Composition
Report
I produced an electronic track influenced by Kiasmos, mainly through their use of piano. I focused on how a simple piano part could add feeling and space without making the track sound too busy. This helped me build the track slowly with drums, melody, background sounds, and small changes in the sound. Rather than copying Kiasmos, I used their style as a guide to shape my own ideas.
I created my track in Logic Pro and kept most of the production within Logic’s stock instruments and plug-ins. This helped the process feel more natural and focused, as I was working mainly with the tools already available to me rather than relying on too many outside sounds.
The track started with a repeated piano melody(Appendix. 1), which became the main idea of the composition. I fine-tuned the sampler instrument down by -50 cents(Appendix. 2), so the other chord-based instruments also had to be tuned down to match. This gave the track a slightly darker and less polished sound, which worked well with the mood I wanted.
The main sounds I used were four piano parts, synth bass, Drum Machine Designer, Alchemy synth, vocal samples, and my own electric guitar playing. The arrangement builds slowly, starting with piano and kick for the first eight bars before adding snare, off-beat percussion, chords, and bass. I used Beat Breaker on the second piano to create a broken rhythm, which helped stop the piano parts from feeling too repetitive.
Around the middle of the track, I stripped the drums back and introduced vocal samples with reverb, delay, and pitch changes. This changed the atmosphere and gave the track more space. Later, I used the vocals as chopped parts with the Beat Breaker plug-in(Appendix. 3), which added movement before the drums returned. I also recorded a rhythmic guitar riff and used a third-party plug-in, Pancake(Appendix. 4) to move it across the stereo field giving the section more pace and width.
In the second half, I added a shaker to make the drum groove feel more active. I also used automation with a high-pass filter on the mix bus to build tension before bringing the full drums and piano melody back in(Appendix. 5). The production process was based on slowly adding and removing layers, which helped the track develop without becoming too busy.
The module also helped shape the way I approached the track. In the Kiasmos lesson, we looked at Blurred and focused on what sounds were acoustic and what sounds were electronic. This is linked closely to my own track because I used the piano as the main musical idea, but built the rest of the production around electronic drums, synth bass, vocal samples, effects, and guitar. MusicRadardescribes Kiasmos’ sound as a mix of acoustic and electronic elements, which connects to my use of piano, guitar, synth bass, drums, effects, and vocal samples (Mullen, 2024). The in class task also focused on making a piano based riff, which helped me think about how a simple piano part could carry the track without needing too many extra parts.
Other parts of the module also influenced my process, such as sampling. The discussions on sampling helped me think about how vocal samples could be used more creatively, instead of just placing them in the track normally. The ambient and electronic lessons also helped me think more about space, texture, and build-up. Because of this, I used reverb, delay, pitch changes, panning, and automation to make the track move and develop over time. This made the composition feel more planned and connected to the ideas discussed in class.
The track works well because it develops slowly and does not introduce too many ideas at once. The piano gives the composition a clear starting point, while the drums, vocal samples, guitar, and synth parts help build the track over time. The effects also helped create more space, especially through the vocal processing and guitar panning.
A key area for improvement is the balance between the piano layers and the other instruments. With four piano parts, the mix could easily become too full, so some sections needed parts removed to keep enough space. This links to Kiasmos own approach to piano. In an XLR8R interview, they explain that space is important because a piano occupies a lot of frequency space (XLR8R Staff, 2017). This made me think more about arrangement and balance in my own track, especially because I used four piano layers. The drum sounds could also have been shaped further, as some came from Logic presets and might have sounded more personal.
Another issue is that the vocal samples were taken from files I had stored on my hard drive for around two years, but I can no longer find the original sources. Because of this, I would need to be more careful with sample organisation and keep a clear sample list for future projects.
Appendix
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
