Matt Donner offers a theory and arrangement breakdown of Porter Robinson & Madeon’s Shelter, with analysis of melody, the chord progression, and the technique used to convey the chords.
Matt Donner is back with another theory and arrangement breakdown. After receiving multiple requests, he decided to analyze Porter Robinson & Madeon’s hit, “Shelter”. He talks about the melody, the chord progression, and the technique used to convey the chords.
First, Matt digs into the vocal melody. The melody embodies a predictable (but not too predictable) pattern, a concept he touched on in his “In The Name of Love” analysis. He demonstrates the notes leveraged from the scale to make the pattern, and talks about the use of triplets.
Next, he goes over the chord progression. We provide visuals so you can recreate these chords yourself. Matt talks about the inversions used, as well as a technique that involves splitting the chords between two instruments.
Pyramind has also posted a video in which Raul Cardenas aka Vice City demonstrates how to make dubstep basses in the Serum synthesizer by Xfer Records.
These sounds are commonly heard in music by various artists like Zomboy, MUST DIE!, and Barely Alive.
“This tutorial is about knowing what FM does to your sound, and what filters can do.”Raul uses the Dist Bass Dropper and Matrix C64 wavetables to craft this bass in Serum, but stresses that those following along should experiment with different wavetables. He combines FM and filter modulation to make the sound change over time. He also applies some of Serum’s built-in effects like multiband compression and hyper/dimension.
Matt and Paul offer one-on-one tutoring and guidance as part of Pyramind’s Mentorship Network.
More information: Pyramind
