Well I've done some stuff which is mostly not directly making music. Most importantly I have been Tidying Up.
I have a nice little room here where I do my recording, it's really not possible to call it a studio, it's more of a box room. It houses the PC, a chair and a keyboard, and a guitar rack. Most of the other instruments are squirrelled away elsewhere. If I want other people to come into this room to do some music for me it needed to be a good sight more tidy than it was. It now is, 2 sessions of tidying, sorting and (shock) hoovering later and it is presentable. One more session should involve some reorganising, swapping a keyboard and installing the new printer (it's shiny) and we should be all done. My lovely wife has installed a blind so we can even shut the sun out on a sunny day.
The other thing I have done is some sound recording using a little "zoom" handheld audio recorder I borrowed from work. I have recorded quite a bit of the kids playing in various circumstances, and the ambience in church before a service, and the sound cars make as they go over the Ovingham bridge - a sound I want to use as the opening to A View To The Bridge.
Speaking of that section, the only bit of music I have done has been working on some brass stabbs at the beginning of the section (after the bridge moment) and which will be used as puctuation for the section.
So progress, but mostly not direct and totally not interesting.
Thursday, 27 September 2012
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Transference and basics
Well, dear blog-reader, we left off last time with some guest keyboards. In this session I took the keyboard MIDI parts from the project at 144bpm and transferred them to the one at 192bpm. There was a small problem in that all the MIDI on events had the same velocity (this sometimes happens in my setup) so I did some humanising, and a little bit of tweaking to manipulate the notes - shortening, lengthening and occasional timing (but hardly any, the notes were wonderfully consistent in timing!). All in all about an hour went into the importing process and then I added some more drums earlier on and then some bass. SOunds simple but it all takes time - I don't seem to have any juicy details to give you. That was the first session this afternoon, and that section is just about ready apart from some guest violin (I hope)
This evening I have worked on a different section, the first section of the album (probably) called "A View To The Bridge" (which is a play on the play entitled "A View From The Bridge" by Arthur Miller, and is a reference ot the fact that we can see Ovingham Bridge from our house, down the hill in the valley) This section is based on a bassline I have been playing with which I can best desctibe as "rich and fruity" - it's similar to one used on 11 Bells, but in 8/8 rather than 9/8. Kind of Funky. The whole section will be bass-focussed, and will feature "refrain" bits (using the aforementioned bass riff) and "other" bits where different styles are introduced. Probably Jazz, Reggae, Disco and spacey. Each time before the refrain there is a stabby bit such as James Brown might have used (brass) which I am going to use as a sort of "call to order" after going off-topic with the "other" bits.
Anyway, tonight I have done the bass for the refrain bits. It's not the easiest but I like it, it sounds nice. I'm actually (unusually) using the bass "naked" rather than sending it through Guitar rig, but I am using one of the rather more way-out guitar rig settings as a "send" (I bleed a little of the sound out to the effect instead of putting the whole thing through) which gives me background spacey weirdness, kind of like a delay crossed with a flanger, and almost exactly what I was hoping. The bass comes through clear but there are little twittery spaced-out echoing things happening like moths floating around. It's a beautiful thing!
So I'm done for the night.
This evening I have worked on a different section, the first section of the album (probably) called "A View To The Bridge" (which is a play on the play entitled "A View From The Bridge" by Arthur Miller, and is a reference ot the fact that we can see Ovingham Bridge from our house, down the hill in the valley) This section is based on a bassline I have been playing with which I can best desctibe as "rich and fruity" - it's similar to one used on 11 Bells, but in 8/8 rather than 9/8. Kind of Funky. The whole section will be bass-focussed, and will feature "refrain" bits (using the aforementioned bass riff) and "other" bits where different styles are introduced. Probably Jazz, Reggae, Disco and spacey. Each time before the refrain there is a stabby bit such as James Brown might have used (brass) which I am going to use as a sort of "call to order" after going off-topic with the "other" bits.
Anyway, tonight I have done the bass for the refrain bits. It's not the easiest but I like it, it sounds nice. I'm actually (unusually) using the bass "naked" rather than sending it through Guitar rig, but I am using one of the rather more way-out guitar rig settings as a "send" (I bleed a little of the sound out to the effect instead of putting the whole thing through) which gives me background spacey weirdness, kind of like a delay crossed with a flanger, and almost exactly what I was hoping. The bass comes through clear but there are little twittery spaced-out echoing things happening like moths floating around. It's a beautiful thing!
So I'm done for the night.
Monday, 27 August 2012
A Purple First
For the purple project I have had several principles that I have worked to. There are probably some I don't realise, but some of the ones that are deliberate include no singing (entirely instrumental, maybe some odd speech or SFX) and a focus on a certain kind of music. Another principle has been that I have done everything myself.
I have broken that principle. I intend to break it good and proper on this album and have guest musicians in several places. The first has actually happened - my wife has played some keyboards for me.
This is still working one the set of folk tunes (this section is taking some time) and I want alongside the mandolin to have accordion and fiddle. My wife did the tunes for me on a keyboard for the accordion sound. Accordion is one of those instruments where a MIDI keyboard and a sampler do a really realistic job, partly because it's a keyboard anyway on a piano accordion so it sounds like it's played naturally. You can't get so much nuance of squeezing pressure but these are fast tunes anyway.
My one-handed jeyboard playing is not too bad, and I could ahve learned to play them myself, but my wife is a proper piano player, and significantly for this is good at the changing hand position thing - these tunes have lots of that and that was what I was finding difficult.
Anyway that's it for this session
I have broken that principle. I intend to break it good and proper on this album and have guest musicians in several places. The first has actually happened - my wife has played some keyboards for me.
This is still working one the set of folk tunes (this section is taking some time) and I want alongside the mandolin to have accordion and fiddle. My wife did the tunes for me on a keyboard for the accordion sound. Accordion is one of those instruments where a MIDI keyboard and a sampler do a really realistic job, partly because it's a keyboard anyway on a piano accordion so it sounds like it's played naturally. You can't get so much nuance of squeezing pressure but these are fast tunes anyway.
My one-handed jeyboard playing is not too bad, and I could ahve learned to play them myself, but my wife is a proper piano player, and significantly for this is good at the changing hand position thing - these tunes have lots of that and that was what I was finding difficult.
Anyway that's it for this session
Friday, 24 August 2012
The Bad Blogger
That's me - I've not been as good as I could be in my blogging - I have had a couple more sessions on the music - three I think since I last blogged. I have been working on the same section - the folk tunes.
Session 1: I have firstly added some strummed mandolin, and some strummed and picked acoustic guitar to the first tune (The Beech Grove), and some strummed Mandolin to the last tune (Bob's Your Auntie). I did this "at speed" (192bpm)
Session 2: I added some electric guitar - heavy rock overdriven guitar to the second tune (Daisy Chain) and that continues into the 3rd tune, but after the first time though changes to a less rough "skaga" sound (like slow Ska). The middle tune is going to be pretty heavy rock. This also was all done "at speed".
Session 3: Drums. First of all I spent some time choosing an appropriate rock drum kit sound, and then I programmed drums for tunes 2 and 3. Tune 2 is heavy drumming, starting with tom fills (I extended the number of toms in the kit for this), then stabby kits to go with the chords I ahd recorded and finally becoming a fairly consistent heavy rock beat. What makes it heavy rock? Well the pattern for one, but I also have discovered that half-open hi-hat gives a loose rawness to a rock pattern (it's something one of the drummers did in church one Sunday). Lo and behold, combine that with the guitar and it sounds pretty rock-like, which is interesting when the tune us being played on mandolin - in fact it' s coming out as a nice rock/folk hybrid right now. Moving into tune 3 the drumming tightens and lightens somewhat, switching to ride cymbal to give a more "rolling" feel (that's what I always feel about ride cymbals instead of hi-hat, they make the sound push on or roll along better, possibly from association with swing jazz), and then into the second time through switching to a light reggae-like beat to go with the skaga guitar. This is turning into something altogether interesting, a coming together of Ska and Folk - unlikely combination I know.
A really standard rock beat in 4/4 is to play bass drum on beat 1, snare on beat 3 and hi-hat on all 4 beats. There are lots of variations and stuff but that's the basic "back-beat" rhythm. To get a "light reggae feel" like I described above I basically use the same thing, but the hi-hat only plays on beats 2 and 4. This give a completely different bouncy feel (and is really easy).
Now all of the drumming here has been programmed so far, so I have been through doing some humanising of volume, I will also (but have not yet done so) "humanise" further by introducing slight variations in the positions of the beats. Cubase can do that for me with random variations (not enough to make it feel wrong, but enough to loose the metronome-like feel that programmed drums can give)
Session 1: I have firstly added some strummed mandolin, and some strummed and picked acoustic guitar to the first tune (The Beech Grove), and some strummed Mandolin to the last tune (Bob's Your Auntie). I did this "at speed" (192bpm)
Session 2: I added some electric guitar - heavy rock overdriven guitar to the second tune (Daisy Chain) and that continues into the 3rd tune, but after the first time though changes to a less rough "skaga" sound (like slow Ska). The middle tune is going to be pretty heavy rock. This also was all done "at speed".
Session 3: Drums. First of all I spent some time choosing an appropriate rock drum kit sound, and then I programmed drums for tunes 2 and 3. Tune 2 is heavy drumming, starting with tom fills (I extended the number of toms in the kit for this), then stabby kits to go with the chords I ahd recorded and finally becoming a fairly consistent heavy rock beat. What makes it heavy rock? Well the pattern for one, but I also have discovered that half-open hi-hat gives a loose rawness to a rock pattern (it's something one of the drummers did in church one Sunday). Lo and behold, combine that with the guitar and it sounds pretty rock-like, which is interesting when the tune us being played on mandolin - in fact it' s coming out as a nice rock/folk hybrid right now. Moving into tune 3 the drumming tightens and lightens somewhat, switching to ride cymbal to give a more "rolling" feel (that's what I always feel about ride cymbals instead of hi-hat, they make the sound push on or roll along better, possibly from association with swing jazz), and then into the second time through switching to a light reggae-like beat to go with the skaga guitar. This is turning into something altogether interesting, a coming together of Ska and Folk - unlikely combination I know.
A really standard rock beat in 4/4 is to play bass drum on beat 1, snare on beat 3 and hi-hat on all 4 beats. There are lots of variations and stuff but that's the basic "back-beat" rhythm. To get a "light reggae feel" like I described above I basically use the same thing, but the hi-hat only plays on beats 2 and 4. This give a completely different bouncy feel (and is really easy).
Now all of the drumming here has been programmed so far, so I have been through doing some humanising of volume, I will also (but have not yet done so) "humanise" further by introducing slight variations in the positions of the beats. Cubase can do that for me with random variations (not enough to make it feel wrong, but enough to loose the metronome-like feel that programmed drums can give)
Friday, 10 August 2012
Tunes from the garden
Not a lot has been done on the music in the last couple of weeks - but there has been some progress.
The first important thing to tell you is that I got a mandolin at Christmas. I have played it for real a few times now in the ceilidh band I am in, and I am not doing too badly with it. It is after all strings, frets and familiar stuff like that. It is tuned differently to a guitar, which makes the adjustment interesting (it's actually tuned like a violin) and I have started to work out some tunes on it.
So I have written a few tunes on it - broadly ceilidh-type (folk) tunes, most definitely suited to the mandolin of course. On BODY:MIND:SPIRIT I had a section which was three ceilidh tunes I had written, and would like to repeat the feat. I wrote the first one and half of the second one day while in the garden with the family. My wife suggested I called the first tune "The Beech Grove" which is a nod to a famous tune called "The Ash Grove". Nice naming. I have named the second "Daisy Chain", partly because we were making a daisy chain when I stated writing it, partly as a reference to my daughter's middle name (Daisy) and partly because it's a round of sorts.
The third tune was written more over the past couple of weeks, mostly in the Sitting room while twiddling. I wondered about calling it "Peggy-Oh" or even "Our Peggy-Oh" because it has a lot of arpeggios in it, but have decided to call it after my sister-in-law who has been staying with us for most of the time while it has been written, so it is called "Bob's Your Auntie".
"Daisy Chain" has had a lot of work done on it to make it work properly as a chain/round - initially I wanted it so it could change harmony as it progressed - it doesn't really do that, I think because it was too hard a thing to attempt. I still quite like it though.
And some work has been done towards recording, namely I think I have the mandolin parts down. I have cheated, in that I recorded it at 144bmp and have sped it up to 192bpm which is quite a lick, but sounds good, It also helps me fit all three tunes into 4 minutes. I got a surprise when I found the tunes were of different lengths, but that's all good actually. I did all of the recording so far to a click track, with many, many takes (the hardest bit is the last line of "Bob's Your Auntie" - it doesn't have the most notes but it has the most string changes). I have pretty much mapped out how the three tunes are realized over the four minutes. I will also have in accordion, and I hope violin. This will be the first time Purple has used other musicians, but I am hoping to use a fiddle player from the ceilidh band. Oh and there is the small matter of accompaniment to sort out.
All this will be the last section in the track that's all about my home life, broadly because it's tunes written at home.
The first important thing to tell you is that I got a mandolin at Christmas. I have played it for real a few times now in the ceilidh band I am in, and I am not doing too badly with it. It is after all strings, frets and familiar stuff like that. It is tuned differently to a guitar, which makes the adjustment interesting (it's actually tuned like a violin) and I have started to work out some tunes on it.
So I have written a few tunes on it - broadly ceilidh-type (folk) tunes, most definitely suited to the mandolin of course. On BODY:MIND:SPIRIT I had a section which was three ceilidh tunes I had written, and would like to repeat the feat. I wrote the first one and half of the second one day while in the garden with the family. My wife suggested I called the first tune "The Beech Grove" which is a nod to a famous tune called "The Ash Grove". Nice naming. I have named the second "Daisy Chain", partly because we were making a daisy chain when I stated writing it, partly as a reference to my daughter's middle name (Daisy) and partly because it's a round of sorts.
The third tune was written more over the past couple of weeks, mostly in the Sitting room while twiddling. I wondered about calling it "Peggy-Oh" or even "Our Peggy-Oh" because it has a lot of arpeggios in it, but have decided to call it after my sister-in-law who has been staying with us for most of the time while it has been written, so it is called "Bob's Your Auntie".
"Daisy Chain" has had a lot of work done on it to make it work properly as a chain/round - initially I wanted it so it could change harmony as it progressed - it doesn't really do that, I think because it was too hard a thing to attempt. I still quite like it though.
And some work has been done towards recording, namely I think I have the mandolin parts down. I have cheated, in that I recorded it at 144bmp and have sped it up to 192bpm which is quite a lick, but sounds good, It also helps me fit all three tunes into 4 minutes. I got a surprise when I found the tunes were of different lengths, but that's all good actually. I did all of the recording so far to a click track, with many, many takes (the hardest bit is the last line of "Bob's Your Auntie" - it doesn't have the most notes but it has the most string changes). I have pretty much mapped out how the three tunes are realized over the four minutes. I will also have in accordion, and I hope violin. This will be the first time Purple has used other musicians, but I am hoping to use a fiddle player from the ceilidh band. Oh and there is the small matter of accompaniment to sort out.
All this will be the last section in the track that's all about my home life, broadly because it's tunes written at home.
Monday, 23 July 2012
Fisrt section "done"
...Well "done" is of course a relative term, done subject to me deciding it's good enough, that bits of it don't need re-doing and any changes that need making so that it integrates with the sections before and after it, and of course it is not properly mastered at all. I'm going to have to say this every time I get to this stage with anything so please take it as read that "done" means stage 1 is done and it is by no means finished.
However, excitingly, I think I can post it in here in a lovely widget so you can hear it...
Hmm it doesn't seem to be playing in the preview, hopefully that's just because it's a preview. Look, in case I've not got this technology going properly yet, there is also a link to it here.
So what have I been doing in this session? Lead guitar playing of the final verse and outro. Many, many takes (about 1.5 hours-worth) to get it "just right", especially focussing on getting it expressive, which I'd like to think it pretty much is. My fingers hurt but it's worth it.
I'm happy to read any comments on it from anybody, the point of posting it up is to get feedback, give me the benefit of your ears people, be part of the process :)
However, excitingly, I think I can post it in here in a lovely widget so you can hear it...
Hmm it doesn't seem to be playing in the preview, hopefully that's just because it's a preview. Look, in case I've not got this technology going properly yet, there is also a link to it here.
a So what have I been doing in this session? Lead guitar playing of the final verse and outro. Many, many takes (about 1.5 hours-worth) to get it "just right", especially focussing on getting it expressive, which I'd like to think it pretty much is. My fingers hurt but it's worth it.
I'm happy to read any comments on it from anybody, the point of posting it up is to get feedback, give me the benefit of your ears people, be part of the process :)
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Getting into the swing
So I've had a bit more happen on this section, and should be not too far off giving you lovely nonexistant readers something that you can not comment on.
I've started with the tune (Water is wide/when I survey) on the electric guitar, I have 3 verses down and 1 to go. For the reason that it just happened this way, the tune was the first thing down, but this is OK (I did it to a click track) because the tune is the focus. The real reason I haven't done the last verse, is because at the end of it there is some "noodling" to be done to fill up the 4 minutes of time, and I find noodling hard to do without the chords in the backing.
So the next thing into the mix is some electric piano. There is a huge variety of sounds you can get in an electric piano, and I'm not a great expert, but this is what I think of as a "plummy" sound - deep and mellow but with a slight edge. I played it using the keyboard (rather than programming it) and it took many, many takes to get it right. I basically did the first verse with it.
Then the drums - now these are sampled and I did program them. I do have an electronic kit but my confidence with it is a bit low at the moment, so I may get into the live playing later. I'm using a sampled kit I've used quite a few times in the past, a "pop kit" which has a nice, meaty bass drum, and the drumming is pretty simple. The drums come in in the second verse, and then the third verse pulls back right down to a bass drum kick (this is a very quiet verse). I need to do something to it to get deep reverb in that verse.
So then came the electric piano for the 2nd verse, which I did separate hands on separate tracks. I might change my mind later, but right now I am thinking I am going to as much as possible completely demistify the process of recording. I use a lot of "tricks" to produce things that I couldn't do "for real". In my defence I (so far) do it all myself, and if you are going to complain that any kind of "trick" is cheating, you need to draw a line somewhere? I mean, is taking several takes cheating? Is overdubbing cheating? My philosophy is I will do anything in my ability to produce something that sounds good and that I am proud of. I don't consider myself a virtuoso on any instrument, but my abilities include quite a variety of recording tricks. I wouldn't want to program everything as that tends to sound quite antiseptic, and I am aiming for a more organic sound. I guess my reluctance to reveal how I do things comes from a desire for people to think I'm a better musician than I really am.
Then came acoustic guitars, verse 2, as often is the case, one for each ear. A few takes (not many)
And then paddy strings. Despite being a fan of such things generally, I don't seem to use them often. I think there is the danger of things becoming too saccharin, and so they need to be used carefully, but I have been listening to a lot of ELO recently (somewhat depressing from the recording point of view because they were so carefully engineered!) and so maybe that has brought string parts to mind more than usual.
Now I've got a problem with the track that I have been wondering what to do about. I'm using Guitar Rig to get the guitar sound, which basically is this amazingly versatile piece of software - you plug your guitar in and it simulates a wide range of effects, amps, speakers and microphone setups. It's one of those "where on earth do I start?" things because there is so much variety and versatility. The thing is, it's simulation is so realistic, that if you choose a noisy "amp" it simulates the noise as well - even in the quiet bits when you are not playing. The sound I have got for the lead guitar is well noisy, It's not too bad when lots of other thigns are playing, but when you want a quiet verse that pulls back to almost nothing, and you play really quietly, the noise is... annoying. It turns out though that even a very quiet bit of strings backing as I played it is at just the right frequencies to mask the noise. Result!. I am probably therefore going to leave the string backing in all of the three verses I have so far.
And that's where I'm up to - I'm about to start another session so there should be more soon. The other thing to say is that I was in am usic shop today, and was trying out a rather nice Ibanez electro-classical guitar. and I have guitar envy. It did have a problem, one of the strings was buzzing, but a plug-in classical is one of the two remaining guitars I am craving, the other is an electrified Dobro. Anyway, I bought a kazoo. I bought a kazoo for the last album but it got very lost somewhere.
I've started with the tune (Water is wide/when I survey) on the electric guitar, I have 3 verses down and 1 to go. For the reason that it just happened this way, the tune was the first thing down, but this is OK (I did it to a click track) because the tune is the focus. The real reason I haven't done the last verse, is because at the end of it there is some "noodling" to be done to fill up the 4 minutes of time, and I find noodling hard to do without the chords in the backing.
So the next thing into the mix is some electric piano. There is a huge variety of sounds you can get in an electric piano, and I'm not a great expert, but this is what I think of as a "plummy" sound - deep and mellow but with a slight edge. I played it using the keyboard (rather than programming it) and it took many, many takes to get it right. I basically did the first verse with it.
Then the drums - now these are sampled and I did program them. I do have an electronic kit but my confidence with it is a bit low at the moment, so I may get into the live playing later. I'm using a sampled kit I've used quite a few times in the past, a "pop kit" which has a nice, meaty bass drum, and the drumming is pretty simple. The drums come in in the second verse, and then the third verse pulls back right down to a bass drum kick (this is a very quiet verse). I need to do something to it to get deep reverb in that verse.
So then came the electric piano for the 2nd verse, which I did separate hands on separate tracks. I might change my mind later, but right now I am thinking I am going to as much as possible completely demistify the process of recording. I use a lot of "tricks" to produce things that I couldn't do "for real". In my defence I (so far) do it all myself, and if you are going to complain that any kind of "trick" is cheating, you need to draw a line somewhere? I mean, is taking several takes cheating? Is overdubbing cheating? My philosophy is I will do anything in my ability to produce something that sounds good and that I am proud of. I don't consider myself a virtuoso on any instrument, but my abilities include quite a variety of recording tricks. I wouldn't want to program everything as that tends to sound quite antiseptic, and I am aiming for a more organic sound. I guess my reluctance to reveal how I do things comes from a desire for people to think I'm a better musician than I really am.
Then came acoustic guitars, verse 2, as often is the case, one for each ear. A few takes (not many)
And then paddy strings. Despite being a fan of such things generally, I don't seem to use them often. I think there is the danger of things becoming too saccharin, and so they need to be used carefully, but I have been listening to a lot of ELO recently (somewhat depressing from the recording point of view because they were so carefully engineered!) and so maybe that has brought string parts to mind more than usual.
Now I've got a problem with the track that I have been wondering what to do about. I'm using Guitar Rig to get the guitar sound, which basically is this amazingly versatile piece of software - you plug your guitar in and it simulates a wide range of effects, amps, speakers and microphone setups. It's one of those "where on earth do I start?" things because there is so much variety and versatility. The thing is, it's simulation is so realistic, that if you choose a noisy "amp" it simulates the noise as well - even in the quiet bits when you are not playing. The sound I have got for the lead guitar is well noisy, It's not too bad when lots of other thigns are playing, but when you want a quiet verse that pulls back to almost nothing, and you play really quietly, the noise is... annoying. It turns out though that even a very quiet bit of strings backing as I played it is at just the right frequencies to mask the noise. Result!. I am probably therefore going to leave the string backing in all of the three verses I have so far.
And that's where I'm up to - I'm about to start another session so there should be more soon. The other thing to say is that I was in am usic shop today, and was trying out a rather nice Ibanez electro-classical guitar. and I have guitar envy. It did have a problem, one of the strings was buzzing, but a plug-in classical is one of the two remaining guitars I am craving, the other is an electrified Dobro. Anyway, I bought a kazoo. I bought a kazoo for the last album but it got very lost somewhere.
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