Having finished my vocal recording of ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1801’ by William Wordsworth, my next steps to develop my project were to introduce the recordings into the track. This meant creating a basic arrangement of the whole song, as well as using more field recordings to complement the vocal track.
Starting with the arrangement, I knew I wanted to start the vocal with minimal noise from other tracks, taking a break from the techno / dance sections of the track and introducing atmosphere. Knowing this, I created an arrangement that reduced the groove, leaving space, then brought it back in again. This would allow me to have sections of the track for the vocal to stand out with minimal interference, as well as, later on, sections where the vocal was connected to the groove. As for a field recording to complement the vocal being introduced, I decided to use one taken from the escalators of a tube station- its combination of white noise and delicate scratching noises were a good background.
After introducing this recording, I needed to continue the track by creating a build-up back into the groove. In Jake’s week 7 workshop, we studied spatial processing, including reverb. During this session, I recorded an impulse response from a clap in the stairwell of LCC (see below), which created a lush echo effect when loaded into Hybrid Reverb on Ableton. After taking Jake’s feedback on my Work In Progress where he suggested introducing movement / variation into my kick samples using reverb and automation, I applied the effect to my kick to create an effective build-up into the next groove section of the track.
After finalising the reverb on the kick sample, I continued to finish the arrangement of the track- reintroducing the groove with variations to the patterns and instruments used. At this stage, I was happy with the structure of the melodic components of the song, but I felt that the main aspects that needed to be improved before submission were the implementation of vocals in the end part of the track, as well as the mix of the various components. The field recordings (particularly the escalator noise) were interfering with the vocal, arp, and bass, meaning I hadn’t yet achieved the clean, dreamy sound I was aiming for in regards to the mix.
This meant my final focus would be to finalise the mix by carving out space for all my instruments, as well as considering the sounds used for some layers and wether they needed adjustments.