It's been a long long time. Good to be back here again.
HELLO!
I enjoyed doing the previous breakdown, but I felt if I did breakdowns either as soon as I finish a project, or during the project, I would be able to write about my process better. I forgot about the sharing until after the finish this time so I am writing this right after I finish. Which is relatively bad, but it's okay. A mistake noticed can be corrected.
So, this is about my recent track, which is a remix. Below is a link to the track.
Koi Ladki Hai - Remix
This is a little different from my usual tracks. I enjoy sampling and I sample various genres of music, but I very rarely make my track a remix of the original sample. Usually, that happens because it feels like too much effort to sync BPM. But this time, I found a hack. Let's get there slowly, for the sake of drama.
The sample - Discovery and idea
It was January 1st, 2024. I slept late and woke up in the afternoon. My flatmates were playing old and new Hindi songs. They played this song, Koi Ladki Hai, while I was half asleep. It got to the end and I heard the "chak dum dum" chorus part and I heard a dancehall-ish beat over that in my head. I got very excited about what was happening in my head, woke up and asked them what the song was. They gave me the name of the song and the movie. I went on YouTube and I found gold.
I loved the song, loved the vocals, loved the percussion and particularly the instrumental around 3:12. Chef's kiss. But the base of my idea was the "chak dum dum" at the beginning, so I quickly downloaded the song, opened my sampler and chopped up those 3 parts.
The chopping was easy but I couldn't hear what I had in mind without the drums.
Drums (non-sample)
I knew the beat I had in mind was dancehall-ish. So I knew I had to look for a thumping kick that could cut out of the mix with ease. And I wanted a nice rim shot kinda snare. But not a rim shot. OZ suddenly popped into my head. I went into the OZ pack by Lunch77 and got myself the perfect kick and snare.
The Tempo
I thought this would become an issue because I couldn't think what the right BPM for this genre would be and was trying random numbers. Before I could think of Googling genre guidelines, I tapped the BPM in.
101.66
Nothing more human than a decimal in a BPM. At least to me. I would've ended up with some uptight number if I Googled. But now, not only does this remix have my musical sense, but it also has my rhythmic feel attached to it. Felt awesome to tap it in.
After I got the tempo figured out, it all came together very very fast. The ideas were practically flowing.
Percussion
I took another listen at the original sample after going this far and instantly noticed the conveniently isolated percs at 0:26. It was magic. Felt like the universe wanted me to sample this.
AND THERE WERE FOUR SLIGHT VARIATIONS OF THE PERCS TOO!
I felt very... Bradley Cooper in Limitless. I was seeing everything. Like nothing went out of my sight.
I used the first two variations of the percussion and put them in the loop, 2 bars for each variation. The beat was instantly full. But the track on the whole needed a fuller melody.
Melody
I was listening to the song passively and looking in OZ for... further bounce. Then the song came to 3:12. The perfect instrumental. I went to that part in my sampler and made 3 markers. I slowed the sample down by 25% to hear the vibe I was after. It was minimal, it was sufficient, it was perfect.
Hats
I really didn't think I would add hats to this track. But I was thinking about that OZ bounce and wanted to do something. Anything.
I spit-boxed a little pattern with rolling hats. Sounded very cool in my head but took me a minute to replicate. My spit-boxing is very vague, but I always end up loving what comes out of it.
It's been a while since I pitched my hats. It felt like the right thing to do in this case. And a nice play of velocities too. The groove was 25% assisted and 75% me. I used Ableton's groove "Dancehall Perc Accent 16ths 101 bpm". It was a cool head-start and got me where I needed to be.
The Thing you can't hear but is there
I added a little something with the drums. A little flute. It made the full beat fuller. I didn't know I wanted it in there until I heard it. Like I've already said before, it was ideas flowing and everything coming together with the help of the universe that day. The thing is named "Vox (Hitboy)" in the Lunch77's OZ drum kit.
All I needed was a bass to finish the beat.
Simplistic bass line
I was a little confused here. I usually think of bass in terms of melody, and it was hard to ideate in this case. It felt like any melody would be counterintuitive. I just went with the root note of the song coming once every bar for half a bar duration. It was nice. Sufficient.
I used the "808 (Dreams - Dreams)" sample from the same drum kit. I followed the scale the sampler suggested but ended up slightly off-key. Then I consulted my producer friend Abhishek Yelley and he suggested that the correct note was G. The bass was sorted. The beat was full.
THE VOCALS
I did not plan to bring the original vocals, but it was an impulse decision. Great impulses there!
I quickly used vocalremover.org to isolate the vocals.
Then, I put the vocals in my sampler. IN THE SAMPLER!
It was right in front of my eyes and I never thought about it. For a few moments, I felt on top of the world. I got the markers at the vocal sections I wanted. The sampler took care of the BPM syncing for me.
IT WAS PERFECT.
Now that I marked the vocals, all I had left to do was decide how long I wanted the track to be. I decided to get half the original length and went to the arrangement. I wanted to keep it interesting.
Arrangement
I didn't want to do a build-up into what I made with the original. I figured since this is a remix, most people who come to this would be familiar with the original. This let me keep the introduction simple.
Half a bar of "chak dum dum", original melody and original percussion. And then my drums kick in. Vocals start and everything starts with the vocals. I wanted a separate "chak dum dum" 4 bars in the beginning. It was fun. I layered these with chants/vox (from Lunch77's Metro Boomin drum kit). Then I did my favorite stutter thing with the "Koi Ladki" part. I loved it. Also added little beat pauses, build-ups and my personal favorite - reverse kicks into the arrangement.
Then it was one verse and close. I didn't want too much length for some reason.
THE INTRO-OUTRO DIALOGUE
I mean, can you find me a Telugu person who doesn't love Venky (2004)? It was getting a very grand re-release and I was missing it. It was on my head and I was in the theatres mentally. The sadness of missing the celebration spilled into this project with the "remix gajji" zinger and I am EXTREMELY HAPPY that it did. It blended in so well.
Mastering
Before I rendered this, I needed to add a little something to the beginning because I always felt SoundCloud cut out a few milliseconds of the track when played there. I added a 1/4 bar's gap and put a rain ambiance in there. Felt appropriate since the original sample was a rain song. Added that, bounced, Ozone, and Ta-Da!
That's about it. It's on SoundCloud only. Listen and give feedback on Twitter. I'm @not_numba.