Log and Evaluation for OCR GCSE (J535) Unit B352

Centre Number:
Candidate Number:

Centre Name:
Candidate Name:

Area of Study: 3
Initial Intentions (this must include intended choice of resources):
I have decided to compose my club dance track in the style of late 80s acid house. Acid House.
I will set the tempo at around 120BPM, as most acid was around this tempo mark. I will also
keep a simple 4/4 time signature, making the track easy to dance to. After listening to many
examples of 80's acid house from both sides of the Atlantic, I have decided I want to layer the
drums in my track to create the same fat and full sounding texture heard on those examples. I
also want to create heavy bass lines that are played through fat and squelchy synth sounds,
with distorted, flanging and filtering effects to give achieve an authentic acid house feel. In
acid house there are often vocal and sound effect samples, so I will aim to find some samples
which will suit this genre from films and records. Overall, I mainly want to make references
towards a late 80's sound with this track, but also want to make use of a few beats and sounds
which will also add a bit of a contemporary edge. I'm going to use an iMac to compose my
piece, using the software "Logic 9".

Log of process (including any support provided by the teacher)

Date

Progress

Jan
14th

First off, using the Ronald Juno Di Synthesiser, I came

up with a bass line using the arpeggio function on the
keyboard. I then found a part for the higher register
using the same sound and keeping the bass line
going with my left hand. I recorded both these parts
into Logic separately as audio. However, I then
decided the synth bass didnt sound enough like the
type of acid sounds I wanted to hear, so I
programmed the same bass line into Logic via the
piano roll function and found a more suitable sound
for the part. I also used some EQ and compression to
get the part sounding clearer and fatter in the lower
register.
I programmed a drumbeat via the piano roll window.
Initially, the drum part was playing through classic
techno kit, but again, this didn't sound authentic
enough so I changed it to analogue techno kit,
which worked well. Using Logic's audio editing
functions, I tidied up the high synth part so as to get
it more in time with the bass line and drum beat. I
then added a paradiddles (split between kick and
snare) as a fill to punctuate the rhythm part every 4

Jan
21st

Notes/Advice
given/Targets
Given that your bass line
and (and other parts which
will follow) is programmed,
I'd say the higher synth part
could do with some editing
to get the timing sounding
tighter against the
quantized parts, and give
your track more of an
electronic feel.

Jan
28th

Feb 4th

Feb
11th

bars. I also layered the snare on the fill to bring out

the fill from the rest of the drum pattern. I then came
up with an idea for a 'B' section with the Ultra Nova
synth using the space voyager TC3 sound at 120BPM,
which I recorded into the track.
I knew I wanted to include some speech samples in
my track asacid house tracks often do. So I searched
youtube for some acid related clips, as I thought this
would be my best bet for finding samples of people
talking about acid house. I found a documentary from
the 80's called "World In Action". After hearing some
bits of speech which i thought would work well, I
decided to download it and use it for multiple speech
samples. Logic gives you the option to import just the
audio from a video clip, which saved me from needing
to convert it myself. I began to organise the speech
samples, starting my song with a short excerpt from
World In Action. I then fattened up the bass line by
layering it with a second sound. Initially, this sounded
to heavy and dark for acid house, so I transposed it
up an octave.
Before this week's lesson, I got a bunch of samples
from my dad, who is a DJ. I picked some samples
which I thought would suit the style of my piece and
began editing two of them (a car speeding off and a
tense horn stab). With the car sound, I created an
echo effects but copy/pasting the same sample 3 -4
times but getting quieter every time. Next, using a
sound called "hover again" on the Roland Juno Di, I
came up with a melodic part that has a sharp drill-like
sound which I thought worked well. I recorded this
onto Logic. After coming up with the drill-like part, I
realised the older high synth part didn't mesh with
my track well enough, so I decided to mute/stop
using this part.
At the start of this lesson, I picked out two more
spoken word excerpts from World In Action and put
them into place. I then made some arrangement
changes throughout the entire track. At bar 32 and
36, I added 2 more drum fills. I then began playing
with the effects and realised I should add some
reverb to my bass line so that it would sit better in
the mix. This put it further into the background. I then
realised that it was still missing that filtered effect
that is such an identifiable trait of acid house. My
teacher showed me that the way to achieve this using
Logic's soft-synths would require putting the synth
through a "bus" and recording it as audio whilst
manipulating the filters on the synth in real time as

Remember to include
speech samples that have a
rhythmic, almost rap like
element to them as well as
just spoken sentences, as
this is one of acid house's
traits.

Think about including more

drum fills to break up the
repetitive flow a bit.

Feb
18th

Mar
4th

Mar
11th

Mar
18th

its being recorded.

I started my lesson by listening back to my track in
it's current state. I decided to add another fill at bar
42 to help make the transition to the next section
smoother. I felt that the first section of my piece was
now complete. For the next section, at the beginning
of bar 45, I came up with another melody using a
sound called "Analogue Moog Lead" and it was
programmed in using the piano roll.I then came up
with another part on the Roland Juno Di, using a
similar sound called "Breathe Noise". I also EQ'ed it to
bring out the mids. I then added gain to it and used
the delay plug-in in Logic to give it an echo.
I searched YouTube for more samples and found a few
from a DJ scratch mix and downloaded that. I also
edited and "time-stretched" a vocal sample from rap
group Public Enemy so that it would match the faster
tempo of my track and be in time. I had to get my
teacher to help me with this. He showed me that you
have to first crop the sample so that its rhythmic note
value is visually clear, i.e; so that you can see where
the beginning and end of the bar is. You then set the
loop locators in the track to a bar and in the audio
menu, chose "time-stretch region to locators". This
means Logic will calculate how much the audio needs
to be time-stretched in order to for the audio file fit
into another tempo. I spent the rest of the session
working on the overall arrangement of the piece,
using cut, copy and paste functions to move things
around.
We had some problems with the iMac I had been
using, which meant that I had to continue working on
my piece in Logic X instead of Logic 9. For some
reason this meant that many of the audio samples
didn't load in Logic X. We had to spend some time
figuring out how to bring back these samples into my
piece.However, one of the benefits of this was that I
had a new pallet of synth sounds to use.
I started working on my ending, I created a few new
midi patterns using the arpeggiator function in Logic
X from the midi fx menu. I went on to add some
effects such as flanger to bring the parts to life a little
more. This is where I felt I could justify the piece
moving a little more into current dance territory, but
still trying to maintain the acid influences. I decided
to bring back the bass line at the lower octave (I had
decided to shift it up an octave earlier on in the
piece), as I thought bringing in a heavier and darker
sound toward the end of the track would be a good

You will probably need to

develop the bass line a bit if
it's going to be heard
throughout the whole track.
Perhaps even go back to
that lower octave version.

Mar
25th
Apr 1st

way to develop the bass line and to change up the

flavour of the track a bit. I moved everything into
place and listened to the entire song a few times. I
then decided to shorten the melody which is doubled
with the "electro clash" sound/inst 19 as I thought the
phrase would make better musical sense with fewer
notes.
On my 2 last lessons, I began mixed and finalised my
track. In the process of doing this, I listened to my
composition several times. After spending some time
adjusting levels I was happy with everything other
than the ending. So I set about creating a new ending
using a sound giving the ending a climax which
reminded me of some of the acid house tracks Ive
been listening to. At the end of this sound I used an
echo effect along with some reverb to smooth out the
gradual fading of the echo.

Evaluation of piece
I think my piece fits the acid house genre pretty well. The bass line in particular, with its
gradual filtered effect, plays a big part in giving my composition that acid house feel. The
bass line changing octave at bar 58 and bar 86 is probably the most effective point of my
composition, creating a noticeable but still relevant change. The 2nd factor that helps it fit
into the acid house genre is the vocal samples. If you listen closely, you can even hear the
crackle at the start of some of the samples, just as you would on original acid tracks from the
80s. I also really like the layered sound of the drum parts, and think the open hi-hat sound is
pretty unique. It serves the function of the off beat house hi-hat, but with a sound that's a
little more industrial or white-noise like.I found it difficult to keep creating new parts for my
composition as most Acid House is continuous and repetitive, using loops and lasting an
average of 8 minuets, but without the need to change in the way a pop song might.
Therefore, it took more work to think of new parts, and I think for an Acid House track, it has
a lot in it. One of the problems I faced was that because I had so many sounds going on at
once, they would drown each other out, giving me problems when trying to bring new parts
in, which made mixing the piece a challenge. But overall, I think my piece is successful as a
dance track.