Solo fatigue

I left 2.1.1 Cognition at the point where a solo synth line was needed.  That's fine and while looking through sounds on the softsynth I decided to try I came across a nice spacey waves-on-a-beach kind of sound too which I incorporated.

Soloing is one of those things that I have crises of confidence over, and especially now deep into a third instrumental album, and therefore with many solos down and still some to go, am I really keeping it fresh?  How do I find some new ideas?  Do I need to?  The solo this time seemed pretty typically "me" I guess. maybe I have a style and maybe that's acceptable.  Maybe not every solo needs to be ground-breaking.  At least this one was short.

Actually one thing I am exploring in solos is the "Modwheel" on the controller.  I'm still intending to get a better controller with many assignable knobs and sliders.  Maybe then I c an have a solo of one note and just twiddle the knobs.

As with everything, I guess I need to let it marinade and see how I feel about it later.

Filling the gap

Last time dear reader, we left off with just a couple of things to do to the Electricity sub-section (or is that sub-station?) - a synth solo and matching the end of the previous section with the beginning of this one. Both were done tonight.

The solo took a while, first of all I had to find the right sound.  I tried lots of sounds in the softsynth "Massive" at the weekend, but nothing seemed to fit.  Today I decided to try Pro-53 instead, and the first sound up was ideal.  Synthy and electric (to my ears).

Some days solo lines come easily, some days they are impossible, today was about half-way.  it took a while but i think I'm there, as usual the test of time will be applied.  Some of it was played, some of it was programmed.  I guess for me it is a bit more "normal" than the electric piano solo later in the same sub-section.  There was one particular line which I came up with which on playback seemed somewhat familiar, I realized I'd used it before.  When I played the whole thing back I found out where - in exactly the same position in the electric piano solo.  Not a problem.

Then came an interesting bit - matching the start with the previous end. Both were the same type of electric guitar, but it's in a part where nothing else is going on, and I basically had a precise gap of a few seconds in which to modulate from E to A with exact timing, but not to a rhythm.  it took a few goes to get the pacing right but it seems to have worked.