was more important than the song itself. House music in the 2010s, while keeping several of these core elements, notably the prominent kick drum on every beat, varies a lot in style and influence, ranging from the soulful and atmospheric deep house to the more minimalistic microhouse. House music has also fused with several other genres creating fusion subgenres like shown above."
~ from Unit 4
Characteristics of House music:
Major artists today: Avicii, Alesso, Hardwell, deadmau5, Martin Garrix, Swedish House Mafia
Stylistic considerations: Bass drum on every beat is the most prominent component, everything else varies between subgenres
Tempo: 120-128 BPM is most common
Audio Examples of the genre:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRKSIj2tMc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV8eiSA4vqc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK1mLIeXwsQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1IaGRdotRA
The final result!
Normalized version:
Regular export version:
*I like this version better, but the only thing is that the drop is so loud/powerful that it maxes out Soundcloud's volume level, and that part sounds like crap.*
Screenshot of arrange window:
Process/explanation:
As you can see in the arrange window, everything in this song is split into little sections that are each four bars. The intro, outro, verse, chrous, and bridge are all multiples of four bars. I
did this to make it easier for myself.
Retro Fuzz is the main bassline in the song, and starts on beat 1.
The main lead, Deep Space Lead, also starts on beat 1. This lead is supplemented with a British Combo Synth Lead during the chorus.
Since this is a House-genre song, there needs to be a kick drum playing in a four-on-the-floor pattern. This kick drum starts on beat 13 and has two parts to it - the Massive beat and the "Noise Impact" effect off the Depth Charge, which I used in Unit 7. There is no Depth Charge during the bridge, the Massive Beat is more powerful during the chorus, and there is no four-on-the-floor pattern on bars 9-12 and 37-40. I actually
used a Logic drummer in addition to the programmable MIDI drums, but the only thing that it does is a "lightning" clash sound on the first beat of every bar (except during the outro).
Deep Techno Chords and Grand Piano and Pad were added in as a counterpart to the main lead because I thought there wasn't enough going on in the song. Deep Techno Chords plays the same pattern as the bassline while GP&P plays a unique melody that can be heard best during the bridge.
And finally, I added an Analog Saw Init, Rave 1994, and some white noise in the same way that I did it on my Unit 7 song. Only this time, I experimented around and had the Analog Saw Init play some bass as well. I think that came out well even though I wasn't sure how it would sound at first.