Week #32 - Malice

I'm definitely feeling the doldrums. It's been forever since I had time to do a proper mix - I feel like I've just been throwing together rough arrangements for over two months now. Mostly it's due to not coming up with an idea early enough to get things together in time to dedicate a session to mixing. But I think the real root of that is just not feeling inspired. I don't even feel like listening to music lately, let alone writing/playing/recording anything.

Still I managed to put this tune together. I bounced down two versions of this song as I couldn't decide which bass I liked better. Initially I had the synth bass on the verses and the sampled upright come in on the chorus, but then I thought I should stick with one or the other. So here are both versions. I think I'm leaning toward the synth bass, but let me know which one you like better:





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Description:

The feeling of malice is a really mixed bag. Taking pleasure in the suffering of others is both somewhat evil and yet there's a happiness in the feeling as well. It's like joy with a dark underbelly. So I immediately thought Dorian for this piece as it's minor, for that tinge of darkness, but the major is really strong and most of the riffs are overall pretty happy sounding. Once I'd decided on that it was just a matter of coming up with a groove, and I decided to keep things funky. I started with the guitar riffs and built from there, going back to basics a bit and using Reason for all of my sounds, mostly sample patches.

Tools:

Ableton Live 7
Propellerhead Reason 4

Notes:

- This is another tune that I think needs lyrics, or maybe just a melody on the verse (I'm thinking alto sax), to really bring the feeling home.

- The whole piece really just plays around a Cm minor chord. The guitar throws in some Eb and Dm triads high on the neck on the verses, and the chorus is a two bar pattern: Cm-Cm | Dm-Cm |

- On the chorus the bends on the guitar/clavinet are supposed to evoke a sneer.

- This is again a pretty much completely raw track. I automated some levels and panning, but I didn't add any effects, EQ, compression or anything else except for whatever effects were parts of the combinators I used from Reason for the bass, piano, and horns.

- I also didn't really tighten up the parts. I worked a bit on the guitar, but the bass, drums, keys and horns were all played in via MIDI, and I didn't quantize them so there are places where things are a bit loose and out of sync.

- I'd like to work more on the beats giving a bit more variation throughout the song. As it is there are just two variations of the main beat with a few fills here and there.

- The horn are done with a combinator called 'Live Brass' from the Reason Factory soundbank which includes samples of two trumpets, a trombone, and bari, tenor, alto and soprano saxes. There's also a sampled clavinet, sampled grand piano, sampled upright bass, and drum samples. In fact, the guitar (which I recorded) and the synth bass on version 2 are the only none-sampled parts.

- It's a basic arrangement: I-V-V-C-V-C-B-V-C-C-O I had built up a few sections and just went with a standard verse/chorus arrangement including more parts each time. I started with guitar, bass and drums, added keyboards, replaced the keys with horns, and finally brought in everything at the end.



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