How To Make - It Is What It Isn't with Julian Gray / 644

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This week here at Sonic Academy we’ve managed to line up something special for you guys as we welcome back LA Based YouTube sensation, Collab Alliance member and mau5trap artist Julian Gray . In this course he shows us how to make his new single ‘It Is What It Isn’t’ released on the mau5trap ‘Autonomous EP’.

Starting with a blank canvas in Ableton 10, Julian recreates this instant hit from beginning to end, starting with the catchy emotive piano chord progression before moving on to a signature mau5trap pluck.
Using his preferred synth Serum, this course includes Julian’s sound design for the groove laden bass lines in both the verse and the awesome drop section, along with clever vocal processing, pad sound creation using resampled reverb tails, and the writing of drum and percussive elements throughout the track.
Julian mixes and arranges as he moves through the course, constantly tweaking and automating so by the time we get to the mixdown and master section everything’s already sitting nicely in the mix.

The end result is an sure-fire hit that we guarantee will be stuck in your head after just one play!

Drum Roll…And this is where things go up a gear!

Sonic Academy have teamed up with Julian to host an exclusive remix competition where the winner has the chance to feature on an up and coming We Are Friends compilation album on mau5trap!

Getting your winning mix out on ‘We Are Friends’ will gain you unparalleled exposure and will kick start your major career! You can be in with a chance of joining artists such as BlackGummy, No Mana, Rezz, Chris Lake, Noisia, Skrillex and Steve Duda on this illustrious label!

The ‘How To Make It Is What It Isn’t’ Remix Contest is exclusive and only available on Sonic Academy. We’re proud to have one of the best music-making communities anywhere, and the level of production skillz coming through the forums is awesome!
So, ourselves and Julian Gray are super excited to see what you guys can come up with - we know you can smash it. You can now download the stems from this awesome tune and start working your magic!

We have shown you how to make the tune, now it’s over to you to get creative, make a remix of this track that shines above the rest, and show the world your production talent.

Just click the ‘Enter Remix Comp’ button above to find out more! This competition is open to all Sonic Academy registered users.

Contest ends - 27/10/2018 07:00:00 UTC

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nice! another remix comp. :smiley:

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Think we are getting an extended summer here on Sonic Academy after listening to the track… Nice one & an incredible remix-comp again !!

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I am excite

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After listening to the playthrough, there are a bunch of sounds that are really good, it will be nice to learn how to play them. The track itself seems like it doesn’t go anywhere though, that build in the middle is pretty epic… but then it just drops back to the A part again. I’ll give it another listen though, it’s probably better and more subtle than what my first reaction told me.

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Great!

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So excited to take a look at this and maybe attempt a remix

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Thanks

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Cool

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Definitely enlightened - thanks Mr. Gray!

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is there an alternative to valhalla roo reverb? want to explore ableton internal reverbs before making a purchase with valhalla. thanks

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Hey @toango

Though Ableton Live stock reverb effect is a decent one, you won’t have the same control over early & late reflections as well as the stereo image that you could have with Valhalla Room. There is a lot of 3thrd party reverb plugins out there, with different design and features. An alternative to the Valhalla Room category could be the D16 Group Audio Software “Toraverb” or “Toraverb 2” plugin. Now don’t get fooled by the simple Gui design of the Valhalla plugins, the algorithms used by those are really powerful and they are high quality and respected reverb plugins. The company has also a fair pricing policy because each plugin has got a fix price of $50, which is seen as a lowered/discount pricing compare to some crazy price you will see on many other 3thrd party reverb plugins.

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Great tutorial and nice track!!

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Hi @toango, you seriously cannot go wrong with any of the Valhalla plugins. They are some of the best value reverbs out there. Room is good, but I’d also give Vintage Verb a demo. I have reverbs that cost a lot more and don’t sound as good. If you have Ableton Suite, I’d also recommend checking out the Max4Live convolution reverb device.

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just a little theory here for the theory heads:
in tutorial 6 he mentions the Fminor chord is compatible with the A minor scale because F is a relative key. F is in fact a relative key of A minor, it is the relative Lydian. there’s no relative minor to an already minor scale, only to other modes.
and in the F Lydian scale, where f is the tonic F is actually a major chord not a minor.

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Heeeyyy, finna take his “secrets” with this.

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Compelling melody and chord sequence, well arranged. On a theory note: the song is in A minor, of which the relative major is C (not F). The key of F has a B flat, which is never used in this song. As Julian notes, the sequence centers on the F chord, but because F is not the root, the melody never resolves. This gives the song an appropriate brooding, unsettled quality that works perfectly for the mood.

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Which preset on the Giant are you using? My Giant sounds very different from yours. Thank you.

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Thanx a lot for this Julian Gray! Very very good tutorial! Hope you will come back and do another one in the future

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Love this! Hope Sonic Academy will hire Julian to make more tutorials.