Surprise! Mid-Week Update - [Oath]

Hey Everyone!

Quick update on Oath - Made a lot of progress over the last 2 days. Again, if you don't want to read a bunch, scroll down to the TL;DR :)

My task on Monday was to combine the two ideas (verse & drop) that I liked from last week and flesh it out into a full song. I really like the how the 2 melodies interact but they seemed too separate when I wrote them last week. My overall goal with this song is to tell a story about an Oath (see my previous update for details), and I thought I could combine these to tell that story.

I spent a lot of time trying different ways to combine the ideas. I like to think of these 2 sections like sections in a proper song (non-EDM) with the lead melodies being the "vocal." Each section has a different emotion and I needed to stitch them together so that the theme evolves throughout the song and it tells a story - kind of like a verse/chorus in a pop song. What worked was having some of the drop lead peak through in the 2nd part of the verse in a call/response format to the verse lead.

Basically - in the last 8 of each "verse" the verse lead plays (call) and the drop lead on a high piano plays in the gaps (response). And this really helps link the 2 sections and helps keep the verse sections from feeling repetitive. From there I went into an 8 bar "EDM" build where I could introduce the drop lead on top of the verse chords (which are different than the drop chords). The build section leads into the drop which has a lot of impact because the song has been building towards it the whole time. I'm really happy with this, and I took this structure and arranged it for the rest of the song (basically the same but with small adjustments to keep it interesting).

Tuesday I spent a LOT of time on FX and subtleties. The arrangement was done and I was really satisfied with the story the song told but everything needed to be much better quality. Percussion design, FX and percussion fills, Overall Sound Design, Transition FX, and a few other things as well.

I've been trying some new things for drums over the last few projects. This time I messed around with Nerve - a drum machine by Xfer (the company that make Serum) and although the interface is pretty dated, it's really helping me try out new ideas and quickly iterate. I made the percussion fills and verse percussion with this and it really helped my workflow! I'd definitely recommend trying out the demo if you're curious - and if you have any other suggestions for drum machines/software, let me know in the comments!

And so, the version you're hearing is what I exported this morning. It's almost finished but here are the things I think  it still needs:

• Both builds need some more layers
• I might revisit the drop bass
• The drop is missing something small - not sure what yet
• General mixing & mastering

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TL;DR: I spent Monday and Tuesday combining the 2 ideas from last week. I then arranged the song, and worked on bringing the quality of all the elements up. "Oath" is almost done, but still needs work in some areas!

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I wanted to post this update because I have family coming to town tomorrow, so the regular weekly update might be a bit light in content this week. I've had a bit of positive reactions to this style of updates, but I'm still curious: Do you prefer this more detailed, long form updates or the quick overviews I'd been doing previously? Let me know in the comments!

As always, thanks so much for your support! Have a great rest of the week and I'll see you Friday/Saturday for a quick update of the whole week!

- Andrew

PS - Creative Crew / Executive Producers: I've also posted a Feedback Thread for Oath if you have any final suggestions. I'm going to finish this projects ASAP so let me know if you have any thoughts! :D