Finishing Touches

As we play back the song that is completed so far, it sounds good, but unfinished. In the same way that we altered the last measure of the chords to ring out the end, we can now go back and make some improvements to our bass and drums.

Bass Track:

In the Mixer window, click on the bass track, then open it in the Compose view. Scroll ahead to the last measure, and make it like the screenshot below......letting the last note ring.

 

fj_bassend.gif

Drum Track:

Now the only thing left is to enhance the drum track. At a minimum, it should also signal the end of the song with the bass and chords. It might also be nice to add a few different rhythmic highlights during the song.

  • In the Mixer window, click on the drum track, and open it in the Composer view
  • Click Add Sounds and select a Tom, High Hat, and Cymbal. Click "OK"
  • Back in the Composer view try adding something like this to measures 1 & 2:

fj_drum1_2.gif

What we have done here is to have the High Hat tapping double time to the Bass drum, and accenting the start of each measure with a cymbal crash.

 
Maybe measures 3 & 4 could look like this using the Tom for rhymthic variation:

fj_drum3_4.gif

 

For measures 5 & 6, I have just reused the first pattern, and then for the final two (7 & 8) measures, try this:
fj_drumend.gif
When you put it all together it should sound something like this:

 

So that's about it. Hopefully by now you have learned how to navigate Anvil Studio, and picked up a little understanding of how a song is assembled. In the next section, we will look at some variations to this piece, and ideas about how to apply what we have learned to other compositions.