Kiana Li
patreon
'A Faint Glow of Bravery' - an overview (pt. 1)
🕑 Added 2024-01-19 16:00:09 +0000 UTC"... this EP was a long journey for me to find something less "describable" and less conventional in terms of emotional meaning. Drum and bass is a genre with so much intensity and energy but it's important for me (and back then I began to realize that) to harness that emotion and point it to somewhere that was more pin-pointed and targeted, and explore dynamics not only in the technical sense ... and to portray something that was deeper and harder to understand."
Timestamps:
0:10 - An introduction to the music and the personal sentiment it contains. The backdrop of winter inspiring and stirring all manner of emotion and the process of writing being a way to weather the cold winter, and a push to realize ambition.
05:00 - Introduction to 'Maybes'
05:45 - Eastern Margins @ E1 - NTS x Diesel Tracks. A pivotal gig that broadened and shook up my perspective when it came to dance music and its audiences.
10:20 - Diving into the stems of 'Maybes'.
13:20 - Break processing, and stacking layers of compression incl. sidechain.
16:30 - Demonstration of Eventide Omnipressor, upwards compression.
18:10 - Explaining certain mixdown choices (& limitations) as a result of working on only closed-back headphones. Midrange mixing on the track.
21:00 - Filtered percussion demonstration.
23:50 - More synthwork.
26:00 - A look into a scrapped demo that was closely connected to the project - 'So Soon'
29:50 - Looking into the project file.
32:50 - Diving into the project file of 'French Grey'. Slow sludgy moving doom.
34:40 - Working with a mastering engineer.
36:30 - Focus on the drum programming and building the loop with oneshots vs breakbeat samples.
40:00 - Addition of a filtered and controlled break sample to add texture and grit and space.
44:00 - Bass synths and processing. Adding dirt and messy movement from the start.
48:30 - Main arp articulation and filtering.
50:00 - Mixing sample-heavy material and dealing with resonances.
51:00 - My master chains.
54:20 - Shouts to Teebee.
