Whenever I listen to other people’s music, I always wonder how the hell they made it. Of course, I can try to break a track down by ear, but I’d love to get an inside look. So that’s what I’m giving you! I have isolated an eight measure section of the Velocispider theme that I am going to take you through track by track. Before we start, listen to the eight bar section as a whole:

The Bass Synths

I have two bass synths in this song. They were both made from scratch using Logic’s ES2 synth (as you’ll soon see, I use it all the time). I have a setting for the ES2 I made called “Basic” that cuts everything away and lets me start with a basic saw wave. From there, I start adding modulations, adjusting the ADSR envelope, setting the cutoff frequency and a bunch of other stuff. Here’s the first bass synth I came up with:

I liked it but thought it could use some extra, grittier high end. While I could probably add some of this to the first synth, sometimes I like to make two separate ones so I can adjust them individually and give it a fuller sound. Here’s the second bass, playing the exact same part:

When I put the bass parts together, I really liked the way they sounded:

The Chords

On top of the bass part, I wanted to add some harmonic and rhythmic direction. To do this, I added a very simple chord part using another ES2 synth I created. The part is playing the exact same chord the whole time so it gives the song harmonic support while bringing some more energy to the plate:

Side Chained Synth Pad

One of the things that gives this song its character is the pulsating, washy synth pad in the background. The synth pad is actually a preset ES2 setting that comes with Logic called Design Pad (with a few slight tweaks). Here’s the sound of the synth pad playing the chord throughout the section:

Pretty cool sounding synth, but where’s the rhythmic pulsing? I created that using a technique called side chaining. Wikipedia explains it better than I could: “When side-chaining, the compressor uses the volume level of an input signal to determine how strongly the compressor will reduce the gain on its output signal.” Basically, when the input signal occurs, the compressor turns on. In this case, I wanted the synth pad to be compressed (decrease in volume) every beat, so I first needed to create the input signal. While the input signal really could have been anything, I like to use a kick drum because it is clear, short, and not noisy. Besides, the kick drum is very often used as a side chain signal in a lot of music. Here is the synth pad, this time with compression side chained to the kick drum:

As you can see, the volume of the synth pad gets quieter every time the kick drum plays, giving it a pulsating, sucking sound. I didn’t want to turn the Velocispider theme into a dance track though, so I muted the kick drum, leaving just the pulsating synth:

The Drums

All we have left are the drums. I used three different preset Ultrabeat drum kits that come with Logic. The first kit I used is called “Hip Hop Heavy Kit.” I used this kit to establish the main drum beat and ground it rhythmically:

On top of that, I added the “Downtempo Kit 02”, primarily for its electronic snares:

The last drum kit I added was “IDM Elements 02.” Out of the three drum kits, I think this is the one that gives the theme the most character. It sounds pretty random alone, but when coupled with the rest of the drums, really stands out. Here it is alone:

And here is the full drum section, all three kits on top of each other:

The Slide

The last thing in this section is the pulsating, sliding synth that starts it off, then rises in pitch throughout it. I created this synth using the ES2 as well, using two oscillators (sound waves) that were a perfect fifth apart. I also gave the synth the ability to bend 36 steps up or down, which equates to a huge six octave range. This allowed me to bend the hell out of the synth, reaching a ton of pitches, all while using just one MIDI note. The synth starts with a quick downward bend to bring in the section, then rises for the rest of the time. The pulsating is just a simple frequency cutoff modulation that is synced to a 1/16th note rhythm. Here’s the sliding synth:

Conclusion

Those tracks are literally all there is in that section of the song. I’m not hiding anything from you. Here’s the full thing one more time, so you lazy people don’t have to scroll back up to the top: