Aiming to find a good starting point for my remix, having no prior knowledge of electronic artists and what the structure of electronic music entails, I have come across a duo called ‘Odesza’ whom I briefly touched on in my first post. The group out of America have been put under the genre “future bass”, which is the direction I took my remix. But the band takes rhythmic hints from other genres as well like ‘drum and bass’ and dance music. Their use of synthesis is quite mellow only using it as a basis for chords and not so much for melodies. For example, in the track “La Ciudad” almost all of the synths involve chord and harmonic placement whereas vocal sampling takes over the melody.
After some research I found a page that gave an insight into what type of synths and software the Odesza use, and most notably they seem to use some of Native Instruments VST’s including Massive a virtual-analogue synth that I also used in my remix and also some type of piano synths which according to this page is the ‘Una Corda’. These piano type synths can be found in tracks like “Higher Ground” at 0:18 for the chords and “Say My Name” at 0:14 for the same structural position. (1)
Their use of synthesis very much plays a supportive role and helps to build a foundation for their tracks. Mainly vocals control the melodies which is where their use of sampling comes into play creating a separation of two elements; a natural and a synthetic. This gives it a modern feel which helps it fit in to its future bass genre which has only surfaced in recent years. I used this approach in my remix creating a distinction between the natural elements, vocals and guitar, and my use of synthesis, to try my best to help it work together to illustrate that modern feel.
1. Inc., E. (2018). Odesza's Equipboard. Retrieved from https://equipboard.com/pros/odesza
2. Odesza - La Ciudad (2016). [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbaFJiWftwk
3. Odesza - Higher Ground (feat. Naomi Wild) - Official Video. (2018). [Video} Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqoLCvsy8_c
4. Odesza - Say My Name (feat. Zyra) - Official Video. (2014) [Video] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMssNXBCCl0
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