Amy Eddleston (Darwen, UK)

 

Amy Eddleston is an English musician who is now based in Leeds. When producing music Amy has a minimalistic aesthetic. She likes to use modern technologies, acoustic instruments and vocal looping techniques to create her music. Since she was signed at the age of 18 by Movement of Music she has been working a lot of new material and her album is due to be released in July 2015. The tracks on the album are in the genre of Minimal House, Dance and Electronic.

 

The track below is called Fire. There are certain techniques used in this track such as vocal looping, adding vocal effects within the Ableton software itself and samples. 

 

The starting inspiration for this track was taken from a Years & Years track called ‘Take Shelter’. I took this track as my inspiration and starting point because it is simplistic and has a minimalistic aesthetic and that is the type of aesthetic I wanted to achieve. However, they use mainly hardware instruments in this track such as a drum kit, a bass synth and keyboard but I decided to use mainly software instruments as it fit the sound I wanted to create. The bass line in the Years & Years track was the main inspiration taken from the track as it has a minimal 90’s pop element. A similar sounding bass and rhythm is what I used as a starting point for the track to then build more layers on top off.

 

I used the bass as the main rhythmic element that to drive the track. The main bass line used in my track is a software instrument in Ableton and to create it I used a midi keyboard. I used EQ on the bass line to make it brighter and I also added a bass punch effect to make the attack more powerful as it was too soft. This bass line is the main rhythmic element that I want to drive the track.  

 

I also took inspiration from Years & Years for the vocal parts. They use vocal loops and samples in the background. To achieve this I used Looper on Ableton to create vocal loops over the top to add texture. I started of with a hum on a certain key and then added a melismatic vocal line over the top. This main vocal loop is featured in different parts of the track the one most prominent is in the break as it helps build up the section. At the beginning I use single lines of vocals in the background to add depth to the track and then after the break there is a vocal line that sings’ I see fire’. I added this to add impact after the break as it builds up and then this vocal line comes in. On the vocal parts I added EQ to remove the low and high frequencies to give it a neutral feel and to take out distortion. There was also compression on the vocals to make sure the vocal line did not have volume peaks and a gate was used so that background noise was not picked up when recording. I also used a medium room reverb effect on the vocal lines at the beginning to add ambience and then I used a small room reverb effect on the line ‘I see fire’.

 

There is a sub bass used at the beginning of the track and in the background is a sample that I have downloaded from the Internet. As it is used at the beginning of the track and is in the forefront I tried to make it brighter by taking some low frequencies out with EQ and including the high frequencies. I then blend it in to the background to add depth to the track and that there is a constant bass line in the background.

 

The break in the middle of the track features the rhythmic bass line, however I took the high frequencies out to give it a sub sound and then other elements of the track add in 1 by 1 such as the melodic synth line, a sample of a shaker and the main vocal loop. I think this builds up the track for the listener preparing them for everything to comeback in after the break. It then starts to fade out by each part of the track stopping one by one and then the track finishes with just the vocal loop for the last 4 counts to fade the track out. I thought it was best to end the track this way as it fits with the minimalistic aesthetic, as it is basic.

 

Throughout the track I panned different instruments. One vocal line at the beginning is panned left and the other is centred. The main bass line and the sub bass are panned centre. The melodic synth line and the shaker are panned right, the main vocal loop in the break is panned centre and the vocal line ‘I see fire’ is panned right.

 

Overall, I think the strengths of this mix are that it sticks to the minimalistic aesthetic and it has a good bass line. Although I think the weakness of this track is that it has a lot of low frequencies even though I tried to brighten it up with EQ and I think this makes the track heavy. 

 

"Amy Eddleston's new minimal house track 'Fire' is the new track to hit the Dance charts. Its huge amount of bass leaves your body bouncing with the speakers and along with a memorable beat this track is perfect for a night in the club along with its underlining of vocals. You could dance all night!"

The Daily Mail 

 

Below are a few links to her pages: 

 

https://twitter.com/AmeMarieMusic

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHUyfN6wu8vKwtUIturEYLw