Next has reached the “1,000 plays” milestone some time over the last week or two, I suspect. It is the second of my songs to hit this threshold on Spotify.

Thanks to all of those who spent time listening to this song! Here are a few bits of info about the track that you might appreciate.

Production statistics

The song was started on October 31st, 2012. It was last modified on December 15, 2012.

The total time spent on it was 16 hours.

Other stats:

• Plugins: 122
• Channels: 73
• Mixer tracks: 30

This song had a few different rhythms/melodies/variants before settling on the version you hear today. In FL Studio, the project has a bunch of extra unused content that didn’t make the cut. This explains the high number of plugins/channels/tracks mentioned above.

Production notes

I sometimes worked on this song while riding the bus.

In a few of my songs, I like to use open hi-hats on each quarter note, synchronized with the kick. This track does it well.

This song makes extensive use of an old, 32-bit FL Studio VST plugin called Wasp. It’s responsible for most of the synthesized sounds.

I used Wasp for many of my songs made in the same 2010-ish timeframe like Oceana and Next - it had a unique white noise modulator that added a breathy tone to the synth that I loved, and I used it liberally.

Unfortunately, I can no longer play the song in modern FL Studio versions because Wasp was never ported to 64 bit.

I consider Harmless to be the successor to Wasp (in FL Studio’s suite of VST plugins), and I have found that it just can’t produce the same sounds. Harmor is an option, but the major advantage of Wasp and Harmless is that both plugins have a streamlined user experience.

So, consider Next a tribute to Wasp, if nothing else… and consider it an entry in my list of songs that are defined by open hi-hats on quarter notes.

Interest

If you have any questions about Next, feel free to reach out to me via the contact page. I’d be happy to hear from you.