Introduction To usic Production – Michael Yemane

Tag: Reflective

  • Introduction

    Introduction

    Hi my name is Mykul/June and I’m a music producer of 5 years and visual artist of 6 years (whilst also being an intermediate vocalist, guitarist and pianist). I don’t like to have a defined music production style since I always enjoy stepping outside of my comfort zone, though genres I would describe myself with are lofi, hyperpop, digicore, shoegaze, indie rock, ambient, edm and glitch. I’m very inspired by internet aesthetics and subcultures with artists such as Quadeca, Jane Remover, Porter Robinson, EDEN and Joji being big inspirations for me in both my music and my visual style. I have released one song officially so far called 8teen and for now it serves as my artistic portfolio as it shows a very high point in both my music capabilities and visual capabilities (especially the second half of the song which is the best thing I’ve ever made in my opinion). 

    8teen by mykul

    SKILLS AUDIT

    DAW: 5 
    I am very confident in Logic Pro X, it’s what I’ve been using from the start, and I’ve become very loyal to it. 8teen is a very clear example that I know my way around the software. I also do have experience in FL Studio since I must use that sometimes in certain situations. 
     
    Recording Techniques: 4 
    My own experience alongside taking A level Music Technology makes me very confident in recording techniques. Especially as of recent I’ve been recording my vocals and guitars more than ever (my SoundCloud recently has housed many of these tracks, link below). I still feel like there are a lot more things I could learn but I believe I am confident in recording.  
     
    MIDI Sequencing/Programming: 5 
    With the list of genres I am very inspired by, MIDI is a very big part of almost all of them so understanding it was a must. Most tracks I make and put out today are very MIDI centric with a guitar, vocal or maybe even a melodica or ukelele recorded in. I’m also very confident with the MIDI transform tool in Logic using it heavily to create more interesting MIDI clips. 
     
    Sampling and Synthesis: 4 
    This year I put a heavy focus on sampling and synths. My sampling was fine before however I fell into the trap of needing everything to be unique, however now sampling has been normalised due to me understanding the process of some of my favourite songs (such as when Jane Remover broke down their album Frailty). On the other hand, my synthesis improved drastically this year, I’m very inspired by dubstep-like, growly sounds so that really pushed me to have a deeper understanding of how to create synths. I feel like I’m very close to reaching my ideal skill level in synthesis but for now I still want to improve on it. 
     
    Mixing and Effects Processing: 5 
    My mixing has also improved drastically this year, very likely due to the A Level Music Technology Component 1 and 2 submissions as well as 8teen since all 3 songs required a good mix to get a good grade/good reception. I have also mixed songs for a few friends in the past. However, effect processing is the strongest part of my musical skill set. Most sounds in my songs are just normal instruments put through insane effect racks to create very glitchy, crunchy, spectral sounds. Effect stacking in a very important part of my workflow as it very often leads to new ideas that can be used elsewhere in the song or in another song entirely (fall is a big example of this since some glitchy sounds lead to cool ideas). 
     
    Critical Listening/Analysis: 4 
    Like my mixing improvement, A Level Music Technology really forced to have a critical listening ear. Sometimes I catch myself hyper analysing every piece of my favourite songs trying to piece together how they work at all. 
     
    Collaboration/Communication: 2.5 
    This is something I really want to improve on this year. I rarely collaborate with anyone simply because I don’t like to ask. I’ve already started changing that with me now entering production events and having more collaborations lined up whilst also starting to collaborate with some long-time production friends. 
     
    Organisation/Workflow: 3.5 
    I can be insanely unorganised at times, I am a very forgetful person in general, and this can and has affected me many times before. However, this inorganization has led to a workflow pattern where ideas can morph on their own and find their own identity. Of course, sometimes I go into songs with a plan to make a certain kind of song (long day and sickrn (unreleased) are examples of this) but I find that letting songs develop on their own, birthing from a single idea, can be a much better writing device than trying to follow a script. 

    https://www.youtube.com/@CTSCSmykul
    https://soundcloud.com/ctscs

  • Workshop 1 : Experimental Production

    When making my song. I wanted to really focus on the synths and the vocals. However, I wanted to start with how Jane Remover started their songs with a guitar when making Frailty.

    After I laid that down and put effects on it I started adding a myriad of crunchy synths to get a large feel. I then sound designed my own drums to give them that electronic feel then finally added vocals (which i decided to layer with a guitar part to make it feel whole).

    I did the very whispery vocal style Jane does is Teen Week and Frailty, but I rushed my vocals, so they were one takes that I fixed using the FLEX tool in Logic.

    I wanted to extend this drop for another phrase but I wasn’t sure how, however, many times Jane Remover has said that Porter Robinson was a very big inspiration and their idol when making both Teen Week and Frailty so I decided to first put in a sample of Porter Robinson’s Is There Really No Happiness as well as make the second phrase of the song be a resampled, chopped up version of the first phrase.

    I processed my vocals differently to create a very broken robot sound and the instrumental (minus the drums) followed to create this glitchy beat that is only being kept together by the drums which I really liked. I really like this way of producing, resampling yourself to create something new yet familiar, since it creates a very unique feeling that other techniques can’t really do.

    Ever since I made this song, I’ve been experimenting more with sampling myself both within the same song and across different songs to see what works and what doesn’t. The vocal chop processing is also something I have carried over to other projects since the effect layering of a heavy bitcrusher with a low resolution and a very heavy distortion saturates the sound in a way I haven’t seen (like OTT however much glitchier and more interesting). 

  • Workshop 2 : Moor Mother

    The main thing I took from listening to Moor Mother is the very eerie ambient tone that the songs can have. I wanted to keep this ambience whilst also having punchy drums to drive home the message.

    I began with making the drums, using a preset drum kit that I had made in the past and added heavy distortion to it. I then added the speech; I used the “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr and began chopping the sample up, taking some powerful lines that still had some quality to them. I then processed them, using the outro of DANCING WITHOUT MOVING by Quadeca as a reference for the static, radio effect I wanted.

    Once i had made this effect using heavy compression, EQ and effects such as Deelay (a unique delay plugin) and bitcrushers I wanted to use the cheers heard in the speech, so I put them through a shaper plugin to add a pumping rhythm at the end of the loop. I then made a reese bass by lowing the pitch of a saw wave and raising the unison. I cut off the top and added some white noise to fill it out with heavy distortion to heavily saturate it. I then added a very glitched out piano that is only almost following the beat to give a weird, uncanny valley-like sound. I made this by putting half-time and codec on the piano to crush the sound into a coherent yet glitchy mess. To finish it up, I added a quiet violin that is played in such a way where it mostly can’t be heard until a very resonant frequency is brought up, making it very noticeable.

    This way of working really put emphasis on the drums creating not only the groove, but the vibe (which are normally left to the chords and sound design I do).

  • Workshop 3 : Breakcore

    I have a lot of prior experience making breakcore-influenced production, so I employed my usual workflow whilst pertaining to both ultraviolet but also Paranoia by KENTESHI.

    I began with the drum break, beginning with drums is very unusually for me but I like to start with the focal piece of my songs so, when making breakcore, this is normal. I put an amen break I have into the Logic quick sampler and set it to slice so I would get all the individual drum sounds on the piano. Then started placing them in, glitching them out using techniques such as velocity ramps and pitch bending but not making the song unfollowable to match the new wave of breakcore artists.

    I then brought in a synth pad preset that I had made a while ago and wrote some chords. After which I created a bass using an 808 preset I made and raising the unison and sustain to create a reese-like bass. I then added a sample from the song third eye by the pillows and pitched it up for a vocal on the song. Once I added a few guitar parts since that was something toyed around with by older breakcore artists (such as Drumcorps which he speaks about in the Notes On Breakcore documentary) and some simple layers to fill out the song it was done.

    The breakcore workflow is very unique since, like the Moor Mother track, the focal point are the drums and everything should surround and support them which is very backwards compared to my usual workflow; however its a change I always accept since it leads to very unique results.

  • Reflection On This Unit

    During this unit, I have learned how to source and refer to information and use them alongside my own understandings of the material to create a piece of writing that is backed up by  numerous sources. These new skills will greatly help my practice since I can now create better piece of informative, reflective and analytical writing due to this increase in my  researching and writing skills. However, something I would like to  greatly improve in is my range of sources. Many sources throughout this piece of writing have been articles and interviews; I would like to branch out into other forms of writing to research from such  as  books,  but I understand that will take some time for me to get to grips with due to my predisposition to not like big walls of text. On the practical side, I have used many workflows that I haven’t tried before, whilst songs such as the breakcore track were relatively in my ballpark, other tracks such as the Moor Mother track were very different and cause me to think of things from a new angle which is always a fun challenge. Finally, my presenting skills did receive a boost as well, whilst I still think that my presentations had a lot to be desired and I was very critical about my performance whilst presenting, I understand again that things will get better with time and I will have more opportunities to present.  
    Overall, whilst I still believe writing and presenting are my weaker skills compared to practical music production; I think I’ve improved on my skills a lot whilst also understanding I can improve more in the future.