Vocoder infused progressive dubstep heavily inspired by Tibetan monk throat-singing. I call it “Monk Step”.
There’s an awesome looking music video available on YouTube, in where I’m showing this track being mastered and recorded directly on to cassette tape. LINK:
youtu.be/MFG6IKTi_Nk
-Background and story-
‘AmidA” started as a remix of one of my earlier works named “Amitabha (Amitābha)” that I published four years ago. I began working with the original Amida project on an iPad mini 1 using Cubasis including several other music apps. Back then I couldn’t finish the mix due to hardware resources being limited.
The years past and I transferred the project to a newer iPad mini 2 where I had the necessary processing power to do my final mix. However I couldn’t seem to get the mix right. So I hired professional ears from Inner Portal Studio (Erik Magrini) and he gave me feedback on what was wrong with my mix. I made a vlog on my YouTube channel (haQ attaQ) in where I was reading Eric’s feedback. LINK:
youtu.be/EreS2AZfkYY
One of the biggest issues was that the snare drum was way too loud and I couldn’t just lower the volume for it since I had done the mistake of exporting drum loops, instead of stems. I tried recording new drums for the “AmidA” track and I even did a livestream for my YouTube audience in where I failed making new drums. LINK:
youtu.be/-JTXaUxBfcE
In the end my viewers convinced me to chop up the drum loop and separate each drum sound to their own individual tracks and so I did.
Another year past and I ended up transferring the project to a newer iPad Pro 12’9”. I think I put months into mixing before my main studio headphones gave up and suddenly I couldn’t keep working on the track. I tried mixing through other headphones but since I never gave my ears enough time to adjust to the new “sound”, every mix version ended up sounding very bad.
Well, about a few weeks ago (June 2018) I received a gift from two friends. They sent me a pair of new headphones (Senheiser 4.30i) and the “sound” in those “phones” are really close to my original pair. So I could finally finish my track.
I’ve never taken so long to finish a track ever and I’m hoping I’ll never take this long with tracks in the future.
-Jakob HaQ
haQ attaQ
released August 11, 2018
Huge shout out to Erik Magrini from Inner Portal Studio for giving me feedback on my mix. Massive thanks to my haQ attaQ viewers on YouTube for convincing me to chop up my drum loop instead of making new drums. I’d also like to thank my significant other for all the support and feedback over the 4 years that it took to finish the track. Also big thanks to the wikimedia commons uploader (Lukas3) for the transparent Buddha picture used for my album cover artwork. Oh and big love to my mom, dad, brother and my niece.