#secondflight

Tell us a little bit about yourself

Hey! My name is Josh (aka Second Flight). I've been producing music for over 5 years, and I've played clarinet for 10. I'm a sophomore computer science student. I go to school in Tennessee, though home is in Maryland.

What inspired you to start making music?

In 9th grade, my English teacher assigned us an open-ended creative project maybe a month into the school year. We were allowed to make an art project, as long as it followed one of the prompts she gave. We could draw or make clay sculptures, among other things. One of the items caught my attention though - we could compile an album. We didn't have to write the music ourselves, but we would get kudos if we did. I decided I wanted to try actually making a song, and so I did. And I haven't stopped making music since :)

Tell us about your approach to writing and production.

I usually start a song either with a lead melody or a chord progression. Then I build from there, adding background elements and filling everything out. I almost always divide music into phrases of 8 bars (or sometimes 4 if the tempo is slower) - phrases are sections that often spell out a complete musical idea. In my music, for example, phrases usually contain complete chord progressions that can be looped and built upon. When I'm working on progressive-style genres, such as trance or progressive house, I'll often build by copying a phrase and adding a few new elements. I also like to add transitions between phrases. Even if it's just a simple reverse cymbal, transitions can really help move the music along.

What programs, equipment and other tools do you use when producing?

I used to use LMMS, and I would recommend it to anyone starting out who wants to try out music production but doesn't want to shell out the money for a professional DAW.

My current DAW is FL Studio. I own two synths - Serum and Harmor - and I use them more than just about anything else. As for free synths, recently I've been toying around with u-he TyrellN6 (lead synth in https://clyp.it/yz1mjxsw). One other notable synth that I use is Brainstormer. I have a progressive house pluck that I made with three instances of it in Patcher, along with a sampler loaded with a percussive hit (I used TX16WX though I would probably use a different one if I remade it, since TX16WX is a CPU hog). Sounds like this are typically made with Sylenth, but I don't own that synth, so I've had to make do with what I have. Here's an example of the patch if you're curious how it sounds: https://clyp.it/dhaowffa

My current favorite reverb is the hall reverb from SerumFX. The reverb I used before I got Serum was the free Ambience reverb. I still use it for shorter tails and for drums. As for other effects, I use mostly stuff that comes with FL - Effector, Fruity Waveshaper and Maximus are the ones that come to mind. One notable exception is OTT. It's a free multiband compressor from the guy who made Serum, and I would highly recommend it. It's definitely not something I put on everything, but I like to use it for basses and such.

I don't have much in the way of hardware, but I do have a Zoom H2 microphone. I use it to record foley and ambient sounds.

How has Clyp played a role in your production process?

I used to upload works in progress to SoundCloud, but their upload limit made it so I had to delete things regularly. Clyp solved that problem for me, and now I use it all the time.

Who are your influences at the moment?

I'll go ahead and list off a few of my favorites :)

Porter Robinson

Volant

Puppet

Madeon

Daydreamer

Nigel Good

Virtual Riot

Can you share a Clyp you’re currently working on?

Every once in a while, I make something that I really like, and I end up pouring a bunch of time into it. This is one of those projects for me. I've spent almost 30 hours on this project according to FL's hour counter, but it really only feels half done.

Any tips or advice for other creators/producers/musicians?