The Big Noise

On A Cloud Remix

2008-08-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

Ubiquity records was doing one of those remix one of our artists contest and this was my entry.
It's a little rough but I figured just enter it, get it over with, learn a little and move on.

The original track, find it here: http://www.ubiquityrecords.com/ur234.html

It's kind of soul-a-riffic. And after trying to put a different kind of spin on it, I gave up. The structure was a little too structured for me to do anything other then a variation of what they'd already done. So I tried to deconstruct it a bit.

http://www.divshare.com/download/5217452-fca

Delong Avenue

2008-07-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

Another in my series of guitar based instrumentals. I apparently can't play in time however. So there's a little bit of a lag when the drums don't pick up the end of the riff in the first section. They should jump the beat a tiny beat...alas, they don't. So it sounds a little robotic and not swinging.

However, you can work your way past that, the riff's are pretty cool. In this case, I did them all with Logic's Guitar Amp Pro. For clean stuff, GAP isn't bad. It lacks the character of GR3 but for the clean parts in this song, that's not such a problem. You just want a good cleanish sound so the playing really comes through. On second thought, that's maybe the opposite of what I want until my playing catches up with my ambition.

My goal is to move beyond just creating 16 or 8 riffs and songlets and eventually pull out an entire song...instrumental-wise. I'm getting closer.

Guitars are my normal Squire Bass and my Fender Mexican Strat for all the other guitars. If you listen close there's a synth in the deep background kind of mirroring the chord changes.

http://www.divshare.com/download/4942956-e45

OMG: GR3

2008-05-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

So there is a difference between Guitar Amp Pro from Logic and Guitar Rig 3 from Native Instruments. GR3 sucks away processing juice; GAP doesn't.

Seriously though, GR3 is awesome. The guitar tone has detail GAP can't achieve. GAP is still fine for some stuff but if you want that Alice in Chains Dirt-era sound, you can't go wrong with GR3.

Here's the "song" I did just messing around with GR3. It proves that...I really need to woodshed on my soloing skills.

The GR3 is on the left and it's the first solo. The GAP is on the right and a GAP preset handles the second solo. Keep listening and you can hear the rhythm parts by themselves. The rhythm part are a little harder to tell apart but the solo tone of the GR3 is awesome. The GAP solo tone is pretty weedy and kind of thin.

Anyway, here's "Malice."

http://www.divshare.com/download/4615926-dd1

Primavera

2008-02-11T17:27:00.000-08:00

I created this for a Flash movie for work. It's inspired by some of Ben Vaughn's instrumental work -- whose work would then be inspired by various Italian movie composers and surf rock musicians. Not quite sure of the lineage there. (Note to self: learn some names of some other composers so I can say that I'm influenced by them.)

Of course, my wrinkle to all that is...phone tones and office noises. You see because it's a video about offices and stuff. So it's relevant not just gratuitous.

The guitars are Variax acoustic. Panned hard right and left. The lead guitar is my recently returned to me South of the Border Strat. On the B section there's a combination of piano and glockenspiel or something. The drums are just a four bar loop.

So on the to-do list to prep a final version for the video: a) turn down lead guitar a bit. b) add in a subtle bass part. c) fix the piano timing in the chorus. d) look into bringing the organ only on the choruses or maybe just the second verse/chorus.

Direct download "Primavera":

http://www.divshare.com/download/3759720-8cb

The embedded "Primavera":

Classic Synths: No Cape Required

2007-12-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

All I Want for Xmas is a Mini-Moog or a Prophet V.

Santa brought me a few synth-a-mi-sizers. Well, Arturia Analog Factory anyway.

And I love it. It's 3000 classic synth sounds that you can use in your DAW of choice. And while you can't edit the sounds, like you can in Arturia's full versions of the products, for some one like me it's probably fine.

Now as for the USB copy protection dealie? Geez, these things are a pain in the ass on a laptop. Whatever.

Anyway, check out the tune which features a host of Analog Factory sounds. The drums are a Logic TR-909 style Ultrabeat patch but other than that, it's all AF.

Dig it here:

http://www.divshare.com/download/3287793-209

Or here:

Adentilia

2007-11-26T14:03:00.000-08:00

Back with some more instrumental guitar rock.

2 guitars panned leftish+rightish; hi-pass on each at around 200 khz (think that's right); shifted guitar 2 a little down the timeline. Sounds pretty decent. Logic EXS24 drums. No bass.

I've got another(!) funky cable which is contributing to little audio drop outs or low levels when I'm recording. Or it could just be the Variax.

Now, the Variax is great, however, it's been doing this thing on occasion where it doesn't want to switch properly or is just a little confused. So Acoustic Guitar #1 thinks it's a Strat Model #2. Kind of aggravating. However, it's a $300 guitar; I can't complain too much. However Pt. 2, how difficult would it be to provide a reset button of some sort to remedy this situation where the little modeling computer gets confused?

Just a thought.

More to posts to come soon. Maybe even some instrumental guitar holiday songs?

CD

Here's the file:

http://www.divshare.com/download/2902374-6e7

More Experimental Stuff

2007-10-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

Check it out.

http://www.divshare.com/download/2376921-0c2

Back with that new-fangled Post Rock sound

2007-10-16T15:40:00.001-07:00

Here's a little something I put together in homage to Tristeza and other post-rock bands (Explosions in the Sky, et al). I think the main deal with all these bands is that they're guitar instrumental bands that don't take solos. It's song-based. Which, as a style, works for me. Not everyone can be a Hellecaster.

Ben I took your advice about the guitar sounds. Panned different guitar models l and r; and played identical type parts. Then I added in the main melody which is run through a ring shifter and Logic Studio's new Delay Designer -- which let's you bounce around some pretty crazy delays. That's the sound of the intro and swelling sounds. I also reversed a little section of that. It's a great trick for signaling movement to another section. The drums and bass are just EXS sampler instruments and I think when I re-visit this at some point, I'll replace those with something better.

Check out "Dream Circle" this way:

http://www.divshare.com/download/2376737-0d8

Or this way:

Fantastic World

2007-09-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

So this I'm actually pretty proud of. It's inspired by the Gorillaz album Demon Days. I've got a set of instrumentals from that album and listening to them a bunch inspired this. The tracks are full of reggae, hip-hop and cheapo synth sounds. Good stuff.

I created the tracks in Reason. Exported each track individually as a wav and dropped those into L8 for more processing. I layered in a little guitar, too. But I think I've got another bad cord so my sound levels aren't exactly right. But it just adds a little bit more texture to the song. The bridge is more of an instrumental weirdness, freakout kind of thing. So there's no real strong musical idea other than using the reverse cymbal thing to get back into the body of the song.

The cool thing that I've learned that I've been putting into use is parallel drum compression. I kind of fake it a little though. So if I've got a drum track, I eq it and compress it a little bit but then I copy the file onto another track. On that second track I squash it with a compressor: quick attack, long release, 20:1 compression and then drop the level of the track. It ends up sending, if not big, then full.

Let me know what you think.

http://www.divshare.com/download/2146777-601

Ride With Me

2007-09-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

Done in Logic 8.

http://www.divshare.com/download/2146832-23e

A Massive Attack of Portishead

2007-09-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

So the idea for this came from the book Reason Projects (by Hollin Jones). In the book, he goes through a bunch modern genres -- electronica, hip-hop, drums and bass -- and explains how to put a song together in that genre.

This particular example was inspired by the trip hop section. Pretty cool.

http://www.divshare.com/download/1893771-4e3

Check it out now

2007-09-07T23:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.divshare.com/download/1876505-d06

Open this link and then on the right side of the page there's a section where you can download original.

That should work. Worked for me.

Rock on people!

Now We're Getting Somewhere

2007-09-06T13:20:00.001-07:00

Pretty cool sounding track. Guitars came out sounding really good. It doesn't really go anywhere at this point - it was created with a TV spot in mind - and if I use it, I'd probably add a little more stuff to it.

Piano Rock

2007-08-31T10:57:00.001-07:00

New Thing created in Reason. Drums are RDK 2.0

DivShare File - Experian_Construction.aif

For Evan

2007-08-27T13:42:00.001-07:00

Trial Run Using DivShare

2007-08-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

I've decided eSnips is kinda of clunky.

Here's a new track called "Righteous". It's a weird little piece that's not quite hip-hop -- the crazy swirling stuff is backwards piano using a piano patch from Logic's sampler:

Mashup: Me vs. The Beastie Boys

2007-08-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

Here it is. The Beastie Boys rock the mic and I rock the track. I only did the first 2 verses but you get the idea.

Drums are from BFD.

Clav riff is Logic Pro VI.

In fact, all the music is from Logic. Didn't use Reason or any other instruments for this one.

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Elko

2007-07-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

Getting a little closer to what I'm trying to achieve. Which is that "scratchy vinyl record found in a thrift store that sounds like it was recorded in the back of a moving van" kind of music.

Rolled off a lot of the highs. Compressed it a bunch. Used Izotope's Vinyl on a bus. If I could take it out and drag it around a parking lot for a while, I would.

I'm ripping off a lot of this sound from this:

http://www.myspace.com/whoisclutchyhopkins

But trying to find my own wrinkle on it.

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Back in Business. 72 Maverick

2007-07-29T12:14:00.001-07:00

I think I've used this riff before on one of the other songs I've posted. Don't let that stop you from listening though.

Guitars: Variax -- Strat for one model; Jazz thing for one of the others; bass by Fender. Synths: Logic's ES1 for the warm synth pad. Keyboard: Logic's EVP88. Drums: straight out of the box Logic EX24 sampler.

Effects: Ozone on a lot of the tracks. Room emulation space designer reverb used on the bus. Logic compressor on second bus -- with everything going through it a little bit to help bring it together. That's the idea anyway.

For bouncing, I ran it through one of Ozone's mastering plug ins.

Overall the sound is pretty clean...which is great. But I'd love to have this sound like it was recorded in 1978. So achieving that is going to require more experimentation or a time machine.

I've got this idea to record an album of instrumental rock in this vein with each song dedicated to a particular vintage car. Duster, Mustang, GTO, etc.

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Ain't It Funky Now

2007-07-05T15:37:00.001-07:00

Hey I'm pimping for Superbad. Very excited about this film.

Check it out.

Got those old Sciatic Pain Blues

2007-06-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

While toying around with the Variax I switched over the setting that allows you to play in Drop D (with a kind of Gibson something another body type). Dialed in a little distortion and such with the Logic Guitar Amp plug in and, bam, I've got some electric style blues stuff.

I double tracked the initial opening guitar part. Wait, I actually didn't do that. What I did was copy the file to another track and drag it down the timeline a wee bit. Needless to say, it sounds freaking massive. Probably a little too massive. But it's good and untamed -- which isn't a trait I normally associate with home computer recording.

The second part of the tune is a little less untamed. It features some drums courtesy of the Reason Drum Kits supplement. The setting is called "Meg" in tribute to the White Stripes drummer. No bass. Nothing extra. Just a big riff that sounds like it would be perfect over the top of some dude cruising down the highway in a GTO.

WhiteBlues.mp3

Fleetwood

2007-06-26T17:14:00.000-07:00

Love/hate the hook to this. It might be too cheesy.

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Marchin Orders

2007-06-25T16:01:00.000-07:00

More instrumental hiphop

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Track details The song is called: Chrome Soldier

Metal Fury

2007-05-22T17:26:00.000-07:00

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Evocative but incorrect name for the song. Usually for instrumentals I just try to find something clever to say -- involving puns or alliteration. Metal Fury doesn't describe this at all. Cool riff though.

More instrumental white-boy funk. More Variax. More Logic Pro. Etc. This was done with the new bass -- but I only played one string. Hoo-ray for minimalism!

Head Out on the Highway.

2007-05-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

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Created in Reason.

This is kind of psuedo-car commercial music. I wrote this after viewing a flash movie on the BMW site. Driving Wheel is an attempt to recreate a piece on the site -- strictly for practice.

Climb Aboard. We're Headin' to the Funky Junction.

2007-05-22T15:31:00.001-07:00

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New track done in Logic Pro -- which crashes way more often than it should doing simple things.

Guitars are all Variax through various Guitar Amp Pro settings. The solo sound is pretty cool, too. Again, Variax, with a kind of Santana-esque guitar tone.

I think I learned something interesting with this track, too. Doubled guitars sound good if you double them by actually tracking the part twice. Check out the two riff guitars. I panned them left and right and used slightly different sounds on each. Now, my playing could be a lot better but even so, it certainly wakes up the sound.

I also played my new (used) Fender Squire P-bass. For 70 bucks, it sounds okay. Again, through the Logic Bass Amp plug in.

The drums and percussion are just loops.

Word.

Lo Jackson

2007-05-22T13:03:00.001-07:00

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Lo Jackson - 2XLT

Another tune composed in Reason. Feel free to rap over it.

Along the Seine

2007-05-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

A Nicola Conte inspired piece of nuevo-jazz nonsense. Created in Reason. Guitar loop sounds like it's about to die; breaking up and such and the bass could use some help. But overall, not too bad for one of my first compositions.

AlongtheSeine.mp3

Is it Live or Variax?

2007-05-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

NovatoHayride.mp3

This is a tune I recorded in Logic with my new $300 Variax. You wouldn't think that you could get a good guitar for $300 but in this case you can, kind of.

The Variax is a guitar modeler. It basically imitates other guitars. Some better than others. On this track one guitar is an acoustic, one a typical Stratocaster and one is a Telecaster. All were played with the Variax. Pretty decent. I can't quite get the sound out of the Telecaster model to sound exactly like a Tele -- but I probably need to experiment with it a little more.

Lindell's Birthday Greeting

2007-04-04T14:01:00.000-07:00