The Demo EP is an EP I never released. It is composed of four songs I produced back in 2020 and 2021 in order to apply and be accepted in the Digital Music Production Bachelor at the University of Montreal. I found the time to finish the EP and bring it to a releasable state, but I am still very proud of the tracks made for it. Each track were experiments I was making with different ideas or instruments. The four songs on this EP are:

1. Running
2. Ballade
3. F E E L I N G S
4. Far West

Running

Running is the first song on the Demo EP. It is a mix between hip-hop and rock. This also was the last production made for the demos I would send the University of Montreal in order to get into their music program. The song contains a few orchestral instruments for the melodies and it’s mixed with more classic hip-hop drums sound organized in a more rock style.

The song title comes from one of my friends, who, upon hearing the song for the first time, said she wanted me to send it to her so she could run while listening to it. I found the idea so funny at first, that I named the song after it. It was the first time someone wanted to listen to my music for reasons other than just seeing what I had done, which was a great feeling.

Running

Tsuyosa

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Ballade

Ballade is the second track on the EP. On this production, I decided to experiment with creating my own instruments, so I created two 808’s by using oscillators. I created a first sub 808, which is used to give more of a punch on low frequencies, this one hits low notes. I left it mostly raw, only cutting frequencies that were too high to be a bass. Then I created a bass that would be a little higher pitched and be really distorted to contrast with the bass already in the sample I used. That bass was done using a different oscillator plugin but kept the same idea, it just uses a different wave shape. I also tried creating my own kick for this song by using the same process.

I wanted to use this song to experiment with silences in a song. To facilitate the task, I decided to use a sample made by Cymatics which I got from their free collection. I think the strength of this production is its silences, they compliment the vibe I was going for.

Ballade

Tsuyosa

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F E E L I N G S

F E E L I N G S is the third song on the Demo EP. With this song, I again experimented with the creations of a few sounds, like the bass but also the synth used for the melody and the rythmic sound we can hear throughout the whole track that hits every beat. I once again played with oscillators and syths to create my instruments and sound and added a few effects like reverb and distortion and EQ’s.

The song also uses a midi of a guitar on which I played and recorded a melody using a midi keyboard. I once again experimented with silences. This track was a mix of all my experiments for this project, and I was left very proud of the results.

F E E L I N G S

Tsuyosa

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Far West

The last song on the EP is Far West. In this song, I was trying to experiment with effects on the sound of the instruments and creating sounds from differents instruments. One such example is the sort of train whistle heard in the back of the chorus. It is actually a chord played on an organ, to which I added a “old phone” EQ effect and modify the frequency the EQ would let pass until it kind of sounded like a train whistle. This train whistle is also the reason the track is called far west.

I also experimented with the effect on the guitar melodies. Both the melody and counter melody are played on the same 12 string guitar. I also added some distortion to the bass.

This track also goes to show that one of the main things I liked playing and experimenting with back then was silences, especially after a drop or in the chorus. I think that this track was a good closing track for the EP because it encapsulates well the ideas of what I was exploring without standing out too much.

Far West

Tsuyosa

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Final thoughts

This is the longest time I spent on a musical project and the one I worked the hardest on. I spent months working on those tracks and it did pay off back in the day as it got me accepted in the music production program I was applying for. I also got to learn a lot of new tricks from listening to songs and trying to recreate them. I also learned a lot about how to plan projects and work on them efficiently. To this day, I still use everything that I learned from this project on any personnal project I do.