For this jam, I wanted to use a lot of my new instruments and sounds in the Komplete 14 Collector's Edition, specifically their solo string quartet, action drums, and BEAUTIFUL plucked nylon guitar. I use Ableton Live 11 Suite and made roughly one track per day. My composition process was mostly the same for each track:
- Turn on your computer, breathe (write that down), and open your DAW
- Decide on a direction/vibe for the piece
- Look for an instrument to load into the first track
- Mess around for 2 hours until I have a chord progression
- Load a viola/violin into the second track and come up with a melody
- Put some ocean wave sounds over everything
- ***BASIC LOOP COMPLETE***
- Duplicate the section, load and compose 1-3 new instrument parts to add DYNAMIC VARIATION
- Repeat the prior step a few times until the song is of appropriate length
- ***SONG DRAFT COMPLETE***
- Add some variation in the structuring, like a buildup or a delayed resolution
- Add EFFECTS to the tracks, such as reverb, reverb, or alternatively, reverb
- Make sure that everything feels cohesive with what you've already written, and that it's solid in general
- Do some MIXING (adjust gain levels, and pray the VSTs do the rest)
- Do some MASTERING (run Ozone 11 on the master, laugh since it thought you wrote a rock piece, and set it to cinematic)
- Do some QUALITY CONTROL (actually make sure the piece sounds good enough to show to hundreds of people and potentially some industry professionals who you would love to be in their position one day and would desperately love to earn their feedback)
- ***FINAL SONG COMPLETE***
- Wait a few days
- Develop self-doubts
- Post your song to the discord server and beg for feedback
- Get mostly positive feedback
- Tell yourself that you need to do way more with the time you have
- ...change literally one thing
- Rerun Ozone 11 and submit the master before you can change your mind
- ***FINAL SONG COMPLETE, FOR REAL***
This is a very scuffed and lighthearted take on my composition process, but it's honestly not that far off. I always start with a solid loop and continue to add instruments to create a bunch of dynamic levels that would hopefully phase between each other as the track evolves inside of a video game. I leaned into my strengths with this jam, all while utilizing my infinite new Kontakt libraries and instruments. Overall, I'm happy with what I've been able to accomplish. If you're interested in rating my project, please check it out here, I'd love to hear your feedback! :D