2009_04_26_fucking_danger

Concept:

I added vocals to the Space Ballad song that I had made a couple posts ago. I was actually worried I wouldn't be able to come up with any lyrics because I was having major writer's block, but somehow I pieced it together. When I started I wanted to sing a shangri-las style song and somehow tie it into the album theme: fucking danger. I listened to some shangri-las before I started as inspiration, but it did the complete opposite for me. At first I thought I could do a love song about a dangerous guy. But after hearing Shangri-Las I think I realized I despise girls singing literal songs about boys, it's funny because every song is about a boy that they love but doesn't love them or some bullshit like that. I think it's totally demeaning in a way. Why don't they sing about themselves? I'd like that a lot more. To me THEY would be more interesting then the boys they're singing about, which by the way they don't even describe these boys, I know nothing about them. Anyway, the lyrics are pretty shallow. Also is every song about a different guy? Man I have trouble believing they were really in love with them if they just jump to the next guy so quickly. So in the end what I thought would be inspiration really turned into anger which became my motivation. I started to think consciously about what Shangri-las was keeping from their audience about a girl's love. What about self destruction? Each boy like a new slit on the wrist until finally you find a good nurse to stop the bleeding for you. There's where the danger comes in. It might just be me, but I think self destruction is something female vocalists usually don't sing about, it's more common in male vocals, I'd like to end that trend. In the end, the only part related to self destruction is the lyrics: "I'm out of control, I'm not safe to myself anymore, never sure what I want, but I'll try anyway".  So that's what I went into it with, but what I came out with wasn't at all what I had planned. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy, it's my fucking danger inspired song, two posts in the making.

Technical:

It took me about 4 or 5 hours to record the vocals on this. I used a nice condenser mic and put that through a tube amp, then I put that through the Pod X3 amp modeler (which is where the reverb and delay are coming from). I recorded this in Cubase and cut it up a lot to take out shitty out of key parts and duplicate good parts. When I record vocals I do a gazillion tracks and pick 2 or 3 of the best sounding ones and keep them, so I end up with 2 or 3 layers, usually one is a harmony, and 2 are the main vocal, with this song sometimes I have 2 tracks of harmony and one main, at any rate it's a highly chaotic overly complex piece it together process - Is anyone still reading this? I'm just bullshitting anyway. The important thing to note is that I have no idea what I'm doing and I just make the rules up as I go along and if my first impression of it is that it doesn't have potential, I don't waist time analyzing it to try to fix it, I just delete it and try something totally different.

Lyrics:

You think you know everything

but you don't and you won't

not as long as you know...me

(harmony: every step I take, I wonder when the ground gonna to crumble)

Every step I take

I wonder

when the ground

is gonna crumble

Every turn I take

I wonder

what I'll miss

before the corner

I'm outa control

I'm not safe to myself anymore

never sure what I want,

but I'll try anyway

You think you know everything

but you don't and you won't

not as long

as you know

(harmony: every step I take, I wonder when the ground is going to crumble)

So thanks to Paulie for lending me his bass. It is astonishing the degree to which my setup relies almost completely upon his and Rob's generosity.

And I haven't even used the condenser mic yet.

Anyway.

This song started with the line "Hold to the line" and progressed from there. And then I spent a week screwing around with it in Ableton and adding stuff.

I'm not too clear on what it means.

Da Mystery Of Cheeseboxin'

This is just a quick sketch that I did over a couple of days. I was experimenting with the slice to MIDI function of Ableton 8. It takes a selection of audio, cuts it up based on some parameters you select, and then puts those slices into a MIDI instrument of your choosing. You can use a slice size that is based on the time signature of the piece, for example every quarter note. Or you can choose to slice at the transients that Live automatically finds for you. This is a super useful feature for me, since I used to spend a lot of time slicing samples up by hand.

I had a lot of fun making this song, and I didn't focus too much on forcing it in a particular direction. I tried to have as much fun during the creation as possible, and let it be what it would be.  I created the instrumental, then I decided to put an acapella track to it, so I sifted through my library until I found something suitable. It's usually easier to fit a remixed beat to an acapella, so I got pretty lucky this time.

I decided to call this song Da Mystery Of Cheeseboxin' because I've been watching a lot of The Wire. Method Man plays a character named Cheese. The funny thing is Method Man only appears in the chorus of the original song.

This is my fucking fucking danger idea. I am going for a sort of sexy dismay. lots of arpeggiators.  efing-d

I attempted to make an arrangement of Belle Qui Tiens Ma Vie, an ancient piece credited to Thoinot Arbeau who published it in the 16th century.  I was thinking of using it for my game because it has a very distinctively renaissance sound. I haven't decided if I'm actually going to though. For one, I've played an amateur game before at one point that had a midi of a piece from "a Well Tempered Clavier" and thought it was kind-of lame at the time. Secondly, I'm not sure I like how this turned out.

I created the arrangement by ear without referencing the sheet music. It's mostly sample-tank instruments played on keyboard, with a few bass parts. The drums have some manual corrections because I have no rhythm. It sort-of fits the style of the other tracks that I've done. Unfortunatly it's a bit sloppy and not entirely interesting. Maybe I'll keep working on it.

I should also mention that I wasn't going for a traditional or historical sound here, but rather to match the game's quirky style. I was even thinking of adding a "wah" guitar somewhere.

pavane