This week's track is more of an experiment in using some new tech then art, but despite having started work on it just yesterday I'm pretty happy with the outcome.
I'm doing a few things here that I've never really done before.... the first is using a vocoder for 99% of the vocals. I finally have a vocoder that's not a free shareware download that sounds like a toaster vomiting, so I thought I'd spend some time on figuring out how to make it sound pro. You tell me if I pulled it off. Vocoders are about 1000x more complicated than I thought they would be, and are hard as hell to get sounding right.
The other thing I'm doing is what's called "Sidechain compression", and apparently every DJ, producer, electronic musician and bum living in the park has heard of this except me. Ready for a lesson? Well, it's coming anyway.
"Sidechain" compression is used to create an effect called "ducking". "Ducking" is a method of isolating a kick drum that is used in virtually every track intended for a dance floor since the early 1990's. I believe Daft Punk was the first band to try it. What it does is take a carrier wave (say, a kick drum), and then drops the volume of everything else in the song when that carrier is happening. This causes whatever you're "ducking" to suddenly pop out of the mix regardless of what else is going on. This is how people make those huge KICK KICK KICK KICK's that never drop out even when the song gets really busy, and is something I really wish I'd taken the time to learn before I published the album, as it's pretty fucking handy. Ben actually mentioned it to me a year ago and I just chalked it up to more crazy Ben talk, like all his rambling about "particle physics" and "string theory" and all that other made up nonsense.
This song is basically a total rip off of various Necessary Response / Aesthetic Perfection tracks, but hell, I had 10 hours. Sue me.
The incredibly deep lyrics that I typed out in 15 minutes, if anyone cares, are:
it's been a thousand years
since I've
become this machine
time is god's
weapon poised to
strike
ruin everything
you are his
synthesizer
playing
divine apathy
I'd sell
a thousand souls
if I
could feel anything
time
is the great destroyer
exterminating
everything
time
is the equalizer
exterminating
everything
you
are reduced to nothing
just like everything that came before
ash to ash and dust to dust
no kinder meaning
no faith restored
laugh while
you can still take breath
the clock will have it in the end
no kinder meaning
no faith restored
the ground our last and final friend
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Calm the f*ck down!
I've never been good at relaxing. Case in point, I know that I have two roommates but every time I turn around and one of them happens to be standing behind me within 10 yards I always jump at least two feet in the air. Gives them no end of pleasure, but probably not so great for my heart.
Yes. I'm basically one giant tightly wound nerve 99% of the time, which is why most of the music I write tends toward the more aggressive, in-your-face variety. I like to think of the process of bringing an idea to fruition the same way I would the process of... say, wrestling a bear to the ground. Then beating it into submission. Then calling everyone I know and telling them about it, because hey, I just TKOed a fucking bear!
In order to expand my horizons this time I've decided to write this down-tempo ambient number, "Tens10n", suitable for the 100's of taxi listings for "music needed for TV - down-tempo ambient numbers!". If the idea of this song being written strictly for cash turns you off a little, allow me to enlighten you as to my process for writing this.
I focused on the one romantic moment in my life that is the only time I can actually remember experiencing that "slow motion, time standing still" effect that so overused on television and in the movies... and I mean, REALLY experiencing it... I was 17 and dating this girl I was completely in love with, and hadn't even kissed her although we'd been seeing each other for more than 2 months. Yes, I was incredibly awkward and shy back then (shock! surprise!). Stop laughing and I'll continue... okay, so we're on the way home from a wonderful dinner at the Montage here in Portland and my car breaks down in the middle of the Morrison bridge. I can't get it started again, and, this being like the fifth time this has happened during the trip was too infuriated to do anything but suggest we get out of the freaking car for awhile. We stood there in the middle of the bridge, totally alone in the middle of a perfectly clear spring evening in this new city (you have to realize Portland was still mysterious and exciting to our youthful Salem-bound selves) looking out over the water and the reflected city lights, and when we finally turned toward each other time literally STRETCHED out like a gooey stick of caramel at the fair and we were staring into each other's eyes and then...
Nothing. We got back in the car and went home. I'm a giant douche.
Thinking of that moment I wrote this song... it builds and it builds and I feel like it's on the brink of capturing that perfect moment leading up to... well, nothing. But that's the point this time, it's supposed to be ambient, not bombastic.
Enjoy.
Yes. I'm basically one giant tightly wound nerve 99% of the time, which is why most of the music I write tends toward the more aggressive, in-your-face variety. I like to think of the process of bringing an idea to fruition the same way I would the process of... say, wrestling a bear to the ground. Then beating it into submission. Then calling everyone I know and telling them about it, because hey, I just TKOed a fucking bear!
In order to expand my horizons this time I've decided to write this down-tempo ambient number, "Tens10n", suitable for the 100's of taxi listings for "music needed for TV - down-tempo ambient numbers!". If the idea of this song being written strictly for cash turns you off a little, allow me to enlighten you as to my process for writing this.
I focused on the one romantic moment in my life that is the only time I can actually remember experiencing that "slow motion, time standing still" effect that so overused on television and in the movies... and I mean, REALLY experiencing it... I was 17 and dating this girl I was completely in love with, and hadn't even kissed her although we'd been seeing each other for more than 2 months. Yes, I was incredibly awkward and shy back then (shock! surprise!). Stop laughing and I'll continue... okay, so we're on the way home from a wonderful dinner at the Montage here in Portland and my car breaks down in the middle of the Morrison bridge. I can't get it started again, and, this being like the fifth time this has happened during the trip was too infuriated to do anything but suggest we get out of the freaking car for awhile. We stood there in the middle of the bridge, totally alone in the middle of a perfectly clear spring evening in this new city (you have to realize Portland was still mysterious and exciting to our youthful Salem-bound selves) looking out over the water and the reflected city lights, and when we finally turned toward each other time literally STRETCHED out like a gooey stick of caramel at the fair and we were staring into each other's eyes and then...
Nothing. We got back in the car and went home. I'm a giant douche.
Thinking of that moment I wrote this song... it builds and it builds and I feel like it's on the brink of capturing that perfect moment leading up to... well, nothing. But that's the point this time, it's supposed to be ambient, not bombastic.
Enjoy.
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