Ski Oakenfull’s track deconstructions are one of the keystones of pointblank’s online music production education. If you’re a newbie to pointblank, or music production for that matter, and haven’t watched one of our deconstructions before, here’s what they’re all about: Our Head of Education & Development (and master of deconstructions), Ski Oakenfull, takes a successful popular contemporary or classic song and shows exactly how it was made. During the videos, he pulls back the curtain on the secrets behind these infectious earworms revealing the music production and music theory techniques recreating them before your very eyes. If you’re interested in learning first-hand from Ski, we offer courses in London and Online where he’ll have a hand in teaching you the secrets of music production, sound engineering and more.
In addition to all the priceless musical knowledge available through these deconstructions, Ski has kindly put together a number of free downloadable packs for you so you can dig deeper and investigate the melodies, synths and arrangements for yourself. Heck – you can even use some of these sounds in your own productions. Below tune in to three of our favourite deconstructions and download the project files for just the price of your email.
Track Deconstruction: Avicii – ‘SOS’ ft. Aloe Blacc + MIDI Pack
For this deconstruction, Ski delves into the chords and melodies used throughout the song’s verse, pre-chorus and chorus. In addition to breaking down the beat, he shows how to figure out a song’s key signature by looking for the most dominant note in the track. In the downloadable pack, you’ll find a closer look at the project’s MIDI files which include the bass, piano, lead, arpeggio and more. Download it here.
Track Deconstruction: Adamski ft. Seal – ‘Killer’ + Ensoniq SQ 80 Synth Pack
For this extra-special deconstruction, we were joined by Adamski himself to delve into the magic behind his global Seal-featuring hit, ‘Killer’. In addition to this deconstruction, we’ve also included a free downloadable pack of the sounds used in the video. Ski kindly put together an Ableton 10 pack featuring those gorgeous Ensoniq SQ 80 Sampler instruments so you’ll be able to open this up inside Ableton Live and start churning out some retro-sounding synth magic. Download it here.
Track Deconstruction: Halsey – ‘Without Me’ + Project Files
Equipped with Ableton Live 10, a Push 2 and Native Instruments’ Komplete Kontrol, Ski kicks off the deconstruction using the Roland Cloud JV-1080 plugin to breakdown the track’s guitar melody. After this, he turns his focus to the future RnB drums and shows how to recreate the track’s skipping hi-hat pattern, before padding the pattern out with the rest of the elements. This free Halsey pack features a number of elements from the Ableton Live project file. Download it here.
If you’re feeling inspired be sure to keep an eye on our Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as we share content much like this on a weekly basis. Want to delve further into the realms of music production? Then don’t hesitate to check out our Online courses or contact one of our course advisors.
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