After a several month hiatus, I'm back with a new tune: 44 Magnum Love
For some reason I developed a minor obsession with the .44 magnum so what better way to nurse the obsession than write a song about it. I do the "singing" in the best backwoods drawl I can muster. The character is rather despicable but he gets what's coming to him. For the song I recorded an actual .44 magnum revolver. In the beginning there's the sound of the hammer cocking. At the end is the gunshot itself.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Remote Possibility - Canis Horribillis
The latest output of Remote Possibility, Canis Horribillis, started out as an early instrumental effort of the virtual band called "Ummmm," which has some trippy xylophone and percussion effects and a compelling, if innovatively tuned, guitar riff by Vincent Knobil. But the ever churning mind of Matt Love, aka IcePac, dreamt up some lyrics for the tune - kind of mixture of "Hell Hound on my Trail" and "Knick Knack Paddy Wack" - and shopped it around for contributors.
To make a long story short, in this particular version (others may be forthcoming), I "sing" the main vocals, using my best western drawl. I also played the drums. A woman calling herself Liza did a test recording which I used snippets of in the beginning. The stars of the show, however, in my opinion, are the saxophone tracks provided by Ryan Ray. He rips a crazy solo near the end of the tune followed by some wonderful vamping against the percussion at the very end.
Mixing the song was a challenge. I had to do a lot of tinkering to get everything synced up and find a reasonable balance. I experimented with synth effects and creative EQ but was never happy with anything that I tried so I ended up using little in the way of effects except adding some reverb and touch of compression on the drum track. I dinked around with adding a bass line but couldn't come up with anything that sounded decent or didn't muddy things up.
To make a long story short, in this particular version (others may be forthcoming), I "sing" the main vocals, using my best western drawl. I also played the drums. A woman calling herself Liza did a test recording which I used snippets of in the beginning. The stars of the show, however, in my opinion, are the saxophone tracks provided by Ryan Ray. He rips a crazy solo near the end of the tune followed by some wonderful vamping against the percussion at the very end.
Mixing the song was a challenge. I had to do a lot of tinkering to get everything synced up and find a reasonable balance. I experimented with synth effects and creative EQ but was never happy with anything that I tried so I ended up using little in the way of effects except adding some reverb and touch of compression on the drum track. I dinked around with adding a bass line but couldn't come up with anything that sounded decent or didn't muddy things up.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Walking the Crags
Here's a simple tune I call Walking the Crags. It started out, as usual, as an exploration of various chords on virtual piano where I came up with a back-and-forth triplets riff using E flat and A flat minor ninths. Per my MO, I used the chords to create a scale with interweaving clarinet and vibraphone solos. The drums are minimal but live, I played them straight through and there's no editing. It's pretty soft groove and I was going for a nice airy sound with the cymbals. The biggest challenge was to get the bass to sit right in the mix.
Technically, the new thing here is a stereo pan plugin I downloaded free. It offers more control than Logic's default panning knobs and allows you to get the various voices in a more focused position in the stereo field. Otherwise, there's nothing fancy going on here..
Technically, the new thing here is a stereo pan plugin I downloaded free. It offers more control than Logic's default panning knobs and allows you to get the various voices in a more focused position in the stereo field. Otherwise, there's nothing fancy going on here..
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Dance Charybdis
Awhile ago I read a prose translation of the Odyssey by T.E. Lawrence. In it Odysseus has to sail between Scylla, a multi-headed giant snake/lizard thing, and Charybdis, a sea monster who sucks ships into her maw by creating a giant whirlpool. I got it into my head of a modern day ship encountering Charybdis which inspired my new song, Dance Charybdis.
Musically it's quite simple. It starts out with two notes back and forth, D and Bb, then goes to a four note sequence, D, Bb, G and A. (Near the end I add F# and Eb for some dissonance). Sonically, it's complex because there is so much sound and I'm using a lot of reverb, phase and amplifier effects. It was tricky to get the balance right and not get too much clip distortion.
It's a horror tune, I suppose, and the idea was to be ominous and scary. I've been pecking away at this thing for three months and I'm still not sure it's right but I decided I needed to put it to bed. The narrative image of the song is a freighter chugging along, encountering Charybdis's whirlpool and trying to escape its current. I use quite a few different intermingled voices representing the ship and the monster.
Musically it's quite simple. It starts out with two notes back and forth, D and Bb, then goes to a four note sequence, D, Bb, G and A. (Near the end I add F# and Eb for some dissonance). Sonically, it's complex because there is so much sound and I'm using a lot of reverb, phase and amplifier effects. It was tricky to get the balance right and not get too much clip distortion.
It's a horror tune, I suppose, and the idea was to be ominous and scary. I've been pecking away at this thing for three months and I'm still not sure it's right but I decided I needed to put it to bed. The narrative image of the song is a freighter chugging along, encountering Charybdis's whirlpool and trying to escape its current. I use quite a few different intermingled voices representing the ship and the monster.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Grozny Gamble
Grozny Gamble is a tune I produced about a year ago. I was dinking around with a Middle Eastern percussion software kit and I was coming up with some rhythms I liked that had a near eastern feel to them. I started imagining a little combo playing in a coffee shop some place and opted for a zither and flute to carry the lead and chords, and an oud to carry the low end. Looking for something to name the song after, I found Grozny on the map and "Grozny Gamble" had a nice ring to it.
Backgammon is a popular game in that part of the world so it occurred to me to open the song with dice rolling. To achieve the effect I used a felt-lined guitar case and suspended two microphones above it about two feet apart. I recorded several dice rolls (and the shaking of the dice in leather cup) and picked the version that sounded best. Because of the two mics and their position above the board I was able to achieve the effect of dice rolling across the sound stage (between the stereo speakers).
Most of my time was spent sequencing the percussion. I wanted to give it a natural, dynamic feel. Tinkering around with one of the oud's bass lines, I discovered I got a nice ominous sound with a synthesized bass played an octave lower. With that the idea occurred to me to transition from a kind of acoustic belly-dancing theme to a heavy techno sound. The scene I imagined was man moving from the combo playing inside to a war-torn environment outside. Grozny is a very war-torn city. The transition from inside to outside is done in a slow fade-out/fade-in. The Oud gradually turns into the synthesized bass and the percussion morphs into pulsing techno with a gun-cocking sort of back beat. I then introduce distorted, metallic versions of the zither and flute.
Backgammon is a popular game in that part of the world so it occurred to me to open the song with dice rolling. To achieve the effect I used a felt-lined guitar case and suspended two microphones above it about two feet apart. I recorded several dice rolls (and the shaking of the dice in leather cup) and picked the version that sounded best. Because of the two mics and their position above the board I was able to achieve the effect of dice rolling across the sound stage (between the stereo speakers).
Most of my time was spent sequencing the percussion. I wanted to give it a natural, dynamic feel. Tinkering around with one of the oud's bass lines, I discovered I got a nice ominous sound with a synthesized bass played an octave lower. With that the idea occurred to me to transition from a kind of acoustic belly-dancing theme to a heavy techno sound. The scene I imagined was man moving from the combo playing inside to a war-torn environment outside. Grozny is a very war-torn city. The transition from inside to outside is done in a slow fade-out/fade-in. The Oud gradually turns into the synthesized bass and the percussion morphs into pulsing techno with a gun-cocking sort of back beat. I then introduce distorted, metallic versions of the zither and flute.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Let the Crow Soar
Let the Crow Soar represents my singing debut (no laughing allowed). The title is a play on the former Attorney General John Ashcroft's Let the Eagle Soar but the resemblance to that classic stops there. It's just that I thought crows needed a song too. Why should eagles get all the glory. My crow actually doesn't do much soaring, mostly he grabs shiny objects and pecks at roadkill but, hey, that's what crows do.
Before this tune, I hadn't attempted to sing anything since, like, grade school (not even karaoke). So I used every trick I could think of to make my voice at least listenable. I have an electric piano backing the vocals note for note to help with the illusion that I'm hitting the notes (or at least near missing). I've also pumped the vocal track through a software amp, eq'd out some of the low end and added compression and reverb. I just got a new reverb plugin for Logic from a company called Wave Arts. It sounds pretty good. In this case, I was going for an outdoor feel and I wanted to keep it rough on the edges.
Another thing I did to get the best vocal performance possible was to sing one line at a time. I would loop the backing tracks, sing the same line about a dozen times and pick the one that sounded best. Then I pieced the lines together.
The other melodic elements are electric guitar, bass and electric piano. I spent considerable time working on the sound. I wanted each to retain some kind of character of a crow squawk. The electric guitar, however, is the real squawker.
I brought in a couple of friends, Kim and Greg, to sing backup vocals. After a few glasses of wine, I managed to get some pretty good stuff from them. No golden voices but this isn't a song for golden voices.
I built the song around a couple of drum loops, but once it was arranged, I played the drums straight through. Admittedly I did a little splicing and editing but mostly it's a single performance.
Here are the lyrics:
Black, black in flight
A shadow in the air
Here it comes, diving down
Snatch that ribbon from her hair
On the wing, pressing up
A talon clutching gold
Flying high, headed home
But there’s something in the road
A plunge, a swoop, a dip
Alighting on the ground
Pecking flattened furry meat
Dancing all around
With a steel smile and glowing eyes
A roaring monster comes
Flapping hard, a blast of smoke
The crow was nearly done
Chorus:
Tumble, flail, squawk
Rolling in the wind
Tumble, flail, squawk
The crow takes flight again
Refrain: Pecking flattened furry meat, dancing all around
Before this tune, I hadn't attempted to sing anything since, like, grade school (not even karaoke). So I used every trick I could think of to make my voice at least listenable. I have an electric piano backing the vocals note for note to help with the illusion that I'm hitting the notes (or at least near missing). I've also pumped the vocal track through a software amp, eq'd out some of the low end and added compression and reverb. I just got a new reverb plugin for Logic from a company called Wave Arts. It sounds pretty good. In this case, I was going for an outdoor feel and I wanted to keep it rough on the edges.
Another thing I did to get the best vocal performance possible was to sing one line at a time. I would loop the backing tracks, sing the same line about a dozen times and pick the one that sounded best. Then I pieced the lines together.
The other melodic elements are electric guitar, bass and electric piano. I spent considerable time working on the sound. I wanted each to retain some kind of character of a crow squawk. The electric guitar, however, is the real squawker.
I brought in a couple of friends, Kim and Greg, to sing backup vocals. After a few glasses of wine, I managed to get some pretty good stuff from them. No golden voices but this isn't a song for golden voices.
I built the song around a couple of drum loops, but once it was arranged, I played the drums straight through. Admittedly I did a little splicing and editing but mostly it's a single performance.
Here are the lyrics:
Black, black in flight
A shadow in the air
Here it comes, diving down
Snatch that ribbon from her hair
On the wing, pressing up
A talon clutching gold
Flying high, headed home
But there’s something in the road
A plunge, a swoop, a dip
Alighting on the ground
Pecking flattened furry meat
Dancing all around
With a steel smile and glowing eyes
A roaring monster comes
Flapping hard, a blast of smoke
The crow was nearly done
Chorus:
Tumble, flail, squawk
Rolling in the wind
Tumble, flail, squawk
The crow takes flight again
Refrain: Pecking flattened furry meat, dancing all around
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Din Don Dub
Taking a little break from yacking about my stuff ...
One of the great things about archive.org is the serendipitous chancing upon some hidden gem. (Although this is getting more difficult as the amount of stuff being uploaded has become so vast and the browsing capabilities of the site are limited.) One such gem is a tune called Din Don Dub, a wonderfully layered combination of nature sounds and electronic effects. It has a slow-paced, syncopated rhythm. It sounds as if the audio signal of much of the drums and other elements is reversed. Sometimes that technique comes across as gimmicky but here it works to excellent effect, giving the song a non-human yet organic feel.
There's no information on the artist, Gery Petit. The CC license is French and a quickie Google search reveals that maybe he's music producer in the French film industry.
Beautiful, hypnotic and haunting, I think the tune touches something that's difficult to describe. Enjoy.
One of the great things about archive.org is the serendipitous chancing upon some hidden gem. (Although this is getting more difficult as the amount of stuff being uploaded has become so vast and the browsing capabilities of the site are limited.) One such gem is a tune called Din Don Dub, a wonderfully layered combination of nature sounds and electronic effects. It has a slow-paced, syncopated rhythm. It sounds as if the audio signal of much of the drums and other elements is reversed. Sometimes that technique comes across as gimmicky but here it works to excellent effect, giving the song a non-human yet organic feel.
There's no information on the artist, Gery Petit. The CC license is French and a quickie Google search reveals that maybe he's music producer in the French film industry.
Beautiful, hypnotic and haunting, I think the tune touches something that's difficult to describe. Enjoy.
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