A new year is upon us, and I’m stressing about getting an album done by the end of June. Since I have exactly zero songs completed, I’d say a little adrenaline is called for. Still, I can’t very well complete songs until I have a bigger batch of raw materials to draw from. In that spirit, I present my favorite trio of snippets yet:
I love how LED Dreams starts simple and grows into the arrangement. I need to remember to make some elements fade in and out as they do here, rather than just popping up fully formed in four-bar intervals.
Canadian Boards seems like a strong basis for a song, except for the piano. I was aiming to create a part that sounded classical, but it came out sounding silly. Lots of fun to be had with the tail end, using Live’s Beat Repeat device and then reversing it.
Stumble benefits from the wisdom of others. I’m a fan of Burial’s Untrue album, but beyond that I know nothing about dubstep (I haven’t even read the article I just linked to!). Recalling how much I like those bass sounds, I created my own using this tutorial on YouTube. Then I loosely followed Torley’s recipe for fried ride cymbals. After a sidechained piano and a few vocal phrases, the end result is a cross between dubstep and Portishead.
My big question going forward is, what do I do with the drums? All of the drums from my last album and EP come from the same source: a Reaktor ensemble called Limelite. More than anything else, that cohesion made the songs work together as a set. Now that I’m discovering a new sound, I’m caught between two options:
- A drum machine sound, like LED Dreams and most of the other snippets
- A sample based sound, like Canadian Boards and the first two snippets from my December 13 post
Sure, I could do both, but I believe the album’s identity will suffer for it. Which do you prefer?
{ 6 comments }
I guess you should mix and match the drums.
I like the vocal-style of “Stumble”..nice!
So far, a split decision in regard to the drums. Maybe David has it right, and I should mix and match. I remember back in 2001 when I was working on my all-acoustic album, I played a bit for a producer friend and he said, “yep, sounds like Color Theory!” Cohesion may be a given.
The piano in “Canadian Boards” just has a little low cut, compression, and reverb. It’s more or less au natural. It took all of five minutes to record that part, so it’s no big deal to come up with something more appropriate.
I doubt “Stumble” will become a song, but it’s nice to know I could pull off different styles in a pinch. I’m planning to approach my publisher after I finish with the snippets to see if he might be able to place some of them in film/TV. It might be worth a week of my time to tighten up the mixes and flesh out the arrangements a bit.
Oh no, far be it from me to risk giving my opinion! It all sounds pretty good to me, and unfinished work is hard to judge anyway. Though it’s exciting to know we could have an influence on a future Color Theory album.
Canadian Boards sounds like a strong basis for a song as you say but the “jittery” quick changes of some parts make it hard to track when I listen to it. Maybe a little lower pitch or expanded timbre are all that is needed to make the piano sound more classical? Did you alter it much for the snippet? I don’t if it sounds too artificial or what.
Stumble sounds quite different from your usual work. Here the bit of “jitter” beginning about two-thirds of the way in fits naturally with the mood of the piece, I would say. It is an interesting direction to see you take. Cool! It does kind of recall Portishead.
I really like LED dreams. Having everything fade in and out sounds more organic and is a pleasure to listen to. A lot of what I do when I listen to songs is try to track the different elements in my mind like I would examine objects entering or moving around my field of vision (I’m a visual thinker.) Having them fade in makes it seem like they’re getting “closer” if that makes sense, so it feels like a more natural increase to the complexity of the piece.
That last actually reminds me of something. Once, I asked my mother whether she preferred the acoustic style of “Something Beautiful” or the more electronic style of “Life’s Fairytale.” She said she tended to prefer the songs from “Life’s Fairytale” because, as she put it, “There is more going on.”
I say let the songs dictate which drums to use. I love those old school drum samples for LED Dreams, but wouldn’t want to hear them on “Stumble”. I like everything about Stumble except that ride cymbal. Rather hear something dusty and crunchy on the high end.
As for “Canadian Boards”, I think it’s the sound of the piano — sounds more or less like a casio sample than a real piano that makes it sound silly.
My vote is for the drum machine sound.
I am personally preferring the Sample Based Drum sounds myself. They just have a thicker sound in my opinion.
Styk
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