musings from the tribemind

Lots of new stuff posted

2010-10-27T04:36:00.003-04:00

Here and there when I've had a spare minute or haven't been able to sleep, I've managed to start chipping away at Legend of the three Fists vol.3: Extronifuzz. I haven't been keeping up with posting about the work, but tonight/this morning I finally put up 9 new tracks in various states of disarray. They include:

and

These tracks, added to the two batches of songs I posted earlier, plus another half dozen I brought into this project from last year's song a week project, brings the total number of candidates for this album to 22. I'll probably put some of the shorter vignettes/soundscapes as tags on the end of other tracks, and some of these won't make the cut, so depending on what other things I may write in the meantime (never know when that inspiration is going to hit), the album will likely be around 16 tracks.

The next step is to export all of the individual tracks from these pieces out of Ableton Live and bring them into Propellerhead Record. I'll either mix them as is (in a few cases) or continue working on the arrangements and record vocals (the majority of cases).

And the Earth Continues its Revolutions

2010-09-17T04:08:00.000-04:00

So school's back in session and I'm knee deep in classes once again. But we had a nice little vacation before the semester started for me and my wife started her new job. We went on a little road trip through the northeast US and southeast Canada. Saw some family, ate a lot of good food, and took a ton of photos. Here are some of my favorites:

www.flickr.com

why_style's 2010 Road Trip : Top Shots photoset

I refuse to let school completely derail my personal projects so I've still been taking some photos here and there...but getting to the processing has been slow.

I'm also starting to scan the hundreds (maybe thousands) of old photos of my wife's family from arouns 1965-1985 that she and I organizd last spring. We got this great little scanner that's making the whole ting a snap. It scans to an SD card and then we can easily import them to the PC in batches, renaming each batch as we go to keep them organized. Not sure what we'll do with them yet - maybe make some sort of archive and tag them. After that we'll see about doing the ones from around 1986-2003 when everyone went digital. My parents also have a ton of their own photos as well as all of my grandfather's pictures from his travels - he was quite prolific, as is my mom - so we'll see about doing those as well.

I'm also working on new music when I can. I'm just about ready to start mixing the third and final installment in the Legend of the Three Fists series and hope to have it completed by the end of the year. Here are some of the rough arrangements:

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/monkey-funk-in-progress">Monkey Funk (in progress) by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/insomnia-in-progress">Insomnia (in progress) by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/king-fouraday-in-progress">King Fouraday (in progress) by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/knock-on-wood-in-progress">Knock on Wood (in progress) by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

It's been awhile...again

2010-07-27T16:15:00.004-04:00

Quick update: started grad school in May: got two classes under my belt, but made for a very busy couple of months. The day job was pretty hectic for most of that time as well with a new exhibition going up. But now on a short break before the fall semester starts, and hoping to go on vacation sometime next month, but haven't decided where yet, and finally getting back to some music.

In addition, I've picked up a new hobby: photography. It's something that always interested me, but I'd never had much success with my various point and shoot cameras, and having already cut out writing and painting in order to commit myself more fully to my musical hobby, I wasn't really in the market for another hobby that would suck time and cashish. But then after being inspired by our wedding photographer and doing some stuff with the camera in my Droid phone (see previous post), I ended up getting a digital SLR camera for my birthday from my wife. Wow, what a difference a good camera makes! And now, of course, I'm obsessed and taking pictures of any and everything I can, including these most recent pics of some of my guitars. I've got a list a whole page long of ideas for photo shoots, so this blog will probably start to include more photo content in addition to music. Maybe even both together in some sort of crazy conglomerated effort!

In spite of this, I'm determined to at least finish off a few of the tracks that have been languishing and get them up in the very near future so stay tuned. There will be tunes!

Where does the time go?

2010-05-08T13:04:00.000-04:00

So I'm not sure how I let the last month get away without posting, but it's been a busy time. The day job (plus allergies) has been quite draining on your humble composer, he also got married the weekend before last, and he starts grad school the week after next. Exciting times then. Between everything else I've found little time to write much, but I've recorded a couple little tidbits here and there.

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/over-the-rainbow-wonderful-world">Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

This track is my version of Isreal Kamakawiwo'ole's classic ukele medley of Somwhere Over the Rainbow and What A Wonderful World. I played it on my grandfather's archtop acoustic guitar with a capo on the 5th fret. It was recorded with three microphones: 2 Audio Technica AT2021 small diaphragm condensers on the guitar and an MXL R144 Ribbon mic turned around backward on the vocals. I did some minor editing to gloss over a pair of mistakes and added a touch of compression, EQ and reverb, and there you have it.

Also, I've been having fun with photography lately. It's something I've always wanted to get into but feel a bit too pathetic doing to rally invest in. But a post on our wedding photographer's blog about her iphone photos made me curious to see what my Droid could do. So here is a collage of pics taken recently:

Outside

2010-03-30T16:09:00.004-04:00

Sometimes it's really frustrating to look around at the world. There's this whole mainstream media that riles up the blood. Whether it's entertainment or politics or whatever, there's this huge chuink of the world that seems to have the wrong attitude.

But then I remember: I'm not part of the mainstream, never have been and wouldn't want to be. Art comes from the outside, so that's where I'll stay.

The NutLab Studio is back!

2010-03-30T13:00:00.003-04:00

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally put the NutLab Studio back together. I'm still working through some software issues, but I hope to be back to recording soon. The whole situation was quite an ordeal. This was partly due to the fact that when my comupter first went down, a blizzard was approaching and I lacked the proper motivation to deal with the problem. Then I got motivated and went from fixing the damaged computer to totally dismantling the whole studio and putting it back together from the ground up. Overall though, I think it's a better setup, and I'm excited to put it to use. Wish me luck!

The bad news...but I'm trying to stay optimistic

2010-02-20T21:22:00.001-05:00

I finally got the bad news last night. My computer is fried. It happened three weeks ago. I thought it was a minor problem with a fan going down and causing it to overheat. I replaced the fan, but it didn't come back. Then the snow hit, and I couldn't take it to have it diagnosed. Finally took it in last Saturday and waited all week for an answer.

Seems a power surge took out the power supply which then shocked the motherboard. Beyond that they can't tell me anything. So I can try replacing those parts and hope the processor, RAM, and hard drives are okay. Otherwise I'm basically building a whole new system.

Also because the motherboard needs to be replaced, even if they still work, the hard drives will need to be reformatted and the operating system reinstalled. This means I've lost my most recent projects - pretty much everything since last fall because I didn't complete a backup lately.

I'm trying to look on the bright side. Not having a computer has meant I've been limited to playing my guitars, mostly acoustic. This means I'm really working out the tunes making sure the progressions and melodies are strong and that I can really play them very well. It's actually perfect for this current project.

Secondly, the songs from my blog project were really just demos, and it's probably better that I'm forced to record them from scratch instead of relying on the half-baked versions I have. Having to relocated all of the samples I used from DVDs will be a pain, but maybe it will be good to pare those down as well.

And finally, it will give me a chance to upgrade. I'll definitely be able to go to Windows 7. And since I'm starting grad school this summer and will need it anyway, I'm considering not taking a chance on this desktop and getting a laptop instead. I'm looking at a Sony Vaio as we've had good luck with them in the past. They use top quality parts and really seem to last.

Mass Scale Individuality

2010-02-11T16:20:00.001-05:00

Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ

The above video really brings to the fore my misgivings regarding intellectual property. Creating something doesn't mean anything until other people see it and spread its message. This whole American myth that each of us is unique and special simply isn't true. Or at least it doesn't have any real meaning. A lone point on a map doesn't mean anything without the context of the rest of the map. It just seems to me that Americans in particular suffer from a mass scale individuality that isn't based in fact. The idea that one person can take credit for something when each of us is the sum total of our experiences within a society just doesn't sit well with me.

We give the creator of things so much credit, but for one, that creation is he product of all of the experiences and influences manifesting themselves through the creator. And secondly, it's those who come along and notice the creation, enjoy it and decide to share it that really bring it to life. So the idea that I write a song and it somehow belongs to me and I should get paid for it and have control over how it's used is very small-minded. In reality, I'm only a vessel for creation, and it doesn't truly become a song until someone else hears it.

This is the problem with today's music industry. A lot of people just aren't buying the old ideas anymore. The industry needs to reinvent itself with an eye toward creating situations where artists and fans collaborate rather than trying to shove crap down people's throats and then complaining that the customers won't pay to have stuff shoved down their throats. That may have worked in the days of radio and television where it was a one way transmission, but this is the world of the internet. Everyone is on equal footing, and the sooner musicians recognize this, the sooner it can evolve into an all new form of entertainment.

My Intellectual Property Circle

2010-02-09T20:07:00.001-05:00

Intellectual property has been on my mind lateyl, and I've always had mixed feelings about the whole concept, especially when it comes to art. It goes to the very core of our society, our attitudes about the individual versus the society and how we go about valuing art.

To my mind art is necessarily a social medium. Humans are social creatures and artists can only create out of their experience, the environment in which they live. And art only gains meaning when it's shared with other members of society. As such, it seems to me that a good society should both fund the arts and reap the benefits. I guess that makes me a socialist, but it seems like there are some things that shouldn't be driven by profit - emergency services, health care, and arts. Certain things exist for the good of everyone and should be paid for by everyone.

But then who becomes the judge for what gets funding? In a society the size of our own, every member can't vote on every project. The competitive economy of a capitalist system would seem to be better suited to making such judgments. This would seem to be especially true of the worlds of entertainment or design (which is pretty much our entire word actually, but that's an entirely different post). Fans vote with their dollar and fund the entertainment or designs they prefer.

But even a punk rock band in somebody's basement is operating within a social framework. And it's probably just my own proclivities, but despite the seemingly unfeasible nature of developing a fair system for funding the arts, I just can't shake the feeling that for the arts, the social aspect is just so central that a profit based model destroys the authenticity of the work. Art needs an audience to exist; it can't be the sole property of the artist.

But of course, the social system we've developed, the American way now exported to most corners of the globe, is in fact Capitalism. Economics is the strand that ties us all together. Everything is ultimately boiled down to resources and profitability. That's our value system. So something as ephemeral as a pop song makes a millionaire, while someone who produces a tangible and useful object gets paid 10 bucks an hour, or someone who develops a new model of artistic development struggles in obscurity until years after their death. Does art in this system have intrinsic, or even social, value?

You see how this is a circle I can't escape. Art is by its nature social, but we risk boiling it down to the lowest common denominator. For an even longer, rambling view of my stream-of-consciousness reasoning read more...
Part of me understands that artists, writers and musicians need to be compensated for their work. The only way new art can come into being is if it's funded, if the artist can avoid starving long enough and get the materials needed to produce something. This is one argument against piracy and file sharing: whether it's books, music, movies or software, it's taking money away from those who create, and if it continues, they will no longer be able to develop new content.

Of course, it seems most people today see this as an empty threat, at least for the arts. The thought may be that artists and musicians create because they have to express themselves, and people expect that to continue whether the artists get paid or not. Or maybe, people just don't care as much about traditional media as they once did. Whatever the reason, music and arts are always among the first things cut in education, and the arts don't command much public funding and often struggle to secure private support so we know there's some sort of societal struggle with valuing art. In the case of music, specifically the popular end of things, sure the massive distribution infrastructures may crumble, some (or all) labels may collapse, and record execs may find themselves cut off from the cash cow, but we have the internet. Anyone can distribute, and presumably artists who are committed to their work will release work into the net regardless, and then maybe somehow people will pay for it. And of course, new filters will develop to help the rest of us find the good content, right? And we'll all pay a fair price, yes?

But we're operating in a hybrid world where the old guard is desperately holding onto what it knows and thinks it deserves, and the new method is still nascent, not fully developed. It's a state of flux, where the world is changing, and those filters haven't become functional. No one even knows what this new way of doing things might eventually look like. So yes, I get that there's fear and uncertainty, and people's livelihoods are at stake, but it's all based on this idea that people own that which they create.

Just for a second consider, what if they don't? What if the world, specifically human civilization, is a vast collaboration? Humans are social creatures, and an artist can only create out of the environment in which they exist. Even if that environment is the isolation of a hermit (whether imposed by the self or the group), the fact of the isolation is a key component to the creation. A reaction against a society is as much a part of society as the society itself. Anyone who sits down to write a song is going to be influenced by the music they've heard before, as well as the books they read, the art they see, and the people with which they interact. Who really deserves the credit?

And if you start crediting outside influences, where does it stop? Is an individual just a collection of experiences (or information) that was bound to produce something of a certain form? But we choose many of our experiences, right? I pick which books to read, what movies to watch, what songs to hear. Or do I? If I am just an assemblage of my experiences, and my early experiences were controlled by others - parents and then a state sponsored education system, not to mention the world of advertising that surrounds us and subconsciously infiltrates our minds, do I even have control over the choices I make now as an adult? How much individual agency and free will do I really have?

Or consider that we are truly individual beings. Do we each have only the limited perspective of a single body with perceptions and ideas that are unique? In that case would social interaction be an attempt to rectify the variations in our perception, a constant comparison between separate beings? And would our desire for this interaction be a result, not of our being various points within a single being, but rather of our extreme isolation as individuals? Do we share experiences for consolation, or as an attempt to build something larger from our individual pieces? Should each individual be rewarded for their contribution, and how is that value system developed? Or are all the parts necessary to the whole? What is an artist without an audience (besides hungry)?

From either perspective you end up at a place where art only exists within the context of a social system. I know, this is some fundamental shit, and I've moved way beyond just talking about the arts here, but I wonder if we, especially in America, suffer from mass scale individuality. Just think about advertising. There's this strange balance between appealing to people both on an individual level and a social level. We're encouraged to fit in and find our place in society by expressing our individual talents. Does that even make sense? Don't humans tend to isolate those that are different? The individuality we seek has to be of an acceptable social form. When it comes to producing something that is necessarily social, like art, is it really the work of the individual? Or is it the product of a system simply expressed through a single piece of that system? Could a genius just be the lucky conduit for humanity's shared progress?

What I'm getting at is that I'm not sure the idea of individual ownership of thoughts and ideas makes much sense when those thoughts and ideas only have a meaning in relation to the group. If you look at things that way, walling oneself off and claiming your ideas as possessions, seems like a pretty pointless excercise. Maybe the ideal is for everyone to be an artist in the sense that we are all collaborating to create a work we call society. What then is the value of individuality? A necessary variation in the parts of the system, a safeguard to keep the system dynamic?

Analogue vs. Digital pt.1

2010-01-31T14:47:00.002-05:00

I've never had much of an opinion about recording analog versus digital. I mean it makes sense to me that analog would sound more natural to us. After all, we can't hear 1s and 0s. When I got into recording in high school, I borrowed a bunch of my dad's old analog gear, and eventually I got this little cassette 4-track.

That unit died when I was in college, and a friend and I traded some gear and pitched in on a new one - a Tascam 234 4-track and 106 mixer. Still cassette based, not 1/4" or 1/2", we messed about with it for a couple years, but it was quite challenging. It's amazing to me that recording engineers dealt with tape for so long, and that some would still prefer it. Don't get me wrong, it sounded great. Despite our crappy mics and not really knowing what we were doing, those tapes have a warmth that I still love. But having to keep track of counter numbers, the limitations on track count and having to commit to a mix a few tracks at a time, etc. sometimes made for a frustrating time.

We decided that a computer would be better. I'm not sure what our logic was. I don't think we really thought about digital versus analog at first. I think it was more the ridiculous track counts, unlimited editing capabilities and graphic representation that drew us in. Odd as it may seem, we didn't really consider the sound. We were writing material and recording was recording. And now I've been recording almost exclusively in digital for 10 years because it's just simpler.

The 234 didn't get much use after I bought a computer specifically to use in the little studio/music room we'd built. But I still own it and have carted it around for years for no discernible reason. Recently I read an article about mastering and how some mastering houses still prefer to get the material on 1/2" tape. I was kind of shocked, but it got me thinking about reintegrating analog gear into my computer setup, especially since I've been thinking that my newest project should have a more vintage feel. There are plugins that model classic units and their analog circuitry, but why not just run the music through some real analog circuitry? Or even record it to real analog tape and then re-digitize it?

So, out came the 234. Unfortunately, the tape head doesn't seem to function anymore. Still, I tried plugging my electric guitar as well as a microphone into the 4-track and then patching the outputs to my audio interface, essentially using it as a preamp. I did a bit of tracking, and it worked pretty well. There is definitely a difference in the sound. It's warmer but also a little noisier, perhaps in a good way, and you can't beat the look of this old gear.

Two problems with this method: 1) When mixing these recordings and adding effects, the noise gets enhanced along with the instrument. Not a big deal for 1 or 2 tracks maybe, but beyond that, it really becomes noticeable. And 2) I can only record my guitars and vocals this way. Any electronic or sampled parts don't get the same treatment. I think a better method would be to track and mix digitally, record my final mix to tape, and then record from the tape back to the computer adding any mastering effects at that point for a finalized, release-ready recording. That way I also get the sound of tape as well as the analog circuitry, and the entire mix is treated, not just a few individual parts.

I emailed my dad, and I'm hoping his old TEAC reel-to-reel tape deck from the 60s still works (an attic dweller the last few years unfortunately). Otherwise I'll have to pay to have the 234 repaired (which might cost more than it's worth at this point), or buy a reel-to-reel from craiglist or ebay (there are quite a few available, but any in guaranteed working condition aren't cheap). I've actually been thinking about getting a tube preamp too (the Presonus BlueTube), but we'll see where this goes first...

-TFW

Where does the music stand?

2010-01-29T16:00:00.002-05:00

There's a lot of talk about the state of the music industry right now. What happened to the cash cow of the ninties? How do we adapt and become profitable again? Can we stop piracy and illegal file sharing? It seems to me that the biggest problem is that there's a real disconnect between the industry and its audience. Many are running around trying to figure out a profitable delivery method for the same old music - streaming, downloads, ads, subscriptions, clouds, etc. - but the assumption seems to be that the same market is still there. I fear this may not be the case.

The world of music has been split into genre niches. It's true we still have our mainstream acts like Jay-Z and Taylor Swift, but these mainstream artists on major labels aren't bringing in nearly as much profit as they once were. This is often attributed to piracy and file-sharing. While I'll admit that those things have definitely been detrimental to the major label model of the music industry, I don't believe that they are the root cause. Piracy and file-sharing are symptoms of a de-valuation of music in our culture.

Music fans have always been divided into passive and active listeners, but that division is even more striking today. I believe that, in addition to file sharing, another effect of the internet is that it has helped to turn us into a multimedia culture. People have a much greater degree of choice, and it doesn't necessarily mean they're choosing a wider variety of music. In fact, it could be that they're choosing a greater variety of alternatives to musical entertainment. As broadband became commonplace, video became more accessible, and YouTube has turned into a huge hub of online interaction. Video games, especially those played online with other players have become commonplace, and millions of people participate.

As a result of this, the amount of music that is consumed passively has increased exponentially over the last decade. This has a couple of consequences. I think one, and a possible reason music has split into niches, is that the mainstream just doesn't see music as an end unto itself anymore. It's an accompaniment. You're either 1) listening to music, generally on headphones, while you do something else - surf the web, read a book, cook dinner, etc., or 2) music is the soundtrack to your movie, video game, TV show, YouTube clip, etc. Who buys a stereo hi-fi these days? A very small market of audiophiles maybe, but for the mainstream it's all about surround sound which means HD and DVD and Blu-Ray and game consoles. True music fans are few and far between, and because of the mess the major labels have made of their business, the labels have lost credibility with fans, and the fans seek out ever more intimate bands and artists - people they feel they can connect with.

The other consequence is that a lot of really talented musicians don't necessarily see being in a band as the cool thing to do anymore. It's no longer rebellious to rock out when we see 50- and 60-year-olds on stage. I hate to say it, but rock music seems to be gaining "oldies" status. So really good musicians have migrated to soundtrack work - partly because that's where the money is, partly because of the shift toward more electronic and computer based production, and partly because it's way cooler to have your track in a movie or videogame or TV show these days than to have it played on the radio. You have a better chance promoting yourself by being the guy featured on HBO or Call of Duty show than having your record spun on some underground radio show (whetehr terrestrial or satellite) that most people have never heard of.

I just don't think very many people listen to music as an activity anymore. This is especially true of the younger generation, and make no mistake, that's who you need to focus on because the old fogeys, i.e. anyone over 30, are already in the bag having discovered their favorites, bought the albums and collectors sets, etc. MTV started the process - shifting the focus from the auditory to the visual, and video games continued it, pushing music even further into the background. This has led to a situation where musicians aren't the headliner - they're the small print, and therefore, people aren't as inclined to be drawn to a live show to watch their heroes perform amazing feats of musical accomplishment. Right now musicians just aren't megastars. It may cycle back around to that point again, but I'm not sure we're at a place culturally where we, collectively anyway, want to be adoring fans and propel anyone to great heights. The true fans find their niche and want their niche artists to succeed, but the mainstream is on the wane.

Interestingly, as the mainstream has made a psychological shift from active to passive consumption, it's often the reverse for music fans. Sure there are still times where I want to sit and listen to someone else put feelings into words and sounds that I couldn't come up with on my own, but most of the time I want to feel like I'm taking part in something. Have you heard of Dan Deacon? Granted he's got a pretty small niche so probably not, but his shows are interesting because he brings the audience into the inner circle and makes the show about them all doing something together. He paints himself as a facilatator, not a star. You don't worship him, you party with him. That's what the music industry needs to figure out: We don't want to have anything shoved down our throats - we want to be part of the process.

Entertainment needs to become more communal and interactive. Communal doesn't mean a hive where everyone belongs. It's got to be interactive, but still make the consumer feel like an individual, part of an elite group. That's why online gaming and social networking work; the user controls the size of their own network, but yet the technology makes it possible for these small groups to multiply and cross-pollinate. I think the music industry (and the movie, publishing and journalism industries too) need to realize this. And it's not just about using Twitter, Myspace and Facebook to build awareness, though they are useful tools. Those alone barely prop up the old model because internet users are even more savvy regarding advertising than TV viewers have become. The user has control and can ignore you, and it's pretty easy to see through marketing hype online.

If you really want to attract people, it's got to be an entirely new approach. Make the entertainment experience something people in todays world will want to pay for. Maybe the publicity arm moves away from advertising and toward finding ways to create collaborative events. Maybe artist development means more than money for touring and studio time, but helping the entertainer connect with fans. Sadly, I don't have the magic bullet yet - just some thoughts on where we stand, but I think we can come up with the new ideas we need to succeed. It's not about legislating what the fans can and cannot do. It's about bringing them into the fold and giving them a stake in the success of the product.

-TFW

new project new project new project

2010-01-19T15:00:00.000-05:00

So I mentioned this briefly a few weeks ago as I closed out my year of songwriting, but let me get into a little more detail. In listening through the plethora of ragged material I generated last year, I found a group of songs that I thought might merit further development into some sort of album-like project. But just writing and recording an album seems so static. I've already been living inside my own head for a year. And since I've enjoyed blogging as well and would like to kep at it, I thought I'd try something a little different.

I've selected 20 tracks (listed below) to explore, and I'm going to document their development. I'll post productions in progress, lyrical drafts, etc. here. In addition, I'm going to experiment with setting up online sessions for each of the pieces where I'll provide a current mix and the core constituent elements, and anyone can either comment on things, or possibly download parts and work on his or her own version.

I'd really like to collaborate with any interested parties. Maybe the sound of a piece will inspire someone else to write words, or perhaps an idea for an instrument or some other missing element that could really make a song soar could some from another person, or maybe a certain track just sucks and people can let me know that it's just not working. So I'm encouraging anyone who hears/reads anything that catches his or her interest, please comment with thoughts and ideas, and we'll see what happens.

I'm also hoping to make these songs and posts more engaging and less technical than my blog was last year. My main frustration with the blog is that I never really felt like my writing about my songs really added to them in any way. I'd like to change that, and I really welcome any any all comments or suggestions about this music. I mean, look, I'm going to keep writing and recording music because, well, I don't really know how to not do that, but I'd like to see what can spring from using music as a medium to interact.

The songs:

Read more...

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/snake-lady">Snake Lady by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/redemption-jar-in-progress">Redemption Jar (in progress) by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/sweet-sleet-knock-on-wood-broken-record-nvel8r">Sweet Sleet / Knock on Wood / Broken Record / Nvel8r by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

Meet and Greet

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/pride">Pride by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/panic-room">Panic Room by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/rapture">Rapture by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/be-wilder">Be-Wilder by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/longing">Longing by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/grief">Grief by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/vengeance">Vengeance by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/relief-age-in-the-foliage">Relief-age in the Foliage by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/paranoia-step-1">Paranoia (Step 1) by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/sorrow-for-the-tearless-night">Sorrow for the Tearless Night by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/compassion">Compassion by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/surprise">Surprise by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/ambivalence">Ambivalence by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/greed">Greed by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/this-devil-is-amped-in-progress">This Devil is Amped (in progress) by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/lord-aggressor">Lord Aggressor by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

Video: Mastering Your Music: 101

2010-01-07T10:06:00.005-05:00

I found this blog this morning via twitter that has lots of good stuff for the musically/technologically inclined. For instance this tutorial Video: Mastering Your Music: 101

Free songs!

2009-12-31T12:36:00.002-05:00

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!

Share on Facebook

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-23T10:52:00.001-05:00

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!

Week #52 - Accomplishment

2009-12-22T09:40:00.000-05:00

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.

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/accomplishment">Accomplishment by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

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.

Share on Facebook

Week #51 - Vengeance

2009-12-19T00:45:00.000-05:00

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.

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/vengeance">Vengeance by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

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.

Share on Facebook

Week #42 - Awkwardness

2009-12-17T22:00:00.002-05:00

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:

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/awkwardness">Awkwardness by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

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.

Share on Facebook

So, let's see if this works...

2009-12-13T22:30:00.001-05:00

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...

Week #50 - Smugness

2009-12-11T16:30:00.001-05:00

Computer generated voice? Check. Hip-hop beat? Check. Copious frogs? Check.

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/frog-man">Frog Man by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

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.

Share on Facebook

Week #49 - Pride

2009-12-03T22:15:00.005-05:00

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!

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/pride">Pride by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

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.

Share on Facebook

Week #48 - Gratitude

2009-11-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

Being as it's Thanksgiving, I chose Gratitude as the feeling for the week. But as my sister came to visit last weekend and stayed until we drove up to PA on Thursday where we spent a couple of days, I didn't have time to sit in front of my computer. Luckily, I got a new phone last week: the Motorola Droid. Details below, but suffice to say, I produced this song on my PHONE!

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/grat-pack">Grat Pack by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

Description:

I didn't really get to the heart of gratitude with this piece, but as a first attempt at producing on a mobile device I'm pretty happy. I tried to pick mellow loops and samples to work with as when one is thankful, one is usually rather content and at peace. I went with softer bass tones, piano/electric piano, and horns for the most part.

Tools:

Motorola Droid
niko twenty Electrum Drum Machine
Ableton Live 7
IK Multimedia T-Racks 3 Linear Phase EQ, Opto Compressor, and Brickwall Limiter

Read more...
Notes:

- The Droid is an amazing device, and there are a few music apps available for it (nothing like the iPhone yet, but I feel confident the market will grow). I tried a bunch of them, and so far my favorite is the Electrum Drum Machine by niko twenty. Despite the name, it is really more than a drum machine. It's closer to an MPC sampler. I loaded my phone with loops and samples, and through the week in free moments on the train and at lunch I managed to put together a collection of song sections.
- While there is a loop sequencer built into Electrum, I ended up moving the loops to my computer and laying out the sequence in Live. Then as a final step I put some mastering plugins on the final product.

- I had to convert all of my samples to 22050, 16 bit, mono audio to work on the phone so the resultant layered loops were in that format, but I rendered the sequence from Live at 48000, 24bit, stereo - mainly because my audio hosting site wouldn't allow the lower quality file to upload.

- I started out by building a custom drum kit. The way the program works is that you have 6 "pads" and load a sample onto each one. You can edit your samples' start and end points as well as setting the level and pitch for each one individually. I do wish there was a mixer page where you could set all of the levels at once instead of having to go back an forth between each sample's edit page to tweak. You'll hear a fe spots where a sound really sticks out because it was hard to get the levels just right without a proper mixer. (I'd also love to be able to work in stereo, but it is only a phone, and such limitations can be a good thing to really make you focus on blending things together for a good sound.)

- Then you use a step sequencer to play the pads on particular beats creating patterns. My custom kits was made up of sounds from the Hip-Hop and Glitch sample packs for Electrum. I made three separate beats all using this same kit as a foundation.

- Once I had the basic beats, I'd export them as WAV files. Then I'd reload a loop onto a pad and replace the samples on the other 5 pads with either more percussion or bass and instrument loops. I could then program a new sequence, export it and reload to the first pad and add even more new sounds. I got up to about 4 layers before things just got too cluttered to be usable. When you load loops onto a pad, you can even set them to match the tempo as long as you've included the tempo of the original loop in the filename.

- It's sort of like working on my old Portastudio 4 track where I'd record 4 tracks, bounce them down to one and add 3 new tracks, etc. but with better editing of each sample like and MPC. Like an old school sampler, changing the tempo also changes the pitch, and changing the pitch either speeds up or slows down the sample. It's another interesting limitation that forces you to be careful and make good decisions to get things synced up.

- At this point, I could have loaded my completed loops onto the pads, set each one to play on beat 1 of a pattern and then made a sequence of the various patterns to create a song, but instead I copied my loops and patterns over to the computer and opened them in Live. I did not go crazy with further edits and effects on the computer. I wanted to stick to the limitations inherent in making music on a phone. Instead, I simply set out my sequence on a single track. I did, however, run final arrangement through a mastering chain to sweeten the sound a bit since I had to export my final mix at a higher resolution.

Share on Facebook

Week #47 - Relief

2009-11-20T08:52:00.006-05:00

A laid back groove I came up with at a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was quite a relaxing trip, and I felt like it embodied this feeling perfectly:

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/relief-age-in-the-foliage">Relief-age in the Foliage by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

Description:

A weekend of massage and hanging out in the hot tub and in front of a cozy fireplace led me to write this piece. It's about getting away from the stuff that drains you in your day-to-day life and uncovering the real you again.

Tools:

Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Fender Jazz electric bass
Audio Technica 2020 condenser microphone

Read more...
Notes:

- Here's a video of the original rhythm guitar part as written in the woods:

- So I took the acoustic groove above, electrified it, and filled it out with keyboard, a second guitar, bass, and finally drums. I wasn't happy with the chorus and thought it would make a better breakdown section instead so I wrote a new chorus and put it into a pretty standard arrangement: intro-verse-chorus-verse-middle8-chorus-solo(2 verses)-chorus-outro. Once I had an arrangement, I worked out some lyrics and recorded vocals over the top.

- The verse is a sort of 12-bar blues pattern in F#m but instead of the standard 5-4-1 ending, the last 4 bars go: E | D | A | Bm |

- The chorus is an 8-bar pattern: F#m | C#m | F#m | C#m | F#m | C#m | D | E |

- The middle8 comes in a measure early and lays back even more. it's actually a middle9: C#m-Bm | A | C#m-Bm | A | C#m-Bm | A | C#m-Bm | D-E | E |

- The guitar, keyboard, and bass parts were all pretty much written and recorded in a single session. I kept things simple as a regular 5 piece band would perform it. I did think about adding horns or strings, but I thought it was best kept simple.

- The drums were written on my new phone (Motorola Droid) with a drum machine app called ElekDrum. I exported the MIDI and imported it into a Redrum module where I edited it a bit more. It's basically the same beat throughout with a variety of fills, and the drums drop out for the middle8 until the last measure and a half. I wrote a few fills and then just used the Alter notes tool to make variations on the rest so it wasn't the same the whole time. I went back and did the same thing to the main beat every few measures as well.

Share on Facebook

Week #46 - Panic

2009-11-13T01:33:00.000-05:00

Panic. Urgency. Tightness. Tension. I think all of these words could apply to the grooves arranged here:

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/panic-room">Panic Room by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

Read more...
Description:

I tried to go back to a sort of soundtrack device, imagining a scene where our panic stricken victim is wrenched from her reverie to find an unknown threat haunting her space. The limitations of having written parts in 4 and 8 bar phrases, however, left me less flexible to arrange this idea as I'd hoped, so I ended up softening the edges and provide instead the short tension building phrase between sections instead as a substitute.

Tools:

Ableton Live 7
Studio Devil AMP
Puremagnetik LivePacks: Phazeform Vol.1, Upright, VoxBox, Vintage Organs Vol.1, and DIgital Beatboxes

Notes:

- There is no mixing or automation in this piece yet. I focused first on putting together riffs for the various sections, and then on arranging those riffs into a songlike structure. I'd love to delve into mixing this piece and hopefully that process would help me open things up to a more experimental arrangement as well. As it is, this is pretty standard for me - a theme and variation piece with a repeating section between the variations, but somehow I never end up feeling like these are "real" songs.

- I was really interested in groove this week and in building up riffs that I could try to employ to the desired effect. This meant compartmentalizing everything and ending up with a whole bunch of 4 and 8 bar loops. But ultimately I really felt limited by having everything in loop form this time around. I love these grooves, but turning them into a song was less than ideal. It's almost like on their own any of these riffs would make a decent 15 second advert soundtrack, but developing a full piece of music from them was impossible.

- Most of the riffs in this piece are based in Dm - it seems to be my favorite home key for some reason. I generally default to the key of Dm, 4/4 time, and 120bpm tempo. The exception here is the third long section which has sustained Am and Bbm chords. This could probably be considered as a sister piece to this track I'm working on:

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/this-devil-is-amped-in-progress">This Devil is Amped (in progress) by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

- For sounds I decide to stick to the underused LivePacks I've been downloading from Puremagnetik.com over the last year or so. I have a few favorite patches, especially from the Microtron packs, but overall, I don't get into these too much so I decide to really explore them this week. Of course, I couldn't resist throwing in my guitar and playing around with Studio Devil's AMP plugin at the end.

- Speaking of the guitar, I'm sure the opening riff will be familiar to anyone who's heard my older music (or Jimi Hendrix's Foxy Lady for that matter). It's one of my favorite rifs to play and something I go back to often. In this instance it's tuned down a step from where I usually play it.

- As mentioned above, I dint use any additional effects or mixing so this is pretty rough. The whole thing is even in mono as I didn't pan the parts or anything. Clearly there is more work to be done on this at some point, but overall I like it, and despite my problems with the overall arrangement, I thnk the individual sections definitely et to the feeling of panic as intended.

Share on Facebook

Week #45 - Bewilderment

2009-11-06T09:00:00.002-05:00

The irony here is that I feel anything but bewildered this week. In fact, I think this song is the best one I've done in 3 months. It's been a struggle lately, but it started to turn around a couple of weeks ago - I started getting ideas again, found more time to develop them, and writing and recording became fun instead of a chore - and now I feel like I'm ready to finish out the last couple of months strong.

<a href="http://music.threefistedwarrior.com/track/be-wilder">Be-Wilder by Three-Fisted Warrior</a>

Description:

I wanted to write lyrics to this, but once again I couldn't seem to put it together. That's the one hurdle I have yet to get over, and I think this piece in particular could have benefited from some wordage. It was very hard to hear what bewilderment sounds like. My thought was that we're often bewildered when circumstances don't live up to our expectations, so I developed this song around not meeting expectations. None of the sections are really far out or anything, but I don't think they necessarily lead to one another logically. In fact this song was developed quite organically one section, one part at a time.

Tools:

Propellerhead Record 1/Reason 4
Epiphone Les Paul Custom electric guitar
Takamine Jasmine acoustic guitar
Fender Jazz electric bass

Read more...
Notes:

- This song basically has 4 sections and the structure is A-B-C-B-D-A.

- The A section (intro/outro) is based around a little bluesy Gm riff. This was the first section I wrote so I decided to begin with it. Originally it was recorded only in the descending version, but then I thought it would be interesting to play it in reverse as well. You end up with these quick chords that start an octave apart, move toward each other, hit the #4th in unison and then move apart to end an octave apart. Meanwhile I panned them wide and put them through a tape delay to get things bouncing and swirling around in ping-pong fashion. This sort of represents confusion of being baffled.

- The B section grew from the first as I thought to make it contrast. It's still a Gm riff on the classic blues pentatonic, but I pushed the delay t the background and went for a more straight ahead, electric blues sound. The change sort of comes out of nowhere, but it's as if things were coming around and beginning to make sense.

- I didn't stick with that long before I changed things up again. This time the C section drops an acoustic guitar riff and changes key to Dm. It's a related key, not entirely jarring, but it also goes to a half-time feel.

- After going back to the B section for a more extended stay, I again through an acoustic change as a transition to the D section. This is a simple two-chord part: Am | G |. So thing have moved up a whole step, and the rhythm changes again to a slightly Latin rock feel (or at least that's what I was going for). This is the solo section so I improvised about 4 takes and comped together a solo.

- Finally, the A section fades back in for the outro, and it's again coming completely out of left field.

- As for writing the individual sections, there are a lot of guitar tracks, and that's where everything started. Once I'd built the guitar parts for each section and laid out the basic arrangement, I added a synth drone to provide a nice harmonic foundation for everything. It plays pretty much continuously so it helps link the sections together. Next up was the bass, followed by the drums. I know it's sort of backward to start with the lead parts and fill in the rhythm section underneath, but I thought it would be more organic this way. Often when I start with the drums or bass, I end up editing it so that it's so rigid that there's no room to be expressive. This way is tougher in some senses, but I like having the bass and drums follow the lead. I thought about adding piano, but there are so many guitars filling up the mid-range I thought it best to avoiding adding more clutter.

- With all of the parts down, I only had to tweak the arrangement a bit, adding some sustained guitar chords, comping the solo, and editing some sloppy drum playing (especially on the fills). The drums are my weakest instrument, and I could really benefit from a real drummer, or at least maybe lessons and more practice.

- Finally it came down to mixing. I rally like Record's mixer. It's so much better than the mixers in Reason. And even though Live's session view can function very much like a mixer, there's something to be said for the way Record is modeled on an actual physical unit. I did use the MClass EQ individually on most tracks, and the Compressor on a few, but I mostly mixed on the virtual board. With it's own dynamics and EQ, 4 master inserts, and 8 sends, it's go plenty of power and flexibility. I'm pretty happy with this mix. I'm still learning the program, but it was really fun to mix with - much more interactive (even though I"m using a mouse) than usual. Normally mixing is a chore at the end of the process, but this feels more like part of the creative process.

- I didn't put this through any further processing, but if i were to release a track like this I"d probably do some home mastering with the TrackS 3 plugins as well.

- My only real disappointment was that I once again didn't write lyrics when I intended to. I don't know why I have this writing block. Maybe it's just been too long since I've written much of anything, or maybe I'm too old to have anything worthwhile to say, but that's the one area I'd really like to get moving.

As a bonus, here's a short video of me playing through the changes for this tune on my alternately tunes acoustic guitar:

Share on Facebook