Following on from his Tech Tips on pop vocals, Sonic Academy welcomes back Austin Hull for a brand new course where we get to check out how to make his new single REDRUM - a sinister, hard-hitting, lyrical track that skilfully merges pop, hip-hop and RnB.
Over these 17 videos, we get to watch as Austin recreates his song from scratch. Starting with the initial chord structure, a dark theme emerges that helps with both eery sound design and vengeful lyric writing for the hook.
We build a basic rhythm before layering synths and percussion to help structure and arrange the track’s progression.
We flesh out each of the different sections by layering further synths, atmospheres and effects to create a dope and varied instrumental, which in turn gives us a track to work from to finalise the lyrics.
Austin then moves on to a detailed look at how to process the vocal stacks before we carry out the mixdown, adding ear candy, automation and tweaks, to complete the track.
This is a very different course in that we’re not only producing a sick track, but Austin takes into account and shares the whole process of creating a theme, writing lyrics and structuring a complete song from start to finish.
Austin is a natural teacher. Really appreciate the level of depth and detail explored in this tutorial series. Would absolutely love to see more from him here on Sonic Academy.
I really enjoyed this course…not just for the sound design and production, but gives a detailed insight into a clearly very talented songwriter’s process. I don’t write pop/hip hop or produce in Cubase but still found it really useful! Nice one Austin
This is an amazing tutorial, if you do more you should try using one of those screencast tools that shows an animation every time you click with your mouse, it’d make it even easier to follow the tutorial, but this is amazing nevertheless.
Would be constructive & interesting for both tutor & other members to know what exactly you found bad, are you referring to the way the vocals were mixed in the track or the voice over in the tutorial ?
LOL, I wasn’t even thinking about this meaning TBH
Well, it’s a very subjective thing indeed, many producers won’t follow standard chords progression or structure, especially when it comes to this genre IMO. To my taste the chosen chords progression & track’s arrangement are giving contrast & emphasis the vocals.
Works for me with this track, but again it’s very subjective as music is in general.
