Rave with the Duck
So after 6 long years of playing around with DAW's and trying to make some music I've finally "finished" something I am willing to share with the world. I can't wait to keep developing my skills and sharing this journey with you all. Sit back and have a listen to this.
(Doctor Duck, 2017)
Production
For this song I've tried to combine the knowledge I've gained over the past few months and as I have learned so much. The whole track was created in the box on Logic Pro X. My case studies on Simon Patterson's Opulence and John 00 Felming's Desert Rider were essential learning tools to get this song off the ground.
Not only did they lead me down the path of new synthesisers check out my post What's been doin? for more on them. They also gave me wonderful insights into mixing, mastering and production techniques. I also challenged myself to test my musical theory knowledge and was really please by the harmonies I've created in the breakdown and an almost pseudo melody throughout the track which goes back to my post on psychoacoustics.
Mixing
There were some very specific challenges in this piece especially getting the bass drone to sit right in the mix. To get that over the line I learned a lot about saturation using both Saturn from Fab Filter and Trash 2 by Izotope. Both have their own eccentricities and were quite fun to use. I've also noticed my ears have improved dramatically the past few months. Combining lots of practise on various projects with the ear training tool QuizTones has been invaluable.
Meeting the deadline was a struggle and I plan to do a little more tinkering with this tune. Not for a re-release just as an educational tool. I've received some really encouraging feedback from Mastering Engineer Hilton Stroud that I want have a listen to the track with that in mind to better understand the feed back. However, his main feedback was it's a great first tune but don't get bogged down into fixing it move on and create more which I very much plan to do.
Mastering
This is the 3rd piece I've tried to master and each have been challenging in their own ways. Each time I've been using the Izotope Ozone 7 and it's a very powerful tool. This time around I armed myself with a bit more knowledge including the guide to mastering with Ozone - iZotope.
Based on feedback from Hilton I'm going to go back over the master for this tune and try to work out how to improve my mid bass as well as bring out a little more definition. I can't wait to do more mastering as I have a few weeks of downtime I will be exploring more tutorials on both Ozone and mastering as it fascinates me.
Promotion
To promote this track I started with a teaser video on my facebook page.
I followed that up with this post and shared it into the Dance it forward event page which I planned to debut the track at.
Then I made one last post after playing my song at dance it forward the day before I released it on soundcloud. It was absolutely brilliant playing my song out in public and luckily enough some of Brisbane's biggest trance promoters were there and I got some awesome feedback as well as some awesome tips from Commonground (a promoter for the event and a fellow trance DJ and producer) on how to improve my track as well as encouragement to keep at it.
I've really enjoyed the process of building hype and plan to learn more about optimising my posts and getting some more traction with them.
Debut
I had the privilege of closing for Dance it Forward at Frequencies.tv on Saturday 19th August 2017 with a trance classics set. My entire set was songs that were 10 - 20 years old except for this one which was 5 hours old at the time. Here is a copy of the performance I'm on from 25 minutes in and the world preview of Rave with the Duck is at 34:47. With 854 views I think it was an appropriate way to debut the track to the world.
(Frequencies.tv, 2017)
Release
Wednesday morning 23rd March Rave with the Duck was released on Soundcloud.
(Doctor Duck, 2017)
With 56 views and 8 favourites in the first 36 hours I'm quite pleased for my efforts with my first track.
Film Clip
The film clip you saw at the top of this page is a collaborative effort from myself and the very talented animator Bradleigh Stevens we've been working together to make a mad Raving Duck image which is currently my facebook profile picture, The album cover for this song and the GIF is the film clip on YouTube. I am really happy with his work especially in the short amount of time he's been involved in the project. He's going to do a final edit over the next few weeks which I can't wait to see. He was an absolute pleasure to work with he really ran with my brief and had something down in less than 48 hours. I really hope I can work with him again in the future.
A massive thank you to everyone that has helped me make this track possible especially Pete, Grant, Eddie and Shay your feedback and tips were essential to getting this completed.
References
Doctor Duck. (2017). YouTube [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/pSfK2qe9ECQ
Doctor Duck. (2017, April 24). Rave with the Duck (Original Mic) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aveH6tmnRXg
Doctor Duck. (2017). Facebook Page. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/DoctorDuck.DJ/
Doctor Duck. (2017, August 23). Rave With The Duck (Original Mix) by Doctor
Duck | Free Listening on SoundCloud. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/doctorduck/rave-with-the-duck-original-mix-master
Frequencies.tv. (2017, April 19). Security Check Required [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/frequenciestv/