My Composing Process: trees in motion (2022)
Dear Readers,
On Thursday, Spitfire Audio released a new LABS virtual instrument: Vintage Drums. As soon as I saw the notification and quickly downloaded it and started up a new Logic X file.
I was ready to compose. a new piece.
Lots and Lots of Drums
Usually when I start a piece of music, a specific instrument or sound really sets the tone (pun intended). In the case of “trees in motion” it was the Vintage Drums. The virtual instrument is concise, performative and very flexible. I decided to have essentially five different drum kits in this piece. I panned them to different parts of the stereo image to make it seem like five drums were playing at once. Each drum had a specific rhythm:
I then layered these different parts throughout the piece to give the feeling of variation and improvisation. At points the rhythms are pulled back, or just one element is present, and then they all slowly build up again. I did a similar layering technique in “rosy trumpet and invisible rain”.
The layering of the different drum tracks.
So the drums set the energy and tone. Now it was time to add the rest of the instruments.
The Instruments Arrive
For this piece, I wanted an intimate jazz sound. I panned the instruments accordingly, to make it feel like you are looking up at a small stage in a jazz club.
Now, which instruments did I go with? I decided on:
Piano (Air Minigrand")
Organ (Logic X Vintage B3)
Picked Bass (Logic X Upright Ballad Bass)
Vibraphone (Logic X)
Synthesizer (Kontakt Sub Bass)
The synthesizer was an interesting pick, because I’m not necessarily using it in the “correct” way. It is a sub bass synth from Kontakt and is meant to add a ton of low end. But, I play it mostly in the upper register, where it almost resembles an electric bass. It has a fantastic, smooth sound. I haven’t used the Upright Ballad Bass from Logic X before, and I found it to be really terrific. It has a nice, close-mic feeling to it. The vibes are just from Logic X, but I added extra reverb to help make them blend. And the organ is the Rhythm Organ specifically. I basically picked it at random, and it had the long, gritty sound that I wanted.
Melodically, this piece originated from the piano. I had all the drum tracks stacked together and looping so I was just improvising and seeing what would happen. I settled on a staccatto, descending melody that jumped between major and minor and had enough space that soloing would work well with it. Once I had the melody, I simply copied and pasted the bass notes of the piano part to the picked bass.
Now it was time to solo.
So Many Solos
This piece more than the previous ones has a lot of solos in it. All the instruments get their moment in the spotlight. The first solo that I performed was the synthesizer’s. It is super quick but also quite chill. The bass has a walking solo at the beginning, very close-mic and intimate. The organ solo at the end is very chromatic, and also jumps between quick staccato and long phrases. The vibes solo at the end is quite melodic at the beginning and then gets crazy quick. I bring back the main melody in the piano at the end over the multiple solo lines and then it goes nuts leading to the final line ending in Eb major. I wanted these solos to be free and completely improvised and also feel like they are speaking to one another. My goal was a sense of immediacy .
The breakdown moment at the 2 minute mark allowed for a moment of respite for the drums, and a chance to introduce the organ. There is not a chordal center for this section and it is quite dissonant. It is here where I subtly introduce some crazy synths that i have created in Logic X:
I simply wanted to add some low, harsh sounds to double the descending bass line. It also adds a grunge quality to the section too which I quite liked.
The addition of these two synths was an improvisational solo in itself. I didn’t know if they would work, I picked them largely at random and copied and pasted the bass line. It all happened very quickly. I like the idea that building up a texture can be an improvised solo in itself.
A screenshot from my Logic X project showing the different MIDI tracks for the instruments. You can see how the solos interact with each other here, and also where the instrument enter and exit.
Here Come the Soundscapes!
The soundscape files in this piece. You can see how I adjusted the volume of the tracks throughout to bring certain elements out.
As with every piece in this series, there have to be recorded soundscapes to complete the sonic environment. For this piece, I wanted to focus specifically on the city and the sounds of cars. So, I picked out the old favorites: Battersea (London) and Barcelona. Then I added in some recordings of Spring Mill Road near my house and a street on Kent Island, Maryland. Finally, I added in the sound of the waves of the Pamlico Sound in North Carolina to add a bit of natural elements to the soundscape.
I then adjusted the volume of the tracks to really shape the overall soundscape sound. This is really improtant because you can basically orchestrate the sounds by allowing certain elements to cut through the mix. For example, at one point a car horn from Barcelona honks. I also panned the soundscapes to the left, right and center so that they are truly enveloping.
Editing-wise, I added a preset mic-setting from Logic called ‘Subtle Percolation”. It basically adds a compressor, limiter, and a mixture of reverb to distort the recording slightly. I liked what it added to the sounds so I added it to every track.
The Video
Screenshot from the video that I filmed while biking,
For this video I did something different. Instead of having a still shot of nature, I decided to create a moving image to match with the energy of the track. I put my iPhone on a phone holder on my bike and pointed the camera to the sky. Then I filmed myself biking along my street, being sure not to get my head in the frame. The effect is pretty mesmerizing. It feels like your are biking through the trees. When paired with the music, it sounds like the car sounds are actually coming from the different trees entering the frame.
For the main image for the album cover, I decided on a blurred, impressionist shot of multiple trees grouped together. I edited the RGB levels and brought out more shadow and contrast.
Thoughts and Conclusions
Like the other pieces in this series, “trees in motion” took very little time to put together. In all, it was probably 3 hours of work total (including filming the video). This quick time frame works perfectly for the series because it is centered around improvisation, quick decisions and sound layering.
Thanks to Spitfire Audio for the fantastic Vintage Drums virtual instrument. It truly was the starting point for this piece and incredibly crucial to the overall sound. I will definitely continue making these short, improvised pieces because it is a lot of fun and definitely helps me hone my composing, performing and producing skills.
If you have any questions about this piece or my other work, feel free to email me at nicholasescobarcomposer@gmail.com.
Your’s Musically,
Nicholas Escobar
The full Logic X project file for “trees in motion”.