Here is my, dare I say, appropriately themed song for this week:
Description:
This began life a something ambient, background music, but gradually I tried upping the spook factor until it grew into a monster. It's definitely a mood piece, and that mood is creepy. I was sort of thinking in a horror movie soundtrack direction - not really a slasher film or gore-fest, but more of a nightmare thriller, almost psychadelic, lost-in-the-woods-on-a-bad-trip territory. At least that's where my head was...
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Garritan Personal Orchestra Refill
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Notes:
- I began this piece by exploring harmonies. An orchestra patch I'd put together using the sample sets in Garritan's Personal Orchestra Refill seemed an appropriate sound for some spooky backing chords, so I played around with closely clustered triads spread over a two (or more) octave range. I kept things slow (60bpm) and sustained (whole notes).
- I started by moving about chromatically from cluster to cluster keeping the intervals the same for each one. I liked this 4 bar phrase:
Cmaj9 | Dbmaj9 | Dmaj9 | Ebmaj9 |
though I eventually moved the last chord up a semitone to Emaj9.
- Next I tried variations on this progression until I had a handful that sounded interesting and appropriate to me:
Cmaj9 | Dbmaj9 | Dmaj13 | Amaj7 |
Cmaj9 | Bmaj7/A# | Bmaj9 | Am maj7 |
Dmaj7b9 | B9/C# | Caug | Cm |
C b9 | Cbm9/Eb | Bb/D | Am/C |
Dmaj7 | Dbmaj7b9 | B #9/D | C/E |
- Next I arranged these shorter progressions into a single 24 bar progression, still just as sustained chords:
Cmaj9 | Dbmaj9 |Dmaj9 | Emaj9 |
Cmaj9 | Bmaj7/A# | Bmaj9 | Am maj7 |
C b9 | Cbm9/Eb | Bb/D | Am/C |
Dmaj7 | Dbmaj7b9 | B #9/D | C/E |
Dmaj7b9 | B9/C# | Caug | Cm |
Cmaj9 | Dbmaj9 | Dmaj13 | Amaj7 |
- At this point, I was glad I'd used the full orchestra patch because it was much easier to just add the melody/ornamentation/etc. around these chords on a single piano roll. This helped keep things organized with these crazy chords and meant I didn't have to work as much on a mix and had more time on MIDI editing.
- I was going to leave it as is and just render the orchestra part, but it didn't really excite me.
- The first part I added was the bass vamp. I thought with all the crazy harmonies, a vamp would work underneath things driving the piece forward and forming a foundation (in Am) for the chords. Instead of starting the piece with teh vamp however, I decided to wait adn bring it in after the initial 4-bar progression.
- Next up, I moved what I guess is the melody from the orchestra to the high end of a very wobbly hammond organ patch that I had put together in Reason awhile back. I felt this gave the part the right sound to cut through and heighten the tension.
- I decided on two more parts based on patches I'd made previously. The first was a stereo vibes patch, and the second was this delayed percussive synth noise. For both of these parts, I improvised full takes until I got one I liked. It didn't take long as the piece is so dissonant, there isn't really a harmonic center so pretty much anything goes - the less it sounded "right" the better in this instance.
- After that I just set levels, and mixed it down. I could spend an eternity tweaking things, and I'd love to take the parts and really orchestrate them, but I decided to just keep it as is so that I could work on other pieces and get myself caught up with this project. Hopefully, I can post two songs by the end of next week and be back on track for the last 2 months!
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2009-10-30
2009-10-23
Week #43 - Shame
I'm not sure this song is immediately evocative of a negative feeling like 'shame', but somehow it does make me feel ashamed. Maybe everything in a major key just sounds trite or contrived to me, but I really feel like this might be the most unoriginal piece I've put together so far, and that is a shame:
Description:
This piece started, rather oddly for me, with some lyrics. I had an idea for a song about not absolute certainty leading to embarassment, and the melody just sort of came with the words. I ended up not being able to get very far with the lyrics, but I wrote the rest of this piece around the that melody, beginning with a piano and eventually breaking it up amongst other instrumentation.
Tools:
Propellerhead Reason 4/Record 1
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Read more...
Notes:
- The melody that began the piece is played here by the trumpet. I didn't really do anything to the preset sampler patch but add some reverb.
- The answer to these statements, heard here as the the bell line, were next. Reverb, this time in the form of a delay effect, was again my only addition to the preset.
- Once I had these, I derived the chords, played on both my own electric guitar as well as a sampled guitar combinator from Reason, and bass part, which is a sampled acoustic bass playing whole notes on the root of each chord for the most part. The chord progression is:
F | C | Dm | C | F | C | Dm | Dm-C-Dm-Em |
F | C | Dm | C | F | C | Dm | Gm |
F | C | Dm | Am | Bb | C | F | F |
- As the whole thing was originally transcribed with a sampled piano, I added the piano back in on the final verse/chorus. The arrangement is quite simple - verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle8-verse-chorus, and I just tried to expand each time through the verse-chorus to include more and be more interesting.
- The only mixing I did was setting levels and pan position and using the various sends (reverb/delay) and dynamic processing in Record's mixer. The sound of this mixer really is amazing. I never worked much with hardware mixers, so it's taken some getting used to, but the quality is really amazing.
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Description:
This piece started, rather oddly for me, with some lyrics. I had an idea for a song about not absolute certainty leading to embarassment, and the melody just sort of came with the words. I ended up not being able to get very far with the lyrics, but I wrote the rest of this piece around the that melody, beginning with a piano and eventually breaking it up amongst other instrumentation.
Tools:
Propellerhead Reason 4/Record 1
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Read more...
Notes:
- The melody that began the piece is played here by the trumpet. I didn't really do anything to the preset sampler patch but add some reverb.
- The answer to these statements, heard here as the the bell line, were next. Reverb, this time in the form of a delay effect, was again my only addition to the preset.
- Once I had these, I derived the chords, played on both my own electric guitar as well as a sampled guitar combinator from Reason, and bass part, which is a sampled acoustic bass playing whole notes on the root of each chord for the most part. The chord progression is:
F | C | Dm | C | F | C | Dm | Dm-C-Dm-Em |
F | C | Dm | C | F | C | Dm | Gm |
F | C | Dm | Am | Bb | C | F | F |
- As the whole thing was originally transcribed with a sampled piano, I added the piano back in on the final verse/chorus. The arrangement is quite simple - verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle8-verse-chorus, and I just tried to expand each time through the verse-chorus to include more and be more interesting.
- The only mixing I did was setting levels and pan position and using the various sends (reverb/delay) and dynamic processing in Record's mixer. The sound of this mixer really is amazing. I never worked much with hardware mixers, so it's taken some getting used to, but the quality is really amazing.
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Week #41 - Torment
Starting to get caught up. 2 songs this week, and I hope 2 more next week. I actually started this as a piece for 'awkwardness', but it's apparently a song of torment in a way I never intended. I've always imagined these songs as being a sort of soundtrack to a film scene in which the intended emotion dominates. But I think this song is actually much more visceral than that as, according to my girlfriend, just having to hear it from the other room is a torment. So a new direction then, not evoking the feeling of torment, but actually tormenting the listener. This seems like a good idea, so let's get to it then:
Description:
Upon further listening, I can hear how this displays torment more and more. It's all about that frenetic, never-stop lead line that just builds more and more tension. The constant beat pushes things even further. I attribute it as much to the sounds I chose as the notes that are playing, and I'm afraid to wonder where I was mentally when I wrote this song.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Read more...
Notes:
- I recently went in for Propellerhead's new program, Record. I did the beta test over the summer, and I wasn't sure about whether I needed it, but I've decided to give it a go. Since I already use Reason, it wasn't too expensive so I didn't feel too bad about taking a risk.
- So I'm using this and the next few pieces to get to grips with things. I have to say that I love the sound of the final product even with relatively quick mixes, and it is totally a breeze to use. Combining my guitar with Reason instruments is a snap.
- The main drawback is that there are some plugins I use in Live that I've really come to like.
- What I see happening is that I use this as sketchpad to get ideas for riffs and song sections, but then I eventually bounce everything down and create Live sessions for the final arrangement and mixing. The parts will benefit from Record's mixer, and I can still rewire into Live if need be, but
- As for this piece, I'm not sue what's going on. The whole thing is based on a clavinet riff that I took and split between the bass and horns. Then I brought the clavi back in for the lead, and finally I added the beat at the end. Obviously, it's not a particularly developed piece, but it started to drive even me batty after awhile.
- All of the sounds come from Reason's factory sound bank, mosly preset combinators, though the drums are a custom combi I made for another track and reused here with a new beat.
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Description:
Upon further listening, I can hear how this displays torment more and more. It's all about that frenetic, never-stop lead line that just builds more and more tension. The constant beat pushes things even further. I attribute it as much to the sounds I chose as the notes that are playing, and I'm afraid to wonder where I was mentally when I wrote this song.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Read more...
Notes:
- I recently went in for Propellerhead's new program, Record. I did the beta test over the summer, and I wasn't sure about whether I needed it, but I've decided to give it a go. Since I already use Reason, it wasn't too expensive so I didn't feel too bad about taking a risk.
- So I'm using this and the next few pieces to get to grips with things. I have to say that I love the sound of the final product even with relatively quick mixes, and it is totally a breeze to use. Combining my guitar with Reason instruments is a snap.
- The main drawback is that there are some plugins I use in Live that I've really come to like.
- What I see happening is that I use this as sketchpad to get ideas for riffs and song sections, but then I eventually bounce everything down and create Live sessions for the final arrangement and mixing. The parts will benefit from Record's mixer, and I can still rewire into Live if need be, but
- As for this piece, I'm not sue what's going on. The whole thing is based on a clavinet riff that I took and split between the bass and horns. Then I brought the clavi back in for the lead, and finally I added the beat at the end. Obviously, it's not a particularly developed piece, but it started to drive even me batty after awhile.
- All of the sounds come from Reason's factory sound bank, mosly preset combinators, though the drums are a custom combi I made for another track and reused here with a new beat.
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2009-10-15
Week #38 - Neglect
Because of not posting again last week, I'm now 2 songs behind. I did however, go back this week and finish working on the piece for Neglect that was supposed to be done September 18th. I really do feel like some ideas are flowing again, and I hope to post the songs for Torment and Awkwardness at some point over the next few weeks as I try to catch up and remain on schedule for the rest of the year. In the meantime here is Neglect:
Description:
I've fallen a bit behind on this project, posting this song almost a month late, but I'm still at it. This piece is sort of a strange amalgam of sounds - mellotron cello samples, old school video game noises, 70s disco drum samples, a guitar with a huge effects chain, and organ and bass synths - that I tried to mold together and sculpt into an evolving soundscape that would conjur the feeling of being neglected.
Tools:
Ableton Live 7
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Puremagnetik Microtron 2 and Blip Livepacks
dBlue Glitch
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
TbT Audio Octaver12B
KResearch KR-Delay CM
IK Multimedia Ampeg SVX UNO LE
BBE SOnic Maximizer
SPL Free Ranger
Krakli Software CMorg
Togu Audio Line TAL-BassLine
Retro Sampling Vinyl Dreams
Izotope Vinyl
IK Multimedia CSR Hall
IK Multimedia TrackS 3 Vintage Compressor Model 670
IK Multimedia TrackS 3 Linear Phase EQ
IK Multimedia TrackS 3 Opto COmpressor
PSP audioware Vintage Warmer
Read more...
Notes:
- 85bpm, riffs based around Dm
- I'm not sure what made me choose the sounds for this piece, and I know they're a very strange combination. I can say that everything started with creating the guitar sound and recording the riff that begins the piece. I used to play bass by putting an octave pedal on my guitar, and there's still something about that sound that I love so I tried to recreate it in software. Then I took it a step further by adding an octave above as well as the lower octave and putting a delay on the high frequencies only.
- The first thing I added to the guitar was an organ which seems kind of odd since the guitar has a kind of organ-y sound already, but the riff in the second section didn't sound right played on the guitar. I I came up with the organ sound by pushing all of the drawbars in and just experimenting with pulling out various combinations until I found a tone I liked. I added the Vinyl Dreams plugin to give the part an older, sampled feel.
- With the two main riffs down I just started brainstorming things to add. Having recently downloaded the second set of mellotron samples from Puremagnetik, I thought I'd try to the flute sound. The original line complimenting the guitar at the beginning was written with the flute, but I then changed it to the cello sound. I didn't really do anything with the sound, but in the C section I took the cello part and ran it through the Glitch plugin, experimenting with the sound mangling tools until I found a pattern I liked. This is my favorite part of the track.
- Next I decided that I needed some drums. I decided to use one of the standard kits from Reason - the disco kit. I ran it via Record instead of Reason so that I could process the sounds through Record's mixer. To give the beat a more lo-fi feel that would fit in with the organ, mellotron, and video game sounds, I used the Izotope Vinyl plugin.
- It occurred to me to compliment the beat in places with some old school video game sound effects since I've collected a variety of sample sets over the years and something about them seemed to fit with this feeling to me. I'm not sure why, but I guess I associate video games from my childhood with sitting in my room alone. These were actually quite tough to integrate into the piece, and I'm still only half satisfied with them.
- The final piece of the puzzle was a synth bass with a very simple sub-bass patch just to help fill out the bottom end. As there isn't a very thick kick drum, and I'd done so much to age all of the sounds that things had lost a bit of punch.
- The arrangement started out pretty standard - A-B-A-B-C-B with all of the parts in each section playing the whole time. I then went back and removed bits and pieces until I'd pared things down to where I liked how the track progressed. I feel it's kind of an organic instrumental even though there are definitely structured sections and transitions.
- As for mixing, I automated levels and set up reverb and compression on sends to get everything to gel together. I left everything in mono to fit with the old school nature of the piece. This left things pretty muddy in the mid-range, and there wasn't much top end so I used EQ to try an enhance the highs before running the whole mix through the Vintage Warmer plugin on the semi-driven tape setting for one last go at some old school grit and warmth.
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Description:
I've fallen a bit behind on this project, posting this song almost a month late, but I'm still at it. This piece is sort of a strange amalgam of sounds - mellotron cello samples, old school video game noises, 70s disco drum samples, a guitar with a huge effects chain, and organ and bass synths - that I tried to mold together and sculpt into an evolving soundscape that would conjur the feeling of being neglected.
Tools:
Ableton Live 7
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Puremagnetik Microtron 2 and Blip Livepacks
dBlue Glitch
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
TbT Audio Octaver12B
KResearch KR-Delay CM
IK Multimedia Ampeg SVX UNO LE
BBE SOnic Maximizer
SPL Free Ranger
Krakli Software CMorg
Togu Audio Line TAL-BassLine
Retro Sampling Vinyl Dreams
Izotope Vinyl
IK Multimedia CSR Hall
IK Multimedia TrackS 3 Vintage Compressor Model 670
IK Multimedia TrackS 3 Linear Phase EQ
IK Multimedia TrackS 3 Opto COmpressor
PSP audioware Vintage Warmer
Read more...
Notes:
- 85bpm, riffs based around Dm
- I'm not sure what made me choose the sounds for this piece, and I know they're a very strange combination. I can say that everything started with creating the guitar sound and recording the riff that begins the piece. I used to play bass by putting an octave pedal on my guitar, and there's still something about that sound that I love so I tried to recreate it in software. Then I took it a step further by adding an octave above as well as the lower octave and putting a delay on the high frequencies only.
- The first thing I added to the guitar was an organ which seems kind of odd since the guitar has a kind of organ-y sound already, but the riff in the second section didn't sound right played on the guitar. I I came up with the organ sound by pushing all of the drawbars in and just experimenting with pulling out various combinations until I found a tone I liked. I added the Vinyl Dreams plugin to give the part an older, sampled feel.
- With the two main riffs down I just started brainstorming things to add. Having recently downloaded the second set of mellotron samples from Puremagnetik, I thought I'd try to the flute sound. The original line complimenting the guitar at the beginning was written with the flute, but I then changed it to the cello sound. I didn't really do anything with the sound, but in the C section I took the cello part and ran it through the Glitch plugin, experimenting with the sound mangling tools until I found a pattern I liked. This is my favorite part of the track.
- Next I decided that I needed some drums. I decided to use one of the standard kits from Reason - the disco kit. I ran it via Record instead of Reason so that I could process the sounds through Record's mixer. To give the beat a more lo-fi feel that would fit in with the organ, mellotron, and video game sounds, I used the Izotope Vinyl plugin.
- It occurred to me to compliment the beat in places with some old school video game sound effects since I've collected a variety of sample sets over the years and something about them seemed to fit with this feeling to me. I'm not sure why, but I guess I associate video games from my childhood with sitting in my room alone. These were actually quite tough to integrate into the piece, and I'm still only half satisfied with them.
- The final piece of the puzzle was a synth bass with a very simple sub-bass patch just to help fill out the bottom end. As there isn't a very thick kick drum, and I'd done so much to age all of the sounds that things had lost a bit of punch.
- The arrangement started out pretty standard - A-B-A-B-C-B with all of the parts in each section playing the whole time. I then went back and removed bits and pieces until I'd pared things down to where I liked how the track progressed. I feel it's kind of an organic instrumental even though there are definitely structured sections and transitions.
- As for mixing, I automated levels and set up reverb and compression on sends to get everything to gel together. I left everything in mono to fit with the old school nature of the piece. This left things pretty muddy in the mid-range, and there wasn't much top end so I used EQ to try an enhance the highs before running the whole mix through the Vintage Warmer plugin on the semi-driven tape setting for one last go at some old school grit and warmth.
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2009-10-11
2009-10-01
Week #40 - Grief
The theme for this week was grief, and I thought I'd try to represent the 5 stages of grief through a series of progressions. Unfortunately, I only got 3 of them done. So I ended up making an arrangement out of what I had. In the end I dropped the drum part because I wasn't happy with my playing and added the pad sound.
Description:
The bass part could have been recorded better and I really wanted to get a usable drum part, but other than that I'm pretty satisfied with how this piece is coming along. The sections I have are meant to roughly represent Denial, Anger, and Bargaining from the Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of grief. I didn't get to Depression or Acceptance, but the idea was to create a piece that moved through the various stages. I never planned to go straight through them, but rather weave in and out of them as human experience is rarely linear.
Tools:
Ableton Live 7
Propellerhead Reason 4
PSP Vintage Warmer 2
BBE Sonic Maximizer
IK Multimedia Vintage Compressor 670
IK Multimedia CSR Hall
Studio Devil AMP
Read more...
Notes:
- I wish I'd given myself more time to work on the bass recording. I wanted acoustic bass for the first part and I decided to record rather than use samples, but I didn't have enough time to experiment and really get it right.
- I'm really happy with the sound I got on the two rhythm guitars. I debated adding a lead part, but it didn't seem to fit here. The new Studio Devil AMP plugin is simply amazing. Much easier to use than Guitar Rig, Amplitube, or POD Farm (all of which I own in one form or another), and it just sounds amazing. It really sounds like miking up a real amp to me.
- I'm not satisfied with the pad sound. It was a last minute addition to help on the transistions because I ditched the drum part. I just ran through presets until I found something somewhat in the general direction, but I didn't have time to tweak and perfect the sound.
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Description:
The bass part could have been recorded better and I really wanted to get a usable drum part, but other than that I'm pretty satisfied with how this piece is coming along. The sections I have are meant to roughly represent Denial, Anger, and Bargaining from the Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of grief. I didn't get to Depression or Acceptance, but the idea was to create a piece that moved through the various stages. I never planned to go straight through them, but rather weave in and out of them as human experience is rarely linear.
Tools:
Ableton Live 7
Propellerhead Reason 4
PSP Vintage Warmer 2
BBE Sonic Maximizer
IK Multimedia Vintage Compressor 670
IK Multimedia CSR Hall
Studio Devil AMP
Read more...
Notes:
- I wish I'd given myself more time to work on the bass recording. I wanted acoustic bass for the first part and I decided to record rather than use samples, but I didn't have enough time to experiment and really get it right.
- I'm really happy with the sound I got on the two rhythm guitars. I debated adding a lead part, but it didn't seem to fit here. The new Studio Devil AMP plugin is simply amazing. Much easier to use than Guitar Rig, Amplitube, or POD Farm (all of which I own in one form or another), and it just sounds amazing. It really sounds like miking up a real amp to me.
- I'm not satisfied with the pad sound. It was a last minute addition to help on the transistions because I ditched the drum part. I just ran through presets until I found something somewhat in the general direction, but I didn't have time to tweak and perfect the sound.
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