Yo, what’s up today? We’re making a melodic rap song or something.
I actually haven’t figured out what I’m doing.
This will be an original song.
And yes, it’ll be on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
Today I just wanted to branch out of my comfort zone and work on a melodic rap song fusing a few elements of trap r & b and future bass.
Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of artists like Toby Lou, Goldlink, and Aries.
That’s the boy.
And if you’re into the Korean hip hop and r & B music scene like me, I’ve also been listening to artists like Sick, K Punchinello, Cold, and DPR live. I don’t know, hearing their songs has me feeling some type of way and it just got me inspired.
And I wanted to do something a bit more on the sunny side.
I also wanted to do something a little different on the channel than the artists’ how-tos that I’ve been doing for a while, as much fun as they are to make and for you guys to watch from a personal and artistic standpoint.
I don’t want to be remembered on YouTube as the guy who sounds like everyone else.
There are tons of things that I want to do with my channel.
I’m just starting to expand some more.
Yeah, don’t worry, I’m not having an identity crisis or anything.
And I’m still gon na make more of those How To videos.
I love making them.
And yes, I’ve seen everyone’s comments saying things like, “Oh, man, it’s become a rapper, Ed Brown.”
Make your own music.
I hear you.
I’ll have way more original music coming soon.
These guys are guys. They are coming close.
I’ll let you in on a secret.
My EP is finished.
And one of the chords of this track has that r & B or soul kind of feel, something that sets a vibe as soon as you hear our sponsor today.
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But yeah, I was going through the pack and I found this chord progression called minor progression nine found in the B flat major tab and I played it on the road preset in FL keys.
Once I heard this, I was like yo, I could work with this.
I transposed it a step and a half down. I changed the timing of some of the chords that would hit.
I use the high pass filter to clean up the low end vinyl, an isotope to give it some wear, and a flavor stereo shaper and reverb to widen the sound.
I also wanted to layer the chord progressions with a quick hitting string sound, something similar to the stab in a future bass song.
I used the staccato strings preset and expanded it and just layered it up real quick.
I didn’t use many effects on this. I just used some quick EQs to clear out the low frequencies and boost some of the highs, and I used a reverb because, hey, it’s not a practice video with a reverb on everything.
Haha.
So I’m working on these beats coming together and I’m hearing this talking to my multiple personalities.
And I’m like, yeah, you know what this is missing?
A sad piano.
So I opened up the keys to the classic Andrew Vison.
Yeah, that’s good.
Good.
I couldn’t tell you how I did it.
But no, I don’t think I will.
I’m just playing. Yeah, it’s the same chord progression as earlier, but I went through with the cut tool and talked to each note as if I were playing it on a piano, and then I added the top part.
I also highlighted each part and then changed the velocity to make it sound a little less robotic, and added a small stereo shaper and, you guessed it, reverb.
I used a bunch of drums and percussion hits, starting with this cake.
One of these things, a few of these, is this guy.
If I’m all together, the drums are pretty simple.
I only use two patterns for the drums.
I also put a few riser sound effects in this percussion loop that kind of pulls the whole track together.
Visibie When I finished making the beat, I was trying to figure out some flows and melodies that I could sing in the song.
I like to use a random word generator just to talk about some ideas.
And one of the words it gave me was concrete.
So I used that to rhyme the first few bars.
At first, my intention was to write a love song, but after some thinking, I was like, yo, do you know what’s better than a love song?
A breakup song.
So that’s where the song’s direction is headed.
After that, the phrase that I randomly thought about while writing was, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
But in terms of love, that’s a fucking lie.
We’re through a lot when you send a risky text message to my truck. I kind of wanted to build on that theme of sticks and stones and the feelings of falling out of love with someone.
But I didn’t want to represent it in a sadboy type of way.
I wanted to make it a little bit more realistic, kind of like lingering feelings, but I should move on top of it.
Here’s a songwriting pro tip.
When writing love songs, I tend to keep the lyrics unisex and write in first person.
That way, anyone can sing along and the lyrics feel more relatable to more people.
So yeah, working on the song songs coming along.
And right when I was about to finish writing the lyrics, I came to a grueling realization.
I can’t sing.
When I was recording my track, I noticed that I was hell out of key and I didn’t have the vocal training to be in perfect pitch, so I had to resort to the evil ways of pitch correction.
Whoo.
I’m using all of my regular vocal effects and stuff.
But I added Pitzer for that auto-tune type of sound.
If you want to know more about my vocal recording process and setting up your mic and everything else, I talked about it in full detail in my little skies video.
But yeah, I actually did three recordings of my voice.
The first take I did with auto tune.
The second take is actually just a duplication of the first, but I used a little altar boy, so forming shifts my voice and octave up just to fill out more high registers.
And I didn’t want my voice to sound so robotic the whole time.
So I did do a take without any pitch correction.
Just me purely singing.
Yeah, it wasn’t perfect, but one thing I learned about blaring vocals is that even if it doesn’t sound good, if you do enough takes, it’ll sound right eventually.
I also wanted to do one of those like slowed down low pitch things, but you see those like chopped and screwed videos?
Yeah, I kind of wanted to do that.
So I also did that to my tracks as well.
But yeah, here’s the original track called Sticks and Stones.
It’ll be out on all music streaming platforms.
A big shout out to our sponsor, unison audio, and here’s the track. Hope you enjoy it.
The plateaus are down on the ground and concrete is around for the ride out to take off to turn on the same highs and lows in the middle of some bad things that I wrote that song of jealousy about. Oh my chances now it’s over. Now you’ve given me the code so that I can keep composure as this company’s gone Moses can’t get hurt. My heart is frozen.
Really, we wanted the same table as we were on the front way.
Don’t give a damn if no one is available to take your call.
