Here are the latest production ideas for my new album, to be miraculously completed in 149 days.
On the Pulse came about while familiarizing myself with Operator’s Analog softsynth. While I’ve long understood what all the knobs do on your typical synth, I rarely program sounds from scratch. For this snippet I programmed the strings and the bass, the latter of which I modeled after Tracy Thorn’s “It’s All True.” I forgot to turn on overwrite mode so my two bass takes overlapped, resulting in some pleasant glitches. I love happy accidents!
Wanderer is well on its way to becoming a full-fledged song, entitled “Crawlspace.” I’ve already got the chorus melody and lyrics, centered around these lines:
Thought I had hit rock bottom
You dug a crawlspace for me
Underneath my all-time low
It was difficult for me to stop and move on, but I’d really like to have a full production bank of snippets to draw from before finishing any more songs.
Deadbeat is an experiment in arpeggiation. Though the intro is a flowery mess of notes, the actual arrangement alternates between only two, fed into separate arpeggiators. For the end of the snippet, I introduced random pitches into one of the arpeggiators, so I can never create the exact same mix again.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Love the crawlspace line!!!
I like Deadbeat a lot. I love messes. Although, I don’t think this sounds like one at all! It has a nice happy rhythm. I actually heard a good vocal melody when I was listening to it. I am sure you’re gonna come up with something brilliant!
Hi Brian,
Thanks for sharing the files. I really love the song snippet of “Wanderer” (Crawlspace). It’s great and I guess it will be a very good new Color Theory song!
Thanks for your feedback!
I’m not sure about “Crawlspace” yet, just because the tone is so dark and it sounds a little too much like a Portishead/dubstep mix, but with a little tweaking and vocals, it should work. I definitely like the chord progression and melody. My favorite of the three is actually “On the Pulse,” but maybe because that’s the one I finished last.
Hi Brian,
Well I really like all of these. I particularly liked Wanderer/Crawlspace and the piano contrasting with the electro.
It would be nice to hear some vocal samples with these.
Regards
Toby
I know what you mean, but vocals take a lot more time and effort, plus lyrics! I’d rather reserve that energy for the dozen or so snippets we deem worthy.
I’m loving Wanderer. It’s sounds sexy and i really like the percussive-ness.
Though I’v been getting into the more industrial / raw side of music lately.
Can’t wait for more!!