My final project of the year is a pseudo 90's mash-up of Jay-Z's "Encore," Ben Folds' "Brick," and Tupac Shakur's "Changes". The songs for each can be seen here:
Here is the basic breakdown of the song, in its simplest form:
1) Introduction with Violin Riff
2) Verse 1 (w/ Tupac Shakur)
3) Chorus
4) Verse 2 (w/ Jay-Z)
5) Chorus
6) Verse 3 (w/ Tupac Shakur)
7) Bridge 1
8) Chorus
9) Verse 4 (w/ Tupac Shakur)
10) Chorus
11) Verse 5 (w/ Tupac Shakur)
12) Chorus
13) Bridge
14) Chorus [end]
Now in terms of specifics...
The beginning of the song begins with a violin part sampled from Talib Kweli's "This Means You". After one loop of this sample, the chorus verse from "Encore" comes in on top, using an a cappella sample of the song. Twice through here, the song builds in volume and ultimately resolves to a starting verse featuring the lyrics of "Changes" and the piano melody of "Brick". For the percussion part, the drum/bass/trombone line from the beginning of Dr. Dre's "What's the Difference" is paired with a simple pattern from Reason's ReDrum, using ReWire.
After this first verse, the song shifts to the main chorus of the song which is the following:
1) The "Can I get an encore? Do you want more?..." line from "Encore" repeated twice through.
2) The main chorus line from Brick that goes "She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly..."
As the tail end of the line trails off, the next verse begins with a rap verse by Jay-Z under the same "Brick" piano melody and the same percussion part as before. This again transitions into the same chorus as before, but this time the chorus adds a small vocal sample at the end to transition into the next Tupac Shakur verse.
After this 3rd verse, the song transitions into a bridge, where the sample from Ben Folds' "Brick" is the sole track being played, and this climactic change in the song leads to a much louder chorus part.
This bridge leads into the final two verse of the song, both of which are rapped by Tupac Shakur. The overall song is a bit louder in these last two verses and the choruses in between each are slightly different (some samples being repeated, while others are delayed and some completely omitted).
Afterwards, the second bridge comes up with a similar sort of feel to the first bridge - its main purpose is to create a sense of tension and build to the final chorus that ultimately ends the song. This bridge is a similar Ben Folds sample but it has some repeated loops that fit nicely to create a sense of anticipation for the final refrain. Going into the final chorus, the sample from "Encore" chorus is snipped then repeated over and over just before the chorus to really end the song "on a roar"
In terms of effects used for the song - lots of automation was done to control the volume levels of each track to make sure that the most important parts within the song were emphasized. For example, towards the end of the song, the automation within the bridge slowly ascends upwards for the volume and the volume automation for the tracks in the final chorus were all amped up.
Additionally, the "Compressor" was heavily used to control the volume output so as to reduce "clipping" and to generally make the sound of the project sound smoother. The Ben Folds sample, especially, had to be compressed judiciously because its melody carried great importance to the flow of the song and the song couldn't afford for it to be either too loud or too soft - the Compression allows for the sample to project without being too overbearing. Some "Pan" automation was also used to create cool sweeping left-to-right effects for some of the vocals in the chorus.
While these effects helped to smooth out the song, the true work in the song was done by matching up the rhythms of the songs, while also making sure that the songs were (roughly) in the same key - if they weren't, the pitch adjuster in the Sample Editor was used to change the pitch by a few cents or so.
The main purpose of this project was to create a hip-hop song that had different feels to it at different points in the song. Many hip-hop songs can get repetitious because the beats remain the same throughout and the lyrics may be somewhat uninspired. But I thought the musical ability of Ben Folds' "Brick" track paired with Tupac Shakur and Jay-Z's lyrical ability in their two respective songs would sound great in a pseudo-mash-up of the three.
Hope you enjoy.
