I predicted the twist, my worst fear… having to delete tracks. A true nightmare, space in the mix! However, I was pleasantly surprised that my track came out feeling pretty decent!

Regarding my process, I’ll try to mainly focus on the tracks I kept. I started by taking a cassette loop I recorded on my Tascam, recording the two bass tracks and two reverberated rhythm tracks separately to my DAW. Thank heavens I did, as I ended up using the rhythm track as the main ambience to the finished piece, whereas the bass ended up having to be deleted due to it being my first track. The next track that remained was the lead melody I recorded. While it was originally double tracked, one track being a lo-fi piano patch on my organelle and the other half being a glockenspiel patch, I kept the piano patch and deleted the glockenspiel, as I preferred the fuller sound the piano patch had. The last two tracks I kept were the lead guitar solo I recorded and the bass and kick track I recorded. There was another guitar track I had, of volume swells adding to the ambience. However, like most other tracks I deleted, I got rid of it due to my main focus in selection: I wanted to keep the elements that were live and varied. While I loved my little loops, I felt like the tracks that really stood out were the elements that really lived and breathed. The guitar and percussion were recorded live, without any sort of programming or planning, and really felt like the defining aspects of the piece.

After trying this mix, I tried a few other different ones. None of them had the same evolving feel, and suffered from being too repetitive, at least to my ear. My only complaint about the final piece I was left with was that it still feels slightly repetitive in nature, but I’m overall fairly happy with it. My roommate approved of it, which was a good indicator it was the right vibe. I find it interesting to note the difference he felt between the original piece, and the bare version. When I had him listen to the original, he said it was like an indie game soundtrack that was “vigorously shaking its ass, like really throwing it back.” The second version, however, he considered to be haunting and calm. I consider this an appropriate comparison of the two versions.