Week #27 - Frustration

I think Funk trumps Frustration, but I'll let you be the judge:



As seems to be the theme in recent weeks, this is a very simple arrangement of an idea that came together rather quickly. Like the last couple of songs, I think this is a good start to something, but it needs more development to get in the ballpark of a complete piece. It's really just one idea that needs more to make it complete. Whether that's lyrics, more sections, additional parts/orchestration, I'm not really sure, but I'm happy with this start.

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Description:

Frustration was the theme, but funk was the vehicle. I'm not sure why, but when I sat down to get started this week, I was taken over by this groove. The final product may or may not evoke frustration, but it definitely sprung from my ruminations on the subject. It started with the lower rhythm part at the beginning, but before I knew it I was layering up guitar tracks, adding bass, and scrambling to get a rough drum track down before I lost the feeling. I didn't even use any FX during recording, not even an amp sim.

Session #2 was spent fiddling with the FX and arrangement - setting up amps, EQs and compressors, editing the parts down to my favorite bits (and adding a few new parts), and trying out arrangements. Session #3 was all about getting everything to blend together. I almost started adding more parts - lead guitar and clavinet - but in the end decided to keep it simple.

Tools:

Abelton Live 7
Studio Devil Virtual Guitar Amp
Studio Devil Virtual Bass Amp
PSP Audioware Vintage Warmer 2
BBE Sonic Maximizer
Waves MasterVerb LE
Waves TrackPlug LE
Audio Damage Rough Rider
Aixcoustic Creations Electri-Q CM
Sanford Phaser CM
Epiphone Les Paul Black Beauty
Fender Jazz Bass

Notes:

I really tried to keep things simple this week. There are only two guitar tracks, bass and drums, and I only used a handful of plugins as I felt it would help the parts blend if everything was running through the same processors. To that end:

- I used the same Electri-Q EQ (with different settings) on each track. I put the EQ at the beginning of the chain on the guitars and bass.

- All of the tracks have some combination of Vintage Warmer, Sonic Maximizer and TrackPlug at the end of the device chain.

- I used the Studio Devil amp sims on both guitars and the bass. I also put the higher guitar part through a the Sanford Phaser before the amp sim, using it like a stomp box.

- Everything went to the same MasterVerb reverb.

- Finally, I used parallel compression on the whole mix to beef it up. I set up Rough Rider on a send with the NY compression preset, sent everything fully to it, and then gradually brought up the send level to a suitable level.

- There are no mastering effects on the master buss. This is still a pretty hot mix, and I'd probably need to bring down some levels if more parts are added (vocals, keyboard, etc.) and/or it were to go on to be mastered.


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