Category: Studio Diary (Page 4 of 23)

OMG THE NEW HOTNESS, IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE:

Seriously, it’s like some kind of Golden Age.

Recording vocal tracks is stressful. For a start, you want to be in “good voice” but at my age that doesn’t happen automatically. Then comes the worse part: reviewing numerous vocal takes, selecting the best ones. I don’t know anyone who likes listening to their own voice. I prefer not sounding like a robot, so pitch and timing tweaks need to be applied carefully and surgically, which is tedious.

On the plus side, the next stage of the process can be glorious, when the best lead and backing vocal takes are assembled, panned, mixed and additional fairy dust reverb applied… and it sounds amazing. (relatively)

It’s all very well going around saying, “the album is 75% completed” but that remaining 25% doesn’t write itself. I’m currently in that composition space trying to modulate from D to E in a creative way that uses motifs from the existing sections of music, and suffering from something akin to the TETRIS Effect in that all I can hear in my head is that really bad attempt that I practiced but now hate hate hate. I have the correct solution, I think, but all I can hear is that bad one. Distracting. Maddening. Maybe it’s actually the “advertising jingle effect”?

Progress is slow but there is progress. It’s Drum Week. Again. I’m replacing the guide drums on a track called “Enlightenment”. I don’t have the original MIDI, just a rendered stereo track of rather monotonous samples that was created by a lot of cut-n-paste back in the day. This allowed me to build up a pretty complete “demo” with keyboards, bass, guitar, vocals, etc… all sitting on this temporary drum track, which has to go. By playing along with a cut-down mix of bass plus a few keys, we can get some very nice results including a few creative tempo variations. Onward!

I’ve been experimenting with Overloud’s TH3 and I’m seriously considering re-wiring my bass in stereo.

Working on drum tracks here at Casa Prodigale.

As a diversion, here’s a fabulous live rendition of a song by Official Frost*; the music might not be to your taste but you have to admire the tight vocal harmonies, and that drum part! I’d say it is inspiring but mostly it is just sad how good it is. I can see why Steven Wilson snapped up Blunders for his live tour…

So much for keeping a regular Studio Diary… where did the time go?

In my defense I will say that the 2019 brought a long-awaited, real-world landscaping project into being, and that has taken a lot of attention.

On the other hand, since the last update I have completed two new tracks:

“The Toks Invade Bogland” was finished up last year and sounds pretty good. I’ve moved on to the song sequence titled “The God Program” and just finished up the first piece in the sequence, a solo piano overture of sorts, called “The Cathedral of Hosts”.

I really wanted to be able to perform the piano part right through from beginning to end, and to record a complete single take, and I almost did it. The truth is that I did end up tweaking a few bum notes (bad velocity). This took a lot of practice!

This quiet, contemplative track contains many musical themes and motifs that are expanded on in later sections of the song sequence:

The first sound you hear is the Roland VK8 keyboard, a “virtual clonewheel” that emulates a hammond organ. I’m using a shimmery patch as a background pad.

The piano is Modartt’s Pianoteq 4, using the “D4” model. The latest version of Pianoteq is actually 6, but they’ve tweaked the piano model and replaced it with a Steinway-endorsed “Steinway D” model. I tried using the more recent versions and ended up going back to version 4, which for some reason has a nicer character for this track.

At about 1:30 you can hear the FingerFiddle IOS app with which I perform the strings (violin and cello). This is a very cool app that requires a fair amount of practice to sound decent, almost like a “real” instrument.

At 1:55 there are some “Ahhh” vocals padding out the sound, and shortly after that a Marimba that is actually a combination of another instance of Modartt Pianoteq (version 6 this time) doubled with Native Instruments’ FM8 for extra DX7-ish bite.

The new DAW is running well. Cakewalk by Bandlab, the re-branded Digital Audio Workstation software formerly known as “SONAR” is probably the most stable it has ever been, with regular updates that focus on bug fixes rather than new features, although there are some of those as well.

Recommended, as ever.

Next: taking the demo of “Enlightenment”, the second part of God Program, and turning it into a finished track.

Onward!

I’ve shelved plans for Album #2 for now. Sometimes you have to follow the muse… and it can take you in odd directions. After some promising sessions of improvisation last week, I’m proud to announce my next project will be a progressive rock concept 2-disc album based on Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.