Free Day
Notes On "FREE DAY"
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6 Professional
Number of tracks: 46
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and Recording period: Feb 23 2023 - July 5 2023 , July 21 2023
Even though I know it sounds more or less like jazz or fusion, actually it is essentially NOT at all...
(TM writes:)
We sometimes make a free day within a travel, don't we? It means you can do anything you like on the day, no matter what someone accompanied with you hopes for. But it sounds a bit ridiculous, doesn't it? It's free for you to travel or not... Anyway, this track is about such a day in the travel when you are supposed to do something by yourself.
Yet, "Free Day" was titled after the whole production. The concept at the very beginning was that "I made this to develop 'Here I Am' into something more advanced; introverted and instable-minded, and both contemporary and ancient" according to the text I left in the notation.
While I was making it, the concept was gradually formed into something like "atonal Acid Jazz."
The phrase on the sine wave shows the complexity of the rhythm just mildly, while the drum machine starts with a simple pattern. The sine wave was designed to imply that the scale is to be the A major, but when the guitar harmonics and other parts join, the harmonies become more and more complicated.
Even though I know it sounds more or less like jazz or fusion, actually it is essentially NOT at all, in my thought, because it's NOT chordal and is nearly atonal. I believe something like this work doesn't exist by now, except for the past tracks of ours.
In terms of the percussion, I love the combination of the snare drums: the drum machine and relatively real one. There are many pieces using a machine and human drums, but how to use them is quite different. For instance, usually fills-in are made by the human but in "Free Day" it's not necessarily the case.
Friends of mine often say, by the way, "I want to take just a listen to your music!" but I'm so reluctant. When they do really, they tend to stop it just in a while and tell me something like "well, it depends on the target you are aiming at." There's nothing more ridiculous than this. I would want to say it's nothing about that. Such a posture is not for arts, but for consumption. Is music consumer goods or arts? That's why I always say I won't conceal it but I'm rather reluctant in that I know our music (or audio art) selects the listeners. Needless to say, I write this since they tend not to look at our production notes. Our music is NOT made for those who are happy enough with consumer-goods music, in my view.
Anyway, I'm quite happy with my composition of this piece but even more so with TI's great mixing.
(TI writes:)
Composition
This track is also based on a Musescore score created by TM.
All I did was to port his Musescore score to Studio One, then add a break where the mood of the track changes drastically from the first half to the second half, and add 8 bars.
Below is a note I sent to TM on the tone of this track. It is transcribed verbatim.
Tones
<Sounds output directly from MuseScore>
The kalimba (lead2) is the sound of MS as it is. No modifications have been made.
The 808 toms used as bass are also exported directly from MS, but they have more low-frequency volume than expected and are difficult to handle as they are, so the lower bandwidth (below 70 kHz) is compressed with a multiband compressor.
<Sound from the same source as MuseScore (played by Studio One's playback sampler)>
The TR-808 rhythm is sampled separately from MS and played on an S1 drum machine (same sound, but timing may be slightly different).
The guitar harmonics has the same sound as MS, but the attack of the comp is set to be the fastest so that the end of the sound is more lively, and the release of the comp is set to be faster so that the sound gets louder at the back.
Bottle Chiff is the same source as MS, but played through the S1 playback sampler. It too has strong high frequencies, so multi-band compressor compression is applied to the high frequencies.
<Studio One sounds similar to MuseScore>
The EP and strings sound similar (almost the same), but for the strings, the release is cut on the playback sampler side, and some compression is applied with the compressor.
The EP is almost exactly the same.
The fretless bass is from the S1, using a similar sound to the MS. However, it covers the bandwidth of the 808 Tom, so I used a multi-band compressor to suppress the lower bandwidth (below 200kHz) and emphasize the overtones somewhat.
Sinewave is played on S1, but it is pure SW of S1 synth. It would sound virtually the same.
（Synbass4 (MS) is the same sound I used in the piano version of Dear Lessons, but it sounded bad, so I used a similar sound I created with the S1 synth. I used a similar sounding synth from the S1 to fill in the gaps.
The muted guitar is a Studio One Stratocaster mute with a bit of chorus and delay from a pedal effects pedal through the amp.
The bottom roll of Snare is S1's Brush SD with the SD settings for Brush. The release is cut with some envelope from yesterday's request.
<Sound different from MuseScore>
For the drum parts, I used a very normal pop set up in Studio One, with a comp on the snare and a gate to cut off some of the reverb.
The rest is just a normal setup.
(TI continues:)
Mixing
There is no particular intention to balance the sound. (If there is a difference in volume, it is due to the amount of overtones and the way the attack is heard as strong or weak.)
However, the TR808 and live drums were kept the same in terms of volume, but the TR still sounded smaller (I think because the TR has fewer notes than the live drum system), so I made the TR a little louder.
Then, overall, I applied EQ to mimic the frequency response of a cassette tape, making it sound somewhat muffled, with an emphasis on the midrange, like a cassette tape.
Features
The mix features a multiband compressor that compresses the extra bandwidth rather than EQ'ing it, and although EQ is applied to each track, it is mostly through (so it is essentially the original sound).
The intent is to make the overall sound sound more cohesive, along with the cassette tape-like EQ process.
Other than the EQ and comp, the only other effects are a delay on the guitar harmonics, a delay on the Synbass4, and a Chorus on the muted guitar.
I WAV'd the Rhythm area to set the localization, localize the upper part, adjust the width of the sound image (narrowing it), and suppress the parts that protrude in terms of volume.
Basically, we are only "narrowing" or "shaving" the action.
(In this way, the high frequency range is reduced, but the sound is concentrated in the midrange, which increases the thickness of the sound and makes it sound coherent. In other words, each part sounds a little less separated from the others.)
(TI continues:)
Final Adjustments
After listening to it for a few months, I decided to release it and found it a bit boring, so I decided to add some tricky effects to it.
I decided to apply some tricky effects to the original sound, such as tremolos and distorted delays going from left to right. This is not an effect on the original sound, but rather a further effect on the track on which the effect was applied, basically localizing it to the opposite side. So the original sound is sounding well elsewhere.
However, since doing so increases the number of sounds, the sound quality becomes somewhat cluttered, so for the first time here, I used an equalizer to cut the extra bandwidth.
In the process, a different atmosphere from the original track emerged.
After discussing these with TM, we finally decided to release an effected version. However, I think the first finished version is not bad in a rustic way, so I will probably release this version somewhere as well.
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