Deep's Audio Den Category

Are looking for that Fat, Clean, Huge, and Majestic sound that you hear on Bollywood Film Soundtracks?

Do you want that sound that fills up the bass-bins at the club…

Are you looking for that warm presence that makes people want to turn it up…

Now you can get that sound that makes the Desi Girls go Nutz…

Well, we’ve decided to open up our studios to outside clients!

Along side of our in-house production and composition for Labels, TV, and Film, we are now taking outside clients for mix, master, and production.

More details to follow, but in the meantime you can email info@indiAudio.com for details, or click here to contact us.

Well the soundtrack is finally out, so now we can lift up the hood and take a look at all the nuts and bolts.

But I must start by saying that there is a serious issue with the packaging of the CD, and marketing materials online.

For some reason Sagar Desai, the official music director’s name was omitted from the CD jacket.

And as the film is currently being discussed online, his name doesn’t appear anywhere that I’ve seen, while Daniel B George who did the background score is getting all the credit.

Also one of the strengths of the CD are in the great lyrics written by Ankur Tiwari, who’s name is also missing.

While for DJ Chandu and I, who’s names do appear on the CD cover, the tracks we remixed are mislabeled.  And we are also missing the blanket credit of Producing, Mixing, and Mastering the OST.

That being said…

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Sagar was one of my first friends in India, a fellow Chicago-ean, and a fellow music director, so it was great to finally work on something together.

When he got the Quickgun Soundtrack through his association with Phat Phish, he asked us to help him produce two tracks.  Basically he wanted us to add some commercial polish and make the tracks more mainstream.

So our initial work on the project began only with the “Dialog Track” and “Mind It!”.

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Dialog Track
Brief:
Sagar had presented us this track with the brief that it had to be heavy on South Indian Rhythmic influences, and mixed with dialogs from the film.

Process:
Originally he brought the track to us at 157 BPM’s (beats per minute).

(One of my upcoming entries will discuss in more detail setting tempos, creating grooves, and managing energy, but the first thing I knew we had to do was to bring this tempo down.)

157BPM has a lot of energy, but renders the listener a bit overwhelmed if they are not dancing.

We went back and forth but settled on 145, which is at the top of a 4/4 techno space, so can be blended in a DJ set.

Also it forced us to only keep the elements that enhanced the groove, so we cleaned out a lot of stuff “weighing” the track down.

The main genetic has always been the heavy South Indian percussion loop layered throughout the track and the character dialogs, but I knew we needed to add a melodic element as a sort of tour guide to glue the whole track together.

So I wrote the main melodic lead that starts and continues throughout the track, which Sagar later had re-recorded with a Saraswaram.

Production:
Because of the density of the main percussion loop, and due to its staggered groove, it became difficult to both add elements that fit the groove, as well as create clarity for the dialogs, which weren’t of the highest original fidelity.

In the end the track became a balance between maintaining no more than 6 total elements at a time, a spatially wide mix, and drops to highlight certain dialogs.

Results:
For the last month of production Sagar had gone back to the US, and we were left to finish the music in conjunction with Fox.

Sagar seemed a little miffed upon his return that I had added the high dholak in various parts of the track.

My intention was to maintain the energy while keeping enough rhythmic shifts throughout the track.

He may be right in that the dholak sits on top of the staggered percussion loop and evens out the groove a bit, which does go against the brief.

But I don’t feel that a choice either way is detrimental to the track.

My main issue is that the song is a bit dialog heavy, as prescribed by Fox and Shashank (the director), and I know the track would play better at about 3:30 instead of 4:10 total time.

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Mind It
Brief:
Sagar had composed a very catchy track that to this day I think worked best in its original conception.

On his scratch vocal the only lyric was Mind it, and then a bunch of gibberish that Sagar does distinctively well (Wait till you hear Zambazi Func - his band with Blaaze from A. R. Rahman fame).

Basically the brief was to make a catchy front end song to help market the film.

Process:
This track ended up being a perfect example of why you have to map out your destination, or you will never get there.

This song has gone through countless permutations, and the end result is a mixed bag of ideas.

We’ve changed the tempo over and over, reworked the groove by adding and subtracting countless layers, and basically got stuck circling the middle.

There are actually two version of this song each with different music and lyrics, one sung by Mika Singh and another by Vijay.

For obvious marketing reasons Mika’s is the one that released.

The track was never quite right since we started making changes from the very beginning.

And then just before we reached the point where they were about to shoot the video, Mika had pointed out that the song was more of a “listening” track than a “dance” track, so we went back to the drawing board on the rhythm.

Me and DJ Chandu only had one night to work it out while Sagar was still in the US, and the results are what you hear on the CD.

Production:
One of the main issues we from the beginning was rhythmic fidelity.

The drum and percussion sections that Sagar had brought us had decent retro tones, but couldn’t fill up the top and bottom range of the spectrum.

There was a persistent lacking low-end to the kick, and the high end lacked brilliance.

The track just wasn’t translating well into a listener space, beyond the catchy lyrics.

Also the whole song ended up transposed 2 notes higher than where it was recorded, so you can hear the constrained artifacts of Melodyne (pitch-shifting software) on Mika’s vocals.

Results:
I kind of feel like everyone is equally slightly unhappy about this track which is probably the best we could hope for.

The song serves its purpose as a marketing vehicle, but doesn’t really maintain most of the elements that made Sagar’s original concept great.

In retrospect the track was never meant to be a dance track (that’s what the remix is for), and should have stayed lo-fi and lyrically oriented.

There are tradeoffs to an under-produced sound, but it fits the initial brief better than what’s been released.

This is a perfect example of how a producer needs a clear idea of what the song is supposed to be, where and when it will be played, and listened to by whom.

I feel like most of the time we were working from the approach of making changes to make the song better, without really knowing why we were fiddling with it in the first place.

And the end result sounds a bit overworked.

—–

In the next part I’ll discuss how we got into mixing and mastering the whole soundtrack, followed by how the remixes came about in the third part.

I’ve been a music producer for 10 years… and I’ve sucked at it for 9 1/2… : )

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If you have read through any of my entries on this site you already know that I find more value in the lessons of failure, than from the pat on the back of success.

I’ve been meaning to initiate a discussion about music for sometime, but I’ve been too caught up in the actual act of producing to spare the time.

But it is from this very experience that I will base these entries (good or bad), as we dive head first in to making music for independent artists, labels, and mostly the massive mechanism of Bollywood.

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To begin with, being that I’m working in India, many people ask me what is the difference between a Music Director and a Producer.

For those of you in “Timber-Land” you must understand that Indian music isn’t defined by film, but films define ALL popular music.

(Just come Mumbai and try to release an Alternative-Rock Album, and you’ll have as much luck as you would in Afghanistan :)

So as I meet film directors, it becomes paramount that I convey exactly what we do, how we are different, and what the advantages are.

(I say “we” as one thing I’ve learned is that its quite advantageous to work as a team.)

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So what exactly is the difference between a “Producer” and a Music Director?

While we find the answer quite clear in the west, most people in India, even from within the industry, don’t have a clear understanding.

So lets begin our discussion of the craft with my own definitions…

“A Music Director creates and manages the musical requirements for a film including but not limited to the soundtrack and the score.”

“A Music Producer maintains a balanced responsibility between the Song, Artist, Genre, Mix, Intention, Distribution (Label/Film), Marketing, and Audience.”

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I’ll go into the specifics of this definition through the series of upcoming entries, as well as discuss specific studio, composition, arrangement, and production techniques, all while exploring the philosophy and strategy of how music production fits into Bollywood.

(I also reserve the necessary right to note and change the elements of this discussion as there is never an end to learning.)

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As Music Production is gaining importance, my goal is to document the industry’s and my own journey towards this destination, in hopes that it may help you on your own.

I’ve noticed that “production” is the defining factor behind what makes the top music directors great today…

Vishal and Shekhar, Shankar, Ehsaan, and Loy, A.R. Rahman, and Pritam as examples, all have an advantageous ability to produce their own material.

In no lesser terms, production defines the state of the art.

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I truly believe that we are at the beginning of a trend where filmmakers will prefer a “Music Producer” to come in and polish their OST (Official Sound Track), over the traditional team of music director, lyricist, and composer.

Also noted is that filmmakers are breaking from the sole music director approach, and using multiple sources for their soundtracks, which again creates an environment where good production easily stands out against the rest.

Some evidence is rooted in and will replace the obligatory need to include remixes to appeal to the weddings and masses.

And ultimately, in the end I believe this trend will spur on a necessary renaissance for music outside of film in India.

(My next entry will go into details about your role as a producer.)