Just a quick note to say that in celebration of the completion of this year-long songwriting journey, the entire collection of songs can be downloaded for free at http://music.tribemindrecords.com.
I'm going offline for the next 4 days. Have a happy and safe holiday!
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2009-12-31
2009-12-23
Happy Holidays!
I just wanted to wish everyone out there a Happy Holiday Season! Safe travels and warm, cozy environs to all, and please, take care of each other. I'll be spending the next several days with family, but I'll be back storng in 2010.
Also, the conclusion of this song writing project is within sight, so a brief wrap up...okay, well, not so brief, but you should know by now, I'm not into the whole brevity thing, man...
Read more...
The holidays are firmly entrenched, and I've already posted a song for week 52. If time permits, I'd like to do one more track for next week to make up for the week I skipped when we were on vacation in San Francisco back in September, but we'll see how that works out. I do intend to keep updating this blog even though this current project is over - though likely on a less intense pace. As I develop some of these tunes to a greater degree and work on other material, both new and old, I hope to provide an auditory assault for a long time to come. So to sum up...
Overall, I believe writing a song a week for all of 2009 has been a useful project. Even through the ups and downs in my own motivation and writing ability, I feel like I'm ending in a good place. I learned quite a bit this year, and though most of what I produced is not worth listening to, there are possibly a few nuggets that will come out of this project and blossom into decent songs. Or at least I hope so.
First, there are a handful of songs that may end up on Legend of the Three Fists vol.3: Extronifuzz, my next album due out sometime in 2010 that should complete my trilogy of electronic experimentations.
And secondly, there are also a group of about 15 more rock oriented songs I'd like to continue work on and release as Year of the Fool-Headed Ox, possibly under a different artist name - like maybe "The Body Absorbant" or "Virile Flannel". What do you think? These songs actually lend themselves more toward putting a band together than anything I've done in a long time. Not sure I'll have the time for that what with starting grad school next year, but it's a nice idea. Anyway, I'd like to write lyrics and re-record them in 2010.
Speaking of lyrics, I'm glad I managed to get out of my wordless rut by the end of this project. Granted, I went into this project thinking instrumental, there are in the end only a handful of songs with lyrics, and the words I put together weren't mind-blowing or anything, but I suspect that beginning to read again (fiction, not techy music mags) over the summer for the first time in a long time had something to do with it, and I hope to get back to a place I was several years ago where I could crank out lyrics at the drop of a hat.
Perhaps I didn't get into as much new music theory as I'd hoped. I tended to rely on what I already know, occassionally just trying random things, and this was probably part of why I felt like I was in a rut at certain times throguhout the year. But I did pick up a few new things, and honestly, while my musical knowledge is by no means complete, I think the variety of songs put together over the last year proves just how far what little I know can go.
On the technical side, if nothing else, this past year gave me oppurtunities to really explore my aresenal. There are still a lot of things to work on as far as mixing techniques, but from a creative standpoint, I feel pretty good about my ability to manipulate sounds, and I definitely took strides in learning the software and plugins I have at my disposal. There's still a long road ahead, and I'm eager to get down it.
Also, I feel like my guitar skills have leveled up recently. One thing about instrumental skills is that it seems to be a series of steep increases in proficiency followed by long plateaus, perhaps more on guitar than other instruments for some reason. But I feel like all of this writing and having to record on sometimes tight schedules really made me have to focus and be more consistent. Granted, I rely on loops so a lot of my recording was done in short 4, 8, or 16 bar spurts, but I still think I'm coming up with genuine ideas and getting them down in a handful of takes better than ever before. And my soloing, while still generally improvised rather than written, is on a much higher level than it was a year ago. I may use blues scales too much, and the ability to easily comp together the best bits of multiple takes helps, but I really feel like my ideas, and my phrasing in particular have gotten much better. I'm not just noodling endlessly up an down a scale - I have definite ideas for riffs and phrases, where the solo is going, and what notes I want to land on at particular moments.
I'm definitely happy to have undertaken this project, despite those days where I just wanted ti to end or didn't feel like doing it anymore. I know I didn't attract a lot of readers/listeners, but i'm still happy to have completed the year of sognwriting if for no one else than myself.
Happy Holidays, and I'll see you next year!
Also, the conclusion of this song writing project is within sight, so a brief wrap up...okay, well, not so brief, but you should know by now, I'm not into the whole brevity thing, man...
Read more...
The holidays are firmly entrenched, and I've already posted a song for week 52. If time permits, I'd like to do one more track for next week to make up for the week I skipped when we were on vacation in San Francisco back in September, but we'll see how that works out. I do intend to keep updating this blog even though this current project is over - though likely on a less intense pace. As I develop some of these tunes to a greater degree and work on other material, both new and old, I hope to provide an auditory assault for a long time to come. So to sum up...
Overall, I believe writing a song a week for all of 2009 has been a useful project. Even through the ups and downs in my own motivation and writing ability, I feel like I'm ending in a good place. I learned quite a bit this year, and though most of what I produced is not worth listening to, there are possibly a few nuggets that will come out of this project and blossom into decent songs. Or at least I hope so.
First, there are a handful of songs that may end up on Legend of the Three Fists vol.3: Extronifuzz, my next album due out sometime in 2010 that should complete my trilogy of electronic experimentations.
And secondly, there are also a group of about 15 more rock oriented songs I'd like to continue work on and release as Year of the Fool-Headed Ox, possibly under a different artist name - like maybe "The Body Absorbant" or "Virile Flannel". What do you think? These songs actually lend themselves more toward putting a band together than anything I've done in a long time. Not sure I'll have the time for that what with starting grad school next year, but it's a nice idea. Anyway, I'd like to write lyrics and re-record them in 2010.
Speaking of lyrics, I'm glad I managed to get out of my wordless rut by the end of this project. Granted, I went into this project thinking instrumental, there are in the end only a handful of songs with lyrics, and the words I put together weren't mind-blowing or anything, but I suspect that beginning to read again (fiction, not techy music mags) over the summer for the first time in a long time had something to do with it, and I hope to get back to a place I was several years ago where I could crank out lyrics at the drop of a hat.
Perhaps I didn't get into as much new music theory as I'd hoped. I tended to rely on what I already know, occassionally just trying random things, and this was probably part of why I felt like I was in a rut at certain times throguhout the year. But I did pick up a few new things, and honestly, while my musical knowledge is by no means complete, I think the variety of songs put together over the last year proves just how far what little I know can go.
On the technical side, if nothing else, this past year gave me oppurtunities to really explore my aresenal. There are still a lot of things to work on as far as mixing techniques, but from a creative standpoint, I feel pretty good about my ability to manipulate sounds, and I definitely took strides in learning the software and plugins I have at my disposal. There's still a long road ahead, and I'm eager to get down it.
Also, I feel like my guitar skills have leveled up recently. One thing about instrumental skills is that it seems to be a series of steep increases in proficiency followed by long plateaus, perhaps more on guitar than other instruments for some reason. But I feel like all of this writing and having to record on sometimes tight schedules really made me have to focus and be more consistent. Granted, I rely on loops so a lot of my recording was done in short 4, 8, or 16 bar spurts, but I still think I'm coming up with genuine ideas and getting them down in a handful of takes better than ever before. And my soloing, while still generally improvised rather than written, is on a much higher level than it was a year ago. I may use blues scales too much, and the ability to easily comp together the best bits of multiple takes helps, but I really feel like my ideas, and my phrasing in particular have gotten much better. I'm not just noodling endlessly up an down a scale - I have definite ideas for riffs and phrases, where the solo is going, and what notes I want to land on at particular moments.
I'm definitely happy to have undertaken this project, despite those days where I just wanted ti to end or didn't feel like doing it anymore. I know I didn't attract a lot of readers/listeners, but i'm still happy to have completed the year of sognwriting if for no one else than myself.
Happy Holidays, and I'll see you next year!
2009-12-22
Week #52 - Accomplishment
Wow! I can't believe I made it. This is actually week #52. An entire year of songs. Appropriately enough, this week's theme is accomplishment - something I'm feeling a lot of at the moment having survived a sometimes brutal cycle of songwriting.
Description:
Accomplishment to me means coming to the end of a journey feeling satisfied. Not perfect, as there were likely bumps in the road and compromises to be made, but content and happy and ready for a nap. I feel this piece, though slow, is very upbeat but hints at the cracks and bumps in the journey through the glitching out of the guitar parts the second time through and the fanfare part being playing with a mellotron patch instead of brass samples. In a way I also wanted to represent the entire year of songwriting by using some of my favorite sound elements discovered this year - the glitchy groove on the guitars, the sampled mellotron, the nice, chunky synth bass, along with trying some new things - for instance, using Live and Record together on a piece.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Ableton Live 7
dBlue Glitch
Studio Devil AMP
Drumcore
Puremagnetik Microtron Livepack
Read more...
Notes:
- The progression for this piece (it goes through the whole thing twice) is:
C G | C G | C G | F | x3
C Em | Em Dm | Dm Em | C |
- The rather slow 60bpm tempo provided a nice pace, and allowed me to set up the glitchy effects the way I wanted.
- I started this piece in Record, using the Thor synth from Reason for the choir/bell and bass parts. Those parts really came from just noodling on the keyboard coming up with ideas.
- I then recorded the first guitar part (the top lead line) with the Line6 amp sim. At this point I decided I want to glitch out the guitar part so I rewired to Live and set that up.
- I also added two more guitar parts (a lower lead that I also put through Glitch and a chord/rhythm part) in Live using the Studio Devil AMP plugin.
- Then I used the Drumcore plugin to find a beat I liked and generate a few variations. Once I'd sequenced the drum loops, I converted the rewire channels to audio and dropped Record.
- The last element was the sampled mellotron brass sound which I kept as a MIDI track.
- Finally, I did a quick arrangement and automated some different patterns with the Glitch plugins. I'd have liked to do a bit more (like EQing thigns, and properly mixing it), but with xmas being this week and family starting to roll into town, I had even less time than usual, but I still feel like the essence of this piece captures the feeling of accomplishment.
- This is the first time I really used Record and Live together, and the only thing I didn't like about this method was that I couldn't use Record's mixer in rewire mode. It seems kind of tedious to have to run everything into Live to add effects that aren't available in Record/Reason, and then bounce everything from Live to audio so that it can be reimported to Record to mix, but I guess that's the way it's going to have to work. If only Record could be the rewire master, and I could run Live through it instead of the otehr way around, my world would be perfect. Well okay, maybe not, but I do hope they think about that for version 2.
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Description:
Accomplishment to me means coming to the end of a journey feeling satisfied. Not perfect, as there were likely bumps in the road and compromises to be made, but content and happy and ready for a nap. I feel this piece, though slow, is very upbeat but hints at the cracks and bumps in the journey through the glitching out of the guitar parts the second time through and the fanfare part being playing with a mellotron patch instead of brass samples. In a way I also wanted to represent the entire year of songwriting by using some of my favorite sound elements discovered this year - the glitchy groove on the guitars, the sampled mellotron, the nice, chunky synth bass, along with trying some new things - for instance, using Live and Record together on a piece.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Ableton Live 7
dBlue Glitch
Studio Devil AMP
Drumcore
Puremagnetik Microtron Livepack
Read more...
Notes:
- The progression for this piece (it goes through the whole thing twice) is:
C G | C G | C G | F | x3
C Em | Em Dm | Dm Em | C |
- The rather slow 60bpm tempo provided a nice pace, and allowed me to set up the glitchy effects the way I wanted.
- I started this piece in Record, using the Thor synth from Reason for the choir/bell and bass parts. Those parts really came from just noodling on the keyboard coming up with ideas.
- I then recorded the first guitar part (the top lead line) with the Line6 amp sim. At this point I decided I want to glitch out the guitar part so I rewired to Live and set that up.
- I also added two more guitar parts (a lower lead that I also put through Glitch and a chord/rhythm part) in Live using the Studio Devil AMP plugin.
- Then I used the Drumcore plugin to find a beat I liked and generate a few variations. Once I'd sequenced the drum loops, I converted the rewire channels to audio and dropped Record.
- The last element was the sampled mellotron brass sound which I kept as a MIDI track.
- Finally, I did a quick arrangement and automated some different patterns with the Glitch plugins. I'd have liked to do a bit more (like EQing thigns, and properly mixing it), but with xmas being this week and family starting to roll into town, I had even less time than usual, but I still feel like the essence of this piece captures the feeling of accomplishment.
- This is the first time I really used Record and Live together, and the only thing I didn't like about this method was that I couldn't use Record's mixer in rewire mode. It seems kind of tedious to have to run everything into Live to add effects that aren't available in Record/Reason, and then bounce everything from Live to audio so that it can be reimported to Record to mix, but I guess that's the way it's going to have to work. If only Record could be the rewire master, and I could run Live through it instead of the otehr way around, my world would be perfect. Well okay, maybe not, but I do hope they think about that for version 2.
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2009-12-19
Week #51 - Vengeance
You just knew this had to be a guitar track, right? Well, it seemed obvious to me, and I went to town. I think there are 5 separate guitar parts - everything from an acoustic playing open chords to heavily distorted power chords to some lead noodling, and I almost broke out the 12-string too - as well as piano, bass and a lead synth. I started on vocals, but didn't finish them in time. I can't wait to work on this tune some more next year.
Description:
I usually start by figuring out if a feeling is positive or negative, and this helps me build a mood. It affects the harmonies I go to (major versus minor, etc.) as well as the types of sounds I look for. But I wasn't sure which way this feeling went. Vengeance is negative in the sense that you've been wronged if you're looking for it, however, the fulfillment of a vengeful act can be quite cathartic and positive. So I wanted to blulr the lines, and I think I've actually done what I set out to do. Having the lyrics complete would likely help illuminate this, but I'm pretty happy with the musical end of it (as long as one goes into it with my explanation I guess).
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Fender Jazz bass
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Takamine acoustic guitar
Read more...
Notes:
- This tune started with the power chord riffs:
Verse: A5 (C5) | G5 | A5 (C5) | E5 | A5 (C5) | G5 | D5 | A5 |
Chorus: A5 F5 | E5 C5 | A5 F5 | E5 D5 | A5 F5 | E5 C5 | G5 | A5 |
As I added parts the chords became slightly more complex, but the song is basically in C (C-Dm-Em-F-G-Am). It's pretty basic, and seemed like it would be good to sing over. I like that it's minor (everything is based around the Am), but it uses the major chords enough and is upbeat enough to have a kind of happy feel.
- Structurally, this is pretty straight forward as well: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle8-verse-chorus-chorus-chorus... I really thought a simple rocker was in order for this feeling, and it would almost be kind of punk if I hadn't layered on so many guitar variations. I fuffed about a bit with different combinations on each verse, but the arrangement is far from finalized.
I'm really happy with the sound of the entire rhythm section. I didn't do drums, and I'm not sure this track needs them. I feel like there's plenty of drive with the bass and rhythm guitars. In laying them out I almost treated the various guitar parts like a single instrument the way a complete drum beat is made up of different drums. I actually thought it might be an interesting idea to try chopping the guitar parts up and programing them more rhythmically like parts of a kit.
- This is meant to have lyrics, but I didn't get them finished. The lead synth is actually a bit overbearing I think, but it's sort of standing in for the vocals. Once I record vocals, I'm sure I'd reduce the synth part to flourishes and fills here and there.
- Since I didn't complete the lyrics/vocals and really work out a definitive arrangement, I didn't put much into mixing this beyond setting levels and pan. But I definitely plan to come back to this one...but more on that in another post.
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Description:
I usually start by figuring out if a feeling is positive or negative, and this helps me build a mood. It affects the harmonies I go to (major versus minor, etc.) as well as the types of sounds I look for. But I wasn't sure which way this feeling went. Vengeance is negative in the sense that you've been wronged if you're looking for it, however, the fulfillment of a vengeful act can be quite cathartic and positive. So I wanted to blulr the lines, and I think I've actually done what I set out to do. Having the lyrics complete would likely help illuminate this, but I'm pretty happy with the musical end of it (as long as one goes into it with my explanation I guess).
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Fender Jazz bass
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Takamine acoustic guitar
Read more...
Notes:
- This tune started with the power chord riffs:
Verse: A5 (C5) | G5 | A5 (C5) | E5 | A5 (C5) | G5 | D5 | A5 |
Chorus: A5 F5 | E5 C5 | A5 F5 | E5 D5 | A5 F5 | E5 C5 | G5 | A5 |
As I added parts the chords became slightly more complex, but the song is basically in C (C-Dm-Em-F-G-Am). It's pretty basic, and seemed like it would be good to sing over. I like that it's minor (everything is based around the Am), but it uses the major chords enough and is upbeat enough to have a kind of happy feel.
- Structurally, this is pretty straight forward as well: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle8-verse-chorus-chorus-chorus... I really thought a simple rocker was in order for this feeling, and it would almost be kind of punk if I hadn't layered on so many guitar variations. I fuffed about a bit with different combinations on each verse, but the arrangement is far from finalized.
I'm really happy with the sound of the entire rhythm section. I didn't do drums, and I'm not sure this track needs them. I feel like there's plenty of drive with the bass and rhythm guitars. In laying them out I almost treated the various guitar parts like a single instrument the way a complete drum beat is made up of different drums. I actually thought it might be an interesting idea to try chopping the guitar parts up and programing them more rhythmically like parts of a kit.
- This is meant to have lyrics, but I didn't get them finished. The lead synth is actually a bit overbearing I think, but it's sort of standing in for the vocals. Once I record vocals, I'm sure I'd reduce the synth part to flourishes and fills here and there.
- Since I didn't complete the lyrics/vocals and really work out a definitive arrangement, I didn't put much into mixing this beyond setting levels and pan. But I definitely plan to come back to this one...but more on that in another post.
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2009-12-17
Week #42 - Awkwardness
Finally caught up! This piece was supposed to be posted back in October. I'd wanted to work on it some more, but then never got around to finishing it and kind of forgot about it until yesterday. Since I'm almost finished with this project I figured I'd go ahead an post what I have just to fill in the gap. Not a great song, but here it is:
Description:
Not even sure how I can describe this. I guess the idea was of a broken machine not functioning properly so an off-kilter feel was in order. I made the initial riff in 5/4 with a crazy organ sound (which actually ended up being sampled accordion) that seemed appropriate and ran with it and started adding parts.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Read more...
Notes:
- The accordion riff in the first section goes Em-F#7-Bm in each measure with a G as the low note.
- The second section is comprised of 4 bars of G and 4 bars of Am with an Em thrown in at the end of each to transition.
- The final part where the horns come in is G | Fm | D5 | D5 | G | Fm | E5 | E5 | x2
- I chose 5/4 because I thought an odd time signature would help me create a stilted, awkward feel. I was sort of imagining the Monty Python Minstry of Funny Walks sketch as I wrote the initial riff.
- I used randomness to generate the lead part in the first section, but things were more intentional in the second and third sections.
- There's not much to the arrangement as I didn't get that far, and there's not really a mix either.
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Description:
Not even sure how I can describe this. I guess the idea was of a broken machine not functioning properly so an off-kilter feel was in order. I made the initial riff in 5/4 with a crazy organ sound (which actually ended up being sampled accordion) that seemed appropriate and ran with it and started adding parts.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Read more...
Notes:
- The accordion riff in the first section goes Em-F#7-Bm in each measure with a G as the low note.
- The second section is comprised of 4 bars of G and 4 bars of Am with an Em thrown in at the end of each to transition.
- The final part where the horns come in is G | Fm | D5 | D5 | G | Fm | E5 | E5 | x2
- I chose 5/4 because I thought an odd time signature would help me create a stilted, awkward feel. I was sort of imagining the Monty Python Minstry of Funny Walks sketch as I wrote the initial riff.
- I used randomness to generate the lead part in the first section, but things were more intentional in the second and third sections.
- There's not much to the arrangement as I didn't get that far, and there's not really a mix either.
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2009-12-13
So, let's see if this works...
So I've been messing around with a facebook page for awhile, and more recently I've been trying twitter and stuff. But I'm trying to figure out if there's an easy way to get all of these social media connected so that I don't have to spend all of my time making posts all over the internet every time I have something new to share. This site has instructions put together by Brett Borders, so I'm trying them out. We'll see how this goes...
2009-12-11
Week #50 - Smugness
Computer generated voice? Check. Hip-hop beat? Check. Copious frogs? Check.
Description:
The lyrics here are just nonsense. For some reason frogs are the animal I associate with being smug, but I really just wanted to mess around with the vocoder. I wanted to use a computer generated voice as the modulator and needed some words. The carrier is a synth patch. I tried to go with the frog theme and make a swampy liquid synth sound, but it wasn't very intelligible so I ended up tweaking it into a harsher sound. The rest of the tracks are a slightly faster than usual hip-hop beat with drums, bass, organ and guitar.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Babolka text to voice software
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Read more...
Notes:
- I spent a lot of time trying to get the "voice" on this track to work. Not sure I was successful here. I basically used a program called Balbolka to generate a computerized voice. I chopped the resulting WAV file up and placed it over my beat. I then set up a synth with a vocoder and used the computer voice to modulate it. To me getting synth setting that are intelligible is always the toughest part of using a vocoder. I thought starting with a computerized voice instead of a human voice might help, but it really didn't. If anything, it made getting a usable sound even harder. Recycling the computer voice before importing it also may have made things easier, though I kind of like how stilted the cadence is and how it isn't really perfectly in time.
- The rest of the track under the voice is just a 24-bar hip-hop beat with bass organ and guitar playing around Bm/Em - one beat for 15 1/2 bars, a transition, 7 bars of a variation, and then another transition back to the original beat. Not much to say about it other than that I used a Redrum abstract hip-hip kit from the factory sound bank for the beat, bass and organ patches from previous productions, and a Line6 preset for the amp sim on the guitar. The beat is probably my favorite part, and I'm pretty happy with the bass line, but the organ and guitar didn't really work as well as I'd hoped. I tried using the Regroove mixer at the end to get the everything to gel better. I only wish it were possible to apply the Regroove settings to audio tracks as well as MIDI as I couldn't manipulate the guitar without either recycling it to generate MIDI or rerecording it along with the other parts.
- Since most of the sounds I chose already had pretty hefty FX chains on them (especially a lot of compression), the mix was accomplished with just Record's mixer - the EQ to try and carve out a space for each sound, some reverb on everything, and the master compressor.
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Description:
The lyrics here are just nonsense. For some reason frogs are the animal I associate with being smug, but I really just wanted to mess around with the vocoder. I wanted to use a computer generated voice as the modulator and needed some words. The carrier is a synth patch. I tried to go with the frog theme and make a swampy liquid synth sound, but it wasn't very intelligible so I ended up tweaking it into a harsher sound. The rest of the tracks are a slightly faster than usual hip-hop beat with drums, bass, organ and guitar.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Babolka text to voice software
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Read more...
Notes:
- I spent a lot of time trying to get the "voice" on this track to work. Not sure I was successful here. I basically used a program called Balbolka to generate a computerized voice. I chopped the resulting WAV file up and placed it over my beat. I then set up a synth with a vocoder and used the computer voice to modulate it. To me getting synth setting that are intelligible is always the toughest part of using a vocoder. I thought starting with a computerized voice instead of a human voice might help, but it really didn't. If anything, it made getting a usable sound even harder. Recycling the computer voice before importing it also may have made things easier, though I kind of like how stilted the cadence is and how it isn't really perfectly in time.
- The rest of the track under the voice is just a 24-bar hip-hop beat with bass organ and guitar playing around Bm/Em - one beat for 15 1/2 bars, a transition, 7 bars of a variation, and then another transition back to the original beat. Not much to say about it other than that I used a Redrum abstract hip-hip kit from the factory sound bank for the beat, bass and organ patches from previous productions, and a Line6 preset for the amp sim on the guitar. The beat is probably my favorite part, and I'm pretty happy with the bass line, but the organ and guitar didn't really work as well as I'd hoped. I tried using the Regroove mixer at the end to get the everything to gel better. I only wish it were possible to apply the Regroove settings to audio tracks as well as MIDI as I couldn't manipulate the guitar without either recycling it to generate MIDI or rerecording it along with the other parts.
- Since most of the sounds I chose already had pretty hefty FX chains on them (especially a lot of compression), the mix was accomplished with just Record's mixer - the EQ to try and carve out a space for each sound, some reverb on everything, and the master compressor.
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2009-12-03
Week #49 - Pride
I fear it may sound slightly cringe-worthy, but I swear this piece was intentionally written this way. Oh, and it's a foray into (questionable at best) vocals for only the third time during this 11-month old project!
Description:
When I think of pride I go one of two ways. Either I think of an uplifting feeling of taking charge and having self respect, or I think of hubris and the failure of over-confidence. But these two ideas are really linked. In this instance, I went mainly for the negative angle, and I wanted the music to reflect the cluelessness of most people who suffer from hubris. But I wrote horn and string parts that are more uplifting. So it's very major, even fairly cheesy sounding, and the instrumentation is pretty straight forward, and I wanted the lyric to get more to the hubris theme.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Garritan Personal Orchestra refill
Line6 POD Farm
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Audio Technica AT2020 condenser mic
Read more...
Notes:
- This is a pretty simple pop song moving along at 120bpm with the same chords for both the verse and chorus:
Am | F | C | G | Am | F | G | G |
The middle 8 slows down slightly, and the chords are:
C | F | C | G | C | F | G | C |
- It's a pretty cheesy sounding progression, but I thought it was right for this one. The arrangement is pretty standard pop stuff - verse/chorus/verse/chorus/middl8/verse/chorus/chorus... I tried to do something a little different by change the lyrics for each chorus and then bringing all the choruses back at the end.
- The bass, piano, and horns all come from Reason's factory patches with strings from the Garritan refill.
- The guitars are all run through the Line6 amp simulator in Record, though I did open the patches in POD Farm and customize them a bit.
- I wanted a drum track, but I haven't been playing lately and the beats I laid down weren't very good. I edited them a bit, and considered dropping them entirely, but decided to leave them in as MIDI data (playing Record's pop kit) with the hopes of improving them later.
- The vocals were recorded in 4 takes (plus a few spot punch-ins) straight through one of my AT2020 condenser mics connected to the FireStudio and into Record and then comped together there (love that comping system now that I've got it figured out). I was going to export the comped vocal, rewired to Live, and treated the vocal with other plugins and then point reimported to Record for the final mix, but I was pretty happy with the initial recording and the reverb and EQ in Record seemed fine to get it to sit okay. My singing could be better, but effects weren't going to fix that and I didn't want to ruin them with overprocessing like I did on "Lord Aggressor" back in May. I don't know if it's Record or that I finally had the mic placed right and the levels set properly on my FireStudio or what, but this is the first time I can remember not feeling like I doubling the vocal tracks would vastly improve the sound.
- The mixing was done entirely within Record's mixer. I didn't master this one much other than to throw one of Reason's default mastering chains on the main out and tweak it a little just to make sure I was getting a decent level. I'd have done mroe if I considered this a finished song/mix.
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Description:
When I think of pride I go one of two ways. Either I think of an uplifting feeling of taking charge and having self respect, or I think of hubris and the failure of over-confidence. But these two ideas are really linked. In this instance, I went mainly for the negative angle, and I wanted the music to reflect the cluelessness of most people who suffer from hubris. But I wrote horn and string parts that are more uplifting. So it's very major, even fairly cheesy sounding, and the instrumentation is pretty straight forward, and I wanted the lyric to get more to the hubris theme.
Tools:
Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Garritan Personal Orchestra refill
Line6 POD Farm
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Audio Technica AT2020 condenser mic
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Notes:
- This is a pretty simple pop song moving along at 120bpm with the same chords for both the verse and chorus:
Am | F | C | G | Am | F | G | G |
The middle 8 slows down slightly, and the chords are:
C | F | C | G | C | F | G | C |
- It's a pretty cheesy sounding progression, but I thought it was right for this one. The arrangement is pretty standard pop stuff - verse/chorus/verse/chorus/middl8/verse/chorus/chorus... I tried to do something a little different by change the lyrics for each chorus and then bringing all the choruses back at the end.
- The bass, piano, and horns all come from Reason's factory patches with strings from the Garritan refill.
- The guitars are all run through the Line6 amp simulator in Record, though I did open the patches in POD Farm and customize them a bit.
- I wanted a drum track, but I haven't been playing lately and the beats I laid down weren't very good. I edited them a bit, and considered dropping them entirely, but decided to leave them in as MIDI data (playing Record's pop kit) with the hopes of improving them later.
- The vocals were recorded in 4 takes (plus a few spot punch-ins) straight through one of my AT2020 condenser mics connected to the FireStudio and into Record and then comped together there (love that comping system now that I've got it figured out). I was going to export the comped vocal, rewired to Live, and treated the vocal with other plugins and then point reimported to Record for the final mix, but I was pretty happy with the initial recording and the reverb and EQ in Record seemed fine to get it to sit okay. My singing could be better, but effects weren't going to fix that and I didn't want to ruin them with overprocessing like I did on "Lord Aggressor" back in May. I don't know if it's Record or that I finally had the mic placed right and the levels set properly on my FireStudio or what, but this is the first time I can remember not feeling like I doubling the vocal tracks would vastly improve the sound.
- The mixing was done entirely within Record's mixer. I didn't master this one much other than to throw one of Reason's default mastering chains on the main out and tweak it a little just to make sure I was getting a decent level. I'd have done mroe if I considered this a finished song/mix.
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