If in doubt, add SFX

This is phase 2 pass 2 and I have officially named this pass "if in doubt add a sound effect". I have always loved sound effects in music and so here we go.

Lots to report, I have finished track one. I have added rain at the start (not sure about it yet), and a steam train between sections 1 and 2 (very sure about it).

In section 2 I have slightly unhumanised the flute, I reckon it was slightly over-humanised.

In section 3 I have reworded the Xylophone solo so it makes more sense and is less random. Funny you didn't notice that when it was too quiet to hear. I've also microedited shaker, guiro, bass and guitars for timing. Once you have started microediting you never go back. It makes such a difference.

In section 4, I have changed the lead-in note to a chord, and done lots of work tidying the whistle which replaced the organ. And then spent ages trying to get a mixdown - it kept crashing. Theis was the point where it started to come home to me how far I have yet to get, and how close my slef-imposed deadline for release is (11.11.11) Eventually I fixed it by combining the whistle back into the 1st instance of the sampler. Unfortunately the process seemed to kill my pitch bends, so I will need to revisit them at some point.

In section 5 I did one micro-edit where the guitar solo hesitated slightly. Microediting is my new best friend.

in section 6 there was no substantial changes

in section 7 the big thing was the electric violin which had replaced the electric piano. It seems to be a theme that when I chuck something out and replace it, then that will need some work when I come back to it. In this case, the tuning was really annoying me - the clever sampler I have which bills this as "fiddle" has some tuning modification to make it sound authentic. In other words, when played with other instruments, it sounds wrong, so I found the switch marked "switch" which turned that effect off. Much better. Add a little chorus to thicken the sound up a little and Bob's your Auntie.

in section 8 I dealt with a brass band off to the side (I sorted out the panning) and tried to deal with some solo trumpet issues but eventually left it. This is a section where I am fighting with the sampler to make it behave well, and for once I can say "it'll do" because it's not really bad.

And in section 9 the only substantial change was to replace the old bit of reversed stuff from the start of the track with the new version.

All through there are slight modifications to volume and tone which I have not bothered to tell you about because they are manifold, important, but boring.

The Fire

A quick diversion before I get going:

I write like
William Gibson

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

...however I'm not sure who William Gibson is!

Anyway, back to the music.  I have skipped ahead a little, well a lot.  Now that track 1 is finished I'm going to tackle track 3.  The reason being I am bursting with ideas for it.  Track 1 was "body", track 2 will be "mind" - track 3 is "spirit".  The three major sections are 3.1: God, 3.2: the Devil and 3.3: Man.  We will come to 3.2 and 3.3 in due course, but for now the obvious splitting of 3.1 is into 3.1.1 God the Father, 3.1.2 God the Son (Jesus) and 3.1.3 God the Holy Spirit.

Which is all very well, but how do you represent them in music.

Well for God the Father I have been reminded (by my brother as it happens) of Elijah's experience of God.  There was a huge wind, but God was not in the wind,  There was an earthquake but He was not in the earthquake.  There was a fire, but he was not in the fire.  After the fire, a still small voice.  So in three minutes I am going to build to a cataclysm and then have a still small voice.  Tonight I have done the cataclysm.

It starts orchestrally with timpani beating out a quiet, urgent rhythm in 7/4, quiet brass comes in and builds up.  A drop down to build up to louder, and a final drop down to build up to a huge stabby brass timpani cymbally thing to which then thick, wide, loud synth sounds are added to make it truly a wall of noise - then it stops quite abruptly.

In terms of the process: I had a broad idea of what I was going to do, and it effectively came to me on the fly.  Lines, harmonies, which part does what where all seemed to just roll along having had the basic rhythmic idea.  Even picking the key (D) was done by seeing where the timps sounded best.  Every few bars I was thinking "well I can do this little bit and then maybe I need to stop to let this mull for a day or two" but every time it became obvious what should come next.  I love it when that happens.

My only reservation is whether it sounds too much like Holst's "Mars" - it does a bit.

Tidying up

I have come to realize that in my determination to blog the whole process of creating this album, warts and all, that this means I should blog the more mundane parts as well as the exciting creative ones, as all sessions tweaking the music are part of the creative process.

Also, this particular post, I have already tried to post once, a couple of days ago and something went awry and it got lost in the aether.

So I had come to realize that there was something wrong with the brass band parts in the current section - I went through and checked the harmonies.  Yes, that was what was wrong - so I did a bit of tweaking and changing - I am now more convinced that it is right.

The other potential problem with the brass band parts is one that my wife commented on - it is "loose" (as in the opposite of "tight") - the parts don't play exactly together.  This was kind of deliberate to give it a live feel, but my wife seems to think it is too loose.  I will have to let it marinade and see how I feel after a few plays.

The other thing I tidied up was a problem wit the brass in the African part - for some reason it didn't sound right.  I worked out what it was.  There are two parts, so most of the time there should be two notes at once.  It was not working out like that, it was only playing one note at once, despite the instructions.  Whichever note was started second out of a pair caused the first to stop playing.  So I spent a long time separating the two parts (they were together in one MIDI track), and then got the sampler to load in a second copy of the trumpet samples. Huzzah, this worked.  The downside - the computer has to load the samples in twice (I think), but the upside is I can now separate them in the stereo image.

Finally I added a bass to the African bit, live recorded bass, even though it's quite fast.  I like it, it's lively and interesting, and it adds good feel.

Poles apart

Next subsection then, 1.3.2: magnetism.

How to represent magnetism in music?  

Hmmm

Well magnetism is to do with poles, North and south.

Northern England - Brass band music

South Africa - South African pop style music.  This is harder to describe I guess, but I have a strong idea of South African music, Hugh Masakela, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and bits of Graceland - oh and of course Ladysmith Black Mombazo.  There are a couple of chord sequences, the most common being I, IV, I, V repeated ad infinitum.

Bring in two sporting occasions being held in different hemispheres - Wimbledon and the World cup.  Take an iconic moment from each - the end of the Isner Mahout match at Wimbledon (70 to 68 in the final set) and a certain English goal that wasn't in the England/Germany match.  One is a cause for celebration, the other a disappointment, and two sports which in themselves are poles apart....

So the first job was to extract sound from the TV.  With some foresight I had recorded relevant bits on my Sky+ box.  Sound out of the Sky+ box - phono sockets.  Sound into the break-out sound card on this computer - 1/4 inch Jacks or XLR.  Well I have Jacks to phono leads, no problem.  Except... this computer is upstairs at the front, and the box is downstairs at the back.  Poles apart you might say (I'll get over it some day).  Alternative solution: use my laptop for recording.  OK.  Sound into my laptop: 3.5mm stereo jack.  No cable.

So for a while I thought I might have to get soldering for the sake of this section, but I managed to find a custom lead.  Cost £7.  Total cost of the album so far: £16

Next problem: my laptop runs Vista, and the sound recorder will only output .wma files.  Tragic. lack of usefulness.  Anyway with some fiddling and fussing I found a converter and eventually had my audio clips in mp3 ready for inclusion.

I tackled the SA sound first, bringing in the African drumming patterns I used in subsection 1.1.1, but going faster (I wonder if anyone will notice they are the same patterns?)  Lay on some simple guitar chords on the electric, and create some trumpet tuney bits.  I still need bass (but my bass is at church) and I need to tidy this up somewhat.

And then brass band.  In preparation for this I had been imagining what I might do with a brass band. Just in case you don't know, a Northern England brass band is not like an oompah band, or like a New Orleans brass band, it's mellow, long drawn out notes and several parts.  It comjours up images of parks in the summer with a band playing in the bandstand.  Anyway, as I tried to write tunes I found that what I really wanted was the hymn "Abide with me". I checked, and apparently it's out of copyright.  Hurrah.

So I used the sampler and the keyboard, creating two trumpet lines, a tuba line, a French horn line and a trombone line. The actual tune seems to have disappeared a bit due to having created a nice descant, so I might want to pick it out more, but the overall effect is pretty nice, and feels almost entirely plausible (one of the samples is repeatedly breathy which means I could tell it was a sample).

I've basically put the bones down and it needs a good tidy-up