For my alternative R&B tracks I knew there would be a heavy use of electronic drums for example the hi-hats, kick drum and toms, plus percussion. Going on the trend of adding spaciness to the alternative tracks, I knew I would want them to sound distant, but punchy. For this I added flanger. The flanger did exactly what I wanted it to do but I wanted to add a twang to the hi-hats, for this I layered them with a percussive instrument and it was everything I could ask for. Below is a audio playlist of a preview with and without the percussion and as you can see it plays a huge role. I also added reverb to my hi-hats to add a almost echo like sound without using the echo effect as I feel that ruins the sound.
Creating a synth for melody was more difficult for me as I wasn't too sure what kind of sound to aim for. As I was mainly creating the synth for my alternative tracks. And since i was creating the melody I couldn't rely on chord trigger so much. This meant I had to research the chords that we're being played through chord trigger and look into the circle of fifths. I came to the conclusion that the kind of synth I was looking for would also have a lot of space as thats a common pattern within alternative R&B, for this reason I named the synth Breathe. I started off with the effect sculpture, this is similar to the other synth creators like the EX24 and ES2 but for me it helped build a better melody type of synth. I also added a flanger to give it more of a punch without moving the attack on the ADSR tool. The compressor was just so it didn't stand above the chords and reverb to top off the sound.
Towards the beginning of my project and the beginning of my first track, I was looking for a sound that was commonly found within alternative R&B, after listening to a range of alternative R&B songs I found that a synthesiser playing the chords was the sound I wanted. PARTYNEXTDOOR had a range of songs with a synthesiser playing chords throughout the song but my favourite was from his song Persian Rugs. This made me want to make a synthesiser with a similar feel and spaciness.
To start off in the creation of this synth I first put the midi effect chord trigger on, chord trigger allows you to play one note on the midi keyboard but Logic will play the chord that starts on that note. Since I'm not too great on the piano this allows me to save time figuring out what chords exactly I want to play. I then added the ES2 synth, I added this synth as it allows me to precisely make the synth I want down to the last detail.Using the ADSR (Attack, Delay, Sustain and Release) tool, it allows you to make a synth from a bass synth, lead synth and pad synth. I was aiming for a lead synth, this meant I would want virtually no attack, a long sustain, not too much delay but It would still need to be apparent as much sustain as we can get and the smallest bit of release. The type of synth I was using is called a sine wave. I chose this synth wave because, to me it is the most smooth synth, unlike the other synths there are no jumps or sharp edges. Furthermore since the sound I was influenced by was relaxing I wanted mine to be just as calm. To finish off the sound of the synth I added reverb a much needed effect.
