For the final project I chose to use a modern sound. Music today especially in hip hop and rap are heavily influenced by synths and bouncy melodies. I was able to capture my take on my recent influences and create a form of music that has a creative twist and bounce. In my project I worked with trap-like drums to help create a rhythm and the A minor chord progression I used created a darker feel. Sounds such as the ones I used in my project can be heard from artists like Travis Scott, Future, and Lil Uzi. 

    The tempo I chose for this project is 134 Bpm and It allowed the beat to flow at a natural pace that wasn’t too fast or slow. This Bpm is very effective in rap and hip hop as it can be found in today’s top charted songs. I wanted to create a common flow within the beat so I used a 4/4 scale. The kick used in my project is heavy and has a bigger thump to complement the bounce of the other percussion. The bass guitar used has a lot of sub in it to create the feel of 808s but not overpower the other percussion or melody. 

    The main key in this piece is A minor and I incorporated  all of the major and minor chords into my harmony. The minor chords within the scale are A, D, and E. The major chords within the scale are C, F, and G. Lastly, the diminished chord within the scale is B. I used all of these chords in my harmony and it helped me create a smooth groove for the beat.

    The choice of sound for my harmony was a keyboard. To fully describe these keys they were taken from the Logic Pro library and called “Faded Keys”. The sound of the keys are bright and complement the darker sound of the melody. In my melody I used a brass sound within Logic Pro called “Late Night Brass”, and I would describe the sound of the brass as cinematic and a little more on the complex side. One of my favorite sounds in music today is the brass, so I would say that is why I chose to go with that sound. 

    In my audio track I recorded a candy wrapper in my mic to kind of create a white noise or a lofi type of sound. The sound of the wrapper was a little overpowering after I finished recording it into the beat so I decided to use a channel EQ and took out most of the high and low frequencies. This turned out to be very effective so the sound of the wrapper sits on the beat smoothly. To create the two synths within the beat I used ESP. This synth allowed me to create a spacey sound that fit the mold of the beat and created a Sci-Fi effect. The audio I chose to load into the sampler was a  loop in Logic called “African King”. I used this loop a little differently by reversing the signal and chopping up the sound which created another ambient effect. 

    A lot of the processing I used in this beat were EQs that helped me get rid of unneeded or muddy frequencies. I used a channel EQ on the Melody, Harmony, African King loop, and the Candy Wrapper audio. The EQs placed on the melody and harmony were used to get rid of low frequencies that might cause muddiness in the kick and bass tracks. I used a compressor on the Candy Wrapper track to bring in some of the noise as the recording levels were low. Lastly, I placed a reverb track on the candy wrapper, synth, and african king tracks to create more space in the beat. I also added a delay to the african king track which gave the track a bouncy feel that complimented my harmony and melody tracks.