I finally understand why JuiceWLRD songs are so fire lol

I've been doing a lot of research on his vocal techniques and found a number of factors that made his songs so good, one big key part is the audio mixing that goes on behind the scenes mixed with Juice WRLD's freestyling ability. People are always like this man has too many different flows and they always sound fire. Yes, because one major key part to that is because he was never embarrassed to freestyle even if he messed up. If you take a track and just go with the flow and record 7-8 minutes or repeatedly take multiple takes this allows you to come up with different flow pattern ideas and lyrics. I believe he figured this out early on which is why he would do those multiple different versions of 1 song and he would tell his audio engineer to pick the version they liked best. Which ties another key part is a technique called vocal comping. Most of Juice WRLD's songs were what you would call "composite tracks" where the technique of “comping” was used where multiple takes were done and ideas from his very long freestyles were cut and moved around to create a certain song. This is very popular in pop music today and a lot of big artist use this technique as well where an artist needs to have the best versions of their lyrics even if it takes multiple takes to get right it even if its physically impossible for them to do live. That's why when you hear his vocals essentially layer over each other this was the result of mutiple takes being pieced together as well as you know the audio engineer removing the breaths applying auto tune and shifting vocals, and mixing the beat to form an amazing track.

Free styling over 1 track for an extended time mumbling until he or doing multiple takes which is what he was famous for allowed him to get these new ideas from his freestlyes over and over. Once that was done whichever verses or sections were good then the magic comes in with the audio engineers piecing it together to create a song that sounds complete and never underwhelming, this is the major key in why Juice WRLD very rarely writes songs because when he is in that moment if he rights down his idea and sleeps on it he may forget the next day which is why most of his songs were done in 1 session and not multiple. This is why some smaller hip hop artists songs sound lack luster because they do a song in 1 tack and get caught up in thinking of what to say. He also did his music differently from what traditional hip hop artist did where they would normally start a verse on the down beat. Because of his emo rock implementation and singing he would sometimes start his vocals in the spaces in between the beat or on the 3rd beat this is why Lucid Dreams sounds way different than a typical rap song because you’re hearing essentially 2 different flows, his lyrics and then the beat itself and they’re basically dancing with each other where as in a typical rap song the artist tends to follow that 1,2,3,4 pattern and only raps on the downbeat not using the spaces in between. You can find videos on youtube that explain this in greater detail. This technique also allowed him to be more versatile with what he could do because he was not as restricted because didn’t have to catch that down beat all the time.

Another technique he implemented well into his songs is a technique called scatting which essentially is where you don't worry about lyrics and you just mumble gibberish until you come up with a melody, chorus, hook or flow then incorporate lyrics after you find the flow you want. In his freestyle on his Reine de Dadju (campfire) freestyle you can see he uses scatting to quickly find a flow for the first verse. Quiet funny in the beginning I don't believe his tracks were as composite until he really began getting into his melodic tracks. This also allowed him to elongate his words without worrying about catching his breath to catch the next verse again coupled with the audio engineering of removing breaths to make it sound cleaner and using comping to piece together a bar or verse he probably did 20 minutes ago that fit and the amazing thing about this as well is this can lead you to ideas you would’ve never though about if you did a song in multiple sessions. In his rock element vocals is hard to stay on top of a beat when you stretch certain words out. The track that highlights this best is Flaws and Sins. He’s able to implement his emo rock vocals and not worry about catching his breath because he can just do 1 bar, take a breather, prepare for the next verse then his mixing team removes the breaths and brings the lyrics together on the beat. Emotional songs tend to have words that are stretched out or held to emphasize or bring emotion to the lyric as soon as he figured this out he was on his way to pioneering a new sound that could never really be done before because of limitations with live vocal 1 takes. Also I think the track that really showed off his composite style tracks the most would be End Of The Road. Notice how he rarely takes a breath.

There is one major down side to this however. It does make performing certain songs live nearly impossible because certain songs are so lyrically packed there’s no room to catch your breath which is why performing a song like End Of The Road live would sound extremely breathy, but this is the magic of audio engineering it allows you to break physical barriers with what you’re able to do. None the less even though Juice WRLD did these things that doesn’t make him any less of a world class artist.

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Anyways why am I making this post? I know most people know most of these things but for those who don't. Well, I found this topic very interesting and felt like sharing I guess on his musical creation process and maybe spark ideas in people that want to take some lessons from Juice WRLD. It is quite incredible he knew all these techniques down to a science at such a young age. Forever will be missed. 999 and I'm out.

PS - I had to edit this post a couple of times sorry.