Tuesday 28 November 2006
As mentioned previously, I’ve been all excited about setting up an Immersion Composition lodge. Enough so that last night, I did a mini-session on my own. It lasted about four and a half hours, during which I recorded these three pieces:
Not In Nine (1’19”)
As I was walking home to start the session, I had an odd-meter groove going in my head, but by the time I started recording, I’d forgotten it. I thought it was in nine, but this turned out to be in seven and four and extremely Phleg Camp-y, particularly the 6+6+4 section at the end. I seem to end up aping them whenever I bring out the Fender Jazz bass. This one earned me the “trying very hard to say something positive” look from my SO.
How’s About You (0’35”)
Drums -> title -> lyrics -> chords -> done. Self-explanatory I think.
Frost (1’55”)
My keyboard-written songs tend to either be in a particular vein I’ve followed since high school, or these more lyrical things that wander from one melody to another. I’ve just realized that this is more or less a restatement of a piece I did a while back called “Dawn River”, right down to the clicky percussion. I can’t escape myself!
All in all, a fun exercise and most worthwhile.
One and a half hours per song. Too much futzing and trying to get parts “right” (especially the slap bass on #1) and take down some of the hiss that crept in somewhere. I’m still very much getting used to my new setup: Logic on a laptop, equipped with a very finicky Mbox. Before I try another one of these, I have to get a few specific cables, figure out the ideal signal path into my computer, and set up some new Logic templates so I don’t have to mess with setting things up on every song.
Edit: more discussion of this mini-session on the ICS discussion forum.
Friday 17 November 2006
Two recent song-a-day pieces, the latest in celebration of my new monitors. Of course, it was recorded at one in the morning when civility required I keep the volume down, so I haven’t yet heard it through the new monitors, but hey.
(And of course, now that I’ve got everything assembled, I’ve discovered that the Mbox2 emits a soft, high-pitched whine on its monitor outputs whenever it’s getting a digital audio signal from the computer - the data stream, presumably. Grr. I’ll have to see if a better-shielded USB cable helps.)
mobile (3’51”)
This one got me some dubious looks from my SO. Investigating the possibilities of Logic’s bundled FM synth - run through delay, reverb, EQ, filter, compression, trem and distortion, not necessarily in that order. Partway through it started to remind me of a bass clarinet piece by Evan Ziporyn, which plays with intervals and distortion in a similar sort of way… but in a purely acoustic way, by playing and humming simultaneously, so it’s much richer and more organic. (It’s called “Tsmindao Ghmerto”, if I recall correctly, and it’s on an album by the Bang On A Can crew.)
It felt good doing something that’s all textural, without any beat to it. When your recording software is always thinking in terms of bars and beats it’s sometimes hard to get out of that mode of thought yourself. I find it’s usually hard to combine the two methods of working - especially so since piling on all those effects eats up practically all the processor time.
If I do more like this I’ll try different tunings too.
awning (1’32”)
I still don’t totally get the Environment screen in Logic, but I’ve figured out enough to run my external MIDI devices (gosh, that was a fun day, let me tell you). Unfortunately, I don’t have the right cables to run their audio back into my computer yet, so I had to use all softsynths again.
The drums are picked out of Apple Loops (shhh, don’t tell), then distorted, compressed and gated all to hell, as seems to be my thing lately. Mostly it’s a quick and easy way to unrecognizableize a beat. And similarly, I like sounds with really short release times, that you can play like you’re sending Morse code. Ended up sounding a bit like a ‘90s remake of an ‘80s song, really…
Tuesday 2 May 2006
There’s nothing like being awakened at 5:30 in the morning by a cat throwing up on you.
I’ve realized that I don’t really care for sax solos on rock songs… but I love rhythm parts, especially with bass/baritone sax. I’m thinking of “Good Morning” by the Beatles, and the neat arrangement on “This Song” by Ron Sexsmith with a pair of (tenor?) saxes, the lower of them doubled by an electric guitar.
Hmm. Might have to try doubling violin and piano, or violin and guitar.
Other voicings I’d like to try sometime:
- Two male voices singing an octave apart. The Fembots have some octave-doubled voices on their latest. Also, Julian’s got me listening to some early Tears For Fears, and “The Hurting” in particular does this. It’s very ‘80s, come to think of it - Depeche Mode used it all over the place; also Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes” (and “Space Oddity”), and Talking Heads on “Mind”, the Police on “Bring On The Night” and “Spirits In The Material World”... a quick survey of an ‘80s compilation turns up A Flock Of Seagulls, INXS and Squeeze.
- Heck, just two voices in unison. I instinctively go for harmonies, but unison can be powerful too.
- And speaking of octaves, piano octaves. I just did a disco-ish track for a short film, and played the melody on a piano that way. Punchy! Ooh, and how about 12-string guitar?
I’ve finally gone and wiped my studio machine and reinstalled Windows. It’s so much perkier now - years of forgotten software layers and busted registry bits swept away… ahh, that’s better.
Unfortunately, I can’t find my Cubase install CD - gah! But I did bring home my Mbox and installed Pro Tools 7, which will be very nice to have. Next step: good monitors.
Fun rehearsal last night, in preparation for our next gig (our last one with Clark for a while - details on the Flickershow site.
