ADSactly Music Initiative #02

Introduction

We got together and decided we wanted to do something in the music space, as there are so many budding, talented musicians on the Steemit platform. We noticed that, although there were a lot of people posting, it felt like some of the contributors could use a little helping hand. I mean, who wouldn't want a little helping hand, right?
So where could WE add value? We could use our own in-house production people to help develop music for fellow Steemians looking for that little extra audio assistance.

We'll be running an initiative whereby Steemians can post their links below, and if the criteria are met (please read the criteria), we'll dig in with them and help mix their track, or add some instruments that they feel are missing from their song, or some little production techniques. If there isn't actually a post that our producer can work with, we might even just decide to give one of the entrants a bit of upvote love.

As time goes by and we put together enough collaborated content, we will then upload this content to digital stores (iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, etc.) and release a compilation album.
The other avenue where we would like to add value is to sync the music to commercials to try and develop some additional passive income for the artists.
Where will this go?
....Only time will tell!

Now that we've actually done one round of this initiative, I think it can give you guys and gals a better idea of what we're trying to achieve here.

How does it work?

• Comment below with your Steemit post, DSound link or Soundcloud link (or another platform that you would prefer to use). Must be within 7 days of this post.
• Upvote this post
• Join the ADSactly Discord Community
• Please try make sure you have independent audio files that we could actually work with in production
• @ADSactly picks a winner (Please check back in the comments for this)
• The winner receives a consultation over discord to discuss the direction moving forward on the track.
• Our in-house producer does the work, sends it back to the winner, and they upload it to DSound with a guaranteed upvote from @ADSactly
• We'll report back with the results in the following post so you, our followers, can keep track.

Disclaimer: Sometimes it might the case that out of all the entries, there isn't a post that can be worked with effectively; whether its due to a winner not getting back to us, or there being insufficient or inferior audio separates to work with. In this case we'll pick a song or track to show some love to.

About the Producer

Our guy behind the wheel is @heypapalegend, a music producer with a PDM in jazz studies and a BMusHons with distinction. He has performed in a variety of music acts in genres such as punk rock, reggae, dancehall, hip hop, electro, pop, jazz, and more. @heypapalegend is co-owner of internationally award-winning HeyPapaLegend Studios (heypapalegend.com) which have facilities in Cape Town and Johannesburg and has been in operation for roughly 10 years. Trust us, you're in good hands.

Check out our company website here

As well as some of the work we have done here

Our Previous Winner

Congrats to @Eubanksito on being selected. We chose this song because we felt that this was a track where we could lean in and add some decent value. The beat was cool, with an authentic, laid-back hip hop flavour, while the vocals he delivered were really catchy and contained some great bars.

So what did I do? Well, there were a few limitations as we had a Pro Tools session which contained vocal separates and a stereo file of the backtrack. I used some gentle multi band compression to control some of the more harsh mid-range frequencies that were popping out in the track, particularly from the vocal sample. I also added some delay and reverb to the tail end of the vocal sample in order to blend it in with the rest of the track, as well as some additional cuts in order to allow certain vocal lines to pop through in the silence.

With the lead vocal, I compressed it...hard. Like, really hard. For me, this gave the performance a more "expensive" sound and thickened it, as I felt the sonic quality from the microphone lacked some body. Unfortunately, when you compress a voice very hard you end up with extremely hard plosives (p, k, t, d, g, b) and sibilances. In order to compensate I manually bring out my editing chops, zone in on each sound and gain the clip down by 11dB to 15dB. Because this is happening before the compressor, it needs to be a large dB cut. This gives the vocal some of its more natural feel back.

Now that the vocals were thicker, I had to deal with the brittle top end. I just did a gentle shelf cut on the top end until it sat where I like it.

I also added some reverbs, particularly a fantastic "true stereo" convolution reverb by Quantum Leap, called Spaces, as well as some spring reverb. Spring reverb is one of my favourite effects to use in a mix as it adds so much colour. I use it more as an effect than as a "space", and in this instance, also added a spring reverb to the delay bus in order to have more control of how three dimensional I can make the vocal mix. I play with send automation quite a lot when mixing vocals. I'll dry out certain passages where there are a lot of syllables in order to reduce smearing between the pitches, and then letting the reverb bloom up at the ends of longer notes.

On the backing vocal group, I didn't use a lot of compression as I wanted this group to feel a bit more natural. I always compress my backing vocals as a group. I also added Waves' ReelADT as a doubler, which in my opinion is an incredibly natural sounding doubler. This added a few more voices and increased the overall stereo feel of the chorus hook.

Special props must go to the other folks who submitted posts for this project. @djlethalskillz for some incredibly polished production, @heaterville for that lush vibe that you hear supporting @eubanksito, and everyone else who was kind enough to get involved.

Now what are you waiting for? Go and get that music post and link them in the comments...Don't forget to check up in the "How It Works" section to make sure you submit within the parameters. Lets have some fun with music!

The ADSactly Music Iniciative is by led by Ross Dabone

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ADSactly

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