Nathan Griffith Reason Dance Track Analysis (And final project proposal)

I chose to analyze Nathan's Reason song, and in doing so I was quite impressed. Basically he used a very evolving approach in the overall construction of the track, and one that truly has a 2-part execution. There is a very dark and ominous introduction that uses a cloudy synthesizer rolling out a bass riff, which reappears later during the body of the piece. The riff plays as the percussion is slowly faded in and swells to a transition point when the main melodies of the song appear for the first time. Once these higher and lighter synths are added in the piece has a much more free-floating quality to it, even though the dark rumbling bass moves in after a few measures.

I particularly like the swell into the brighter section, it offers a very clean and appropriate transition between two seemingly opposite feels. The whole piece reminds me of video game music, which I also love. Nostalgia...


As for my final project, I'd like to explore the boundaries between two of my favorite genres, house and hip-hop. From my understanding, the vocal patterns and percussion rhythms in hip-hop are two of the main elements that set it apart from faster-paced, more "dance-oriented" genres like house and techno. Usually the vocals in house are more singing (as opposed to rapping) and are usually done by a diva or a vocalist that uses a more reverberating, soaring approach on top of the synths and quick-thumping bass. One of my favorite artists, Zion I, has always pushed this boundary between hip-hop delivery and house beats, and it's something that I've always admired but never tried myself. Below is an example of Zion I playing with these borders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxr3gnOD_4I

So basically I'd like to create a danceable house instrumental, and play with the conventional hip-hop delivery of vocals and sampling over top of it. (Maybe through some vinyl work in there as well)...

My Dance-Track Banger

So this last weekend I produced "assignment 3" which was an approximately 1 minute long dance track. Now I can't say it was my first time making one of these, not even one of these of this genre, but it was the first time I've ever done so using the Reason software, which was an adventure in itself. 

Previous to this I used Garageband, which is similar to Logic, but Reason is a whole different beast. I started out composing the percussion section, as I usually do, because I see this as sort of the backbone of the song, and once the beat is laid down it's way easier for me to compose a melody on top of it. I used 2 Redrum machines with several patterns on each machine so that I could layer the patterns in and out as the song progressed. It was funny because I wanted the percussion to be syncopated but really simple, and with even 2 patterns it just didn't seem the way I wanted it to. It didn't really sound "right" until I added the extra Redrum machine to it, then it got that bouncing feeling.

After creating the percussion sections of the piece I began layering other textures on top of it, starting with the bass "riff" (which is really only present in the 2nd quarter of the song). After that very simple pattern was added I felt that there needed to be a more enveloping texture to the piece, so strings were the obvious choice, I really like the element they added. After switching up the strings with the more dramatic female choir voices, I needed to pierce through the thick instruments with a clear melody, provided in this case by the sharp-sounding synths. 

All in all I think it came out pretty sweet for a little 1 minute experiment. Given more time I would've definitely faded in some more instruments and maybe used a few more filters, drawing out the swells more. One thing that did confuse me was how to record in real time with the filters (if you even can in Reason), like if I have a pattern and I want to apply a low-pass filter to it manually with my MIDI keyboard, how would I do that? I'm not sure, but given more time and that knowledge I definitely would've added one of those joints in. Hope you like it!

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