We'll be right back music

Alright so this one is for GurkaLurkin again, but this time for when he steps away from the stream. It's loosely based on elevator music because that sounded like a fun challenge. I was wrong [Insert "Hello darkness my old friend" meme]. The beat for elevator music was the part that changed the most through out the piece and I just have a 16 step drum machine.  Ya I made a terrible beat and didn't fix it so ya that was a bad start.

The beat is a 16 step beat with a clave hit speeding up over 4 bars, a kick on the 3rd beat every other bar, the 2nd and 4th bar that have a traveling hit on each beat. this feels like an unstable beat which sounds like the elevator song, but since it repeats, loses all of the travel making the beat feel like you're always tripping [insert "This is requiem" meme]. After adding other instruments, I used some EQ and compressors to simplify and weaken the beat so that it didn't conflict with other tracks. The last trick I used was cutting out the end of the 16 bars three times in order to make a beat of the beat. This introduces the unsteady beat as a steady beat. 

The next part added was a piano with heavy chorus, reverb, and some tremolo. it was originally two notes back and forth two times and then an off beat ascend from the lowest note. The last third is the same but the two notes don't go back and forth to increase the intensity. Because I'm dumb, this just made the first part boring.  To combat that I inserted a middle part of some chords on the piano that descend to the beat of the tremolo rate with ending chord progression that ascendeds and then descending into a middle chord. This was fine but lacked any backing tracks so I tapped out the tremolo rate and matched it with snare hit on the drum machine. That beat didn't match the spacey tone of the chord so I added heavy reverb and EQ gain.  Finally I added some guitar notes that sort of follow the chord but more importantly add a sort of fake beat.

Now we get to the problem child. The bass caused the most problems because I didn't put in the effort to get it right. I only laid down 4 tries and tried to adjust the timing in post. The last part fit well because I got into the tempo by the end of the track, but the first part suffered. Trying to adjust the timing in post created awkward spacing and abrupt notes. By the time I got back to track after sending the demo over was the first par. The only issues with it was the clunky bass notes, boring piano notes, and a beat that trips over its self. I tried taking out the piano notes, but the bass tripped over the rhythm too often which lead to the beat with in a beat to introduce the rhythm, yet it still felt clunky. Next I took out the bass for most of it, but the track felt empty so I added back the piano. To combat the boring nature of it thou, I added a nebula modulations and doubled it with the original sound, but muted it before the bass came in to add some space. This led to a coming together of all of the tracks. 

Overall this song feels more fine than I think it should sound. It sounds like some background music that you don't notice till the end when it all comes together. I do feel like the middle could have been its own song with a blistering study solo. 
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Pink is rhythm, indigo is bass, blue is piano, and orange is guitar